Private Property

"President Bush last week signed into law a bill which will see the federal government begin to screen the DNA of all newborn babies in the U.S. within six months, a move critics have described as the first step towards the establishment of a national DNA database."

...

"One health care expert and prominent critic of DNA screening is Twila Brase, president of the Citizens' Council on Health Care who has written a detailed analysis of the new law in which she warns that it represents the first program of populationwide genetic testing."

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The Contract Clause is just one of several clauses in the U.S. Constitution that are troubling. The meaning they had among the people who had read the Constitution when it was adopted is no longer the meaning today. Several aspects are ignored, some have been broadened so as to include other meanings far from those of the time the Constitution was adopted. This is the second of these bi-weekly articles that will cover 10 such troubling clauses, which deals with the Contract Clause, that only intended fairness in the right of private parties to have protected contracts they enter into, not just in the interest of each party against the other, but also from state laws that would harm either party. This protection has been attacked in court decisions over time until it is now primarily at the private contract level, often allowing debtor relief (at the cost of the lender) and allowing state alteration of its own contracts, which harms contracting citizens.

During the 30th year of the Humphrey-Hawkins hearings, it would be helpful for Congress to reassess the usefulness of the Humphrey-Hawkins mandate. The dual mandate calls for full employment and stable prices. Humphrey-Hawkins assumes that the Federal Reserve has unique insights into the United States economy that no one else possesses, that the Federal Reserve knows what prices should be and how much unemployment there should be. Full employment which is brought about through rising inflation will eventually lead to a stagnant economy which will lead to more unemployment. 30+ years after the stagflation era, I would hope that Phillips curves are one of those barbarous relics of the past that have been sent to their graves, along with wage and price controls and bans on the private ownership of gold.

But what I wish to highlight the most is the most pernicious part of the Humphrey-Hawkins mandate is the mandate for price stability. This objective overlooks the natural tendency of prices to fall over time. As new production technologies are brought on line, factories gear up, economies of scale are reached, and the prices of goods will decrease.

There is still no such thing as the free market. It is a system entirely rigged to serve the interests of certain groups with wealth enough to buy influence over government....

Dear Indy Texans and Friends:

        You heard the good news that the Texas House passed a 2 year  
moratorium on the Corridor.  This is a major victory.  And, you must  
know that the House (and soon the Senate) is still trying to have  
their cake and eat it too.  For now, they have exempted the N. Texas  
freeway-to-tollway conversations out of the moratorium, like the DFW  
area SH 121 -- the "most lucrative toll road in the country".  And  
the Senate bill that may hit the floor at any moment, attempts to  
exempt out N. Texas, El Paso and Bexar County.

        You see, they want just a little less corruption!  And, really more  
to the point, they want to stop the urban, suburban and rural unified  
anti-corruption uprising to stop Perry from selling off public  
infrastructure to the lowest bidders.

The website you've just come from “GREENIE WATCH” (http://antigreen.blogspot.com/), by John Ray, engages in content theft and copyright infringement. As Mr Ray is a self professed academic professor, claiming a Ph.D. no less, I can only believe he has knowledge of international 'fair use' and copyright laws. He has been sent email before from us, which he ignored, requesting he cease stealing our content. So,

• Please flag his Blog by using the Blogger “FLAG BLOG” at the top of his blog.
• Please email him you're displeasure at his engagement in stealing.
• Please contact Google, owner of Blogger, and inform them that he engages in content theft and copyright infringement, he's been ask to quit and to start following international law, and has refused to do so, and therefor you request Google to delete his blog.

The Citizens of Texas are presented with an unique opportunity to challenge the wisdom of the Trans Texas Corridor and express their concern about the growing obsession with toll roads and public private partnerships.

THIS IS NOT ANOTHER TxDOT HEARING

The subject of this hearing is not limited to TTC-35, TTC-69, or proposed TTC corridor routes or specific toll roads.

Come hear TxDOT defend their policies to our elected officials. And, hear others who seriously question those policies. Add your presence and your voice to the debate.

Come fill the auditorium. All eyes at the Capitol will be focused on this hearing as an indication of public acceptance or opposition. This Senate Committee can have a real impact on the flawed public policy surrounding these projects.

Well, I said it over two years ago, "We don't need tolls and the toll plans are just a money grab by corrupt politicians." It is nice that the Texas A&M’s Texas Transportation Institute (TTI) has now released a report that backs up my claims and ends up with the same 'bottom line' I did then. It's also most humours that the TTI is sometimes called Perry's lapdog. So, Gov. Perry, your dog bite you in the ass? You not feeding it enough pork?

Libertarians, especially the anarcho variety, wonder why anyone who truly has values would bother to vote at all. Between the Donkeycrats and the Grand Old Partyarchs there ain't no lesser of two evils. Below are excerpts from one such mass-circulated dreadmail stating the horrors of a Democrat win (each one is reprinted verbatim), followed by what, based on their track record, Republicans would do instead, followed thereafter by the libertarian response to both.

Many of you may or may not have heard about the plans for the new Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC), a proposed multi-use, statewide network of transportation routes in Texas that will incorporate existing and new highways, railways and utility right-of-ways. What you may not have heard is how the TTC will displace over a million Texans from their homes, or that the TTC will not actually provide much traffic relief for Texans, despite what the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDot) would like you to believe. In reality, the Trans-Texas Corridor will not alleviate traffic for most of us, but will benefit big business and freight transportation from Mexico to Canada, in many cases dividing small towns completely in half.

        Read the press Carole Keeton Strayhorn's proposed transportation  
plan filed with TxDOT today, including scrapping Rick Perry's Trans-
Texas Corridor and "double-tax" urban toll schemes.  Scroll all the  
way down at the end of this message & enjoy!

        The Corridor is now recognized by press and pundits as one of the  
top three issues in the hotly contested Governor's race.  What's  
more, they acknowledge that Carole is leading the fight against it.  
But let us be clear.  This is happening because of the combined  
efforts of 14,000 ordinary people coming to the hearings, with a  
fury, to stop the Corridor, your work as the organizers for the  
Triple R, and the Grandma, who has not just talked the talk, but  
walked the walk, and who now has at least $8 million in her war chest  
to reroute Rick Perry and his Corridor in November!

Since February 18th 2005 fox-hunting has been illegal in the UK. You probably think you already know my opinions on the matter, old leftie that I am. Actually you’d be wrong. I am almost totally indifferent to the matter. Is fox-hunting cruel? Well, yes, no, maybe. I don’t know. But it seems a lot less cruel, to me, than some of the other ways we treat animals.

Locke maintains that private property comes about and is made legitimate when an agent who as such owns himself is the first to "mix his labour" with a potential asset thereby infecting it with his proprietorship, "enough and is good" being left for others.1

Philosophers have spilt Gallons of ink over this and many have favored it.2 One of the reasons for their indulgence has I think been that it offers a plausible, even paradigmatic example of what some imagine to be the operations of "natural law". Unfortunately, Locke's proposal is defective for at least three reasons: 1) It is a special case of the labor theory of value, itself untenable. 2) It raises artificial questions of rectification, and 3) It would entail heavy, deadweight costs of enforcement.

Before I get into that, the claim that we in some manner own ourselves gives me some excuse to inflict a story.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this foreign relations authorization bill. Something has gone terribly wrong with our foreign policy when we feel we must take almost 21 billion dollars out of the pockets of the American taxpayer and ship it overseas. Imagine what the Founders of this country would say if they were among us to see this blatant disregard for the Constitution and for the founding principles of this country. This bill proceeds from the view that with enough money we can buy friends and influence foreign governments. But as history shows us, we cannot. The trillions of dollars we have shipped overseas as aid, and to influence and manipulate political affairs in sovereign countries, has not made life better for American citizens. It has made them much poorer without much to show for it, however.

Now we have a Republican-controlled Congress and White House, and foreign spending soars. It was not that long ago when conservatives looked at such cavalier handling of US tax dollars with consternation. Now it seems that they are in a race with the Left to see who can spend more.

San Francisco is to be congratulated for affirming the right of gays to marry and doing so in defiance of all higher authority except their consciences.
Marriage is an ancient human relationship and will always remain the only familial connection that can be based entirely on choice. We do not get to choose our mother, father, sisters, brothers, cousins or children; in the sense that we know exactly who children are going to turn out to be after investing eighteen years in their raising. Children come with mountains of obligations beyond the diapers, and although they are certainly worth every moment of the time we invest it can even happen that they grow up and register in some Party that is antithetical to our own beliefs.
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