Under a properly instituted Constitutional framework there really is no such thing as Gay Rights just as there is no such thing as Heterosexual Rights or Christian Rights, Male Rights, Female Rights, Jewish Rights and on ad infinitum.
There are only individual rights which everyone has regardless of anything else. The government is required to practice equality under the law.
This clearly means that individuals have the right to live the life they choose as long as their choices do not infringe on other individuals right to live as they choose.
Therefore each and every individual has the right to choose who they associate with, how they worship or don't worship a divine being(s), who they love, who they live with, who they give legal powers to, what they put in their body, what they refuse to put in their body and so on.
Every action or law that interferes with an individual's right to live their life as they choose is a step away from freedom and a step closer to totalitarianism.
It matters not in the least what I or anyone else might think of another person's choices. It is not a question of what society thinks or what a majority thinks.
Societies and majorities do not need protection of rights, minorities do. It is not difficult to espouse popular views or to live a life following majority values. The protection of rights becomes critical for those who espouse unpopular views and who live lifestyles out of the mainstream.
When we allow government to be used to deny others the choices they wish, we all lose. We have set up a system that can be used to deny the choices we wish to make.
Unfortunately that is the system we have in the US today.
Search My Preserving Freedom Blog
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Straw Poll Results You Might Not Have Heard About
Republican Straw Polls were held in Illinois, New Hampshire and Alabama in the past few days. Ron Paul won two of the polls and came in third in the other.
The Illinois results:
The Illinois results:
- Mitt Romney – 40.35%
- Fred Thompson – 19.96%
- Ron Paul – 18.87%
- Rudy Giuliani – 11.61%
- John McCain – 4.12%
- Mike Huckabee – 3.04%
- Sam Brownback – 1.08%
- Duncan Hunter - .65%
- Tom Tancredo - .33%
In New Hampshire Paul won with 73% of the vote and in Alabama he had 81% of the vote.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Iowa Straw Poll Experience
I got back late Saturday afternoon from Iowa where I volunteered for Ron Paul at the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames.
I headed to Iowa Friday night after dinner and stayed at a hotel in Williams, Iowa about 30 miles north of Ames. This was the closest reasonably priced hotel I could find eight days ago when I was making my reservations.
I got up bright and early Saturday morning and headed into Ames. I had signed up to be a sign person on the 8am to 11am shift. This meant I got to carry and hold a huge 4' by 8' sign. I was assigned to the back entrance to the straw poll site.
The grounds of Iowa State University were swarming with Ron Paul volunteers. I got numerous honks from Paul supporters as they drove by. A number of people came up to me and I was able to direct them to Dr. Paul's tent.
From my vantage point I didn't see any other candidates supporters for the first two hours, just some of the paid Romney staff driving around on their golf carts.But then around 10am about 100 motorcycles roared by. They were all Tommy Thompson supporters. I must say it was pretty impressive. Later a car with some vocal Brownback supporters drove by and good naturedly yelled at me that Brownback was the man.
I got back to the Paul tent in time to see Dr. Paul speak and I got to snap some pictures of him.
After that I headed out to pass out Paul brochures to people entering the grounds. It became quite apparent the Mitt Romney had spent tons of money busing in voters. Bus after bus festooned with Romney signs came in. I read that Romney paid $25,000 to secure a tent position by the main entrance.
The Romney operation was quite a contrast to the Paul organization which relies heavily on grassroots activists.
After exploring the grounds to get a feel of the entire event I had lunch at the Ron Paul tent. Then it was time to head home to Minnesota.
Saturday evening I turned on the TV to see the results. The vote totals were delayed by an hour. When they were finally announced, Ron Paul came in fifth with 9.1% of the vote. I would have been happier with third or fourth, but fifth is still a good showing for someone who didn't spend much time in Iowa and who is virtually ignored by the press.
This was once again obvious in the coverage of the results. The big boys media ignored him.
When Fox News (Fair and Balanced) reported the results live, they listed the first four finishers and skipped down to number seven, non candidate Fred Thompson. No mention of Ron Paul.
The AP story that ran Saturday night mentions the results of seven of the candidates, but once again Ron Paul is not one of them.
CNN story also mentions seven candidates, but not Ron Paul. Although at least they did include the full results in their story.
Shouldn't it have been shocking news that Ron Paul who the media constantly claims is only an Internet phenomena managed to get 9.1% in Iowa?
Credit goes to the New York Times which did talk about Paul's showing.
The full results:
Mitt Romney: 4,516 / 31.5%
Mike Huckabee: 2,587 / 18.1%
Sam Brownback: 2,192 / 15.3%
Tom Tancredo: 1,961 / 13.7%
Ron Paul: 1,305 / 9.1%
Tommy Thompson: 1,039 / 7.3%
Fred Thompson: 203 / 1.4%
Rudy Giuliani: 183 / 1.3%
Duncan Hunter: 174 / 1.2%
John McCain: 101 / 1.0%
John Cox: 41 / .1%
14,302 Total Votes
26,000 Total Tickets Sold
I headed to Iowa Friday night after dinner and stayed at a hotel in Williams, Iowa about 30 miles north of Ames. This was the closest reasonably priced hotel I could find eight days ago when I was making my reservations.
I got up bright and early Saturday morning and headed into Ames. I had signed up to be a sign person on the 8am to 11am shift. This meant I got to carry and hold a huge 4' by 8' sign. I was assigned to the back entrance to the straw poll site.
The grounds of Iowa State University were swarming with Ron Paul volunteers. I got numerous honks from Paul supporters as they drove by. A number of people came up to me and I was able to direct them to Dr. Paul's tent.
From my vantage point I didn't see any other candidates supporters for the first two hours, just some of the paid Romney staff driving around on their golf carts.But then around 10am about 100 motorcycles roared by. They were all Tommy Thompson supporters. I must say it was pretty impressive. Later a car with some vocal Brownback supporters drove by and good naturedly yelled at me that Brownback was the man.
I got back to the Paul tent in time to see Dr. Paul speak and I got to snap some pictures of him.
After that I headed out to pass out Paul brochures to people entering the grounds. It became quite apparent the Mitt Romney had spent tons of money busing in voters. Bus after bus festooned with Romney signs came in. I read that Romney paid $25,000 to secure a tent position by the main entrance.
The Romney operation was quite a contrast to the Paul organization which relies heavily on grassroots activists.
After exploring the grounds to get a feel of the entire event I had lunch at the Ron Paul tent. Then it was time to head home to Minnesota.
Saturday evening I turned on the TV to see the results. The vote totals were delayed by an hour. When they were finally announced, Ron Paul came in fifth with 9.1% of the vote. I would have been happier with third or fourth, but fifth is still a good showing for someone who didn't spend much time in Iowa and who is virtually ignored by the press.
This was once again obvious in the coverage of the results. The big boys media ignored him.
When Fox News (Fair and Balanced) reported the results live, they listed the first four finishers and skipped down to number seven, non candidate Fred Thompson. No mention of Ron Paul.
The AP story that ran Saturday night mentions the results of seven of the candidates, but once again Ron Paul is not one of them.
CNN story also mentions seven candidates, but not Ron Paul. Although at least they did include the full results in their story.
Shouldn't it have been shocking news that Ron Paul who the media constantly claims is only an Internet phenomena managed to get 9.1% in Iowa?
Credit goes to the New York Times which did talk about Paul's showing.
The full results:
Mitt Romney: 4,516 / 31.5%
Mike Huckabee: 2,587 / 18.1%
Sam Brownback: 2,192 / 15.3%
Tom Tancredo: 1,961 / 13.7%
Ron Paul: 1,305 / 9.1%
Tommy Thompson: 1,039 / 7.3%
Fred Thompson: 203 / 1.4%
Rudy Giuliani: 183 / 1.3%
Duncan Hunter: 174 / 1.2%
John McCain: 101 / 1.0%
John Cox: 41 / .1%
14,302 Total Votes
26,000 Total Tickets Sold
Friday, August 3, 2007
Bridge Collapse: A Symbol and a Symptom
The collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis is a symbol and a symptom of so much of what is wrong in this country.
Maintenance of roads is a basic function of government that serves the needs of all Americans. It has long been known that our roads and bridges are deteriorating, yet very little has been done to deal with the problem.
Instead our politicians have seen fit to spend billions upon billions to build new stadiums and arenas to serve the wants of billionaire team owners and their millionaire players. We are spending trillions fighting an unnecessary and ill-advised war in Iraq. We provide billions of dollars in foreign aid supporting corrupt governments across the world. In addition we provide Farm Subsidies to wealthy farmers and corporations.
When we do spend money on roads and bridges, far too much goes to pork barrel projects like Senator Ted Stevens bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
The problem is not a lack of resources to maintain our roads and bridges in safe condition. It is the misuse of our resources by the politicians and our acceptance/support of the misuse.
Maintenance of roads is a basic function of government that serves the needs of all Americans. It has long been known that our roads and bridges are deteriorating, yet very little has been done to deal with the problem.
Instead our politicians have seen fit to spend billions upon billions to build new stadiums and arenas to serve the wants of billionaire team owners and their millionaire players. We are spending trillions fighting an unnecessary and ill-advised war in Iraq. We provide billions of dollars in foreign aid supporting corrupt governments across the world. In addition we provide Farm Subsidies to wealthy farmers and corporations.
When we do spend money on roads and bridges, far too much goes to pork barrel projects like Senator Ted Stevens bridge to nowhere in Alaska.
The problem is not a lack of resources to maintain our roads and bridges in safe condition. It is the misuse of our resources by the politicians and our acceptance/support of the misuse.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
What Would You Do?
On July 24, 2007 the first step in a three step process of increasing the federal minimum wage from $5.15 per hour to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009 was implemented.
Is increasing the minimum wage a no brainer? Who absorbs the costs? Who is negatively affected?
Let's look at a simplified example:
Assume Bob Smith owns a small grocery store. Besides working there himself 70 hours a week, he has 10 full time employees who work 40 hours a week for $10 per hour.
10 employees x 40 hours per week x 52 weeks = 20,800 hours total for all employees each year
Bob doesn't pay himself a wage, instead he makes his income from the stores profits.
Currently Bob's store makes an average profit of $72,000 dollars a year. Meaning Bob makes just under $20 an hour.
70 hours per week x 52 weeks = 3,640 hours per year.
$72,000 divided by 3,640 hours = $19.78 per hour for Bob.
Not a lot but Bob likes the idea of being his own boss.
The government increases the minimum wage to $11 per hour. This is $1 more than Bob pays his employees. So since they work 20,800 hours per year, this means Bob's payroll costs will go up by $20,800 in order to pay the increase of $1.
Where does Bob get that $20,800? Where would you get the money?
Bob has three choices:
1. Layoff someone or reduce hours for his employees.
2. Raise his prices.
3. Cutback somewhere else. Such as eliminating some fringe benefits he may provide, or maybe he eliminates the free delivery he offered to seniors.
Bob has a fourth option, he could absorb the entire cost himself. So his profit (the pay he receives) would be reduced to $51,200.
Old Profit $72,000 less additional cost $20,800 = $51,200 new profit (pay for Bob)
If Bob chooses this option he takes a $20,800 pay cut. His hourly rate is now $14.31. Just $3 more than his employees.
70 hours per week x 52 weeks = 3,640 hours per year.
$51,800 divided by 3,640 hours = $14.31 per hour for Bob.
What choice would you make?
Is increasing the minimum wage a no brainer? Who absorbs the costs? Who is negatively affected?
Let's look at a simplified example:
Assume Bob Smith owns a small grocery store. Besides working there himself 70 hours a week, he has 10 full time employees who work 40 hours a week for $10 per hour.
10 employees x 40 hours per week x 52 weeks = 20,800 hours total for all employees each year
Bob doesn't pay himself a wage, instead he makes his income from the stores profits.
Currently Bob's store makes an average profit of $72,000 dollars a year. Meaning Bob makes just under $20 an hour.
70 hours per week x 52 weeks = 3,640 hours per year.
$72,000 divided by 3,640 hours = $19.78 per hour for Bob.
Not a lot but Bob likes the idea of being his own boss.
The government increases the minimum wage to $11 per hour. This is $1 more than Bob pays his employees. So since they work 20,800 hours per year, this means Bob's payroll costs will go up by $20,800 in order to pay the increase of $1.
Where does Bob get that $20,800? Where would you get the money?
Bob has three choices:
1. Layoff someone or reduce hours for his employees.
2. Raise his prices.
3. Cutback somewhere else. Such as eliminating some fringe benefits he may provide, or maybe he eliminates the free delivery he offered to seniors.
Bob has a fourth option, he could absorb the entire cost himself. So his profit (the pay he receives) would be reduced to $51,200.
Old Profit $72,000 less additional cost $20,800 = $51,200 new profit (pay for Bob)
If Bob chooses this option he takes a $20,800 pay cut. His hourly rate is now $14.31. Just $3 more than his employees.
70 hours per week x 52 weeks = 3,640 hours per year.
$51,800 divided by 3,640 hours = $14.31 per hour for Bob.
What choice would you make?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)