Minimum Wage

Here is a post I put on a USA Today site that asked what I thought about the House raising the minimum wage:

I'd like anyone in support of minimum wage to take a simple economics course. It is just a tool our representatives in government use to buy votes from those foolish enough to believe it is a good idea. I lived off minimum wage when I was a college student. Unfortunately, I spent my summers working in Oregon where the state government had set one of the highest minimum wages in the country. Each summer I found it extremely difficult to find a minimum wage job. The price of hiring an unskilled worker was just too high for businesses to pay. So instead of spending my first weeks working (I was willing and able to do so), I spent the time getting job applications turned down for jobs as menial as pushing carts. During those difficult times, I made the true minimum wage: $0.00 per hour. Oh and besides the economic costs, a minimum wage goes against the principles of freedom that were fought for when our great country was established. This just takes us one step closer to communism (which is the real goal for these politicians---they want to control everything).

Letter to Blanche Lincoln

Here is a letter I recently sent Blanche Lincoln (Senator of Arkansas, where I am from):

Dear Senator Lincoln,

I am an Arkansas resident concerned about corruption in our government. Although recent events concerning lobbying in Congress were troubling to me, I was in no way surprised. Our federal government has grown to be so big that its deficit alone this year is bigger than the revenue from the largest company in the world. Naturally, there are those who wish to tap into this huge amount of money. Legislators have a product they can sell: money for votes, awards, prestiege, and even personal monetary gain (bribes).

The problem isn't the rules (there's already a law against taking bribes). It is the money that our government has taken from its citizens to distribute to others they (by their own discretion) see as more worthy.

You said, "The system has failed the American people and it needs to be overhauled." I urge you to make this overhaul by reducing the federal budget and eliminating programs that never should have been created.

Sincerely,

Bastiat (okay, that's not my real name)

Definitions

Here are some definitions I came up with that speak for themselves:

socialism- a futile attempt at equality for all that ends up making the rich poor and the poor even poorer

politically correctness- a way for those who desire to be offended to be offended by those who intend no offence

Democrat- a liberal who is not a Republican

Republican- a liberal who is not a Democrat (unfortunatley this has become true)

patriot (according to the Patriot Act)- one who does not care for the principles upon which his country was founded (but is willing to submit fully to the whims of officials currently in power)

"Living Wage"

Here's at thought: If government wants to increase the minimum wage why don't they cut down their part that doesn't make it to the worker- taxes? Unfortunately, I can think of many answers of why not (at least ones that politicians would say). The problem is that not one of these reasons makes sense. By the way, I don't like the term "living wage". How many people in this country die each year because they make a "dying wage"?

Life, Liberty, Property, and TV?

In the news today, I heard that Congress is looking at giving television owners a $3 billion subsidy for analog to HDTV converters. They are concerned (or so they say) that low income Americans may not have the $40-50 needed for a conversion box. Apparently, they believe that we all have the right to TV. Surely, they must believe that this right is much more important than the right of private property, which has been violated in taking the money from tax payers to pay for the TV subsidy. What right does government have to do this? I say none. They may have the ability, but not the moral right.

The right of government is no more than an extention of the rights of an individual. I like to look at issues at a small scale to see exactly how these issues affect individual rights:

Bob just found out that his analog television set will no longer work without a $50 HDTV converter. He takes his gun out, walks over to his neighbor, Joe's house (who makes more money than him), and forces Joe to write him a $50 check. He then buys the converter.

This scenario played out on a grand scale is what we have today. My neighbor wants a converter. My money is taken (through taxes) to give him that converter. If I refuse to pay for it, I will lose my liberty (end up in prison), and if I resist enough, even my life.

We have the right to defend our private property and government has no right to give it to someone else. Just as Bob, in my example, is violating Joe's rights, the government is violating ours. We should not tolorate this from our elected officials. I wish everyone would write senators and representatives.

Beginning

Well, here is my first blog post. I decided to create this blog to have a place to gather my ideas on freedom and share them with those who may be interested. I said, "my ideas", but I can only lay claim to few as my own. Many great men and women from the beginning of time have helped to shape my opinions and form my words. I would like to apply these great truths that I have learned (and hope to continue learning) to issues that pertain to our times. I feel we truly live in a perilous time, where the principles that created this great nation are all to often violated by foolish whims. I wish to be a voice in favor of preserving and restoring our freedom.

This blog is called Life, Liberty, and Property because those are the things which man has a God given right to protect from theft and tyranny. And in the words of the Declaration of Independence, "That to secure these rights, Governments were instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." My display name is Bastiat in honor of the great French economist Frederic Bastiat who said, "Life, faculties, production---in other words, individuality, liberty, property---this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it" (The Law, New York: The Foundation for Economic Education, 1998).

I hope to be remembered as one who stood for liberty. The battle between liberty and compulsion is one that has never ceased in this world. I fight with those who love freedom.