Voting and thinking of the children

Tonight I had a discussion on voting with Allison. She asked me what it meant. I explained, "It's like when mommy asks you if you want cereal or toast for breakfast, and when you pick one that is voting for it." She said, "Or pancakes?" I said, "sure, or picking pancakes over the other choices." I then added the democratic majority wrinkle. I explained, "If 10 people were asked to vote, and you said you wanted pancakes, but the other 9 wanted toast, then you would all have to have toast." She said, "I wouldn't like that." I said, "Sometimes I don't like it either."

Michelle had talked with her earlier about voting and told her about my decision to not vote for any of the Presidential candidates. So she said, "Mommy said you didn't vote for one." I told her, "If you had to vote for food, and you had to pick tomatoes or sausage (two things she doesn't like) which would you pick?" She said, "I wouldn't vote for either." And neither did I.

In other news the barbie lamp won in a historic vote, defeating fish by a narrow margin of one vote and "play games on iPhone" defeated "go to sleep now" by a similarly narrow margin.

A government of Laws

"A government of laws, and not of men." -John Adams This statement rang out loud and clear to me when I saw the [Extent of Federal Regulation](http://extent-of-regulation.dhwritings.com/) made concrete, [here](http://extent-of-regulation.dhwritings.com/).

What John Adam's statement makes clear is the essential fact in a proper government that the law must be knowable and objective not subject to arbitrary whims of arbitrary men.

This does not mean 25 feet thick of books of regulations, and 6 feet of laws. When both are being added to at a [rate of thousands of new laws and regulations per year](http://cei.org/articles/%E2%80%98hidden-tax%E2%80%99-rules-hits-economy), you have a situation where it is not possible to know in a single lifetime what is *permissible* action in a *free* society.

I do not advocate anarchy, rather objective law. It is impossible to have objective law when every action could require months or years of research to determine if it is punishable by the state. This of course is only the Federal regulations. Every state and town has their own collections of law books.

The solution, stop and repeal. The obvious starting point for repeal is any and all regulations that handcuff industry. And stop all of the regulation mills. There are many government agencies that issue *Rules*. Congress has delegated it's law making responsibility to faceless, nameless, and unaccountable bureaucrats.

2008 Election Essentials

[Dr. Leonard Peikoff](http://peikoff.com/), friend and intellectual heir to Ayn Rand, publishes a podcast approximately every other week. Despite the fact that he generally refuses to talk publicly about narrow political questions, he took some time in [his October 20 podcast](http://peikoff.clublogic.org/podcast/getaudio.php?filename=2008-10-20.033.mp3) to discuss the current batch of candidates. He managed in a few sentences to say the obvious about each of the candidates in a way that would be funny if one of these gangs wouldn't be the head of the Executive branch of the United States of America on [January 20th](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inauguration_Day). > I think McCain comes across as a tired moron. Obama as a lying phony. Biden as an enjoyably hilarious windbag. And Sarah Palin as an opportunist struggling to learn how to become a moron a phony and a windbag.

He gave some additional brief commentary as to why none of the Presidential candidates is fit to take office. If you think there is still some reason to choose one over the other but aren't sure which you may want to listen, it could give starting points for further investigation.

I decided some time ago that [I will not vote for any presidential candidate](http://twitter.com/mclazarus/status/943152811). It was with that decision in mind that Dr. Peikoff's statement takes on a tragic humor and does cause me a brief chuckle.

Inevitable Result

The MSM had plenty to say about a 600 point drop in the Dow two Fridays ago when the house rejected the initial bailout plan. The blamed congress for not violating individual property rights and granting a large scale bailout of wall street to try and prop up a failing economy. Lucky for us they were able to paint the picture as simplistic that the federal government had an button under glass in the Capitol building which said in case of economic emergency break glass. So the congress got to work, they broke the glass. Now as I write the market is down significantly and is bouncing, but I suspect this is just a harbinger of greater plummets. The Fed of course will print more money and lower interest rates, but this will serve to drive inflation even faster. The problem is not the wrong intervention or even not intervening quickly enough, the problem is government intervention in the economy at all. Government is the agency of force. Economic prosperity requires freedom, freedom to act on ones own judgment for ones own interest. The only role for the government in the economy is rooting out and prosecuting fraud and other uses of force. It is not a coincidence that the nation that was founded on individual rights and freedom is the most prosperous ever. It is government intervention that caused this problem and that will continue it. If the Congress wanted to act quickly they should have been discussing how to repeal laws which are applying friction to business, not make the biggest power grab for the central economic planners since the Great Depression.

The politicians have been blaming the "greedy" capitalists. But those capitalists that are so greedy, are the ones that create wealth and jobs.

The long term outlook of government intervention in the economy is clear and clearly terrible.

*[MSM]: Main Stream Media

Writing to government representatives

It is clear from the results and the form letters I receive from my Congressmen, for spending time writing well reasoned arguments, is not worth the effort. I have therefore decided to change my tactics. While I know at best my letters will be tallied into No support or Yes support piles by bored staffers, and at worst ignored completely, I can only hope to amuse myself through the time spent writing such letters. As such I couldn't stop myself when I received a form letter from Senator Robert Casey in response to my many pleas to vote 'No' on this bailout plan in which he rationalized his position. I decided the only tactic that would prevent me from becoming homicidal was to introduce sarcasm. As such my letter follows:

---

Senator Casey,

Thank you for your words on the bailout, I mean stabilization bill. I do agree with your sentiment, "I'm angry about the climate of deregulation and deference to Wall Street over the last eight years that got us into this mess." If only the congress actually understood what deregulation means, but instead of actually deregulating the economy they have been adding new regulations nearly weekly. Hopefully through this unprecedented power grab and the inevitable resulting economic destruction to follow, in terms of years, people will finally learn that even the first sliver of government involvement in the economy puts us on the road to economic destruction.

Oh, wait, upon re-reading your letter you seem to think that you are actually doing the right thing here and are actually solving problems not just making them extremely worse. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you and I were in on a joke together, oh well, maybe the next Senator will understand individual rights and economics.

Well I can say one good thing about the "stabilization." 9 Trillion[^1] is such an odd number, so boring. But 10 Trillion, well now, that is excellent. A number you can really sink your teeth into. And you almost entirely triggered the change with the passage of one bill. Tremendous. Maybe with all the other entitlement bills that passed this year we'll even hit 11 Trillion that is great, and prime! Nothing is better than prime. If Keynes were alive I am sure he would send you a thank you note and maybe even a box of chocolates. Must stabilize the economy by continuing to spend, heck, throw in some flowers too.

I for one will do my part. I plan to apply for several more mortgages and loans. It'll be a great win for the economy. The builders will get paid, and all the people who sell to the builders will also get paid. There is no discrimination, I can get my loans even if I am considered high risk, so no one can cry "UNFAIR LENDING PRACTICIES." There is no bank failure, they aren't allowed to fail, you said so yourself. And there is no way I can lose my "property." I mean really we can't have banks going around seizing property, that is something that is best left to the federal government.

Thank you for your time.

---

Anyway, I feel much better now.

[^1]: Referring to the National Budget Deficit

Marriott saves me from a trip to Guantanamo bay

So unless you have been living under a rock somewhere you know it is frowned upon to bring a knife onto an airplane. You also probably know that they have a little lottery to decide if a passenger gets an extra special screening by the TSA. Well I sometimes carry a Swiss Army Knife that was a Christmas Gift from my Aunt Judy, Uncle Dom and Niko. I carry it in my backpack that I use to carry my laptop and what at times is a huge collection of electronics gear (usb drive, ipod, travel alarm clock, headphones, airline headphones, usb mouse, cell phone, wireless pcmcia card, laser pointer pen.) Well I flew out of PHL today and the gear bag was at full capacity. And I won the TSA lottery for extra inspection.

Of course I don't know the knife is in there. And it turns out they don't either, even though I noticed the TSA worker looking quizically at my USB drive, and checking out my ipod. It wasn't until I was talking to Michelle a few minutes ago that I noticed the knife while I was looking for my cell phone charger.

Dammit. I have at least 3 more airplanes to get on. And to pass TSA security at least twice more. A knife has to light up like a christmas tree on the XRay machine, otherwise why the hell is the xray machine there. I could check my bag. What a PITA, especially since my original 2 flights and 1 of my subsequent flights were cancelled today. Where would my laptop end up?

So I decide to try the "At your service" line at the Marriot I am staying in. Well they hook it up, a fedex envelope is filled out and set to be shipped back toward my home, for hopefully not too much money. Now I can avoid becoming a mainstay on the terrorist watch list, or avoid further disgust and embarssment as my tax dollars at work to protect the airways continue to miss finding a knife in my bag.

Politics and reality

Many of you know I was hoping that Bush would not win re-election. However, he obviously will be president for the next 4. Of course what this means to me: taking a broad view, not a whole lot either way. My immediate and primary concern is still my family and making sure we all have enough to eat and some left over for toys. And no matter who was in the presidential office my day to day life would be impacted very little.

Would Kerry have been significantly different than 4 more with Bush? In many aspects, no. Some of the policies they fought so bitterly over in the debates were nearly identical. My only political course of action at this time is to do what I always do, when I see things happening at the Federal level that I disagree with, then I will contact my representation and let them know. And if I see things that I want to happen, again make the reps do their job, even if that means willfully ignorning my input, but at least dealing with it in some way.

Anyway here are some general thoughtoids I have manufactured, and had thrust upon me recently.

• Some of the Republican principles are very acceptable: minimal government, less taxes, responsibility. Hopefully the elected from that party can enbody and enact some of those principles.
• If in four years things have changed for the percieved worse, the current administration will not have the excuses of an already declining economy and (hopefully) there will be no massive civilian loss of life on the homeland.
• I like Bush's Social Security plan. I hate watching that counter on my paycheck tick off without the ability to manage the investment of my money!. Even though I feel many will oppose me holding my funds back from the general social security coffers, I would really like this to become a reality. I will let my (All Republican) federal representation know about my thoughts. Heck even better, just cut me a check for everything I have contributed in my name (number rather) and I'll roll it into an IRA.
• I think the repubs are pushing federal tax free medical spending accounts too, like the kind all you people who work at big companies have access to. Well I will push for this too. Yeah, yeah the last two are the fabled promises and I know the fall of Rome came from the electorate voting for more Bread and Circuses, but I just want the bread I earned.
• I have seen my current thoughts and feelings compared to how a more mature generation felt when Nixon was re-elected. Their advice: "Get over it." If the current administration is as bad as many feel it is, they now have enough rope to hang themselves.
• The media's portrayal of the partisan standoff and bickering is a little over done. Maybe the pundits hate each other that much, but I don't feel it accurately portrays what happens on CSPAN .

Early and Often

I was finalizing some research for my vote tomorrow morning, and I noticed that the vote-smart site didn't seem to have all the Pennsylvania races that are of interest to me. So I found that congress.org seems to have some more complete listings. So I am looking at PA attorney general, auditor general and state treasurer tonight. I also found that the League of Women Voters has a nice 2 page PA statewide voters guide that gives a good summary of all the major races.

Where to Vote

Find out where you are supposed to go to vote at MyPollingPlace.com. It'd be a real shame if you went to vote-smart and did all of your research, and made sure you were registered, and then didn't know where to go.

Heck just read this whole thing. It tells you what to do if you know you are in the right place and you aren't being permitted to vote for some reason. Basically you can still cast a provisional ballot.

Rhetoric 101

Background: My brother, Tom, is teaching a college freshman rhetoric course and has recently shown Farhenheit 9/11 in his class and apparently asked for some sort of reaction paper to be written. There also was a paper comparing the rhetorical techniques of Gandhi and Malcom X. Seen in Tom's away message:

In grading student papers over the weekend, I've learned the following:

• It's not fair to remove a president from office before he finishes a war he's started.
• The war on Iraq was unjust, the president doesn't seem qualified, and the facts presented in "Fahrenheit 9/11" are disturbing, but it's unpatriotic to question the president and wrong to vote against him.
• Gandhi was a "coward and a suck-up" and "soft"
• During the 1960s, "some slavery" was beginning to be abolished.
• Americans never get to hear Bush's side of the story
• Direct quotes: "you are a liar" (to me), and "Michael Moore can eat *&@!"
• Gandhi is more like a "Care Bear" than Malcolm X
• It's "fucking awesome" that Bush was a cocaine addict and alcoholic

Those are the building blocks of some fine arguments.

No Fact left behind

I am sure many of you checked out all or part of the debates. And if you are like me you often wondered if some of the exact, very conveniently round figures that were thrown out by the candidates resembled in any way the truth. Well it seems there is a seemingly good resource on the Internet for that analysis: FactCheck.org. So it seems Bush does own a timber company.

Not that it matters much, but at least there are some other things there that we can review and look for a kernel or two of truth.

Terror Threats

Well I am glad I stumbled upon Schneier's blog today, it gave me some lunchtime reading material, and I found he recently wrote on a topic I have had interest in and displayed scorn for, DHS terror alerts. I published a cynical email I sent to the DHS back in April of this year. And so Bruce Schneier's blog entry from a couple days ago: Do Terror Alerts Work? obviously struck a chord with me. Not only because his essay echos my sentiment, but because he is a respected security expert who does a good job of analyzing the terror alert system and the current government misuse of them. Sure it's a bit long and obviously not as profound ;-) as my letter, but I certainly think it is worth a read and some consideration, and even a few emails to your congress critters to let them know that if it really is simply a choice between political CYA alerts or a new pair a shoes, that you would prefer to opt out of paying Tom Ridge's salary and head right to the nearest cobbler's shop. Of course we could always have them keep the tax dollars, since they already have them, and do something that would actually be effective in providing for the security of the homeland.

Register to vote, win cash!

Hey everyone, exercise your right to vote, do not disenfranchise yourself. People in the short but storied history of the US have given their lives for the right to vote, so exercise it. Please go sign up to vote, to do so, go here and click on the Rock the Vote link. This is part of a contest that the guys from HotOrNot.org are running, apparently they want to get people to vote, and drum up publicity for themselves. So I got suckered in, why not? So while you are on that page sign up to win 100K, if you use my referal link and win, then I will win 100K also. I signed up a couple weeks ago, I haven't gotten any spam as a result, therefore feel free. Plus money is good. Register at VoteOrNot.org. If people actually use my link I'll post back here about how many people I ended up referring. Plus after you sign up, you will get your own referal page you can use to have other people sign up and increase your chances of winning.

But if you don't want to participate in that, at least register to vote in the general election and do it.

Dichotomy

Woah, I must not have been paying attention. I never really noticed before how often people resort to a false dilemma to try and prove their point. This is especially prevalent in this presidential election year, everyone is choosing up sides and if you are not wholly with us you must be against us. I have been paying particular attention to people's rhetoric and reasoning for a couple years now having read up on the more common logical fallacies and having read most of Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking. And while it is true that personal attacks and made-up statistics constitute 65% of all of these flawed arguments out there, it appears that creating a false dichotomy is gaining steam.

These false dichotomies are easily found in the suprisingly prevalent and terrible argument which states, if you question or denigrate the government at such a crucial time then you are a traitor. However, it is no limited to this arena. I have noticed that often if you even call up for debate a person's conclusion immediately the response turns to, you must be one of THEM! While I understand that when the fruits of your brain sweat are questioned it is easy to get defensive but if you are really interested in convincing the person of the validity of your viewpoint calling them a communist isn't going to get it done.

This came to mind when I was reading through Declan McCullah's article John Kerry's real tech agenda where Declan calls into question some of Kerry's voting record when it comes to tecnology. I glanced at the bottom of the page and noticed the comments section, which was full of venom toward Declan and his article. There was not much in the way of correcting him on any errors in his reporting, but the false dichotomy, that if you question anything John Kerry every did you must be a George Bush supporter, is so omnipresent that the commenters immediately broke it down into an opportunity to call each other right wing nut jobs and liberal wieners. It occurs to me that the point of the article is not to support Bush vs. Kerry rather it is to state that electing Kerry is not some panacea for all the political wrangling in the technology sector.

I guess the trend in popular culture is to separate winners from losers, and there is only one winner. We learn that from all types of popular entertainment, be it reality television, the National Footbal League or Highlander. However, I think the zero sum games that we are bombarded with constantly are poor representatives of our lives. Rarely do we have clear cut winners and losers in our every day dealings. So maybe spending a little introspective thought, before responding to what you perceive to be an attack on your ideology, is warranted. Anyway the point here is fight nice kids.

Federal Regulation

Nothing can be so bad, that it can't be made worse through federal regulation. -Kevin McAllister Yeah, that's right, I quoted myself. So what?! Anyway, the trigger to that utterance was a rather innocuous article about digital cable, and some federal regulations that have been created to somehow make things better by requiring some technology be put into televisions which alleviates the need for a separate set top box to receive and decode digital cable.

But it got me to thinking, how does my ability to get digital cable without a separate box help to, "… form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity …." Which, of course, are the reasons for the formation of the federal government laid out in the constitution. The simple answer, which is clearly visible from my lofty position as the one who seems to completely understand everything, is that the regulation does none of those things. Yet it exists.

So what recourse do I have to prevent dumb regulations from being enacted? I can ply my congress critter's many minions with my insightful rhetoric, and hope that he cares to take my opinion under consideration when he is doing his duty in this republic. But as it says right there on the label, he is not a proxy for me, he will ultimately make his own decision. Of course I will continue my vigorous assault on all who dare to represent my interests, but it would be nice to have other options.

Well then, while I was googling to see if my quote above was indeed original, I stumbled upon Regulations.gov. I have long known about the Federal Register, where various government output is revealed in all its infinite, and excruciatingly boring, minutia. And I had even read through some of it for a while. But I never knew there was an easy way to give comments and feedback on proposed regulations. So, it seems, this Regulations.gov was created to fulfill exactly that purpose.

So learn from my stumbling. Do your civic duty. Not only shall you vote, but now you shall have your voice heard when the feds start trying to swat flys with buicks. I think I will have to try at least weekly to comment on one proposed regulation. And maybe I can pass this practice on to my offspring and other disciples that habitually enjoy my prose. In this way we can continue to teach the lesson that was so eloquently summed up by President Clinton, on the Simpsons, "If things don't go your way, just keep complaining until your dreams come true."

By the way, Register to vote. Now! The deadline for registering to vote in the General Election is October 4, 2004.

Threat Advisory Questions

Today I noticed a reference to the US Department of Homeland Security's Advisory System in an article I was reading, and decided to see what I could find out about it. Basically I couldn't find out much, but I noticed a helpful link to contact the Department of Homeland Security, so I submitted the following message:

To Whom it may concern:

This message is to question the role of the Threat Advisory Level and the legitimacy of the Low and Guarded levels. In my short experience with the system I have the following comments:

1. I don't know what it means or how to react to changes in the threat level. I did see there is a link to a "Citizen Guidance on the Homeland Security Advisory System" at http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interweb/assetlibrary/CitizenGuidanceHSAS.pdf However, the link did not work and resulted in what is known as a 404 or Resource not found error, as an additional problem I was not permitted to view the standard 404 error page "http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/error_404.jsp" as I was given an "Access Denied" or 403 error. I would appreciate it if you could provide a legitamate means of obtaining this document for my review so I can understand what the threat level means to a citizen.
2. I have spoken to a few police officers, they don't seem to have any understanding of what the different threat levels mean, either. This is troubling, as this department is now the recipient of funds withheld from my paycheck I would like to know that the most numerous supporting cast for Homeland Security (police officers) have some level of procedures and understanding about what this most public vestige of the department means.
3. Are there any plans to utilize the Low or Guarded levels for the threat advisory meter? Throughout the time since the inception of this meter it seems that the level has been "elevated" or "high." Are the lower levels destined to go the way of the "small" soda at McDonalds or is there actually a purpose for them? There are numerous childrens stories which are embedded in the US culture that extol the benefits of not being overly enthusiastic in making claims of emergencies that don't seem to be actively materializing. (See "Chicken Little" ISBN: 0694010340, or "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" ASIN: 0553372327).

While this message may seem overly critical, or seem like a big joke, I assure you that it is not. I am a concerned citizen and I am doing my civic duty by requesting more information and pointing out what appear to be problems in the perception of the current policies and information sharing of this newly formed, very large, and expensive branch of the US federal government.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Kevin McAllister
Citizen United States of America

In the unlikely event that I receive any kind of feedback I will post it here.

Found some working links to the Red Cross documentation on the Advisory System.