crossing the border.

I drove my brother down to Boston yesterday for his return flight to Germany. It was kind of odd to come back to Boston after ten years--I didn't have any problem at all finding my way around, but some features were definitely not there in 1997. The Mystic River bridge was a new one to me, for example.

Apparently, MA passed some new and (more) draconian gun law that stipulates a mandatory year in jail for anyone caught with an unlicensed pistol there, loaded or unloaded, in your person or in the vehicle. "Unlicensed" means "not accompanied by both a Massachusetts FOID and a home state permit, and not locked in a triple-locked safe at least two zip codes away from its ammunition." They don't recognize NH Pistol Permits, of course.

This may seem a cowardly cop-out from the guy who once wrote an essay called "A Declaration of Civil Disobedience", but we can't currently afford for me to take an unpaid year-long hiatus, so I grudgingly disarmed before driving into MA.

I don't know that the justice system of a state deserves that kind of title when they are perfectly willing to take a year of someone's life for the offense of having the wrong piece of steel in our possession. Then again, all the states have even higher penalties for possessing the botanical equivalent of a bottle of vodka, so we're already a very long way down the slippery slope of victimless crime enforcement. Sadly enough, part of the reason for that is the cheerful consent of people who defend their gun rights tooth and nail, yet don't bat an eyelash when their neighbor gets hauled in and locked up for ten years because he grew some funny tobacco in his basement.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I look at the way things are going, and I have to concur with Tam. A storm is coming, and it's going to catch a lot of folks in the open.

we vote tomorrow.

We registered to vote a few days after we moved in, so we'll be able to vote in the primary tomorrow.  Robin and I are both registered as "Undeclared", which means that we can decide on the day of the primary whether we want to vote in the (R) or (D) primary.

The field on both sides leaves me mostly cold.  On the Democrat side of the ballot, we have a power-hungry shrew whose main bribe is the promise of "free" health care for everyone, a Rorschach candidate who has so little substance that his main thing is the voicing of vague generalities so everyone may project what they want onto him. a blow-dried trial lawyer-turned-Marxist, and a handful of nuts.

On the Republican side, we have a RINO from NY who was for gun control before he was against it, an actor who's a lot like the current President except with a  deeper voice, a former Mass. governor who apparently believes in the wrong Jesus (or believes in him the wrong way), an authoritarian war hero with a temper problem, and yet another former governor of Arkansas who "doesn't believe in evolution", and who apparently believes in the right Jesus (or believes in him the right way), and a handful of nuts.

I think it's not much of a secret that we'll be voting on the (R) ballot tomorrow, and that our two votes are going to go to the only guy in the race who does more than give lip service to the Constitution, even if that means the majority of the population sorts him in with the handful of nuts.  (That would be the Congressman from Texas, Dr. Paul.)

On a side note: something about Mike Huckabee is deeply unsettling to me.  Every time I see him, or listen to one of his speeches, he reminds me of Greg Stillson from Stephen King's The Dead Zone--the "aw, shucks" populist who is a raving nutcase underneath the rolled-up sleeves and the winning smile.  Maybe it's the "I don't believe in evolution" thing, or the fact that he once told his fellow Baptists that "we need to take this country back for Christ", or the fact that he's supported by the Evangelicals (how'd the last candidate you backed work out for you and the country, folks?), but something about Huckabee definitely rubs me the wrong way.

On yet another side note: does anyone else find it amusing that the conservatives openly wonder whether Romney could be loyal to the U.S. and the Constitution before the Mormon church, or whether Giuliani could be loyal to the U.S. before the Catholic church, or whether Obama isn't really a sleeper Muslim who wants to impose Sharia on all of us...but they don't even think about asking that question when an ordained Baptist minister enters the race--one who's already publically stated he wants to "take the country back for Christ"?

Anyway, I have no illusions about Dr. Paul's chances to become the next President--the message of limited government (and by extension, limited government loot) is highly unpopular, and the country isn't buying what he's selling.  But at least we won't have wasted our votes by voting for the lesser of two evils yet again.

bread and circuses.

Where the frak does it say anywhere in the Constitution that the government has the authority to take money out of my pocket and give it to to other folks to make sure their Teevees don't stop working?

I think as inept as folks working in government usually are, some of them know exactly where to spend the cash to keep the masses quiet and docile.  If you shut off the flow of the electronic opium to the lower-income households, the peasants are likely to a.) riot and do other nefarious things outside of the house due to sheer boredom, or b.) actually go to the library, pick up a book, and start forming an opinion that has a more solid foundation than a ten-second newsbite.  Neither of those scenarios are terribly comforting to The Authorities.

this i believe.

I believe that profit is not a dirty word, and "making money" is not a low or dishonorable motivation. The desire to make a buck is what has driven progress throughout history. I believe that commerce, the voluntary exchange of goods and values, is the best motivator for peaceful cooperation, and that the restriction of commerce promotes strife and poverty.

I believe that my life is my own. I am no one's property or sacrificial animal. I have a right to exist for my own sake, and I don't have to be ashamed of it. I do not exist to be numbered, counted, categorized, stamped, herded, and milked. I am not a cog in a machine, a sheep in a herd, or a number on a census.

I believe that taxation is equal to forced labor. I believe there is no moral or practical difference between taking the wages of a day or a week from a person to pay for a schoolhouse, and ordering them at gunpoint to spend a day or a week building that schoolhouse directly.

I believe that property rights are the basis for all other rights. If I am not free to dispose of the fruits of my labor as I see fit, all other rights are meaningless. Those who deny property rights cannot claim to be defenders of individual rights.

I believe that the term "individual rights" is a tautology. Rights can only ever be individual.

I believe that there is only one proper role for government, and that is the protection of individual rights. I also believe that no government in history has ever limited itself to that role.

I believe that my neighbor has the right to worship God, Allah, Vishnu, Odin, the Great Pumpkin, or any other deity. I have the right to worship all of those gods, or none of them, and neither of us has the right to force our beliefs on the other. That includes trying to make me live by the tenets of your faith under the guise of "majority rights"--one man's pork dinner, bourbon, or steak is another man's abomination, sin, or blasphemy. Worry about your own standing with your deity, not mine.

I believe that a crime without a victim is no crime at all. If an action doesn't violate another's person or property, no crime has been committed.

I believe that thoughts can never be a crime, nor can they be an excuse for a more severe punishment. I believe that beating a person because you want their wallet is every bit as despicable as beating them because you don't like the color of their skin.

I believe that no group has rights beyond those of any of its individual members. There is no magic or alchemy that gives a mob special rights that trump the rights of the individual.

I believe that democracy and majority rule are not automatic mandates for anyone. Without a properly constrained government, fifty-one percent of the tribe can vote themselves the right to pee in the cornflakes of the other forty-nine percent. A tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny.

I believe that any economic system that isn't centered around rational self-interest is fatally flawed. No amount of altruism or appeals to charity will motivate a man like the prospect of making money for himself.

I believe that forced charity is no charity at all, and forced virtue cannot claim credit for itself anymore than a eunuch can claim credit for chastity.

I believe that it is not my right or obligation to raise and educate your children, nor is it your right or obligation to raise and educate mine.

I believe that it is none of my business what goes on in my neighbor's bedroom, nor is it any of his business what goes on in mine, as long as no one's right are violated. Bugger a goat for all I care, as long as it is above the age of consent.

I believe that you cannot have a right to anything that necessitates a financial obligation on the part of someone else. You have a right to life, liberty, and honestly acquired property, not to any sort of monetary or material thing. The former merely requires your fellow citizens to leave you alone; the latter requires them to work for you free of charge.

I believe that it is the height of ignorance to judge an individual not by their actions, but by their ancestry, gender, nationality, religion, dietary preferences, or the melanin content of their skin.

I believe that emotions are not substitutes for facts when it comes to describing and understanding reality. Wishing something to be something other than what it is won't make it so, no matter how many people wish for it.

I believe that the most effective way to ruin something is to put the government in charge of it. I also believe that the most effective way to corrupt a religion is to mix it with government.

I believe that the desire to become President should automatically be a disqualifying factor.

I believe that anyone in favor of "free" government services has no understanding of economics.

I believe that patriotism isn't measured by flags or bumper stickers, but by your willingness to defend the rights of someone with whom you disagree completely and profoundly.

I believe that freedom of speech especially extends to unpopular or repulsive speech. Popular and uncontroversial speech does not need protection; dissent does.

I believe that the IQ of a crowd is the IQ of its least intelligent member, divided by half. I do not believe in the wisdom of the masses--intelligence is not an additive quality, but force is, and the threat or application of force is the only tool available to any crowd.

I believe that I am the only person qualified to run my life, that I have the absolute right to be my own master, and that no amount of laws and Constitutions ever written can grant me that right or take it away.

This I believe.

keep your village away from my kid.

Over at Roberta X's blog, there's a good piece up on the morality of taking from others to pay for what you can't afford, even if it is your child's life on the line.

Keep your village away from my child, I say.

I love my children more than anything. I'd do anything to save their lives if they were in danger, up to and including giving up my own if necessary. To tell you the honest truth, if one of them was so sick that our own money and all our insurance couldn't pay for a lifesaving treatment, there's a microscopic chance I may even violate my own libertarian ethics and steal to get the money.

But in the highly unlikely event that it ever happens, you can be damn sure I'll have the decency to do the stealing myself, instead of using Uncle Sugar as an intermediary, and then feeling all entitled to the loot. At least I'd run the risk myself.

Theft is theft, even if it's "for the children", and no amount of fancy apologist language about "social contracts" and "fairness" can make it not so.

what's not a felony these days?

In my admittedly idealistic view, there ought to be only two felonies: laying a hand on someone, and messing with someone's stuff. That's the entirety of the penal code in my perfect society--lots of paper saved, and those two offenses cover everything from murder to rape to thievery of all kinds.

Unfortunately, our society has embarked on a quest to brand as many citizens with the mark of the felon as possible. All manners of things are now felonies, and the list grows longer every day. It's a felony to grow the wrong kind of plant in your yard, to affix the wrong kind of metal bit to the end of your rifle, to buy too many cigarettes in North Carolina if you're a resident of Tennessee, and a myriad of other ridiculous things.

The problem with that, as I've already mentioned on numerous occasions, is that the status of "felon" has some serious negative repercussions for a person. A convicted felon loses, among other things, his or her constitutional right to own a firearm. (I'm not exactly sure why we take away the legal guns from felons, but not their right to worship as they please, or their right not to be placed in double jeopardy, or their right to free speech. Looks like the Brady Bunch is right when they claim that the Second Amendment is somehow more dangerous than the other ones, and deserves to be subject to special restrictions.) Convicted felons also lose their right to vote, and the stigma of a felony record has a way of crippling a person economically, since many employers in all but the most menial career fields will shy away from hiring a felon.

So, once you brand someone with the big "F" on their forehead, you deprive them of the legal right to self-defense, the right to vote, and the unhindered ability to work for a living to the best of their qualifications. That's a pretty severe punishment, and it ought to be reserved for some pretty serious crime. Hell, I'd settle for actual crime, and not the kinds of victimless crimes that are crowding the penal codes at present. A man stealing another's property--that's a crime. A man screwing a metal bit with some holes in it to the muzzle of his rifle, or growing funny tobacco in his garden--that's not a crime, because you can't point out a victim.

Here's the danger inherent in expanding the Big Catalog of Felonies willy-nilly. If I want to disarm folks and then take away their ability to vote against my policies, I don't need to try and take on the Second Amendment head-on. All I have to do is expand the definition of "felon" enough, and I can take the legal right to self-defense--and the right to vote--from anyone. And the great thing about that scheme is that the same law-and-order crowd that would fight me tooth and nail if I did attack the Sacred Second directly will actually assist me with glee.

on the subject of taxes.

I've had a lot of debates with a lot of different people over the years on the topic of taxation. My opinion, the only one that is consistent with the Non-Aggression Principle, is that taxation is theft.

That position is apparently too radical to stomach for many people. Advance this position in a debate, and people will call you a "pie in the sky libertarian", a radical, a utopist, and other (less flattering) things. Sure, they all agree that we pay too much in taxes, or that the wrong people are paying too much or too little, or that taxes are spent on the wrong things, but it's common opinion that we need some taxation, because it serves the public good, or society, or whatever else you choose to call the group of folks making up your neighborhood. People will argue until they're blue in the face that no, taxation isn't theft, because of implied consent and majority rule and fairness and all kinds of reasons that are supposed to be mitigating factors--good reasons why it's right and proper for the government to come knock at your door, hold a gun to your head, and demand that you hand over part of your paycheck under pain of death.

Now, it's illegal and immoral for you to walk over to your neighbor's house and demand money at gunpoint. It remains illegal and immoral even if the entire street decides to stop by at your neighbor's house to do the same, and there's absolutely no mitigating factor that would excuse such an act. It doesn't matter how much money your neighbor makes, how little you make, how noble the intended use of that stolen money, or how many children go hungry in your own house--the second you show up at his door and threaten or employ force to get at your neighbor's wallet, it becomes an immoral and illegal act of coercion.

At what point, then, does it become moral and legal to do the same on a larger scale? Is it just the number of people showing up at your neighbor's doorstep? Where's the magical threshold where a coercive act becomes right and legal and moral? Ten people? A hundred? A thousand? A million?

Now, there are plenty of folks who will defend taxation, even minimal taxation, with all kinds of arguments. They'll talk about "implied consent", "social contracts", and other imaginary moral constructs that are supposed to turn strong-arm robbery into a transaction of mutual consent. All those arguments, however, do not negate the fact that all taxation involves the involuntary transfer of property under threat of force.

(There are those, of course, who defend the morality of taxation with the argument that they pay their taxes voluntarily because they see the need for the expenditure. That's baloney, of course--you cannot give consent to being robbed, or raped, and have the robbery or rape magically turn into charity giving or consensual sex. It would only be a true choice if there was no coercion involved, no threat of violence in case of non-compliance.)

The "social contract" is another one of those non-existing constructs that mainly serve to make the robbers feel morally justified, and the robbed feel less violated. You cannot be a party to a contract which you never signed, and the fact that you were born into a society does not constitute consent to anything (and definitely not consent to the confiscation of half your productive output for the duration of your life.)

True, there are services that are desirable. National defense, fire protection, garbage collection, libraries...those are all nice things to have, for sure. None of them excuse robbery, however, and if your idea fails to get enough enthusiasm from the community to get enough folks to toss money into the hat voluntarily, then that's too bad. Besides, there are very few (if any) items on that list of desirable services which cannot be handled by private contract and the open market.

A while back, I had a discussion with someone who likened taxation to a contract with a homeowner's association, or maybe the boy who comes and cuts your lawn. I told him that the analogy was faulty, and presented him with a more accurate version.

I agree that you mow my lawn every week, in exchange for $20 per week, payable every year. You start doing the job, and we're both happy for a little while.

Then you take it upon yourself to prune the trees on my property. You also clean my pool, paint the outside of my house, and re-pave my driveway. The problem is that not only did I not ask you to perform the work, but you're doing a horrible job at it: the trees are cut way more than necessary, you don't remove the branches from the lawn, your "pool cleaning" consists of dumping a bottle of shampoo into the pool, and your paving job is merely a coat of paint that runs down the driveway at the first rain. You've only painted one side of the house, and it's a color I can't stand.

At the end of the year, you present me with a bill. Your original $20 per week have been increased to $120...you say it's more difficult to mow the lawn because of all the tree branches. You've charged me $400 for a pool cleaning, including $150 for a bottle of "pool cleaning agent". Your driveway "paving job" comes to $2000, and the house paint job is listed at $2000 as well. Instead of the originally agreed $1040 for a year of weekly mowing, I am looking at $10,640 for "property maintenance".

There's also a $1,040 item on the bill described as "Fairness Tariff". When I ask you what that is, you say that this money will pay your maintenance of your brother's lawn. (Your brother's lawnmower is broken, and he hasn't gotten around to fixing it). I protest this item, and you say that it's only fair that I "pay my share" to keep up the neighborhood.

I point out that I never agreed to let you do all those other things, and you break out the contract. At the end, you've unilaterally appended the following sentence: "All property maintenance shall be performed by the lawnmower operator; rates shall be determined by said operator after services are rendered. Scope of property maintenance shall also be determined by lawnmower operator."

When I protest and say that I never agreed to that clause, you point out that I gave my "implied consent" by signing the original contract, and that all the other services rendered are related to lawn care anyway. Besides, you say that I have the right to negotiate a new contract or shop for a different one every four years...the only problem is that you and your cousin Bill are the only lawnmower guys in town, since you beat up the other kids who try to break into the business. I've tried to buy my own lawnmower, but the city council (mostly made up of your family members) has outlawed unlicensed private ownership of motor-powered mowers, for safety and noise pollution reasons. (They also determine who gets a license.)

I refuse to pay the bill, and you drag me into court, where the judges are all related to you. When I protest this extortion racket, the judge tells me, "You should have known how things work around here. The whole town knows how the lawnmowing business works in this neighborhood. You always had the option not to move here."

just in case...

For those of you who aren't aware of it: here's the online graphic novel version of L. Neil Smith's "The Probability Broach".

the right to keep and bear arms?

Here's something that has been bothering me for a long time.

The Bill of Rights enumerates those rights that are inherent to us by virtue of being human. It does not "give" or "grant" us any rights, it merely lists those that our government most certainly may not infringe upon.

Now, why is it that gun owners largely support the denial of the right to keep and bear arms to felons?

Bring the point up on any online gun forum, and the assembly will tell you, by a margin of ten to one, that felons ought to lose the right to own a gun for life, yessiree, and if you don't want to lose that right, you have the option not to commit any felonies.

There are two major problems with that line of reasoning.

First, it plays right into the hands of those who would love to see the Second Amendment gone, and with it all ownership of private arms. It's exactly the argument they use: the Second Amendment is somehow more dangerous than the other ones, and the exercise of that particular right, out of all the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, can and should be infringed upon by the government.

Once a felon has served his time, we don't deny him the right to free speech, or the right to exercise the religion of his choice. He doesn't lose the right to jury trial, nor the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. So why on earth should he lose the right to defend himself? Have the gun banners been right all along? Is the Second Amendment really a privilege, not a right? And if that's the case, what's to keep the Nine Bench-Wraiths from turning the rest of the Bill of Rights into privileges as well?

I fear that the majority of gun owners actively assists in the negation of the Bill of Rights when they use the arguments of their opponents just because it is emotionally convenient. I mean, who would want to live next to a convicted felon with a gun, right?

The problem, of course, is that no laws keep anyone from having a gun if they really want one. (Isn't that what we've been arguing when we complained about the onerous "assault weapons ban", and when we rail against state legislatures who deny their citizens the right to carry a gun in public?) Moreover, one man's gun is as much offense to some as another man's religion is to others, and if you make one part of the Bill of Rights a conditional "privilege", then the parchment is rendered worthless in its entirety.

The second major problem with the "no guns for felons" approach is that the definition of "felony" has been expanded to the point of ludicrousness. These days, nobody can live their lives anymore without committing several felonies a week, mostly without even knowing it. In some states, having the wrong piece of metal at the muzzle of your rifle is a felony. Taking a whiz by the side of the road can get you a felony sex offender conviction. The people in charge, conservatives and liberals alike, are fully aware of the fact that the only true power of the state is to crack down on lawbreakers, and they are sticking the label of "felony" on as many acts as possible.

If you support the abrogation of a released felon's right to keep and bear arms, the anti-gun movement doesn't need to have a President Hillary signing any sort of draconian universal gun ban like they have in the UK. The Second Amendment will simply die a quiet death while the folks in charge steadily expand the definition of "felon". Sooner or later, we'll be a nation of felons--disarmed by our own assent.

In fact, what keeps them from limiting the disqualifying factor to felony convictions? Why not make it misdemeanors, too...and maybe even consider convictions retroactively? If SCOTUS lets the government determine one particular misdemeanor as a disqualifying offense, the legal precedent is already set, and there's absolutely nothing except the court of public opinion to keep them from making any misdemeanor a disqualifying offense. Oh, sure, they'll start with really unpopular and abhorrent behavior first, like domestic violence or DUI, but let the camel's nose into the tent, and you lose your right to complain when you end up sleeping outside in the sandstorm.

And once they've eviscerated the right to bear arms in that fashion, think about what other inconvenient part of the Bill of Rights can be negated using the same precedent. After all, if even gun owners agree that the right to arms is a.) the linchpin of the Bill of Rights, and b.) can be denied completely in case of felony or even misdemeanor conviction, how can they argue against others doing the same to the other, "lesser" rights?

The Bill of Rights is not a menu; you can't pick and choose according to your emotional whims. You have to treat all the Amendments the same. If one is inviolable and irrevocable, they all are. If one is a revocable privilege that can be denied to felons and misdemeanor offenders, the same holds true for the rest of them.

investors wanted.

I have a business idea that has the potential to be an international attraction for like-minded folks all over the world.

It's a gunshop/range/bar/walk-in humidor/bookstore called...wait for it...."The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms." The business goal is to create the most politically incorrect establishment of its kind in the world, something that will induce heart attacks in the patchouli-and-Birkenstocks crowd merely by reading about it in the newspaper.

The gunshop part will have a 25-lane climate-controlled indoor range, and tactical black plastic will live side-by side with walnut and blued steel. There will be a vast collection of rentals, including buzzguns, and every rental gun with screw-on grips will have genuine ivory grip panels.

Rental targets will include kittens (for rimfire plinking), baby seals (for casual or light shooting) or manatees (for buzzguns or heavy-duty practice; those manatees take a lot more hits before falling apart.) Maybe we can have an outdoor skeet/trap course where the clay throwers toss spotted owls and songbirds.

We'll sell holsters and belts exclusively made from exotic animal skins: snake, alligator, and anything else that's pretty-skinned and on the endangered species list.

The bar will be clad in some exotic Brazilian hardwood right from the middle of the rainforest. Bar stools will be covered in seal fur. Spit buckets and trash cans will be mink-lined genuine elephant feet. Drinking and shooting will be permitted; just make sure you're bonded for restitution if you shoot anything you didn't buy. There'll be smoking allowed everywhere, including the firing line, and the lane trays will have cupholders for pint, martini, and lowball glasses.

Overhead music will be gun-related classics like "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner", "Lawyers, Guns and Money", and similar crowd pleasers.

I'm still working on a sufficiently non-PC book assortment to offer in the bookstore, and it goes without saying that the humidor will feature smuggled Cuban cigars as well as every smokable intoxicant yet devised by humanity.

I figure I'll need about $20 million or so to get this baby off the ground. Who's in?

wealth redistribution, german style.

Germany has the "right to Rente " (publically-funded retirement) written into its constitution. (I cannot for the life of me figure out how you can make something a right that necessitates financial obligation by others, but I'm just one of those pie-in-the-sky libertarians.)

Germany, of course, has the same mathematical problems with social security as our own system. The people who thought it up failed to plan for an upside-down ratio of beneficiaries and working folk, and with the baby boomers starting to retire in both countries, both systems will be hopelessly upside down by 2020 or so. At that point, there'll be more money paid out than comes in via social security contributions, and the SS system will weigh down the general fund to the tune of a few trillion dollars.

Of course, our politcritters in both countries care little about mathematics. The retirees in Germany and the United States constitute a huge voting bloc (old folks vote), and a great number of them sides with the AARP and its German equivalent, which basically say "screw you, junior, we'll be long gone when the pot is empty." (The people in charge in Washington and Berlin also know very well that they'll be long gone when the system collapses, and somebody else will have to sort out the mess.)

Here's an instructive table from Germany. It shows the contribution-to-benefit ratio for future and current retirees based on their current age.


As you can see, people who are 65 receive about a quarter million euros more in benefits over the course of their lives than they actually pay into the system. In contrast, people who are now 25 will pay in almost 150,000 more in euros than they'll receive from the system, providing that it still exists when they retire at the age of 67. (Retirement age has just been raised in a grudging acceptance of elementary math.)

That means that my brother and his wife, who are both in the 30-35 age bracket, will be relieved of a combined quarter million dollars over the course of their lifetime to finance the current retirees' "constitutional right" to state-funded retirement. Count in their two (soon to be three) kids, and assume against all logic that the Sozialstaat won't collapse fiscally by the time the youngins reach retirement, and you're probably approaching a million bucks pilfered from just that little five-person household over the course of their lifetimes.

(That's just their contributions to their social security net, of course. I'm not even counting the money taken out of their paychecks for the almost-20%-VAT, sales taxes, ruinous gasoline taxes, and various other ways in which the state will claim a right to their paychecks.)

That is what socialists call "fair", and "socially progressive". That's their "fair share".

I have no doubt that our system is similarly unfavorable for the Gen-Xers, but that's the way the cookie crumbles. Next time you see one of those AARP ads exhorting you to call your Congressperson and tell them to "leave Social Security alone", keep in mind that the system's fine only if you're in retirement, or near it. For everyone born after the Baby Boomer generation, AARP has nothing but a shrug and a jar of Vaseline.

Nobody would need a "social net" if the government didn't confiscate half the paycheck of every working man, woman, and child at gunpoint. (In actuality, effective tax rate is closer to 90% if you count in every tax that is levied on everything you can buy or make.) Would you need to worry about your retirement years if you could deposit all of your gross pay in the bank, and in addition everything was suddenly available at a 90% discount....housing, food, cars, anything?

To speak with Harry Browne, government breaks your legs, hands you a crutch, and says, "See? Without government, you wouldn't be able to walk!"