Earmarks...say it with me...E...A...R...M...A...R...K...S

6,000 earmarks. $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill. Wow! I predict that Obama will sign this bill. Why? Well, there are are many Democratic items on the menu. As it turns out, there are also some Republican items on the menu (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/14/AR2010121407208.html). In fact, Cornyn and Thune sparred with reporters today about their own earmarks (http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2010/12/15/132083977/reporters-jump-senators-for-perceived-earmark-hypocrisy). I'm sure he would love to please both parties, particularly his own after dismounting from the donkey recently by siding with Republicans and their desire to continue tax cuts (or, in my mind, continue deficit spending...either way, we're getting screwed).

Did we really change anything in November? Are we really this gullible? Stupid even? We are a nation that pays money in to get the same money back out but with less to show for it. Why? Waste. Billions of dollars of waste. Corruption. Greed. There is much to be done in this country, with the first being to rid Congress of its existing base of lame-ass, self-aggrandizing blowhards. Term limits. Cut spending. Term limits. Cut spending. Term limits. Cut SPENDING! Serenity now!

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. Waiting to see the whites of their eyes in 2012, I bid you all good tidings.

Automobile? Automobile?

Ah, yes, Sixteen Candles. What an excellent movie! Grandpappy's car ends up in some riverbed or some such place and the chinaman (no offense to anyone) laughs uncontrollably. Did he have auto insurance? Probably. Forty-nine states - New Hampshire sits this one out - mandate auto insurance. So, why is there such a big brouhaha about health insurance? I posed this earlier in a discussion group I take part in fairly regularly and there was one response: it's the first law that requires someone to do something for simply being alive. I think the gentleman's words were anyone with a pulse would be required to have health insurance. One chooses to drive. One, therefore, chooses to buy auto insurance. It is not forced upon him or her. Interesting argument to say the least.

I don't think any insurance of any kind should be forced upon any party, be it at the state level, federal level, for breathing or not for breathing. But what about the damage done to my vehicle? The loss of life? The long hours at the body shop? Insurance drives up the cost of things because in most cases it means that payment will be made and be made without any doubt being cast. There is no free market when insurance, namely third-party insurance, gets in the way of things. It also allows us to readily move forward in life without so much as a care because we know that no matter how fast we drive, how much we eat, smoke, or have unprotected sex (that was for effect :-0), our insurance will come to the rescue. But that is what it is supposed to do, right? Advance without thinking of the consequences of our advances.

Perhaps, goes the song. Perhaps it's not so bad, this insurance thing. Let the state mandate it. Let the Federal government mandate it. After all, it's only there to protect us from one another. Yes, it is. Why? Because we have lost some part of us that seeks to protect not only ourselves but the others around us. Pass the buck to the insurance agent at larger and larger premiums (read, "larger and larger profits") and let's get on with life...with abandon and with little or no responsibility to our fellow man. Amen.

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. From the just west of the Big Apple, I bid you all good tidings.

adt

short hills, nj

Copyright 2010 all rights reserved arpit d. trivedi

The blindingly obvious

Fair taxation. Seems like a nimble little topic. My fellow libertarian activists have been bantering back and forth on the topic all evening. Much of the discussion is in favor of a strong fair tax, or a VAT (value-added tax). The more important matter, brought up by one of the members, was cutting expenses. I agree. It is blindingly obvious to me that we must cut expenses. Changing the tax code in advance of reducing expenses is, I think, sheer stupidity. If we think we're beholden to sovereign governments now, then I'd hate to think what would happen if we cut revenue without cutting expenses. Where to start? That's a tough one. Where does the government truly have a role to play in girding our daily lives and the daily lives of corporate citizens (ahem)?

Here's a short list. It's not an end-all-be-all list, but it's a start. I'd love to hear from you on these cuts, which are presented in no particular order.

1. Defense. Stop nation building.
2. NASA. Space? Really? Movies good. Space station bad.
3. Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR. If you like it so much, then pick up a pen and a checkbook and make it happen. You can call it what you will, but fund it differently. By the way, I love NPR.
4. Tax breaks for all religious groups. Pray, worship, and proselytize all you want. Please don't do it on my nickel.
5. Home interest and home property tax deductions. Owning a home is not a God-granted right. Toil and toil some more, save up some money, and then buy.
6. Drug war. If you're going to have a drug war, then let's have an alcohol war, prostitution war, gambling war, chocolate war, salt war, gun war, and my favorite, a gay war. Let's run that tab way up. It can't be won. Period. (I love you, man, but it can't be won)
7. Federal or any funding of election campaigns.
8. Corn and all other corporate subsidies, including any and all corporate or personal bailouts.
9. Amtrak needs to survive on its own. I love train travel. It needs more than my love or my neighbor's.
10. NEA.

Those are just a few. I'm sure there are more. If we don't cut spending, we will not be able to pass on a better country to our children than the one our parents and grandparents passed down to us.

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. From the wind and the snow, I bid you all good tidings.

Another year of battle

Iraq. Afghanistan. Korea? Iran? Nation building is a corrupt and pitiful way to live. Sharing our sometimes rancid, sometimes incredible culture with the rest of the world like addicts share needles in cold, dark alleyways just doesn't seem to be a very good way to live. This is especially so given that sharing said needles is illegal (sigh). Nation building illegal? Hmmm.

As we begin the second year of this decade, one must consider the culture we continue to invest in in this country. It is a culture that believes that our freedom must be exported to other countries that may not want that same freedom or us in their country. I understand the whole war-on-terror theme, no matter how truly outrageous it is, but I don't understand why there is such hypocrisy in the American bosom. How come we don't want the European way or the South American way (socialists be damned!) in our country when we are perfectly willing to sell it through our DoD, DoS, and other various and sundry extensions of our republic?

I guess I missed the day in class where they had this lesson on nation building. This long, sordid chapter has done nothing but entangle us in horrific wars and questionable economic deals, leaving much of what truly drives an economic engine, production capability, the one major export. Yes, I'm sure there is plenty of argument for us continuing to meddle ("Germany would be ruling the world by now if we hadn't"). But should we?

So, another of year of battle, on domestic and foreign lands will, undoubtedly, continue. And I will continue to moan on about less is more. Less involvement there means more involvement here.

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. From the eastern front of New Jersey, I bid you all good tidings.

An Open Letter to the Congress of the United States

I wrote this some time ago on Facebook, but thought, "what the hell" and post it again, here, for your viewing pleasure.

An Open Letter to the Congress of the United States

August 2, 2009

Dear Madames and Messieurs,

It is so sad to see you go, even if it is for a month. I'm sure you will miss me as well. I'm sure you will miss my rantings and musings on your ill-gotten gains. I know you can't wait for me to submarine your zealous desire to continue to serve in a role designed to be largely volunteer in nature. I can appreciate that you will enjoy returning to my off colour comments about Czarina Pelosi and zie Fuhrer Johann Boehner. And let's not forget all my Facebook friends and sparring partners. I'm sure you will miss them and their lucid and insightful commentary on your hapless careers. So, while you enjoy luring your largely uneducated and ill-informed constituency through fear mongering and loathing of the other party into the abyss that is health care reform, energy renewal, and titillating stimulus, let me tell you what I will be doing.

First, I will be enjoying what remains of this summer with my family. You remember them right, your family and family values. I won't be committing adultery or hanging out with the pages during my time this summer. I mean, it sounds like fun, but...nah...not for me. Second, I will be working. I work as hard as the next guy and gal, and as I pointed out earlier, for $680,000 a day for 137 days per year, you folks "work" as well. During your month off, I'm sure the payola you receive from various interest groups, PACs, and foreign "dignitaries" will certainly keep you afloat. Third, I will be writing about you. That's right. For the next thirty days, I will write something every day to let people I care about know how important it is to keep your influence limited and to limit those that influence you.

Finally, I pray that when you return, you will avail yourself to this letter and find a conscience. A conscience that enables you to vote without regards to the influence peddlers, the special interest 'johns' that frequent your mahogany bordellos morning, noon, and night. A conscience that seeks to simplify government policy and administration should also be a broader initiative. All I see is the disruptive forces of chaos, complexity, and characterless posturing.

In closing, I am a pretty simple guy that believes in simple government. You know:

"form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty"

You have defaced this fairly simple phrase - Republicans and Democrats and many in between - to the point that its image is only a cold, distant reminder of what was intended by the people. You have ladled the lard of conscious corruption upon our Constitution for too long...too long.

Welfare is not meant to be the means by which corporations and those less learned and unwilling to work to take from the rest of us again and again.

Justice is not providing for opportunity because of difference but insisting that the difference is one's insatiable and ETHICAL pursuit of opportunity.

Common defence is meant for this land and the shores herein...not the sands of Iraq, not the mountains of Afghanistan, and not the fertile fields of Deutschland. Those are indeed sovereign nations. We need not meddle. That in turn leads us to mount a dedicated focus on domestic tranquility - less crime, higher education, and a nation inspired by an abundance mentality and not one deprived due to scarcity thinking.

The pursuit of liberty is endless. I am convinced of this. People will never truly be free unless we learn there are limitations. The respect for one another - on the road, in our schools, and in our workplaces - must be the ultimate sacrifice and does, indeed, limit our liberty. That, I guess, is why we have laws. For we, and you, cannot handle liberty. Mutual respect is a thing of the past. Until we cross that bridge - nay, gird that bridge - then no perfect union can be had.

Happy summer.

Sincerely,


Arp D. Trivedi
Cincinnati, OH

P.S. Thanks, little brother, for the inspiration.

Quickie on health care reform

It's not a right. Period. I don't see it in the Constitution and I don't believe that all the elasticity in the world can make it so. Regardless, some of us will inevitably try to assert that it is a right.

With all the talk of reform, we have completely forgotten the foundation of our health care system - the family doctor. Our self-inflicted pain comes not purely because of all the testing and legal battles that ensue, but because we have made the family doctor a poor bedfellow compared to her colleagues of specialists. The team leader is the lowest paid physician on the Hippocratic ladder. Why?

I don't really know the answer, but it all seems to stem from this painful realization that no problem or joint is small enough and specialty is required. The level of knowledge needed to eradicate even the smallest pain demands a very high price. On top of this, we seem to neglect the fact, as does this writer, that health care reform starts right here, in the mirror. This is where the family doctor is most needed. I thank God every day I have a great one.

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. I shall try to do the same. From the last day of my thirties, I bid you all good tidings.

Butter is better!

I know, I know. It's been a LONG while. There are other things - family, work, self - that fill in the little capillaries between writing excursions. I guess, too, I've not been that passionate about any one thing lately.

As I write this, there is still nothing. However, I do like butter. I like freedom. I like the freedom to eat butter. Now, I'm sure people like salt. I read somewhere that there is about to be an infringement on one's ability (nay "right") to eat as much salt as they like. I think that is ill-advised. Did I mention that I like butter? I also do not eat margarine. I gave it up, cold turkey, for butter. Do I eat a lot of butter? I don't think so. But, when I desire a creamy, salty spread on my toast in the morning then it shall be butter. If I want an omelet sans olive oil, then I will use butter (it really does give it a richness that deserves more of an audience). Cakes and cookies deserve only le beurre.

I hope there is not a butter battalion that comes for my butter. That would be devilish indeed. Can you imagine it? I feel there will be hipster bureaucrats, prancing about with des stylos, adorned with oddly-shaped shoes, and lamenting their debt coming after my butter. Notepads chock full of accusations about my girth and lavish demands for butter. "Why me?" I will ask. They will stop, cold in their tracks, and exclaim, "butter is better, you damn fool!"

"Let them eat butter!" I say.

As always, be thankful for what you have, buy only what you need, and work diligently for peace. I shall try to do the same. From the other side of midnight, I bid you all a good night.