For What It's Worth

Miracle

2011-11-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

What, you don't believe in miracles? Wait until you hear this.

This morning I called the doctor's office about my sore left shoulder. Two hours and 15 minutes later I had seen the physician's assistant, been to another office and gotten an x-ray, been to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, and returned home. And one hour of that was drive time.

Two hours and 15 minutes--a miracle indeed!

Ron Paul for President?

2011-10-15T08:02:00.000-07:00

I was planning to write an article in support of Ron Paul for President, answering objections that I have heard. But then I stumbled on this article that does it for me:

Although I am a theological and cultural Christian conservative, I am not a member of the Religious Right and never have been. Adherents of the Religious Right are oftentimes more wrong than they are right. And they have never been more wrong than in their lies about Ron Paul.

The lies about Ron Paul uttered by the media, the Republican Party, the political establishment, conservative talk show hosts, and rank and file Republicans and conservatives who blindly parrot their leaders, and even some libertarians are legion. However, when it comes to Christian armchair warriors, Christian Coalition moralists, evangelical warvangelicals, Catholic just war theorists, reich-wing Christian nationalists, theocon Values Voters, imperial Christians, Red-State Christian fascists, God and country Christian bumpkins, and other Religious Rightists that have no problem draping the cross of Christ with the American flag, there are basically five lies that are continually told about Congressman Paul, all recycled from the last time he ran for president.

A Dangerous Precedent by Ron Paul

2011-10-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

“According to the Fifth Amendment of the US Constitution, Americans are never to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The Constitution is not some aspirational statement of values, allowing exceptions when convenient, but rather, it is the law of the land. It is the basis of our Republic and our principal bulwark against tyranny.

"Last week’s assassination of two American citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, is an outrage and a criminal act carried out by the President and his administration. If the law protecting us against government-sanctioned assassination can be voided when there is a 'really bad American', is there any meaning left to the rule of law in the United States? If, as we learned last week, a secret government committee, not subject to congressional oversight or judicial review, can now target certain Americans for assassination, under what moral authority do we presume to lecture the rest of the world about protecting human rights?”--Ron Paul

Click here to read the full article: http://bit.ly/pwWMhr

Chaos Theory Part 2

2011-10-05T06:24:00.000-07:00

Chaos Theory by Robert Murphy consists of two essays, Private Law and Private Defense. I will address the former in this part, the latter in the third part, and will give my thoughts on the book in the fourth.

Murphy's free market legal system consists of two basic parts--contracts and insurance. We use contracts regularly but often sign them without fully reading them because of the legal mumbo-jumbo in them. In Murphy's view all interactions would be by contract. You might not be able to enter a store without agreeing to a contract that specifies resolution proceedures in case of a conflict such as theft since there would be no state to arrest and try you.

The second part is insurance. A part of all contracts would be a requirement to have liability insurance. If I wronged you, according to the contract, my insurance company would reimburse you. The basic principle is restitution, not retribution.

If all transactions in society require a contract and all contracts require insurance then there would be no problem with dealing with uninsured people--you wouldn't have to. Even as recently as 20 years ago insurance verification would have been difficult but today's technology makes it much easier. After a while contracts would become standardized and insurance verification automated so that recurring interactions would be streamlined.

Murphy's conclusion is that

[t]his essay has outlined the mechanics of purely voluntary, market law. The main theme running throughout is that competition and accountability would force true experts to handle the important decisions that must be made in any legal system. It is a statist myth that justice must be produced by a monopoly institution of organized violence.

The arguments of this essay are admittedly incomplete; surely more thought is needed before a move to market anarchy becomes feasible. However, I ask that the reader resist the temptation to dismiss my ideas as “unworkable,” without first specifying in what sense the government legal system “works.”

Thanks for your attention.

Chaos Theory Part 1

2011-10-02T14:33:00.000-07:00

A long-time friend of mine, Tommy Clay, once said, "A man never learns anything until he is knocked off of his equilibrium." I was just knocked off of mine while reading the introduction of a book, Chaos Theory by Robert P. Murphy (available for FREE at http://mises.org/resources/3088/Chaos-Theory). The Introduction was written by Jeremy Sapienza and includes this quote that bowled me over:

It’s a common tactic of statists to accuse us of wanting to abolish, say, assistance for poor people, since they think that would be impossible without the State. But this isn’t true at all: We don’t want the State to steal our money and give it to those who don’t deserve it. We want the right to our property, including all our money, and the right to help out whomever we deem deserves it. This is consistent with the only rule of libertarianism: the Non-Aggression Principle.

In the first section, Bob explains how a society without government would still have laws and “regulations.” There would be no (legal) violations of the rights of property owners. In market anarchy, justice would be based on restitution, not retribution, meaning that criminals would have to pay back their victims rather than be punished by the sadistic State.

With this statement my mind went back to Old Testament scripture where the law given by God to Moses called for restitution rather than the modern day concept of imprisonment. Then my mind raced to the question, "When did the Israelites, having been led out of Egypt, get a government or state?"

Originally they were led by judges who adjudicated differences among individuals. But the people were not satisfied with this. They wanted a government, a king, like the heathen nations had. God warned them about the consequences--confiscatory taxes, military conscription, etc.--but the people persisted in wanting a king. God gave them their wish and it turned out just like He said it would.

I only read this introduction a few minutes ago. I'll report back after I finish the short book.

Thanks for your attention.

Very Slippery Slope

2011-10-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

"Here are two facts: (1) Anwar al-Awlaki is an American citizen and an al-Qaeda propagandist. (2) Pres. Barack Obama ~~proposes to assassinate~~ assassinated him....

"It is impossible to imagine that the United States would accept that the King of Sweden or the Grand Duke of Luxembourg has the legitimate right to conduct assassinations in the United States on the theory that we might be harboring enemies who wish them ill; to say the words is to appreciate their inherent preposterousness. But our own president is empowered to target our own citizens, wherever they may be found, without even so much as congressional oversight."--KEVIN D. WILLIAMSON

Which American will Obama choose to assassinate next? A member of the vilified Tea Party, perhaps?

Free books--hundreds of them

2011-09-29T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of books on Austrian economics and libertarian themes can be downloaded for FREE at:

http://mises.org/literature.aspx

Check it out.

Thanks for your attention.

What Is It Worth?

2011-09-27T13:48:00.000-07:00

Playwright Oscar Wilde said, "The cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." To answer the question "What is X worth?" we need the answer to another question: "According to whom?"

The minimum price that a seller will take for an item is the value placed on the item by the seller (I will use "worth" and "value" interchangeably). The asking price may be the same or it may be higher if the seller is expecting negotiation. Once the asking price is published it is easy to determine. The value to the owner may be more difficult to know since he may be willing to accept a price lower than what he is asking. For an exchange to take place the seller must value the money exchanged more highly than the item and the buyer must value the item more highly than the money exchanged. If they both valued the same thing more highly there would be no exchange.

We make eVALUations everyday. When you go to the store you evaluate, either conciously or unconsciously, every item you walk past. If your value of the item is greater than the cost you will buy it. If not, you won't. With rare exceptions for every item you skip because of a lower evaluation there is someone else who will buy it because of a higher evaluation.

When making an evaluation, especially politically, it is important to be sure that you are evaluating the correct thing. Some people support a minimum or "living" wage because of their evaluation of a person's worth. But when it comes to wages it's not the person we should be evaluating but his LABOR. What is his labor worth? Whose evaluation is more important--the politician's or the entrepreneur's who is considering hiring him? If two people agree on a price without coercion then the government should not interfere.

Thanks for your attention.

Property

2011-09-26T10:15:00.001-07:00

The third general topic of discussion on this blog is Property. To me this represents my economics side.

I graduated from high school in 1965 and went off to college. I goofed off and dropped out for several reasons, one of which was to avoid being dropped for poor grades. Then in the early '90s my son was about to start college and I didn't want him to get a degree before me so I returned and graduated with a BA in 1993. I was having so much fun I decided to continue on and get a masters degree (1995). For my BA one of my required cources was an Economics class. I enjoyed it so much I decided to to take more since I had several hours of electives available.

I received my BA from Oklahoma Christian University. The second time around I co-enrolled at the University of Central Oklahoma for some of my courses including those in Economics. I got my masters there in a unique (since eliminated) education program to prepare students to teach in a community/junior college. It involved 13 hours of education courses and 20 hours in a teaching field, in my case Economics. I figured that when I retired I would have something to fall back on if I needed extra money. I have recently taught one section during each of two different semesters at two of the Alamo Colleges (alamo.edu) in San Antonio.

Sometime back I stumbled onto the Austrian School of Economics and now I am a follower. I still have a lot to learn but I'm trying hard. I will be sharing more about this as we go along as well.

Thanks for your attention.

Liberty

2011-09-25T07:31:00.000-07:00

The second general topic of discussion on this blog is Liberty. To me this represents my "political side".

My father never talked much about politics or for whom he voted but I know he didn't like Eisenhower because my father worked for the government and Ike vetoed all the pay raises. I grew up more or less a Southern Democrat until 1964 when a classmate convinced me that Goldwater was right. Then for years I was a conservative Republican until I realized that they didn't walk the talk. Gradually, with the help of Ron Paul and others, I have become a card carrying Libertarian.

The Libertarian Party (lp.org) stands for Minimum Government, Maximum Freedom. I believe this is most consistent with my faith walk. Here is a video of one Christian explaining why he is a Libertarian. I will develop my reasons more fully in future posts so stay tuned.

Thanks for your attention.

Life

2011-09-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

The first general topic of discussion on this blog is Life. To me this represents my philosophical or spiritual side, that which is the foundation of all that I am and do.

I am a follower Jesus Christ, the one who came to give us all an abundant life--to show us the true meaning of our existence. My faith system will infuse all that I write but I will explicitly write at least one post per week to challenge and encourage you toward a deeper relationship with Him. Here is the first one:

LIVING WATER

So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee.

To get there, he had to pass through Samaria. He came into Sychar, a Samaritan village that bordered the field Jacob had given his son Joseph. Jacob's well was still there. Jesus, worn out by the trip, sat down at the well. It was noon.

A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, "Would you give me a drink of water?" (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.)

The Samaritan woman, taken aback, asked, "How come you, a Jew, are asking me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?" (Jews in those days wouldn't be caught dead talking to Samaritans.)

Jesus answered, "If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water."

The woman said, "Sir, you don't even have a bucket to draw with, and this well is deep. So how are you going to get this 'living water'? Are you a better man than our ancestor Jacob, who dug this well and drank from it, he and his sons and livestock, and passed it down to us?"

Jesus said, "Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again and again. Anyone who drinks the water I give will never thirst-not ever. The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life." (John 4:3-13, The Message)

Thanks for your attention.

Welcome

2011-09-23T04:28:00.000-07:00

I read a lot of news and opinion content online. I am able to do this with the help of RSS and a good feed reader. I use Google Reader but there are many others to choose from.

For some time I have been content to share interesting articles with my friends through links on Twitter and Facebook. However, that is no longer adequate so I am today launching a serious blog. I've discovered that I have something to say.

Worth, or value, is a subjective concept. I've named my blog "For What It's Worth" because each one of you will ascribe a different worth to its content. I hope you'll check it out for a while, maybe even add it to your feed reader. Let me know what you think.

The subtitle is "Forays into Life, Liberty, and Property". The next three blogs will identify these main topics I will cover and at the same time shed a little more light into who I have become.

Thanks for your attention.