Mercantilism is where the merchants own the power in government. It protects the merchants from competition and increases the costs to customers of their goods and services. It comes about because a handful of people have a great deal to gain from investment in legislation while society’s individuals have little to gain or lose with each law. In extreme examples, governments go to war to protect and foster merchants’ interests.
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Archive for the ‘law / legislation’ Category
mercantilists
Saturday, June 12th, 2010corrected vision
Sunday, June 6th, 2010Sometime after 40, the human eye loses much of its ability to focus up close and far away at the same time. My rifle match scores are deteriorating because I can either see the front sight clearly without prescription lenses or the target clearly with my prescription lenses but I can no longer do both well enough to plant my bullets around the bull like I used to. Several competitors have suggested I get shooting glasses that are half-way between plain safety glasses and my distance prescription… or “half a diopter less” than that prescription.
After discussing this idea with two local eyeglass sellers, both told me it is against the law to do that … without first hiring them to re-examine my eyes and write a fresh prescription.
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Man the lifeboats
Monday, May 10th, 2010The great ship of state is steaming full-speed-ahead towards a colossal iceberg. When it goes down, everyone aboard and anyone nearby will get sucked down into an icy totalitarian tomb along with it.
Unconstitutional usurpations of liberty and property are getting signed by the president of the USA so fast it is hard to keep track – and the mainstream media isn’t even trying (mostly because the legislative sponsors also own the media, but that’s another story altogether).
Just about the time I think I need to strap on my life jacket and swim away from impending doom, I find more people than I imagined launching lifeboats. This is wonderful news. I am thrilled to share bits of it with you.
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Congratulations due
Saturday, February 27th, 2010Representative Dick Harwood and several of our Idaho State Legislators are to be commended and supported for introducing House Bill 589. They now join the ranks of 24 other state legislatures considering bills that reiterate the rights described in the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution… rights that have been trampled by the federal government.
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Constitutional conundrum
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009I vacillate between the dream of a political solution that takes us nonviolently back to a Constitutional Republic and the suspicion that power once attained will never be voluntarily relinquished. The accelerating destruction of life, liberty and property by the players in Washington DC make the nonviolent solution seem further and further away.
Were a wave of my magic wand able to return the USA to the government of 1786, I’d gleefully wave away. Heck, that would probably provide liberty for the lifespans of my childrens’ children. That’s a whole lot more hope than I can imagine in our current climate.
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felony Thinking Small conviction
Friday, May 15th, 2009Today’s local paper tells of an Idaho bank robber receiving a 35-year prison sentence for thinking small. Well that, and going to the wrong schools. Had he gone to Ivy League schools and stolen a million dollars or more, he would be respected and allowed to keep every penny. Heck, he would even be paid ten times what he took in his bank robbery for every speaking engagement they can talk him into in the next few years.
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Montana stands proud
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009The Montana state legislature and governor have apparently read the US
Constitution – and are standing up for it. As of April 15th, any firearm manufactured in Montana is exempt from federal law as long as it remains in Montana.
Other states rights laws are being considered and passed. I’ll collect them and share with you soon. The story on this particular one can be read here.
Supremely Senile
Saturday, June 28th, 2008Many gun-rights advocates are celebrating the Supreme Court’s ruling against Washington DC’s current ban on personal firearms for self-defense. Unfortunately, the court has opened the door for more restrictions on self-defense and ruled against the people who would arm themselves against a tyrannical government… which was THE reason for the Second Amendment. In a ruling that a thoughtful, educated 12-year-old could have made correctly in a few sentences, nine post-retirement-aged authorities in black robes spent 157 pages of print to explain away our Constitutional right and cultural responsibility to be armed against an over-reaching government. (more…)
Supremes on Second
Friday, November 23rd, 2007Michael Badnarik invited me to co-host this morning’s show on We The People Radio Network . His is a regular M-F feature for the commute hour in Central time, 7:00 -9:00 am. Today’s topic was the Supremes’ acceptance of the opportunity to make their opinions on the 2nd Amendment public.
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SS steals Ron Paul dollars
Saturday, November 17th, 2007Friday, November 9th, the Liberty Dollar’s Evansville, Indiana offices received a two ton shipment of newly-minted one ounce coins with the image of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul on one side. One ounce, 99% silver coins are very common in the US and world, with past US politicians, rulers of other countries, comic book characters, historical figures, guns, trees and a thousand other things cast into their faces. Unless you feel threatened by Ron Paul’s presidential candidacy, there is nothing unusual here.
The following Wednesday a dozen FBI and Secret Service (SS) agents staged a raid on the Liberty Dollar’s Evansville, Indiana office at 8 a.m., confiscating all of its property, computers, records. equipment, gold, silver, platinum and about 64,000 commemorative Ron Paul coins. Of course their claimed justification for federal police action is that these coins and this business are “breaking the law”. So let’s look at the law.
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