Libertarian Girl

On my recent trip to Austria, I was amazed to find that dogs were allowed in restaurants. Not just Paris Hilton-style lapdogs, either. I’m talking huge German shepherds and Rottweilers, walking around the restaurants and pubs, on no leash.

No one except my American companions and I paid them any mind, as if it was completely a normal, everyday thing.

This leads to two questions: Why does Europe, of all places, allow huge dogs in restaurants when they are so highly regulated in other areas?

and

Why doesn’t America, land of the free and home of the brave and a country of dog lovers, not allow even small dogs in restaurants?

It turns out that this is not due to restaurant owners’ choice, or any problems with hygiene, but because of an FDA recommendation the whole nation abides by because states adopt the FDA Food Code. The reasons given are that the dogs could pee on floors and that people might pet the dogs and then prepare food. Toddlers and old people can pee on floors as well, but we don’t ban them, do we? I have never heard of an outbreak of restaurant diseases in Europe do to people bringing their dogs inside, have you?

It’s common practice not just in Austria but in all of Europe to bring dogs into restaurants of any level of service.

So the next time you think that Europe is more highly regulated than the United States, just think of all those poor little friendy puppies recommended by our federal government and forced by our states and localities to be left at home in order for their owners to patronize restaurants, while European dogs lie quietly under the table.

Many people say that the skyrocketing cost of health care in America is due to America having a “free market” in health care– we certainly don’t– or that there is not enough regulation of the system.

I disagree, and here is one direct way to lower healthcare costs.

Why don’t we make all those who lose malpractice lawsuits (or, better yet, all lawsuits) pay the court costs of the plaintiff? We often see people hold up European countries’ healthcare systems as models we should be aping, but what about their court systems, too? Europe doesn’t have any problems with wasteful or frivolous lawsuits because if the plaintiff loses, he or she pays all court costs of the defendant.

Therefore, if someone doesn’t have a rock solid case in which they definitely experienced malpractice, they won’t initiate a case in the first place, and this will save doctors and insurance companies– and the American consumer– millions of dollars.

Every time you go to the doctor and can’t believe the bill you get, it’s because you’re also contributing to that doctor’s insurance costs, which could amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Of course, John Edwards and his trial-lawyer brethren will fight against it, but if we really wanted to make a difference and get healthcare for the “two Americas,” this would be an excellent way to do it.

Why should a lifelong Democrat choose country over party, principles over complacency, true progressivism over lip service and vote for William “BJ” Lawson over my current congressman, incumbent David Price?

Congressman David Price of North Carolina’s 4th District has:

• Voted for a $700 billion taxpayer-financed bailout of Wall Street billionaires. That’s reason enough right there to vote Mr. David Price out of office, but I will continue.
• Voted for the PATRIOT Act, oy vey! And just when you thought he couldn’t get any worse…
• Voted to raid the Social Security trust fund to spend money this country doesn’t have on various projects, including other members’ (and his own) incessant pork barrel requests.
• Votes for war funding.
• Thrown civil liberties to the wind when he voted for FISA, the bill that gave immunity to telecom companies that spied on their innocent customers for the government, unconstitutionally.

One of Lawson’s county coordinators is Rev. Ray McKinnon, a hardcore Democrat who met Dr. Lawson while campaigning for Hillary. No, BJ Lawson is not your typical Republican. While Price usually wins the district by 65%, polls have him at less than 50% with 10% undecided. Meanwhile, while Price hid from his constituents during the bailout fiasco, Lawson was bringing serious money in from Americans angry at the bailout, to the tune of over $170,000 in ONE DAY, which simply must be a record for North Carolina.

Because I am “Libertarian Girl,” some people assume some things about me. I am not a member of the Libertarian Party, and I go across partisan rhetoric to support issues, not groups. I receive solicitations in the mail from both Republicans and Democrats due to the wide range of causes I support and organizations that I’m a member of; I’ve gotten signed photos of McCain and Palin and letters begging support from Hillary.

I’m not a Libertarian, a Republican, or a Democrat, but I’ve voted for all three at times. As an election judge in this district the last primary cycle, I noticed that many voting Democratic took care to maintain their independent status, not wanting to be listed as a Democrat. This is a stance I can respect, voting for the person and the issues, not the party. According to an interview on Live Free Radio earlier this week, Lawson said an Orange County Democrat was hesitant to give her support, but came back the next day at Festifall and said, “After reading about you and your stance on the issues, I’d vote for you even if you were a member of the Communist Party.” Who could say the same about David Price, the disappearing act who won’t answer a simple question of: Does he read bills before he votes on them?

I hope there are many Democrats in the Fourth District who vote for who will really represent them and their interests in Congress, and that would be a vote for BJ Lawson.

I voted for David Price the last time he was up for re-election, but this time I will be glad to vote for a true man of the people, for a man who is not red or blue but American… BJ Lawson.

Therefore, I officially endorse BJ Lawson for the Fourth District congressional race, if you have not already figured this out. And it’s not because his kids are so darn cute, it’s because of the Constitutional principles that he is running on.

A group living near the California-Oregon border is fed up with both states and wants to secede to create the 51st state, the “State of Jefferson.”

The movement is not just a modern one:

“Talking about secession has been a quasi-joking conversational saw since 1941, when five counties in the area started things by actually declaring themselves - briefly - to be the state of Jefferson. But now, with the economy in trouble and unemployment soaring, the idea of greater independence is getting its most serious consideration since World War II.

The residents of the 12 California and Oregon counties have legitimate gripes with big government and specific plans on how they could do it all better:

Locals complain that federal and state regulators have hampered the fishing and timber industries to protect forestlands and endangered species such as sucker fish and the spotted owl. Jobs are so scarce that the median income in the area is only two-thirds that of the rest of the state. Most water from the rainy Shasta region is shipped south, with little economic benefit to the area. Even the California sales tax draws sneers.

If they ran their own state, the reasoning goes, folks in Siskiyou, Modoc and the other potential Jefferson counties could whack the red tape from both federal and state officials and get rid of the sales tax.

In a statement that shows these counties are right on with their criticisms of the state governments being out of touch with their concerns, Gov. Schwarzenegger says he’s never heard of them before:

“‘Never heard of Jefferson,’ said Aaron McLear, spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. ‘We are going to decline comment.’”

To those who might think that the state of Jefferson will be another Puerto Rico, living off federal government handouts, one Jeffersonian assures:

“We aren’t looking for handouts. We want to utilize our resources wisely, especially the renewable ones. We have power; water, wood fueled, geothermal, solar wind, bio diesel and algea. We can make a living from good honest work, not by confiscating dollars through taxes, user fees etc.

Our government would be lean and mean; A government of by and for the people.”

That would certainly be a new concept for America today. Good luck to them.

One thing that disgusted me equally about Sarah Palin and Joe Biden last night was their proclamation of a “passion” and deep, abiding “love” for a foreign country during an American presidential campaign.

I turned to those watching with me and said, “Could they get away with saying that about any of our other allies? Imagine Biden saying, ‘I’ve been England’s greatest supporter during my 30 years in the US Senate’ or ‘I wouldn’t have joined Barack Obama on this ticket if he didn’t share with me a passion for England.’”

Of course, no at-home swing voter mentioned this in the post-debate follow-ups, the mainstream media hasn’t touched it, and it seems to be perfectly acceptable in America today to love a foreign country, but only if it’s a certain foreign country. I’m glad to see that at least Glenn Greenwald, a very smart guy, was thinking the exact same thing I did during this exchange.

Could Sarah Palinget away with saying “I’m glad to see that we both love Spain” or “I’m so glad you love France, too” during an American debate like this? Just think about it for a minute, and you realize how absurd it is.

I don’t like Sarah Palin that much (not nearly as much as some people do anyway), and I don’t like Joe Biden, D-MBNA. Having said that, I don’t see how anyone could think Biden won the debate last night.

There is no doubt that Joe Biden is more articulate than Sarah Palin. However, almost nothing he says makes any actual sense.

Biden doesn’t know basic economics, history and doesn’t give a donkey’s arse about the Constitution. Biden misrepresents himself and what he stands for habitually: this is a guy who was all for invading Iraq if the UN had gone for it (and cheered Bush on with early invasion plans) and now pretends he’s Bush’s worst enemy and implies he was against it all along. This is the Joe Biden who created the completely unconstitutional position of the drug czar, which has spurred the growth of an agency which takes billions from those middle-class people Biden says he loves so much. It’s also put many of them in jail. This is the guy who may want to keep the vice-president’s office in the executive branch, but doesn’t care about expanding federal power over everything in your life under the auspices of “interstate commerce.”

As I always say, if you’re articulate and can speak well, you can get elected to office in this country even if you’re mentally insane, a habitual liar, a serial exaggerator or even a murderer. Voters simply go by what feels good to them at the moment, and a good speaker will fool them every time. Someone with real intellect and substance but no speaking ability won’t get out of the gate. Biden is a plagiarist, but it doesn’t matter because he’s “cool, calm and collected” after 30 years of taxpayer-funded practice, and his staffers can filter the facts on Wikipedia.

I also object to those who have stated that Gwen Ifill was perfectly objective despite her forthcoming Obama book. One of her first questions concerned whether “greedy lenders” or “risky homebuyers” contributed more to the subprime mortgage mess. That is a Hillary Clinton stump line if I’ve ever heard one. The home buyers who were buying houses way out of their leagues were also quite greedy in wanting to live in McMansions they couldn’t afford, and the lenders who were “trying to let people live the American Dream” (as Obama and Biden would put it) were also just being “risky.” That wasn’t the only completely partisan question she asked that night, although she did criticize Joe Biden at one point, a decision I’m sure came into play after she received so much criticism in the run-up to the debate. Another question talked about “debt-strapped mortageholders” and “some people have said that mortgageholders paid the price”– in other words, people who (like the Wall Street billionaires) made bad decisions and are now suffering for it who want other people who didn’t make those bad decisions to give them money.

Palin was excellent in her answer to that question, using a light touch to tell people that they need to learn lessons and not be taken advantage of again and pay attention to their parents’ admonitions to not live beyond their means. She also said that government needed to be more efficient, something Obama is big on but Biden didn’t mention this time around. Tax raises mean that jobs will be cut and the private economy will suffer as the public sector becomes more bloated and inefficient.

Biden’s mantra for the night was “John said, ‘Deregulate, deregulate.’” That alone is quite enough to turn someone away from voting for his ticket, as if deregulation is the problem and as if deregulation is a bad thing. Obama says the same thing, but not to this extent.

Biden did get one hit in when he said that he agreed with Palin’s tax raises on oil companies and McCain wanted to get them tax breaks. I give him props for that, but she got back at him when she said that Biden had offered to run on McCain’s ticket. She made the point that raising taxes on oil companies was good and set Biden up to hit his home run. Palin missed a chance to deliver a knockout when she talked about what she’d done in Wasilla, Alaska to improve it and Biden talked about how Wilmington, Delaware was hurting right now. She could’ve pointed out that she’d improved her hometown but after 30 years in Congress, he hadn’t done much to help his.

I am starting to finally buy into this “liberal media bias” thing. Here are two egregious examples from a quick search of the news.

According to The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Biden provided “oodles of details, numbers and records in his answers” which “might win over intellects,” which ignores the fact that many of his “oodles of numbers and records” were completely wrong. Why would intellects fall for that, and why would intellects be any less into Palin’s arguing that people, for instance, should be smart enough next time not to fall for predatory lenders, rather than flocking for Biden’s argument that these mortgage-holders were too dumb to figure it out for themselves and therefore need to be “saved” by taxpayers?

The Baltimore Sun television critic believes it “is hard to imagine any rational human being not thinking Joe Biden delivered one of the most solid and winning debate performances in recent presidential history… the question is whether facts, reason and logic can win out on TV over attitude and image, which is what Palin’s performance was all about.” Hmm, so Biden is all facts, reason and logic while Palin is all image? I’m beginning to believe that there is a mainstream media liberal bias. Rather than even giving Palin credit for being tolerant of same-sex couples, he says she doesn’t know the Republican position on gays and that evengelicals must have fallen “right out of their seats” when they heard. What the hell?

Ways in which Biden stretched the truth (and ways in which they both did):

McCain did not say he was “surprised” by subprime mortgages last December.
McCain did not say he wants the health care deregulated, only that insurance should be allowed to be bought over state lines.
McCain did not vote the same way Obama did on the tax-raising vote– he didn’t vote at all.
McCain does not only want to give Exxon Mobil a tax cut, but he wants to cut the general business tax rate for all corporations.
Obama has said that he would consider meeting with Iran’s president without precondition; Biden claimed Obama had not said this. It’s not a bad thing, anyway.
We didn’t kick Hezbollah out of Lebanon, and neither did France. Nobody has.

You can almost never go to a bank without seeing it. You can’t see a bank commercial without hearing it. “Insured by FDIC.”

The bailout bill that the Senate will vote on tonight is different than the one the House voted down two days ago. It raises the FDIC cap from $100,000 to $250,000, among other token measures.

I didn’t really start noticing the propoganda about the FDIC until I realized how worthless it was, after my own bank, Netbank, failed a year ago. The FDIC facilitated ING’s purchase of what was Netbank, which is the only thing of worth that they do.

They just can’t insure every American’s personal accounts up to $250,000. The fact that actual senators (or more likely, their staffs) have inserted this into a Congressional bill is perpetrating a fraud.

In isolated incidents such as that of Netbank, another bank will buy the failed bank’s holdings and make good on them, just like ING did. In a rash of closings like those we have seen, the government may “have” to do it because it’s not financially sound, but they won’t be able to. The FDIC was created to prevent runs on banks, and because some people trust the FDIC, it may in fact help prevent that.

However, if there is any type of massive failed bank situation where millions of Americans want the FDIC to pony up, it won’t be able to. It doesn’t have the funds, despite collecting premiums from banks all along. It doesn’t have $100,000 for every $100,000 customer, let alone $250,000. It has $50 billion ($8 billion of which went for IndyMac) to insure $1 trillion in deposits.

Note: Libertarian Girl is off to Europe, but while she’s away she’ll be updating with previously written posts about politics and life in the places she’s visiting. She’ll soon be back to her regularly scheduled Libertarian Girl programming.

Today I’ll be flying from Venice into Paris, where I don’t think I can escape from seeing the Louvre again. The Louvre has a vast collection, but one of its most famous paintings within pop culture is Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix.

You can see why.

It’s appropriate, because the Louvre was one of the first state art collections to be opened to the public; the privilege of seeing this artwork was considered to be one of the true benefits of the French Revolution and the more free and open society that resulted in the end.

Liberte, Equalite, Fraternite!

Note: Libertarian Girl is off to Europe, but while she’s away she’ll be updating with previously written posts about politics and life in the places she’s visiting. She’ll soon be back to her regularly scheduled Libertarian Girl programming.

You can’t get very far in Austria without being reminded of the country’s Nazi past. Austria was invaded by Germany, although it accepted the invasion willingly at the time. Today, the country has erected a “Monument Against War and Fascism” in its capital city, Vienna, to commemorate victims of violence in all wars, but especially those who died at the hands of the Nazis during World War II. Many Austrian Jews, including the preeminent economist Ludwig von Mises, were forced to flee under the threat of being sent to concentration camps.

Austria learned that it is sometimes best not to take sides in a war, because you may very well be siding with evil.

One particular statue included in the Monument Against War and Fascism includes an image of Orpheus burying his head in the stone on the way to the underworld. According to Rick Steves, it “reminds Austrians (and the rest of us) of the consequences of not keeping their government on track.”

Steves goes on to write:

In 1955, after 10 years of joint occupation by the victorious Allies, Austria regained total independence on the condition that it would be forever neutral (and never join NATO or the Warsaw Pact). To this day, Austria is outside of NATO (and Germany).

Perhaps we in other countries could take a lesson from Austria in this way. Why do we need NATO? Why do we need countries meddling in other countries’ business? Austria allowed Germany to take it over because the Austrians thought they were doing the best thing possible for Austria.

Perhaps other countries are making these same mistakes right now. Yesterday I left Vienna for Innsbruck, but this particular lesson is not one that can be left behind.

Note: Libertarian Girl is off to Europe, but while she’s away she’ll be updating with previously written posts about politics and life in the places she’s visiting. She’ll soon be back to her regularly scheduled Libertarian Girl programming.

The Vienna Opera House is beautiful for sure, and it sells out virtually every performance far in advance. However, it never makes money and is kept going solely through the ongoing support of the Austrian government.

Freidrich Hayek might have agreed that the state could support certain industries as long as it did not hold a monopoly, specifically citing the Vienna Opera House, but Milton Friedman and I I still think it’s generally a bad idea.

To give you an idea of how bad the situation is for the Vienna Opera in regards to making a profit, the only time the Opera actually turns a profit is when there are no operas– the annual Vienna Opera Ball.

How can an independent opera house ever hope to compete with an opera house supported by the entire tax base of Austria?

How can an opera survive if one the likes of the Vienna Opera cannot turn a profit?

Should the state be involved in this sort of thing at all?

What do you think?