Monday, March 22, 2010

Unalienable Duties

Everyone talks about their rights, but not about their duties. Here is a list of our unalienable duties under natural law.

The duty to honor the supremacy of the Creator and his laws.
The duty not to take the life of another except in self-defense.
The duty not to steal or destroy the property of another.
The duty to be honest in all transactions with others.
The duty of children to honor and obey their parents and elders.
The duty of parents and elders to protect, teach, feed, clothe, and provide shelter for children.
The duty to support law and order and keep the peace.
The duty not to contrive through a covetous heart to despoil another.
The duty to provide insofar as possible for the needs of the helpless, the sick, the crippled, the injured and the poverty stricken.
The duty to honorably perform contracts and covenants both with God and man.
The duty to be temperate.
The duty to become economically self-sufficient.
The duty not to trespass on the property or privacy of another.
The duty to maintain the integrity of the family structure.
The duty to perpetuate the race.
The duty not to promote or participate in the vices which destroy personal and community life.
The duty to perform civic responsibilities - vote, assist public officials, serve in official capacities when called upon, stay informed on public issues, volunteer where needed.
The duty not to aid or abet those involved in criminal or anti-social activites.
The duty to support personal and public standards of common decency.
The duty to follow rules of moral rectitude.

Unalienable Rights

The Declaration of Independence stated 3 of our unalienable rights under natural law.

The did not state all of them, so here are some more.

The right to:
self-government
bear arms for self-defense
own, develop, and dispose of property
make personal choices
free conscience
choose a profession
choose a mate
beget one's kind
assemble
petition
free speech
free press
enjoy the fruits of one's labors
improve one's position through barter and sale
contrive and invent
privacy
provide personal security
provide nature's necessities - air, food, water, clothing, shelter
a fair trial
free association
contract

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Realpolitik

No workout today. Had to make a compromise between working out and politics. The decision was not hard.

I have been casually studying Austrian Economic Theory over the past year with information from the Mises Institute. After the TARP program and the the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were passed, I asked myself, "Johnny, if you were broke, would you spend more money?" The answer is a resounding no, not only for me but for most anyone. Keynesian Economic Theory, says that government should and I disagree with it. Keynesian Economics is what we were taught in schools, so most folks think yea, this is a good theory. Whereas, in fact, it is not. See Where Keynes Went Wrong. Glenn Beck was all for the stimulus act and said it should be even bigger than it was. Beck is a douche bag. Around the same time, the Tea Party movement began. Which in my opinion, was basically an offshoot of the ideas about fiscal conservatism that began to become popular during Ron Paul's campaign in 2008. The Republican Party has a fissure between the old Bush Republicans, i.e. Sara Palin / Rick Perry / Mitt Romney and the Ron Paulian view for the Republican Party of classical liberalism. The outcome of this fissure and how it is resolved will ultimately make or break the Republican Party which, historically, going back to Lincoln is a party of coalitions. Ron Paul's view is essentially a Libertarian / classical liberal view grounded in the Subjective Theory of Value and a non-interventionist foreign policy.
Let me state, for the record, the Ron Paulian view is the view that I support as opposed to the Bush Republican view of big spending, neo-conservatism and compassionate conservatism. Which, in fact, is not a conservative position at all. The old Republicans and the Democrats are two sides of the same coin. So we look at Democrats with their current view on health-care. Is this really any different than the Bismark's realpolitik stance on domestic policy? Does anyone have any idea why Bismark developed state socialism? It was basically a counter-weight to the communistic movements that were sweeping across Europe with it's Marxist Labor Theory of Value which was totally invalidated by Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk. This counter-weight was implemented first and foremost to preserve the power of the Prussian King. Communism, Socialism, and Fascism are really one in the same only differing in matters of degree. This position is elegantly laid out by Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism.

With all of the above being mentioned, let me get to tonight. I found out after the polls closed for the primary elections, they have the precinct conventions for each party. My precinct is #4083 with 7xx voters registered as Republicans. All registered voters who vote in the primary elections can attend the precinct convention and select delegates to the Senatorial District Convention who in turn select delegates for the State Convention for the Republican Party. In addition to selecting delegates at each level to represent the party, resolutions can be proposed and voted upon, which help to determine the Republican Party of Texas Platform. Curiosity, got the better of me, so I decided, what the hell, I'll go check it out. I printed out quite a bit of information so I would have an idea of how the meetings are run, etc.. Also, I armed myself with resolutions to present from the campaign of Debra Medina. Well, what was merely meant as cursory overview of the process, devolved into me being the only person who showed up for my precinct. So, I did what I do naturally. I ran with it. I nominated my self precinct chairman of the precinct convention and secretary. Which basically meant that I had to fill out all the paper work, submit and vote on the resolutions I brought, and nominate myself to represent my precinct at the Senatorial District Convention on March 20th. The only bad part is that I had a 50k scheduled in Birmingham, Alabama that same day. I think i will pass on the race and cancel my plane ticket to go to the convention.
Basically, this is a way to work within the current system, hopefully to advocate the Ron Paulian views for the party at the county and state level. Who knows what will happen, but the current course of the party, the Bush Republican course is a dead end road.

The future of our country can go to ways, towards more Stateism, or we can choose to re-adopt the classical liberal values of our founders.

I choose freedom. I don't need any baby sitters.

Monday, March 1, 2010

A case of the Mondays?

Alright, good weekend. Went to Austin on Sunday did a crazy monkey run with Josue. It rocked we jumped off cliffs, swam the creek a few times, ran up hills, climbed trees, jumped over shit, under shit, and climbed up grapevines! Freakin crazy man. All in VFF Treks, 16oz of water and a little bit of cane syrup. For 3.5 hours. I had some low blood sugar towards the end, I only had a small yogurt for Breakfast.

Saturday after noon, a visit with my coach Joe. All is well, not gonna do Tahoe 100 or Bear 100 this year after talking with him. Gonna focus on HardRock, Leadville, and Gila. Also though, I signed up for Fuego Y Agua. Should be fun, the RD is good people and some of the Austin folks that are going are also good folks.

Saturday night, I went to see a piece by Chopin at the Majestic in San Antonio. I was tired, and didn't pay for parking, so I was anxious the whole freakin time. Decided to go to Cowboys dancehall afterwards. I got a cab over there and a cab home, prob had 8 beers and some vodka shots. I felt like shit all day Sunday, like SHIT man! That's how it goes, I slept most of the day. I am gonna try to go all week w/o beer until the Nueces Marathon on Saturday. Lets see what happens.

Today, 8.5 miles did the firs 7 in an hour, then slowed a bit. Total time was 1:15:31. Came out to a 8:49 pace overall, put in some hills, and ran pretty leisurely was trying to keep the AVG HR down, ended up with 151 AVG 170 MAX, but only hit that twice. Something may be wrong with my HR monitor. I look at it sometimes in the middle of a run and it will read 43 or 36 or some crazy shit. Who knows, maybe I am freak of nature, or maybe this thing is a piece of crap-ola! It's a Polar F11. It doesn't stay like that, just for a few seconds maybe 15sec max. Anybody ever hear of anything like that happening? I was really glad about my run today, being as I wasn't going to go. But I was like man, you got to start bumping up your mileage, you big pussy. So I says, Johnny, git yer ass our there and make it happen. Sometimes when you get a run going, it gets better. Not this time, with this crappy as front that started blowing in this afternoon. When is winter going to be over? Got dammit.