United Liberty

As we head into another end-of-the-year budget debate with Congress arguing in terms of “crisis”… This fantastic video from Steven Crowder puts what the public really thinks in perspective.

As Matt Lewis reported in The Daily Caller, noted jazz recording artist and libertarian activist Christian Josi teamed up with Smithereens frontman Pat DiNizio to create a new Christmas single, “Holiday 2012.”

Josi once ran the American Conservative Union and the CPAC Conference, the largest annual gathering of right-of-center activists. DiNizo is also politically activate and once ran for Senate in New Jersey. They first met 24 years ago on the L.A. set of The Smithereens video ‘House We Used To Live In.” At the time, Josi was co-producing an episode of former KROQ personality Jim “Poorman” Trenton’s local TV show.

The new single is the classic, ‘Winter Wonderland,’ with ’White Christmas’ as the B-side (there are 2 bonus versions with no percussion.)

“While I’m a rock-n-roll songwriter and singer, I’m not a screamer, said DiNizio. “And what Christian does — is he’s keeping that important tradition alive. He’s very much a purest.”

Performed by lovers of limited government, it is a relaxed recording of the Christmas classic which you will definately want to add to your office or family Christmas party playlist.

The album will be avilable on CD Baby, iTunes, and many other outlets this week.

After a tough campaign season for Republicans the budget debates in the lame duck congress are heating up, and it is up to the majority in Congress to hold the line with fiscally conservative principles.

One of those men in the fight is Rep. Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump, Tennessee, which is a city so small that Google Maps doesn’t list it.

Rep. Fincher isn’t an average congressman. He is a cotton and soybean farmer who worked hard instead of going to college. In fact, Fincher hadn’t even been to Washington, D.C., until he started his campaign.

As he told NPR last year, “I expected to get off the airplane and see the smartest people in the world. But what I realized was a lot of those guys ain’t got sense enough to get out of the rain.”

Fincher stars in the new video from National Republican Congressional Committee, in their “This is America” campaign, which reminds us that many “people in Washington have forgotten that the people and the heartbeat of America is in the heartland of America.”

Below is the transcript:

STEPHEN FINCHER: The first day that we were in session in Washington, we read the Constitution from the floor of the House. And we had an hour debate on which version of the Constitution we were going to read. And it’s been a fight ever since.

Dorian Electra, a lover of Austrian economics who became an internet sensation after her “I’m in Love with Friedrich Hayek” music video, has done it again!

In “FA$T CA$H: Easy Credit & the Economic Crash,” Electra tells a cautionary tale about monetary stimulus in a catchy pop-song. Enjoy:

Here are the lyrics:

The economy is tricky, it’s a coordination game.
Like driving on the highway, knowing when to switch your lane.
Traffic lights coordinate those who go and stop.
The price of credit coordinates those who save and shop.

CHORUS:
That fast, fast, cash how fast can you get it?
Pump that gas, gas, gas, inject easy credit.
But will it last? Or will you regret…
The market crash, crash, crash, and don’t you forget it.

If consumers save up, it means they’re more willing
To wait before spending, before shedding a shilling.
What they put into banks, the banks can now lend.
Banks lower interest rates to get producers to spend.

Producers borrow big, when that interest rate’s low.
To start up big projects that take a while to grow.
They assume the low rate means consumers want to wait
Saving up for big, big purchases at a later date.

[CHORUS]

From Reason.TV, Nick Gillespie- the “Fonzie of Freedom” interviews Greg Gutfeld on his new book, The Joy of Hate: How to Triumph over Whiners in the Age of Phony Outrage, why liberals can’t stand punk rockers with conservative politics, and deep-vein thrombosis in Melville’s Moby-Dick.

A long title, and a hilarious guy:

I can not express just how uninterested I am in Black Friday shopping. Long lines and the potential for violence is not worth a cheap TV. Nor do I feel like a corporation with balance sheets the size of many countries needs much defending, especially as they lobby for regulatory favors or for internet taxes.

However, Walmart, for all of its faults, probably does more for America’s less fortunate than any social program. Their food is 20%-40% cheaper than most grocery stores and offer supplies of cheap goods to communties which need them. And as we begin President Obama’s 2nd term, its clear unions are gunning for profitable companies and will force them into funding their political activities, while consumers suffer.

Peter Suderman, senior editor for Reason.com, on Saturday used Twitter to lay out his observations on the big box giant. His points are reasonable and brilliant:

Really enjoyed talking Walmart and Black Friday on @upwithchris [MSNBC’s Chris Hayes] this morning. I’m going to add a few stray observations on twitter.

1. Walmart’s customer base is heavily concentrated in the bottom income quintile, which spends heavily on food.

2.The bottom income quintile spends about 25 percent of income on food compared to just 3.5 percent for the top quintile.

3. So the benefits of Walmart’s substantially lower prices to the lowest earning cohort are huge, especially on food.

4. Obama adviser Jason Furman has estimated the welfare boost of Walmart’s low food prices alone is about $50b a year.

5. Walmart’s wages are about average for retail. Not amazing. But not the worst either.

Coke is made with corn syrup, not real sugar. Why is this? According to Professor Diana Thomas in this LearnLiberty.org video, part of the reason is because government policies artificially raise the price of sugar.

Although these government policies actually cost Americans approximately $3 billion each year, the laws remain. The law benefits one group of people (farmers) at the expense of another group (consumers). But because the cost to each American is so small, average Americans don’t have an incentive to combat the lobbying groups who fight to keep the laws in place.

This phenomenon is known as “dispersed costs and concentrated benefits,” and it applies in many cases when laws are passed that benefit a small group of citizens. Prof. Thomas says the only way to prevent or end this practice is to limit what government can do.

If you find a small Mexican grocery store in your neighborhood, you may be able to find some bottles which include actual sugar, as that’s how it’s sold south of the boarder. It has a very different taste, which we would be used to if not for the power of big government and powerful interests more than trippling the actual cost of sugar.

Is the free market morally superior or inferior to other economic systems? If it’s morally superior, what makes it so? If it’s morally inferior, do we need greater government control of the economy?

In the latest video produced by Prager University, Walter Williams, renowned Professor of Economics at George Mason University, faces these questions head on and with bracing clarity:

PA State Rep. Jesse White

After the Citizens United Supreme Court case, loud advocates protested that corporations will have exessive influence in our politics. But as we saw on election night, campaigns with nearly unlimited budgets still can not win if voters don’t approve of the candidates.

However, there is something pernicious about campaign donations, that politicans often avoid, as it involves their own fundraising practices.

This case out of Pennslyvania is a fascinating, but not unique example of how fundraising often happens:

An ardent critic of the impact of gas drilling, state Rep. Jesse White of Washington County once enjoyed a cozy relationship with Range Resources Inc. — asking for a corporate plane ride to a Super Bowl and complaining the driller didn’t give him enough campaign money, emails between the lawmaker and company show.

In late 2011, White and Range executives in Cecil began battling publicly over Marcellus shale gas drilling. Just last week, Range canceled a private meeting with Cecil officials when White said he would attend.

Range says it wants to expose a lawmaker who tried to strong-arm the company and continues to challenge its Pennsylvania business dealings. This month, White urged several agencies to investigate the state’s handling of contamination tests at a Range drill site.

The Young Americans for Liberty hosted a debate at Montclair State University. During the question and answer section, the debater representing the liberal position claimed that communist Russia was not responsible for any deaths.

Professor Grover Furr insisted in the face of student questioning that Joseph Stalin was not responsible for the genocide for which he’s infamous.

In college I remember running into supposedly enlightened Trotskyites who would timidly defend the Soviet Union through claims of bias in American history books. But this is taking it to a new level.

According to a Soviet weekly newspaper, Stalin killed roughly 40,000,000 people. Communism, with its disregard of the primacy of the individual, is a brutal, immoral philosophy leading to upwards of 100,000,000 deaths, according to the Big Black Book of Communism.

Furr, who has authored several books on the topic of Marxism, also insisted that the United States has the lowest standard of living among industrialized developed countries.

This should be a reminder as to why conspiracy theories and fringe voices must be ignored. The ability to think this way is a dangerous form of insanity.