Barry Goldwater

Earlier, I quoted Barry Goldwater's most famous quote, about vice and virtue. What follows is an excerpt from Barry Goldwater's 1964 speech at the 28th Republican National Convention, where he accepted the nomination for president and made the famous statement. Even back then, Senator Goldwater was dismissed as a loony, much like Ron Paul is being dismissed today. But his words ring true and make me wistful about how far we've fallen since the 1960's:

Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been running against freedom. Our people have followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to proven ways-- not because they are old, but because they are true. We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom - freedom made orderly for this nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature's God; freedom - balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the slavery of the prison cell; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle.

Now, we Americans understand freedom. We have earned it, we have lived for it, and we have died for it. This Nation and its people are freedom's model in a searching world. We can be freedom's missionaries in a doubting world. But, ladies and gentlemen, first we must renew freedom's mission in our own hearts and in our own homes.

During four futile years, the administration which we shall replace has distorted and lost that faith... [Oh what I would give to hear the new 2008 president say those words...]

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

Fellow Republicans, it is the cause of Republicanism to resist concentrations of power, private or public, which enforce such conformity and inflict such despotism. It is the cause of Republicanism to ensure that power remains in the hands of the people. And, so help us God, that is exactly what a Republican president will do with the help of a Republican Congress... [As we can see, the Republican Party is a mere chimera of its former self in the new millennium.]

The beauty of the very system we Republicans are pledged to restore and revitalize, the beauty of this Federal system of ours is in its reconciliation of diversity with unity. We must not see malice in honest differences of opinion, and no matter how great, so long as they are not inconsistent with the pledges we have given to each other in and through our Constitution. Our Republican cause is not to level out the world or make its people conform in computer regimented sameness. Our Republican cause is to free our people and light the way for liberty throughout the world. [This key issue--diversity--will become more important as the U.S. becomes more diverse, and the Democrats have taken away this issue from the Republicans, which has led to their success. Senator Obama's speeches show that it is his Democratic platform that seeks to "unite diversity with unity," which should be the first goal of any politician.]

Ours is a very human cause for very humane goals.

[Sigh. One day, I hope we all wake up and remember again what America stands for.]

Demographics and Future Economics

The WSJ published one of the most comprehensive articles I've ever seen on modern U.S. demographics on May 1, 2008 (page A3: "Surge in U.S. Hispanic Population Driven by Births, Not Immigration"). Here is one section from the article:

According to the Pew Research Center, whites are projected to make up only 45% of the working-age population in 2050, down from 68% in 2005. The center projects that the share of Hispanics in the working-age population will rise to 31% from 14%. The ratio of senior citizens to working-age people age 25 to 64 will grow to 411 seniors per 1,000 working-age people in 2030 from 250 per 1,000 in 2010, according to Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California.

"If you are pro-economic growth, you must be pro-immigration and pro-Hispanic, because we don't have the workers," says Donald Terry, a senior official at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington.

I won't pass up this opportunity to paraphrase Julian Bond, the most inspiring civil rights leader living today. He has said that integration and more cross-cultural understanding are essential, because today, benefits like Social Security are paid by people with names like Smith, Blake, and McAllister. In the future, however, they will be covered by people with names like Sanchez, Akeem, and Priya. Therefore, the children of the Smiths, Blakes, and McAllisters have a direct stake in seeing that the Sanchez families do well so everyone can continue having a cohesive financial net.

One issue not discussed is that many immigrants do not learn English, which limits their earning and career potential. In some neighborhoods in San Jose, I have knocked on a client's door, and will see about five people watching Telemundo in a small apartment. It is the six year old daughter, not the parent, that comes to me asking whom I want to see in English. Our ability to integrate that six year old girl is crucial to California's success, because she will have a difficult choice when she is older. Will she move away from her family into a more affluent neighborhood as her earning capacity increases, or will she stay in a poorer, less integrated neighborhood so she can assist her family? The decision to seek economic opportunities in society sometimes entails leaving the neighborhood in which you grew up. That's an easy choice if you know your parents can take care of themselves. But what if they don't speak English?

There is another, more troubling issue--any country that guarantees gun rights must ensure that its entire population is sufficiently optimistic about the future. Intuitively, people who have access to guns but no belief in a better future will pose problems.

At the end of the day, most governments "bribe" their citizens to avoid being overthrown--the question is whether such bribery takes place in the form of a promise of an unbridled, open future that leads to innovation, or in the form of enforcing a re-distributive income policy that provides expensive benefits like subsidized housing, free health care, and even free food (some governments pay for bread lines for the poor). In a capitalist system with a Second Amendment, this policy preference is no small question. If there continues to be widespread income inequality, the winds will inevitably shift to benefits and bigger government rather than less government and more freedom. And if that's the case, why not just accelerate the process and adopt European-style governance, which has more experience with administering this kind of large government? (The EU, of course, is imitating the U.S., indicating that it doesn't believe its system is working perfectly, either.)

U.S. Population Map: http://www.usgcrp.gov/usgcrp/Library/nationalassessment/images/PopMap-o.jpg

Scott Burns and Taxes

Financial journalist Scott Burns used to work for the Dallas Morning News, and now he has his own website. His most recent column explored taxes and had some interesting facts:

http://assetbuilder.com/blogs/scott_burns/archive/2008/05/02/the-truth-about-income-taxes.aspx

Here is an excerpt (published under fair use guidelines in good faith under 17 USC 504(c)(2)--these excerpts also incorporate facts publicly available)

Only 953,000 taxpayers--- about 1 percent of the total who paid taxes--- paid at the top 35 percent tax rate in 2005. They paid $315.4 billion in taxes on their $1,094 billion in income.

The most common marginal tax rate is 15 percent. That’s the rate paid by 54.4 million taxpayers...The second most common marginal tax rate is 10 percent. About 25.5 million taxpayers pay taxes at that rate...So of the two-thirds of all households that pay anything in income taxes, about three-quarters pay at 15 percent or less.

Another 22 million, 3.7 million and 1.5 million households pay income taxes at marginal rates of 25, 28 and 33 percent, respectively. In the year 2000 this top 25 percent of all taxpaying filers paid a whopping 83.6 percent of all income taxes. By 2005 they paid 85.6 percent of all taxes...

You were in the top 25 percent of taxpayers in 2005 if your taxable income exceeded $61,055.

Millions of Americans have no idea what fat cats they are.

Copyright: Scott Burns, "The Truth about Income Taxes" (2008), www.assetbuilder.com blog

Barry Goldwater

Mr. Goldwater is known as a true conservative. Here is one of his famous quotes:

I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

It's a sad day when the Democrats appear to be pro-war, while the Republicans appear to be against fiscal responsibility. The two-party system is failing America.

CA Demographics, 2008 Population Growth

Some people were contesting my earlier statement that California, for the first time in years, was losing population. They were technically correct--it appears that CA is still experiencing population growth, but at a reduced rate. My overall point remains the same--with fewer people, California will most likely receive less tax revenue. See this link:

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/BudgetSummary/ImagePages/FG-DEM-01.html

The budget website is quite interesting to review. Tax dollars are being sent into K-12 education services more than any other area:

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/agencies.html

http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/StateAgencyBudgets/6010/6110/spr.html

So the next time California teachers ask you for more money, keep in mind that most of your tax dollars already go to their schools, especially if you pay property taxes. As a result of these outlays, which are very hard to reduce, California is one of the few states projected to have budget gaps between two and eleven billion dollars in 2009. The only other states in this ignominious category? Florida, Nevada, New Jersey, and Arizona. See

http://www.ncsl.org/bookstore/productDetail.htm?prodid=0151010153pdf

Something must be done about our K-12 schools. Vouchers, anyone? (At least for a start...)

Thomas Paine

So many people have mangled Thomas Paine's famous saying, I feel the need to quote it properly. See Rights of Man (1791):

When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.

Actually, the incorrect quotation does sound better: "The World is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."

The Anti-Imperalist League

Yes, such a group actually existed back in the day, and Mark Twain was a member. Below is part of the Anti-Imperialist League's mission statement, which refers to the American annexation of the Philippines and the Philippine-American War:

We deny that the obligation of all citizens to support their Government in times of grave National peril applies to the present situation. If an Administration may with impunity ignore the issues upon which it was chosen, deliberately create a condition of war anywhere on the face of the globe, debauch the civil service for spoils to promote the adventure, organize a truth suppressing censorship and demand of all citizens a suspension of judgment and their unanimous support while it chooses to continue the fighting, representative government itself is imperiled.

We hold, with Abraham Lincoln, that "no man is good enough to govern another man without that man's consent. When the white man governs himself, that is self-government, but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government--that is despotism." "Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men in all lands. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it."

Boston, 1899