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Weiner Admits It’s His Weiner

Big shocker! It turns out a politician actually lied, who would have guessed? The question is: should he resign over it? A caller to Free Talk Live says yes while Ian Freeman says it’s no worse than what every other politician does (hint: lies and steals) and so they should all be forced to resign.

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Technology Part 3 – Future Forecast

The one thing that contributes most to the advancement of mankind and improves living conditions is technology. Technology isn’t just the newest electronic gizmo that you use once a month. I’m talking about automobiles. Personal computers. Aircraft. Cell phones. The kinds of things that make the world go round. The kinds of things that allow most Americans to work a 9-5 job and come home and relax rather than working 16+ hours per day just to hunt/gather food and water for their family.

The fact is, we really don’t know what the future holds. Just like people couldn’t foresee the dramatic change that automobiles would bring (shifting our fears of excessive horse dung to global warming) we can’t really make any real predictions as to what the future brings. No one could imagine the amazing affects the internet would have on the entire world (remote parts of Africa now have internet access even) and yet we’re still in the infant stage.

Osama is Dead. War over?

Now that Osama is gone, the question remains: will this have any effect on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? We went in to Afghanistan under the premise that we have to go after bin Laden. Turns out bin Laden was in Pakistan. Does this mean we’re going to leave Afghanistan? Did getting rid of Saddam Hussein have anything to do with getting us out of Iraq? Exactly.

Here’s video of Jessica Lynch herself admitting the Pentagon story was fake.  And here’s a great article with video showing the truth and lies surrounding the Lynch and Tillman stories.  I didn’t see this before my podcast but I wouldn’t claim to be the first one linking these two stories that started out as amazing stories of heroism and ended up being lies with this idea of “why should we believe the liars now?”

As Adam Kokesh details: bin Laden’s goal was to bankrupt our government the same way our CIA trained him to successfully bankrupt Russia.  9/11 cost the terrorits a few hundred thousand dollars at most, and (to what the government will admit at least) the U.S. government spent over $1 trillion getting Osama.  Osama is nowhere near the only terrorist looking for America’s demise.  Even in death, Osama has succeeded.

One Person, Multiple Perceptions

I remember even in middle school realizing how different people perceive me differently.  The easiest example, of course, is how your parents perceive you vs. how your friends perceive you.  Many people are on their best behavior around their parents.  Not so much around their friends.

I often wonder how these different perceptions affect how others see me.  Today I got a good reminder of that at work.

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Eternal Torture

I did a little rambling in the beginning of this podcast but eventually got to my point: the idea of eternal torture in Hell.

Yeah, nice topic huh?

It sprung up on Free Talk Live today and I happened to hear a podcast of Stephan Molyneux’s today (Freedomainradio.com) that mentioned religion so it felt like a sign.

Several callers on Free Talk Live talked about religion and stated a commonly held belief: those who believe in God and believe Jesus is their savior will make it to Heaven and those who don’t believe will go to Hell.

The hosts, Ian and Meg, then asked for confirmation that if someone is “evil” and repents right before they die but someone else leads a relatively good life and doesn’t hurt others but doesn’t believe in God they automatically go to Hell?

Several callers confirmed this.

Now of course this is all speculation – no one really knows what happens after we die.  But what Ian and Meg had issues with, and it’s hard to argue against them, is that through this belief bad people can end up in eternal paradise and good people can suffer eternal torture.

And then Ian stated that he doesn’t think anyone deserves eternal torture.

My first thought, as I’m sure many would jump to this conclusion, would be to ask myself, “what about Hitler?”

But the thought sunk into my head too.  Torture.  For eternity.  Never ending.  Not just 100 years of torture.  Not just 1,000 years to make up for your sins.  Eternity.  And your sins that result in eternal damnation could be as simple as not believing?  Or not going to church enough?  Or going to the wrong church?  Seems pretty steep.

But it also makes you wonder about the worst people in the world.  No one is pure evil (except the devil himself if you believe in him).  Even murderers, rapists and thieves still lead another life that is “good” – family and friends and donating to charity and whatnot.

So the question remains: what exactly does it take to deserve an eternity of hellish torture?

The Root of the Problem

A caller to today’s “Free Talk Live” show stated he had the solution to the problem.  “The Fair Tax,” he said.

The hosts respectfully disagreed and they discussed it a bit on the show after the caller hung up.  The appeal of the Fair Tax comes in the fact that it actually will reduce taxes.  That is, if the government really did limit taxes to just a “fair” sales tax.  Most who argue in favor of a Fair Tax suggest it will land between 18 and 30 percent.  This sounds like a lot until you consider how many taxes you actually pay (for help, see this tax calculator – although it happens to be for Washington County, Oregon it will give you an idea).  In my case, I pay approximately 37.5% in taxes.  It’s not uncommon for some places (such as Los Angeles or New York City) to have rates over 50%.  That’s half of the money you make each year going to the government!

Of course it’s not all in income taxes or sales taxes.  There’s actually no sales tax in Oregon so mine would easily be close to 50% if sales taxes were enacted here.  This is insanity! 40 to 50% in taxes and the government thinks they need to raise taxes to get out of the situation they’re in?

But I digress…

If the Fair Tax was passed and the government did in fact wipe out all other taxes there would be some positive results.  Prices would drop substantially because products would be suddenly cheaper to produce, ship, and sell.  Gas prices would drop 50 cents to a dollar, utility rates would decrease and because production and transportation prices would drop, so would the price of products.  And, yes, if all we had was a 25% Fair Tax it would mean many of us would pay less in taxes.  And those who currently have more children than annual income will pay more.  This assumes that people will actually continue to shop as they traditionally do in stores and not online or through the black market.

And still ignores the root of the problem.

As the hosts on the show pointed out: this ignores the true root of the problem.  They realize that in order for government to fund a program, ANY program, it must take money from some and give it to others.  Since people must be productive in order to produce taxes, and since government is unproductive and inefficient, taxation really does reward those who truly deserve it least.

I know that sounds harsh, but the truth often is.

The issue lies in thinking the solution to the problem is more of the same.  It’s not.  Band-aids don’t fix the problem.  Band-aids just postpone it.  And if you have a serious injury and don’t get medical attention, a Band-Aid will not only not fix you, it will make things worse as the infection grows underneath.

Same can be said about refusing to get to the root of the problem.