Recently,  I had the honor of meeting Sheriff Joe Arpaio.  

This year he will celebrate his 82nd birthday and this man is still going strong.

He's implemented a program to help United States Military Veterans who've been incarcerated in his jail.

Sheriff Joe introduces segregated veterans' unit in Arizona jail

LATINOS FOR HONEST GOVERNMENT

Seek the truth – stand by the truth – live the truth.

Our agenda is to establish a government base on the truth and our Christian principles

http://www.clockofdestiny.com/sovereignty.htm

By Juan Reynoso – voteforamerica@gmail.com     Please forward this to all your friends.

We got the power to constraint the powers of this corrupt government. No man is above the law.

http://answers.usa.gov/system/templates/selfservice/USAGov/#!portal/1012/article/4204/State-Commonwealth-and-Territorial-Governments

Fellow Texans, San Antonio, Bexar county judicial system is corrupt. Unless we first look for the basic cause of government corruption, there is no way we shall be able to find its fundamental solution. JUSTICE DELAY, is no justice at all, is the ROOT CAUSE of Government Corruption. The real cause behind corruption is absence of a moral leadership, moral authority and a "respectable justice system". The facts are that the justice system is broken and the people have lost their trust on this judicial system; Justice is not for the poor and the enforcement of the rule of law against rich, prominent characters and powerful corrupt government officials is none. Our justice is "POLITICALLY ADULTERATED" which means that it is dominated by politicians who consider themselves the superior elites of society at the expense of the rights of the working poor people of Texas.

The elites of society truly believe that the poor working Texan are intellectually inferior because they, the poor, have inferior education so much so that politicians think they are the so-called "guiding light" of the poor people WHICH IS NOT TRUE. Why? Because, the lawyers and politicians, are the most notorious abusers of the law where they feel they can simply steal the people’s money and cannot be made accountable for their wrongful acts, thanks to the corrupt justice system that they can control at will.

Fellow Texans, we the people have the power and the solution to this abuse of power and corruption; therefore, we must ACTIVATE our sovereign power of the people that has been enshrined in our Texas constitution Sec. 2.  INHERENT POLITICAL POWER. REPUBLICAN FORM OF GOVERNMENT.  All political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their benefit.  The faith of the people of Texas stands pledged to the preservation of a republican form of government, and, subject to this limitation only, they have at all times the inalienable right to alter, reform or abolish their government in such manner as they may think expedient. The Texas politicians in our government have never recognized the people's sovereign power and authority, except only during election time for their election to office.

Therefore, in order to force the powerful political public officials, including the Governor, to recognize the people's power and authority, we the people must demand and be given their sovereign deciding voice in justice and keep away the deciding power of justice out of the hands of solo judges and solo prosecutors in all cases including probate, divorce and family cases. The only way to accomplish this is through a mandatory Grand Jury and Trial Jury Systems.

We the people must have a deciding voice in the investigatory and accusation phase of justice to indict in court any abusive powerful political official through the Grand Jury and, additionally, they must also have an adjudicatory deciding voice to try and convict guilty (or acquit innocent) criminal defendants in court. The people cannot be scared to decide in justice because they are not under the payroll of the government which means that their livelihood and employment with their private employers cannot be sabotaged by any "agent" or official of the government.

Fellow Texans freedom and justice is not free, we must expose corruption and demand justice for all.

http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/CN/htm/CN.1.htm

http://www.constitution.org/jcc/dcgus.htm

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/12/why-does-sovereignty-matter-to-america

http://www.clockofdestiny.com/sovereignty.htm

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/politics/article/Rummel-ahead-in-race-for-McGinty-s-vacated-seat-5289139.php

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/

http://www.quorumreport.com/Newsclips/Newsclips.cfm

http://scandallist.com/index.php/stateandlocamain

http://www.ksat.com/news/attorney-to-plead-guilty-to-bribery-charges/24824624

http://www.law360.com/texas

http://lawreport.org/ViewStory.aspx?StoryID=5361

http://www.kens5.com/news/Attorney-at-center-of-corruption-probe-a-no-show-at-hearing-for-former-client-247901411.html

http://www.angelfire.com/biz2/corruptionexposed/

http://www.courthousenews.com/aboutus.html

http://www.bexar.org/pcourt/probatecourts.htm

Over 100 cases are in federal court challenging constitutional aspects of the Affordable Care Act.  Most cases address a specific portion of the act and may alter a portion, but not overturn the entire law.

Three cases have potential to doom the entire law. These cases involve the Constitution’s Origination Clause which requires that “…bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives…”, and further provides “… the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.”  To avoid the clause the Senate employs a process to “gut and replace” a House bill and pretend it was a revenue bill originated in the House.

The Origination Clause places responsibility for tax policy with the House of Representatives whose members have the shortest terms and represent the fewest citizens. The Senate practice of “gut and replace” frustrates the Origination Clause and exercises Senate power that the Constitution denies.

Read More at:  Three Court Cases That Should Doom Obamacare

It's really sad it has come to deciding who lives and who dies...who are we as humans to decide who lives and dies? I'm sorry but the lack of four thought in this article and the bickering below is just trackless and easier to judge others behind the anonymity of one's computer screen on both sides of this 'issue' it's a non issue to myself life is life and death is death who are we to say who lives or who dies...My sisters little boy was born and man it was a joy to hold him and be made an aunt, she's a gem of a sister I'm proud of and married to the most loving husband I could hope for her...

Funny how God takes ashes and makes beautiful things out of them, and it breaks my heart because I wish others could see the trans-formative power of this...

Example: I am a graduate of mercy ministries and no longer self mutilate going on now two years (woot) with practical steps to get to the root issues and trudging through the mountain for seven months to come out the other side I am not ashamed of the healing that I have nor of the scars I bear because they are a story of grace and my own beauty for ashes story...Everyone is precious, I just wish they could see as much...

This was my response to the following article: 

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/03/hobby-lobby-supreme-court-obamacare

My Response Link

DOES ANYONE, ANYWHERE HAVE ANY INFORMATION ON AN ALLEGATION POSTED ON ANOTHER INTERNET WEBSITE THAT : DOOR TO DOOR CONFISCATIONS BY THE GOV'T WAS UNDERWAY IN CONNECTICUT...AND THAT THERE WAS A "GAG ORDER IN EFFECT" SO THAT THE MEDIA COULDN'T REPORT IT TO THE NATION ???...AND ALSO , THE GOV'T WAS INTERFERING WITH ALL EMAILS AND TEXT MESSAGES IN AND OUT OF CONNECTICUT SO THE NEWS COULDN'T GET OUT ????........

DOES ANYBODY OUT THERE HAVE ANY INFO ON THIS OR IS IT JUST A FALSE ALARM ??????....PLEASE CHECK YOUR SOURCES IN CONNECTICUT AND POST REPLIES !!!!!!!.....IF THIS IS TRUE, THE NATION NEEDS TO KNOW ASAP !!!!!!!!!!

“Mr. President, we will not let you run roughshod over our rights. We will challenge you in the courts, we will battle you at the ballot box. Mr. President, we will not let you shred our Constitution… It is decidedly not a time for the faint of heart. It is a time for boldness and action. The time is now. Stand with me, let us stand together for liberty.” – Senator Rand Paul

That message is the heart and soul of a possible Rand Paul run for the White House. He has urged us to imagine electing a President that is a “friend of liberty” who will defend the Constitution and push back against a federal government that is trampling our individual rights. Now is definitely the time for a “national revival of liberty” to restore the constitutional rights that have been under assault by the progressive cabal who have seized control of the Republic.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the junior senator from Kentucky is seriously considering a presidential run in 2016. Like any smart, potential candidate he has consistently found a way to be up front on the great debates of the day and a perpetual center of media attention.

He was a huge hit at the recent CPAC event and his appeal has continued to grow across the political spectrum in general, and within the Republican Party specifically.  After the last State of the Union address there was an official Republican Party response delivered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and an official TEA Party response delivered by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. Then there was the official Rand Paul response by Senator Rand Paul. Who expected any less? Rand Paul is increasingly a movement all his own and his appeal is not constrained by the more traditional, and even newer, political power blocs.

Paul shot to national prominence when he led a filibuster against the nomination of John O. Brennan as CIA director and dared to question the “right” of the Obama administration to order drone strikes on US citizens on American soil. His rise and popularity has continued unabated since then. The message he has crafted and the image he has cultivated has helped to bridge the gap between the libertarian and the conservative movements.  Paul is immensely popular among young males in particular, as well as with those who oppose big government and government invasions of privacy. Not to mention the great numbers who don’t necessarily fit into any conventional political mold. Those who have no interest in living under the soft tyranny of socialism, arming Islamists overseas, or waging additional wars of choice have found someone who articulates their own thoughts and feelings with intelligence and wit.

The fallacy of the thinking of the liberal elite currently in power is that they think their rules should only apply to others because everyone else is too stupid, ignorant, or less valuable than themselves. They want to confiscate your guns but have concealed weapons permits and armed bodyguards. They want to invade your privacy yet expect to keep theirs. That is the progressive fallacy that eventually explains why all the political ideologies that ultimately emerged from the philosophy of Marx don’t work in practice. Hypocrisy is the most fanatically followed religion in the world and its adherents are legion.

Rand Paul has dared to directly challenge them on this and therefore has become a grave threat to their power, ideology, and agenda. The 4th is just as important as the 2nd amendment and the religious and speech protections of the first, and all the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights must be preserved and defended vigorously for us to remain a truly free people.

The supporters of Rand Paul span the range from traditional and civil libertarians to constitutionalists and conservatives, from the TEA Party to evangelicals and the Christian Right. All those who see danger arising from those who peddle the doctrines of statism and the progressive, nanny state have found his message of a return to liberty and constitutional governance free of undue governmental spying, interference, and regulation to be extremely appealing. It is the right message at the right time and he is increasingly finding a receptive audience for it. The fast paced creation and increased implementation of the turn-key tyranny and surveillance state, by necessity, must be the foremost issue in the next presidential election. We are at a pivotal moment in history and if we go down that path as a civilization and a nation then all the other major issues that are of vital importance to you will have been lost as well. If that domino falls, then they will all fall without fail.

Paul’s own family brand of libertarian politics and reputation handed down by his father helps make significant inroads into younger, independent votes as well as others who are less likely to traditionally vote for a Republican. For the more traditional conservative and values voter he has made great efforts to signal that he is in fact pro-life and not a champion of the gay agenda while reassuring evangelical Christians that he is more supportive of the state of Israel than his father was seen to be. It seems to be a “wink wink, nudge nudge” relationship with cultural conservatives and Christians. While he may not be wearing such issues on his sleeve like potential GOP rivals Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee for example, he has sent the proper signals that he is genuinely acceptable on the issues that are important to them. That message seems to have been received.

The more one listens and pays attention to both his words and deeds the more appealing a possible run becomes. Paul just seems to “get it” more than any other potential GOP presidential candidate and is currently standing head and shoulders above the rest of the possible field when it comes to the most fundamental issues of the day and the ones that most directly affect the vision of the Founding Fathers. Additionally, he is currently polling remarkably well from New Hampshire to Colorado, not only among Republican party presidential wannabes but in general head-to-head polls against Hillary Clinton. That is something worthy of note.

Rand Paul and his supporters do need to prepare themselves for the onslaught of hate and character assassination that the liberals, and the GOP Establishment and elite, are going to throw at him as he continues to increase in stature and viability. The more he is seen as a credible threat to the status quo and those who perpetuate the Washington business as usual mentality, the more shrill and vicious the attacks will become. No man or candidate is perfect, but in a time when traditional looking and sounding politicians are increasingly loathed he doesn’t look or sound like one and that may be of significance over the long haul.

The simple but effective message that the government is spying on, and intruding upon, nearly everything you do and it needs to stop is a powerful one that resonates across the political spectrum and is one that is very hard for a political opponent to argue against. In the end, there are still a vast number of Americans that really and truly just want to be left alone and live free as they go about their daily lives. Such sentiments, when properly appealed too, could very well provide a strong base of support for a Paul presidential bid. That conversation, and the discussion of the potential merits and liabilities of a possible Rand Paul candidacy, is one that needs to take place.

“I am talking about electing lovers of liberty. It isn’t good enough to pick the lesser of two evils. We must elect men and women of principle, and conviction and action that will lead us back to greatness.” - Rand Paul

I believe Ted Cruz would make a great President but I can't vote for him. There is a great reason our forefathers penned the President shall be a natural born citizen of the United States. Men or women that are raised outside the lower forty-eight will have different values. Senator Cruz is a great man but allowing him to stretch the intentions of the constitution is just as wrong as giving Obama a free pass. We missed the whole point by going the birther conflict approach. The facts are he was mentored pro- muslim, procommunist in either Indonesia or the Pacific Island of Hawaii. Our forefathers's would have screamed. Ted might have been raised in our country but he was born in Canada and had his citizenship there until recently. If Conservatives bend the intent of the great law, so will the Democrats. Make Ted the Senate Majority Leader or put him on the Supreme Court. Just quit trying to make the constitution fits our political ambitions!

http://www.westernjournalism.com/alabama-judge-weighs-obamas-eligibility/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New+Main+Email

ABORTION KILLS BABIES AND WILL EVENTUALLY BRING DOWN GOD'S JUSTICE UPON A NATION THAT ENDOR5ES AND SUPPORTS THE KILLING OF THE HOLY INNOCENTS.  SEE VIDEO AT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAHFD-6_vto

WAKE UP AMERICA BEFORE IT IS TOOOOOO LATE!

Entrepreneurship in American History

John Steele Gordon
Author, An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power

John Steele Gordon was educated at Millbrook School and Vanderbilt University. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Forbes, National Review, Commentary, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a contributing editor at American Heritage, where he wrote the “Business of America” column for many years, and currently writes “The Long View” column for Barron’s. He is the author of several books, including Hamilton’s Blessing: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Our National Debt, The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power, and An Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power.

The following is adapted from a speech delivered in San Diego, California, on November 15, 2013, at a Hillsdale College Free Market Forum on the topic “Markets, Government, and the Common Good.”

The word “entrepreneur”—one who undertakes, manages, and assumes the risk of a new enterprise—comes from the French, where it literally means “undertaker.” The word was borrowed into English in the mid-19th century­—perhaps the golden age of the entrepreneur—when the number of new economic niches was exploding and the hand of government was at its lightest in history. The activity of entrepreneurship, of course, is much older, going back to ancient times. As for America, our nation was founded, quite literally, by entrepreneurs.

In 1607 the Virginia Company sent three ships across the Atlantic and unloaded 109 passengers at what became Jamestown, Virginia. They were embarked on a new business enterprise that they hoped would be profitable—American plantations. The Virginia Company was a joint-stock company, a relatively new invention that allowed people to invest in enterprises without running the risk of losing everything if the business did not succeed. By limiting liability, corporations greatly increased the number of people who could dare to become entrepreneurs by pooling their resources while avoiding the possibility of ruin. Thus the corporation was one of the great inventions of the Renaissance, along with printing, double-entry bookkeeping, and the full-rigged ship.

Allowing incorporation as a matter of law, rather than requiring an act of the executive or of the legislature, began in the United States as early as 1811, when New York State passed a general incorporation law for certain businesses, including anchor makers—I suspect an anchor manufacturer had a friend in Albany. Soon enlarged in scope, the ability to incorporate simply by filling out the right forms freed the process from politics, and the number of corporations exploded. There had been only seven companies incorporated in British North America, but the state of Pennsylvania alone incorporated more than 2,000 between 1800 and 1860.

Unfortunately for the stockholders of the Virginia Company, the business of American plantations was a very new one and had a steep learning curve—a curve that would be encountered again and again as the American economy developed and new industries were born. It is a curve all would-be entrepreneurs must climb to be successful. The Virginia Company did not climb that curve quickly enough, and made just about every mistake that it could make: It tried to run Jamestown as a company town; it searched for gold, of which Virginia has none, instead of planting crops; and it failed at establishing a glass-making industry. Eventually Jamestown was nearly abandoned. Only when John Rolfe introduced West Indian tobacco in 1612 did Virginia find an export that had a market in Europe—indeed a market that grew explosively and made Virginia rich. But by that time it was far too late for the Virginia Company, which went broke.

In fact, of course, most entrepreneurs do fail.

It has not been nearly well enough noted that the American colonies, while many ended up in royal hands, were not founded by the English state. Several, such as Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Virginia, were founded by profit-seeking corporations. Others, such as Pennsylvania and Maryland, were founded by proprietors. To be sure, many of these enterprises had non-entrepreneurial motives, such as providing a refuge for religious dissenters. John Winthrop wanted the Puritans to establish a “shining city on a hill”; William Penn thought of Pennsylvania as a “Holy Experiment” where Quakers could live in peace. But Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, and Pennsylvania were also expected to show a profit. “Though I desire to extend religious freedom,” said Penn, “yet I want some recompense for my troubles.”

New York, of course, was founded by the Dutch, not the English, and profit was the sole reason for settling on Manhattan. Indeed, so bent on money making were the Dutch that they did not get around to building a church for 17 years, worshiping instead in the fort. When they did finally build a church, they named it for St. Nicholas, and Santa Claus has been the patron saint of New York ever since.

Even after the British took the colony in 1664, the Dutch devotion to commerce remained. Harking back to the early source of its economic success, the fur trade, the city’s seal remains a beaver surrounded by wampum. Even today, that little hustly-bustly Dutch village lies at the heart of the world’s most important and powerful city, and making money is still New York’s chief business.

Even in the theocracy that was early New England, the entrepreneurial spirit burned bright. Unlike the colonies on the Chesapeake, there was no cash crop that could be grown in New England’s stony soil and short growing season. Perhaps the closest thing to a cash crop was that singular beast, the Atlantic cod. Pulled from the great fishing waters off New England in prodigious numbers, it was salted, dried, and shipped to Europe to provide cheap protein for the masses. Even today, there is a carving of a codfish hanging in the Massachusetts State House. Perhaps because New England lacked a true cash crop, its economy became much more diverse than those of the Southern colonies. Shipping and shipbuilding, lumber, fishing, slaving, and rum distilling became mainstays of the New England economy and produced its earliest fortunes.

Also very important to the evolving New England economy was iron, a commodity that had by then been indispensable for 3,000 years. At first this iron had to be imported at vast expense from foundries in England. John Winthrop the younger—son of the man who coined the phrase “shining city on a hill”—saw opportunity and, a born entrepreneur, he seized it. There was plenty of iron ore available, but to make iron he needed something America did not then have—capital. So he sailed to England in 1641 to get it. Why, one might well wonder, would English capitalists invest in a major industrial enterprise located in a wilderness 3,000 miles away? The answer lay in something America did have in indescribable abundance—wood. Charcoal was as indispensable as ore to iron smelting, and whereas England’s forests were being rapidly cut down, America had well over a million square miles of forest. So Winthrop was able to argue that combining America’s cheap raw materials with England’s capital would produce a product that could be sold at a profit, not only in Massachusetts but in England as well.

Winthrop called the new company the Company of Undertakers—note the word, the literal translation of “entrepreneur”—to which the government of Massachusetts granted a 21-year monopoly on iron production, an exemption from taxation, and the right to export iron once local demand was met. (Obviously, cozy relations between government and industry is not wholly a recent phenomenon.) The Saugus Iron Works, as it is known, was a financial failure, as so many first attempts are. But it is now a national historic site—and well it should be, for it was the start of a great American industry.

By the end of the colonial era, the colonies were producing one-seventh of the world’s pig iron. A little over 100 years later, the U.S. was producing more iron and steel than Britain and Germany combined, and producing them so efficiently that we were an exporter to those countries. Much of that iron and steel was manufactured by Andrew Carnegie, who had arrived in America a penniless immigrant from Scotland in the 1840s. When he sold out to J. P. Morgan in 1901, Morgan congratulated him on becoming “the richest man in the world.”

The Saugus Iron Works was contemporaneous with the beginning of one of the handmaidens of American entrepreneurship, American invention. The first patent awarded to an American resident was given to Joseph Jenks in 1646 for a device that improved the manufacture of edged tools, such as sickles. It was the beginning of the “Yankee ingenuity” that has characterized America’s economy ever since, from that first machine tool to bifocal glasses, the cotton gin, automated flour mills, the high-pressure steam engine, interchangeable parts, the McCormick reaper, the oil industry, the airplane, Coca-Cola, the affordable automobile, the digital computer, and Twitter. For an example of how great a synergistic effect entrepreneurship and invention have had on each other, consider that when Twitter went public last year, the stock offering produced no fewer than 1,600 newly-minted millionaires.

By the time the 13 colonies declared independence, they were, after only 169 years, the richest place on earth per capita. No wonder the British fought so hard to suppress the rebellion. While statistics from the late 18th century can be scarce—the very word “statistics” wouldn’t be coined until the early 19th century—there is one powerful statistic indicating just how much better off Americans were than their British cousins: Soldiers in the Continental Army were, on average, a full two inches taller than their British counterparts.

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was published the same year as independence was declared. Being very young, America did not have the burden of hundreds of years of economic cronyism. There were no aristocrats, no guilds, no ancient monopolies or hereditary tariffs as there were in continental Europe. And therefore Karl Marx was wrong, at least about America, when he wrote, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered and transmitted from the past.” We had less past than any other country, and therefore we could make our own history, creating the most Smithian economy in the western world. To be sure, it was not purely Smithian. People in government will always try to help those who are powerful at the expense of those who might become so. But the U.S. has consistently come closer to the Smithian ideal, over a longer period of time, than any other major nation.

Nothing encourages entrepreneurial activity more than the freedom to take risk. Consider one of my favorite early American entrepreneurs, Frederic Tudor. In 1806, he decided to sell ice. He wanted to get it where it was cheap, New England, and sell it where it was dear, the Southern states and the West Indies. Everyone laughed. But his secret was a waste product that a great New England industry was more than happy to supply him with for free—sawdust, an excellent insulator. So Tudor combined two cheap things and made them valuable simply by moving their location. By 1820 he was shipping 2,000 tons of ice a year to as far away as Calcutta, getting as much as 25 cents a pound. By 1850, ice was one of New England’s largest exports. By 1900, of course, the trade was dead, thanks to the invention of refrigeration. We call that creative destruction.

A second great spur to entrepreneurship is the freedom to fail. And no country in the world has been as consistently tolerant of economic failure as the United States. While bankruptcy in Europe has always been regarded as a moral as well as a financial failure, this has not been the case here—possibly because we are descendants of people who sought a second chance by immigrating. There were, to be sure, debtors prisons in colonial and early America, and some very distinguished people spent time in them—including James Wilson, one of the first justices of the Supreme Court. But debtors prison, a remarkably counter-productive institution—after all, how do you pay off your debts while you’re cooling your heels in jail?—was abandoned in the U.S. earlier than elsewhere. It ended under federal law in 1833, and most states had followed suit by 1850. Great Britain wouldn’t abolish debtors prison until 1869.

As a result of this freedom to fail without suffering social opprobrium, many entrepreneurs were able on their second or third try to strike it rich. Consider Henry Flagler, who began his business career in the wholesale commodity business and prospered so well that he was making a then vast income of about $50,000 a year by the time of the Civil War. When the war drove the price of salt through the roof, Flagler invested heavily in a salt company in Michigan. When the war ended, however, the price of salt collapsed, as did the business. Flagler, who had risen from the son of an itinerant preacher to the “one percent,” was broke. He had to borrow money from his father-in-law—at ten percent interest, no less—in order to feed and house his family. But only five years later, Flagler was a founding partner of Standard Oil, with one-sixth of the company. Later, after running Standard Oil became a matter of management rather than entrepreneurship, Flagler used his Standard Oil millions to create the modern state of Florida, turning it from a semi-tropical wilderness into a tourist mecca and agricultural powerhouse. No American had as much influence on the shaping of a state as Henry Flagler had on Florida, except perhaps Brigham Young in Utah.

Or consider Isaac Merritt Singer. He was on his own by the time he was 12, and only basically literate—a character straight out of Dickens. At 19 he obtained an apprenticeship in a machine shop and soon demonstrated a marked talent for mechanics. Unfortunately for Singer, he wanted to be an actor—a profession for which he had little talent. Singer tinkered on the side and invented a rock drill, but he was so desperate for money that he sold the patent for a mere $2,000. Only when he gave up acting in middle age did he turn his attention full time to mechanics, and soon after that he invented a new kind of sewing machine that had a great advantage over previous kinds: It actually worked. Once the patent situation was settled—it was the first use of what is now a standard model for dealing with complex inventions to which many people contribute pieces, the patent pool—he made a vast fortune, as the sewing machine revolutionized, and industrialized, the clothing industry.

It’s not hard to see why: A shirt that took a seamstress 14 hours to sew by hand could now be produced in an hour-and-a-quarter. Many clothing workers feared for their livelihoods. But of course the effect of the sewing machine was to enlarge their business, not destroy it. As the price of ready-made clothes dropped, the increasing market for them made up for the lower price many times over. This is one of the fundamental means by which capitalism has made the world a richer place for everyone.

By the time of Isaac Singer’s death in 1875, the American economy was being transformed by the emergence of giant corporations, with tens of thousands of employees and thousands of stockholders. Lagging far behind were the rules needed for such an economy to operate for the benefit of all. Many thought a plutocracy threatened, and plutocracy threatens a country’s entrepreneurial spirit quite as much as an overbearing government—especially if the plutocrats and politicians get together, as they are wont to do in their mutual, if short-term, self-interest. This, of course, is the very essence of crony capitalism that has kept so many countries poor and could threaten this country’s prosperity.

Standard Oil was able to muscle many small operators into selling out by threatening ruin if they did not. Standard’s relationship with the railroads allowed them to ship much more cheaply than the smaller refiners, and it often received an under-the-table kickback on the oil the small operators did ship. Standard would always offer what it regarded as a fair price, but it was “take it or leave it”—and leaving it was usually not an option.

The lack of rules sometimes led to theft of the stockholders’ investments in all but name. In earlier times, an organization’s managers were almost always owners as well, and thus had an identity of interest with the owners. But as capital requirements rose, managers often came to be, at best, small shareholders. So the self-interest of management and that of shareholders diverged.

The Union Pacific Railroad, for instance, was chartered by the federal government to build part of the transcontinental railroad. The newly installed management organized a construction company owned by themselves, gave it a fancy French name, Crédit Mobilier, and hired themselves to build the railroad. And guess what? They overcharged. To make sure Congress didn’t make trouble, they cut key members in on the deal, allowing them to pay for Crédit Mobilier stock using the enormous quarterly dividends—often 100 percent of par value—that they were paid. The result was a bankrupt railroad that had been shoddily constructed.

Managers also did not have to make regular reports to their stockholders in most cases and, even when they did, could keep the books as they pleased. Wall Street, with a powerful interest in knowing the truth about the corporations whose securities were traded and underwritten there, began imposing regular accounting rules and quarterly, audited reports. The result was a far more honest capital market, where entrepreneurs could come in search of financing with the certainty that they would be treated fairly and have their risk-taking properly rewarded if the idea was a success. That was a huge spur to entrepreneurship.

Government also sought to police the marketplace, but with far less success than Wall Street. Railroads were brought under a federal regulatory regime that quickly evolved into a cartel called the Interstate Commerce Commission. Trucking came under its control in the 1930s and airlines were regulated by their own cartel, the Civil Aeronautics Board. Cartels and monopolies, of course, prevent competition and thus entrepreneurship. That, in turn, prevents the creative destruction that is so vital to capitalism.

After the ICC and CAB lost their rate-setting and route-allocating powers in the late 1970s, transportation costs—a transaction cost—dropped from 15 percent of GDP to only ten percent, allowing lower prices for almost all goods. At the same time, innovation flourished. Old legacy airlines, unable to compete in the new environment, disappeared. New airlines with new strategies, such as Southwest and Jet Blue, emerged. Entrepreneurship returned to transportation from where it had long been absent.

With the birth of the digital age, there has been a new golden age of entrepreneurship. Thousands of new niches have become available to exploit, many of which can be exploited very cheaply. The result has been the greatest inflorescence of fortune-making—and fortune-making usually implies entrepreneurship—in human history. In 1982 it took $82 million to have a place on the Forbes list. Today it takes over $1.3 billion.

The opportunities for people with ideas and a willingness to take risks are plentiful in America, and there is plenty of capital available to bring those ideas to life. On top of that, mechanisms to bring ideas and capital together are more robust than they have been in the past. So the future of entrepreneurship in this most entrepreneurial of countries remains bright. The only fear is that an overbearing government, bent on managing the American economy—supposedly for the good of all, but actually for the benefit of bureaucrats and politicians—will strangle the goose that has laid so many golden eggs. That is always a danger, for government is just as subject to the law of self-interest as the marketplace. Unfortunately, the process of creative destruction is far less vigorous in government, which is a monopoly by its nature.

On the other hand, government regularly displays an incompetence so extraordinary that reform becomes possible. We are witnessing such a display now with the launch of Obamacare. Obamacare, of course, seeks to rid one-sixth of the American economy of even a vestige of entrepreneurship and turn it over to the public sector.

I’m always an optimist, so I think good things will come out of this. Let us hope so.

Copyright © 2014 Hillsdale College. The opinions expressed in Imprimis are not necessarily the views of Hillsdale College. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is hereby granted, provided the following credit line is used: “Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.” SUBSCRIPTION FREE UPON REQUEST. ISSN 0277-8432. Imprimis trademark registered in U.S. Patent and Trade Office #1563325.

Perhaps here is the reason why:

As a school superintendent, you’re typically measured by a few numbers. Test scores, graduation rates, crime rates, finances, gaps in student achievement, and perhaps a few other metrics, depending on your board of education. You can actually tackle these problems, or you can employ the dark art of data manipulation. In 2012, a news story exploded onto the national stage that was very instructive in how to magically lower school crime statistics – yet nearly every major news outlet missed it.

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ex animo

davidfarrar

Read Article Here... http://blackroberegimentpastor.blogspot.com/2014/03/4-year-anniversary-of-sen-nancy.html

Arif Alikhan
Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security       

Mohammed Elibiary
Homeland Security Adviser
 
Rashad Hussain
Special Envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference(OIC)        

 Salam al-Marayati 
Obama Adviser and founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council and is its current executive director    

 Imam Mohamed Magid- 
Obama's Sharia Czar from the Islamic Society of North America      

Eboo Patel- 
Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships       

This is flat-out scary!!!         

The foxes are now officially living in the hen house...       

Now ask me why I am very concerned!!!       

Do you feel OK with this???      

How can this happen, and when will we wake up???       
We are quiet while our Country is being drastically changed!!!       

  
Go to bed tonight...sleep well! 
       

We've got to have some relief starting with the 2014 Elections! 

Doesn't this make you feel safe and happy about your country and this administration!? 

Teachers Union Contract Blatantly Discriminates Against Christians

It is common knowledge among millions of Americans that the current driving force behind public education has increasingly led the charge to indoctrinate the next generation with leftist ideology. Teachers unions have amassed considerable control over the school system, using their sway to shape the direction of an institution children are required by law to attend.

One of the latest outrageous reports emanating from this bastion of leftism, however, indicates just how dedicated unions are to the cause of whitewashing America’s founding principles and values.

One Michigan school district’s teachers union boasts a contract that unequivocally states that “special consideration shall be given to … those of the non-Christian faith” in filling open positions within the school system. It appears that this inclusion not only violates a previous passage in the contract but also a state law that prohibits religious discrimination in employment decisions.

The contact, which governs teachers in the community until 2017, guarantees similar advantages for minorities and women. Though millions of Americans consider such considerations antithetical to the selection of the best candidate, regardless of race or gender, the emphasis on hiring non-Christians is especially distasteful.

Ann Arbor’s Thomas Law Center President Richard Thompson expressed his concern regarding the contract’s language.

“Why would they be discriminating against Christians?” he asked. “They are not supposed to be discriminating against people for their religious beliefs. It’s outrageous – and I believe it’s unconstitutional.”

He concluded that the document could clearly result in a religious litmus test for current and future teachers in the district.

“Are people going to hide their faith so they can get a promotion?” he wondered. “There is a subtle persecution of Christians.”

While Thompson’s organization generally champions traditional causes, even the overwhelmingly leftist American Civil Liberties Union found fault with the contract.

Rana Elmir of the state’s ACLU chapter indicated that “public schools themselves should not be in the business of promoting particular religious beliefs or religious activities over others and they should protect children from being coerced to accept religious or anti-religious beliefs.”

The fact that Christianity is specifically denigrated in the contract offers a stark insight into the level of disdain today’s left has toward the morals and values found in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Though this particular passage is outrageous on its own, research has shown that Michigan’s teachers unions as a whole have a long history of including contract stipulations in violation of the law. Six in 10 of these contracts reportedly contain such passages.

–B. Christopher Agee

http://www.petition2congress.com/10712/barack-obama-is-not-legal-president-election-votes-should-not-hav/?src=widget

In spite of the ease with which the word “conservatism” is thrown about these days, most people who associate with the “conservative” movement are not really conservative at all. In reality, the so-called “conservative” movement is a predominantly (though not exclusively) neoconservative movement.

Contrary to what some neoconservatives would have us think, “neoconservatism” is not an insult, much less an “anti-Semitic” slur. The word, rather, refers to a distinct intellectual tradition—a point for which some neoconservatives, like its famed “godfather,” Irving Kristol, have argued at length.

Interesting thoughts regarding where the line is drawn on conservatism...read more.....