Reason Magazine: John Stossel- Ayn Rand: 'The Author People Love To Hate'

Source: Reason Magazine- John Stossel, on the woman  the Far-Left loves to hate. 

"Not everyone will celebrate Atlas Shrugged's anniversary. Ayn Rand is someone people love to hate. Years after her death, people still feel compelled to attack her ideas.

A recent John Oliver segment said her philosophy, objectivism, "is just a nice way of saying 'being a selfish asshole.'"

From Reason Magazine

If you're a Socialist especially a hardcore Socialist who looks up to people like Che Guevara and even have some respect at least for some aspects of communism, even if you don't like the authoritarian aspects of it, Ayn Rand literally is the devil. Because she represents everything that you hat: freedom, individualism, free-thinking, the belief that people should actually be able to make a living on their own and not have to be babysat by government.

Because if you are a Socialist who puts all their political eggs in the basket of big government like a wishbone offense in football that if they can't run the ball, they literally can't move the ball, because they have almost no passing game to speak of. And if government can't solve problems, by itself those problems don't get solved according to the Socialist. Because the socialist philosophy of socialism is completely centered not around government or even big government, but big centralized national government. Where even state or provincial government's, as well as local government's, barely exist, because so much power in the country is centralized with the national government.

Because Socialists tend to see freedom as dangerous and individualism as selfish. That if you give people the freedom to manage their own economic and personal affairs, you're only giving them the freedom to make mistakes that society (which is government, according to the Socialist) will have to pay for.

Also, is you give people the freedom  to manage their own affairs, they might become good at it which is what adults tend to do and not need or want government to take care of them and be less incline to have your tax dollars taking care of people who aren't as free as you. Socialists tend to see people who don't think like them at least, if not people in general as idiots. People who need help tying their own shoes and even spelling their own names. Who need big government managing their lives for them.

Socialists also see individualism as selfish. This idea that people can go out in the world and be creative, think for themselves and create new things. Is like trying to explain calculus to a fish. It's so foreign to them and would be like an American who has spent their whole life in America, who only speaks English and one day finds them self in Mongolia. It would be like being on another planet for that person having no idea what people are saying or even what language they're speaking.

That is what it's like trying to explain freedom and individualism to Socialists. You might have better luck trying to teach your dog to speak Chinese. Because freedom and individualism, completely goes against everything that Socialists have ever believed and have been taught.

As much as the Christian-Right hates feminism and freedom and equal rights for women, as if women are human beings who are capable of making their own decisions and living their own lives and deserving of equal rights as men, thats how much Socialists whether they're democratic or communist, hate Ayn Rand. Because they see her as the devil who represents individualism and freedom. Which to them is as bad as cancer or stealing. It completely goes against what they believe in and what they've been taught as people. 

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Reason Magazine: Robby Soave- Mel Brooks: 'We Have Become Stupidly Politically Correct & Its Killing Comedy'

Source:Reason Magazine- The great comedian and free speech defender Mel Brooks. 

"Legendary filmmaker Mel Brooks unloaded on political correctness yesterday, blaming P.C. pressures for undermining comedians' abilities to perform social satire.

"We have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy," he said on BBC Radio."

From Reason Magazine

"Mel Brooks, recently said in an interview that "political correctness" will be the “death of comedy.” Brooks, best known for comedies "Blazing Saddles," "Robin Hood: Men in Tights,” and “The Producers,” sat down with BBC4 recently to talk about his work. He said, “We have become stupidly politically correct, which is the death of comedy. It’s not good for comedy. Comedy has to walk a thin line, take risks." Regarding the portrayal of racial prejudice in his film “Blazing Saddles" from 1974, the director said, “Without that the movie would not have had nearly the significance, the force, the dynamism and the stakes that were contained in it." Brooks is currently developing “Young Frankenstein” into a West End stage show. Red State and Wochit."

From Wochit Entertainment

Source: Wochit Entertainment- The great comedian and free speech defender Mel Brooks. 

Mel Brooks is damn right here! Now, imagine if I said damn right in a movie or on TV back in lets say 1952, I probably would've been expelled from Hollywood back then for using the word damn, because it would have offended someone's religious and moral values. Which was a form of political correctness from a different time.

If comedians, writers, and other commentators, don't have the freedom to express themselves even if it offends someone who wears underwear that is way too tight for them, or is a coffee or Red Bull junky and is so wound up they couldn't fall asleep even if they watched a PBS telethon for 48 hours straight and simply does not know how to relax, who has a glass jaw for an ego and the slightest form of criticism like telling them they're 30 seconds late absolutely destroys their glass jaw, meaning to put it simply, that they can't take a joke. They can't even handle criticism that is fair and even accurate. If people with glass jaws become in charge of what is appropriate and inappropriate in comedy and other forms of communication, well yes we can then make the appropriate funeral arraignments for comedy in America.

Because it will die simply because comedians, writers, and other commentators won't want to take a risk and make fun of something or someone that can later sue them for it, put in jail, or risk losing their job because they're not politically correct. They'll simply find something better to do with their time and find another way to make a living. Perhaps instead of performing on stage, they'll perform in private clubs where you only get in by invitation. Perform at private homes. Perhaps write books and articles, but the only people who'll get to read them are people they approve of who won't turn them into the Political Correctness Police. Maybe they'll have and give private readings of their material.

You take away comedians ability to perform and express themselves, you're taking away comedy in America. And we'll be left with comedians making fun of the Christian-Right and what the Far-Left calls White people and White trash. Because anyone who understands political correctness in America knows that the Far-Left pretty much dominates it.

Which makes modern political correctness hypocritical and partisan , because jokes about fundamentalist Christians especially if they're also Protestant and of Southern English background, are considered acceptable, but you make a joke about fundamentalist Muslims especially people who believe in and practice Islamism, you're considered a racist by the New-Left in America. People who are Socialists and even what I would at least call Neo-Communists, because they believe in  a certain level of democracy, but where communication should only be limited to people who think and believe the way they do.

So if you make a white trash joke, you're considered progressive by this community. But you make fun of ghetto people, you're considered a racist. Political correctness from so-called social justice warriors on the Far-Left in America, is about as hypocritical as Donald Trump calling someone selfish, or accusing someone of being too self-centered, as consistent as one of Donald Trump's political positions.

Political correctness is kryptonite for comedy in America. One thing that you would think that could never die in America is comedy, because of our free speech rights that are guaranteed by our First Amendment and the fact that we have a lot of stupid people and dishonest people who tend to be our politicians that are elected by most of our stupid people. But the one thing that could kill comedy is political correctness.

And no, people will never be arrested for cracking a joke about someone that offends them, or perhaps not even sued for it because it would probably get thrown out, unless the Political Correctness Police takes over our judiciary. But what would happen instead is that people will be afraid to be funny and take risks, because they're worried about the aftermath from people who again wear underwear that is too tight, or drink too much Starbucks or Red Bull and simply can't handle criticism about themselves, or people they claim to care about.  The way you kill comedy even in America, is not just by having too many oversensitive tight asses in America, but actually having those people in charge and running things for everyone else. 

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Reason: John Stossel & Lilly Tang Williams: '100 Years of Communist Disaster'

Source:Reason Magazine- Happy Birthday Communism, from John Stossel. 

"This year marks communism's 100th birthday. Its horrors should remind us of the value of freedom."

From Reason Magazine

China is a good example of a communist disaster as far as their economic system, until they started their privatization program about 40 years ago and moved to a more capitalist private enterprise economic system.

But China is still a communist, unitarian, one-party, state, that happens to have a private enterprise economic system, while still maintaining some state-owned enterprises. Their political system is still a one-party communist system and there’s still no free press, free speech, right to privacy, fair trial, etc, things that liberal democracies like America have.

And yet I don’t think anyone at this point would argue that the People’s Republic of China is a failed state. Just a little push back at John Stossel’s broad point here that communism has failed in China.

I’m more interested in the somewhat rebirth if not of communism, but certainly socialism and what I call Neo-Communism. Which is a very illiberal (not liberal) form of socialist-collectivism which is somewhat undemocratic, while still leaving in some democratic principles.

For example, non-socialist parties are still allowed to technically run for national office in Venezuela. The Center-Right Liberal Democrats did win control of the National Assembly there a few years ago. But then what the so-called Socialist (Neo-Communist) Maduro Government does there is say that those elections were not valid and the opposition is now a threat to the country (meaning the Maduro Government) and the Maduro Government starts their own brand new National Assembly where only members of the Socialist Party there are allowed to serve.

Which is a big reason why we’re seeing so much chaos in Venezuela there because the economy is collapsing in a country that is energy independent and yet they can’t produce enough affordable energy for most of the country. But rising inflation and interest rates, shortages of other basic necessities in life including food. Because Big Uncle Nick (meaning President Nicolas Maduro) believes his state is more capable of producing the goods and services that the Venezuelan people need better than the people themselves.And that Venezuela is a country of 25 millions morons essentially who are too stupid to manage their own affairs. And they need Big Uncle Nick and his army of Neo-Communists (his government) to take care of them for them.

Venezuela is the perfect example of a failed Neo-Communist state and disaster. Cuba would be another great example, add North Korea. Anyone seen or heard from the Soviet Union lately or seen any Soviets? Almost like they’ve disappeared from the face of the Earth.

But to bring it back home back to America where no one who isn’t an alcoholic or drug addict actually believes communism will ever takeover America and run this country. But there is a new socialist movement that has two wings in it.

One American Socialist win, is a democratic socialist wing led by Senator Bernie Sanders and Dr. Jill Stein, who by enlarge are both peace-loving Hippies from the 1960s who perhaps occasionally enjoy a joint every now and then who do live on cloud nine politically in the sense that they both have this warped fantasy that perhaps you could only get from smoking too much pot, that government services are free.

Democratic Socialists believe that if American taxpayers just gave up most of their income to Uncle Sam, or perhaps Uncle Bernie and his wife Aunt Jill, (assuming that we wouldn’t allow them to just take our money from us) that America would turn into some beautiful socialist utopia. With no one ever going without not enough or enjoying too much, because the U.S. Government would collect our wealth for us and then manage for us and decide for us what we need to live well.

Besides, in Bernie and Jill’s view Americans tend to be stupid anyway and aren’t capable of making our own complicated decisions anyway that you would probably need a masters degree from an Ivy League or some other great Northeastern or West Coast university to be able to manage properly.

Democratic Socialists believe that such complicated decisions like where we should get our health insurance, health care, how to invest for our retirement, where to get our childcare for our kids, who to take care of our kids when they get older, etc, basic decisions that only New York, San Francisco, and Washington yuppie intellectuals are capable of making. And therefor according to Uncle Bernie and Aunt Jill and other Socialists, should have this decision-making power over everyone else and given the power to run our lives for us.

But wait, it gets a helluva a lot worse than that. Bernie Sanders and Jill Stein, are the good Socialists for the most part. Other than having a hard time telling the truth about the costs and consequences of their economic policies. Its much worst than the Sanders-Stein factions of American socialism.

Move over to the American Neo-Communists the people who hate free speech so much that they’ll use their free speech rights to try to shut up people who disagree with them. Even use violent tactics and terrorism to try to shut people up. We saw this at Berkley during this winter.

The Neo-Communists are people who say they hate capitalism even though they own almost every form of new technology there is and claim they can’t live without their smartphones and iPads and other devices. Who are always up to date on the latest fashion trends and own all of them. And yet they say they hate capitalism.

Neo-Communists are people who claim to love animals and are for animal rights and put people down for the eating cheeseburgers and other meat and call that animal cruelty as they’re wearing leather jackets. Again, hipster-leftists say they hate capitalism even though they spend most of their time when they’re not protesting against free speech, at coffee houses on their laptops and iPhones. Who claim our Founding Fathers (the original Liberal Democrats) were evil racists who created this evil American empire. As they wear t-shirts of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro and support those two men who are both responsible for the murders of thousands of people. In Fidel’s case perhaps millions.

Communism will never make it to America at least as a governing philosophy where we would see some communist regime installed and running the U.S. Government. Because Americans tend to be too individualist and once we are educated, we tend to know what doesn’t work and what does work and are able and want to make our own decisions in life both personally and economically.

Besides, the examples of failed communism and failed communist states are widely known. At least outside of the Millennial Generation and once the Millennial’s finally grow up I believe they’ll come to realize that the pot fantasies that they had in their twenties and even thirties about how like totally awesome socialism and communism is, was nothing more than a social fad and an attempt to look cool with their generation.

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Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie- Interviewing Frank Furedi: 'College Students Think Freedom is Not a Big Deal'

Source:Reason Magazine- Author Frank Furedi, with a book abut college students. 

“Sociologist Frank Fruedi and Reason’s Nick Gillespie discuss the decline of free speech on campus and his new book, What Happened to the University: a Sociological Exploration of its Infantilisation.”

From Reason Magazine

As someone who didn't even graduate college I'm probably not the right spokesperson for this, (to say the least) but I've always believed that college is supposed to be a place to learn and and even learn news ideas.

College should be a place where new ideas and things that people didn't hear much if anything about in high school or anywhere else and not to automatically take those new ideas and philosophies on face value and automatically, but to learn about them and then decide for themselves on the best available evidence possible on the worth of those ideas and philosophies.

That it's not the job of college to tell people how to think and what to think, but how to learn and then the students can figure out for themselves the worth of what they're learned and what it means on the best available evidence possible.

Call me naive if you want, but that is what I believe. I think what we're seeing at college now is sort of the opposite of that. That you have professors who don't teach their students about ideas and philosophies as much as they try to teach their students what to think. That this is what you should believe because this is what is right and wrong. Instead of giving their students the freedom to learn and experience and figure out what works for them and in society for themselves. Again on the best available evidence possible.

Today what we're seeing at college with young students like millennial's and soon to be the so-called Z Generation, is that the opposites are being taught and learned as far as what makes America great and what makes our diverse vast liberal democracy work so well.

According to too many millennial's freedom and free speech are bad. They seem to believe that free speech is nothing more than the right to offend someone and because of that we should eliminate free speech because someone might be offended by what is heard and believed.

That personal freedom is nothing more than the right to make mistakes and screw up that the rest of society will have to pay for.

That capitalism and property rights are racist and selfish. Because African-Americans and Latino-Americans, haven't done as well as European and Asian-Americans economically in America and because of that capitalism is racist and unfair.

That allowing people to keep what they own and have earned simply by purchasing it with money they've earned, that is somehow selfish for people to be able to keep property for themselves. And as a result some people will have to go without because you have these selfish people keeping their own property and not sharing it with people who have little.

That Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were great men because they took on the man (so to speak) and that Tomas Jefferson is evil because he owned African slaves. Even in a time when almost all European men in America with means owned slaves. Forgetting the facts that Fidel and Che were both Marxist-Communists who killed people simply because they disagreed with them politically and would lock people up simply for dissenting.

As I said the opposites are being taught to young people in and outside of college in America. And one can just say: "Hey, look at those stupid young people. Don't worry, they'l grow up and be forced to go to work in order to support themselves and learn how the real world works, even if they end up bashing the American system that they've benefited from their whole lives."

One could say that young people being so ignorant is not important  and perhaps these Millennial's as they reach their forties and fifties at worst will end up being like these fake Hollywood Socialists like the Jane Fonda's and Mike Moore's of the world, who end up bashing capitalism and freedom in general, even as they collect their millions and continue to take advantage of a system as they should, that they've benefited so much from.

The thing with socialism is that it's much easier to practice as long as you don't have to live with it. It's a much better system hypothetically than in practice and having to live with it. Because at the end of the day whether you're an Ayn Rand Objectivist-Libertarian, or a Marxist-Socialist, we're all Americans. And we all tend to want to be successful in life and live comfortably. I believe that is the best hope that we can have for the Millennial Generation at this point. 

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Reason: Zach Weissmueller & Jim Epstein- 'Comedy, Outrage and College: What We Saw at The Can We Take a Joke?'

Source:Reason Magazine- comedian Gilbert Gottfried at Can We Take a Joke.

"The documentary feature Can We Take a Joke? premiered at the film festival Doc NYC this Friday, and Reason TV was on the scene at a pre-party being held at the Comedy Cellar's Village Undergound, where filmmakers, comedians, and free speech advocates were eager to sound off about free speech and comedy following a week of high-profile anti-speech protests on college campuses like Yale and Mizzou.

"Maybe the events of this week signal that we're reaching peak crazy and that people are going to say, 'Whoa, this is a little too nutty,'" says director Ted Balaker. "But on the other hand, the outrage mob could just keep plowing ahead."

Follow @canwetakeajoke on Twitter or Facebook to learn more about the film and when and where you might see it.

Approximately 3 minutes. Shot by Jim Epstein. Edited by Zach Weissmueller. Music by Latche Swing.

Scroll down for downloadable versions, and subscribe to Reason TV's YouTube channel for daily content like this." 

From Reason Magazine 

"The documentary feature Can We Take a Joke? premiered at the film festival Doc NYC this Friday, and Reason TV was on the scene at a pre-party being held at the Comedy Cellar's Village Undergound, where filmmakers, comedians, and free speech advocates were eager to sound off about free speech and comedy following a week of high-profile anti-speech protests on college campuses like Yale and Mizzou.

"Maybe the events of this week signal that we're reaching peak crazy and that people are going to say, 'Whoa, this is a little too nutty,'" says director Ted Balaker. "But on the other hand, the outrage mob could just keep plowing ahead."

Approximately 3 minutes. Shot by Jim Epstein. Edited by Zach Weissmueller. Music by Latche Swing." 

From Reason Magazine

One of the comedians up there, I think it was the female comedian there said and I'm paraphrasing that people have to realize what humor and a jokes are. Unless you're a Socialist, or something humor and entertainment is exactly that. 

You're not trying to change the world simply with entertainment, but comment on in a humorous way what you see in the world. And a smart comedian will use their humor to also inform people about what is going on, because they follow the news. And in a lot of cases talking to people who know everything about Hollywood and who is sleeping with who and what shoes someone wore when they went out to lunch, but perhaps not even sure what the capital of the state is let alone the United States. So someone like that could actually learn a lot from a smart comedian, if they bother to listen can stay off their smartphone for more than five-minutes at a time.

Without free speech, bloggers and comedians might as well sell life insurance door to door. Perhaps park cars, or get some other jobs that is not nearly as much fun as parking cars and selling insurance door to door. We shouldn't have to worry that if we say this and make fun of that, then this oversensitive group or that one, will be offended. Because their blood pressure is already as high as a skyscraper, because they don't smoke pot and simply don't know how to relax. 

We also shouldn't have to worry about if we make fun of this or that politician or that movement, that somehow we let whatever movement that has been just offended down, setting back fifty-years or whatever. That if we make jokes about labor unions, then people will have a harder time organizing. Or if we make fun of corporations, that will damage Wall Street, or whatever.

We have a very liberal First Amendment and constitutional right to free speech in America. Without it, again comedians and bloggers might as well go work for the state, or something and retire with their pensions after twenty-years or whatever. And because little things like free speech, Right to Privacy and property rights. And because of these great liberal individual rights Americans have a lot of individual freedom in America. Even the freedom to say and do things that others may not approve of. 

But the people who disagree with us can privately and publicly express their disagreement with us, as well as do and say things we don't approve of. That is called liberal democracy and freedom and with what comes with those great things is also responsibility. 

So yeah, we have the right even to be assholes, but people have the right to tell us how big of an asshole we really are. Or even think we're assholes when the only thing we're guilty of speaking the truth or being honest. 

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Reason: Matt Welch: 'Is Free Speech Under Attack in America?'

Source:Reason Magazine- yes, free speech is under attack in America.

"At some point it is inherently ridiculous when you can't laugh at Neil Patrick Harris making jokes on the Academy Awards," says Matt Welch, Reason Editor in Chief. At Reason Weekend 2015, the annual donor event for the nonprofit that publishes this website, Welch discussed how today's society, full of trigger warnings and a sensitivity to opposing ideas, has lead to a watered down approach to the First Amendment. 

"It's not fun when you're walking around policing jokes all day long, it's not an attractive pose to people," continues Welch." 

From Reason Magazine

If there is one place in the world where you want people to be free to think for themselves and learn new things and hear new ideas and be able to learn and develop their own views on the issues, it would be college and I would add high school to that. 

For democracy, especially liberal democracy to mean anything people have to be free to speak and think for themselves. Instead of creating some collectivist board of so-called experts who are only experts in name only and perhaps in actuality only being experts on the nonsense that they believe in. Telling the peasants the people they rule over what speech is appropriate and what isn't. Rewarding people for speech that they agree with and punishing even through governmental force when people say things that offends the so-called experts.

We don't have a liberal democracy without Freedom of Speech. And Free Speech is exactly that. Not the right to be nice, or be mean , or be correct, or lie, but the right to speak freely. To express yourself and even say things that someone might view as offensive. Even if they have such a big foot stuck up their ass tight ass that they can't even handle criticism that is correct. 

Imagine if you were doctor, who wasn't allowed to give your patients bad news. So you end up telling your obese patients that they don't need to exercise and cut down on their 5-6 meals a day and not have to eat stuff other than fast food, because not all obese people suffer heart attacks and develop diabetes and all of the other diseases that are related to obesity. That doctor would end up being useless, because they wouldn't be able to treat any of their unhealthy patients, because they would never be allowed to give bad news. For fear of hurting their patients self-esteem.

That is what political correctness is. It is not only a form of fascism, leftist fascism when it comes from the Left and a form of Marxism. But it is an attempt to hide people from negative truths for fear of hurting and oversensitive person's self-esteem:

"We can't call Joe fat, because that might not only offend Joe, but fat people in general. And fat is used to put down fat people. And even though I'm Joe's doctor and I've seen men like him die from heart attacks and from diabetes, because they didn't even know what exercise was and didn't eat properly, I'm not going to tell Joe that he's overweight and too fat. Because I'm more interested in his self-esteem than his physical health."

That is what practicing medicine would become like if doctors weren't allowed to tell their patients the truth. And that is just one example of the dangers of political correctness in America. Free Speech, is not the right to not be offended, but to express yourself and hear what others have to say as well. 

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Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie Interviewing Greg Gutfeld- The Joy of Hate, Illiberal Speech Police

Source: Reason Magazine- Greg Gutfeld-

Source: Reason Magazine: Nick Gillespie Interviewing Greg Gutfeld- The Joy of Hate

I agree with practically everything that Greg Gutfeld said here about the police speech. That perhaps Salon Magazine should be the chief of. But I would just replace the word liberal with illiberal when it comes to police speech. Free speech, liberal. Fascism, illiberal, whether it comes from the Far-Left, or Far-Right. People when talking about the Left and the Right, should be specific about who they're talking about, because not everyone on the Left is a Liberal and not everyone on the Right is a Conservative. If you don't believe in free speech, you're not a Liberal, but illiberal. If you don't believe in private enterprise, you're not a Conservative. Anti-Conservative I guess.

People who think that Christians and Caucasians in general, should be targets and if anything made fun of any chance there is, but that anyone who is not Caucasian, especially if they're also not Christian and don't come from a blue-collar, rural, Southern background, should be under special protection from the Federal Salon Police Speech, are Fascists. And worst they are partisan Fascists. They think they can get away with saying anything that they want and put down the Right for partisan political gains. While at the same time labeling the Right as bigots when they make fun of, or criticize minorities. Racial, religious, ethnic, gays and so-forth.

Anyone who seems somewhat off and perhaps under medication and even off their medication, whether its Ann coulter on the Far-Right, or Islamists, also on the Far-Right, at least in a religious sense, or Melissa Harris-Perry on the Far-Left, who believes kids don't belong to their parents, but the state, are going to get made fun of. But generally not because of the race, ethnicity, or religion, but because they're stupid and crazy. When we are no longer allowed to make fun of stupid crazy people, that is the day we'll see humor essentially outlawed in America and go out of business. And become a country of straight-faced (no offense gays) tight asses. Who look like they haven't had a laugh, or a drink, perhaps a joint in ten years. And America will become a very depressed country as a result. With lines all over the country of people waiting to be able to jump off the bridge.

Reason Magazine: Lisa Kennedy- 'The Cast of Atlas Shrugged Part II Talks Film's Impact'

Source:Reason Magazine- talking about Atlas Shrugged the movie.

Source:Real Life Journal

"The book was incredibly informative for me," says actress Samantha Mathis who plays Dagny Taggart in Atlas Shrugged Part II, "in terms of figuring out [Dagny's] backstory and where she came from, and why she believed what she believed, and what her relationships were."

ReasonTV correspondent Kennedy spoke with Mathis and other cast members at the film's Hollywood Premiere on Oct. 5 to find out how they connected with their characters and the themes portrayed in the movie.

Atlas Shrugged Part II, the second of three films based on Ayn Rand's controversial 1957 novel, hits theaters nationwide on Friday, October 12, 2012. (For more information on the film, go to:Atlas Shrugged Movie." 

From Reason Magazine

Atlas Shrugged (written by Ayn Rand) reminds me of someone who I guess knows the world is about to explode and they're going to die anyway and basically says: "What the hell, I have nothing to lose at this point. I can do whatever I want, because I'm going to die anyway. So thats exactly what I'm going to do." The world is literally on fire and I'm writer and I can write anything I want. Because no one is going to read it anyway. And even if someone does read it, no one is going to remember it, because everyone is going to be dead." 

Atlas Shrugged, is a complete and total fantasy with really no base in reality in it. And looks like something that was written by someone who perhaps had months to live, who was a writer and decides to write whatever they want at this point. With no editor to answer to, because no one is going to read it anyway.

Atlas Shrugged, is essentially a fantasy about what can happen when the private sector and a capitalist economy is regulated. It's not about what can happen when a developed, or highly developing country with a strongly growing an educated middle class, where poverty is shrinking, is taken over by Marxist revolutionaries, that decides to outlaw political parties, private property, starts detaining people who oppose them and nationalizes industries. We already know that story because we've seen it before. Lebanon comes to mind and perhaps you could make a case for Cuba as well. That would be a good book and movie and it would sell well if was done right. 

Atlas Shrugged (written by Ayn Rand in 1957) there hasn't been an example of a regulated private enterprise economy that has collapsed just because it is regulated, since that book was written.

Atlas Shrugged, which I'm sure is very clever and well-done and written by Ayn Rand, that shouldn't be a surprise. But as a movie it sounds like bad sci-fi movie from the Sci-Fi Channel. Every developed country in the world operates under some form of rule of law. That government is not there to tell people who to live their own lives and control our movement's, or anything like that. 

There isn't a single developed country in the world that is a Marxist state, or some type of authoritarian state from the Far-Right. But all developed countries do regulate how people interact with each other and regulate the economy. Not to run business's, but to protect customer's and workers. 

Economies can be over regulated and when that happens they struggle. But they all have some type of regulatory state that is there to protect workers and consumers from predators. And Ayn Rand lived in a great developed country like that for a very long time, that being America.

Reason Magazine: 'Nanny of the Month (August 2012): Stimulus Money Used to Support Soda Taxes'

Source:Real Life Journal 

"Our nation's nannies have turned up the heat this summer.

August's slate of control freaks includes the silver state statists who might fine you 2,000 bucks for the crime of teaching someone how to apply makeup, and the Phoenix code enforcer who busted a woman for handing out free water in 112-degree heat (!) because she didn't have a license. 

Yet neither could managed to muster the the meddling of this month's top pick. Using federal taxpayers' dough (we're talking stimulus and Obamacare cash) to implement local-level soda taxes and other nanny state laws certainly violates good taste, but the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General thinks it might also violate federal anti-lobbying provisions.  

Presenting Reason TV's Nanny of the Month for August 2012: Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius!

About 75 seconds."  

From Reason Magazine

Source:Real Life Journal- a Big Government Nanny?

Actually, I don't agree with this Nanny of The Month show from Reason. I did agree with the Nanny of The Month's for June and July. Mayor Mike Bloomberg essentially trying to outlaw soft drinks in New York and the people in Massachusetts trying to outlaw cursing in public. Thats exactly what political nannies are, people who try to protect others from themselves. 

What Secretary of Health Kathleen Sebelius was trying to do with her wellness campaign is preventive health care. Something we have to do as a country in order to bring down our health care costs.

What they are doing here is passing out funds from the Federal Government to encourage wellness campaigns. Not outlawing junk food, or junk drinks, but encouraging healthy dieting and exercise. Which is in our national interest, because it would bring down the health care costs for the country. 

This is not saying: "You have to eat and drink healthy and you have to exercise and if you don't, we'll lock you up in jail." Where you'll get less exercise and eat worse food, which is what we do in the War on Drugs, the definition of making problems worse by finding a problem, not only not fixing it, but making it worse.

The lady who got fined for handing out free water during one of the hottest summers we've ever had, which we are still having in most of the country, is a much better example of a nanny than the preventive health care campaign. And I would bet the fine that lady is going to have to pay is as much as we would be paying in sales taxes had she bought that water in a store and thats what this fine is about. This big government here thinking they were cheated in losing sales tax revenue. Because the people who got the bottle water got it for free and didn't pay sales taxes on it.

Reason: Javier Sicilia- 'The Caravan For Peace Calls For an End to The Drug War'

Source:Reason Magazine- covering The Caravan of Peace.

Source:Real Life Journal 

"On August 12, where the wall between Mexico and the U.S. meets the Pacific Ocean, acclaimed Mexican poet Javier Sicilia and busloads of people who are fed up with the drug war launched the Caravan for Peace. Over the next several weeks, the Caravan will travel to 25 different U.S. cities with the goal of starting a serious national dialogue about the failure of drug prohibition.

Javier Sicilia, whose son was murdered by drug traffickers in 2011, described the drug war this way:

"This war's failure is devastating: the 23 million American drug consumers are far from diminishing but increasing instead; in the past 5 years, Mexico has accumulated almost 70 thousand dead, more than 20 thousand missing people, more than 250 thousand have been displaced, along with hundreds of thousands of widows and orphans, and these figures keep rising. The American gun manufacturers arm the organized crime through illegal trade, while the Mérida Initiative legally arms the Mexican army, fostering war. The American jails imprison millions of human beings because of drug consumption. The immigrants are criminalized on this side of the border and extorted or made to disappear on the other side; the temptation to militarize using the police regime emerges on both sides, while setting a deep crisis for democracy and undermining the greatness of open societies."  

From Reason Magazine

Imagine if we had a war on junk food, junk drink, coffee, swimming, go carting, sky diving, alcohol and tobacco, steroids, sex, athletics, gambling, all things that can bring people pleasure, but come with certain risk factors. First, we would have a lot less insomniacs in America, because we would be such a dull country. But we would be country of prison inmates, because Americans do these activities everyday. And thats just for the people who would be arrested for having a good time. 

We simply don't have enough law enforcement officers to arrest everyone else. We would be arresting people for having a good time and how they live their own lives, not what they do to other people.

Think about it, what are laws for? To protect innocent people from criminals, not to protect people from themselves. Well, the War on Drugs is the opposite of that, because it arrests people for what they do to themselves, not what they do to innocent people. And people who support the War on Drugs, people who I call Drug Warriors, will say we have drunk driving laws. Well, thats obviously true and I support that, but we haven't labeled alcohol a drug thats really a narcotic considering how dangerous it is and the damage that can come from it, if it's abused, illegal at least since not prohibition.

If you don't like marijuana, you don't like the smell of it or whatever, I have some advice for you: don't use it, don't take it, don't use it at all, don't hangout with people who at least do it around you. Congratulations, because you've just made the decision not to use marijuana. And if you have kids, you should keep it away from them as well. 

But don't try to force other people not to be able to use marijuana legally. Because for one, just a practical reason, you won't be able to stop them. I mean talk about wasting time, you would be better off trying to pick up a beach ball with a baseball glove. But the other reason being its really none of your business unless they are friends, or relatives and they are abusing it. What you should do instead is mind your own damn business.

Worry about what happens in your own life and what you have control over, rather than what happens in other people's lives. The War on Drugs is about control, overprotection, trying to save people from themselves. Like the overprotected father who tries to lock his daughter in her bedroom until she's 21. For fear she might meet a dangerous guy. 

And most of the victims of this War, are the people who Drug Warriors claim they are trying to save people who have experimented with illegal narcotics and end up in the criminal justice system as a result. For what they've done to themselves, rather than what they've done to others.

Reason: Lucy Steigerwald- 'What We Saw at The Solidarity Concert for Pussy Riot'

Source:Reason Magazine- Lucy Steigerwald interviewing a Pussy,  LOL!

Source:Real Life Journal

"Amnesty International called Russian punk feminist collective Pussy Riot "prisoners of conscience," after a February 21 anti-Putin protest landed three members of the band on trial for "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred." The plight of Pussy Riot has provoked international attention — and pressure for lenience — as the women face three to seven years in prison. On August 10, Reason TV headed down to the Solidarity Concert for Pussy Riot, right across from the Russian embassy." 

From Reason Magazine

Wow! I thought Christian-Nationalism was a problem in America, especially when it’s involved in politics. But didn’t realize how big of an issue it is Russia as well. That their Federal Government is trying to clamp down on pornography and perhaps other forms of adult entertainment. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that I don’t live in Russia, or aren’t of Russian ethnicity. You hear stories about Russia as it relates to the Putin Administration clamping down on speech as it relates to the press.

Because Russia does technically have free press over there, with private media and so-forth and the Federal Government gets involved when one of their news networks, or publications report a story that’s critical of the Putin Administration. Which is bad enough, but to take it to the next level and it interfere with how people live their own lives and what they do in their own homes, is beyond extreme. Its big government gone wild and is something that the Christian-Right would love to see in America.

I can see one of these groups holding rallies with some of their famous religious leaders in defense of President Vladimir Putin and what he’s doing to crack down on immoral behavior as they see it.

I can see it now, Christian-Conservatives holding rallies in favor or what the Putin Administration in Russia is doing as far as it regulates its own people. They would call it something like: “Defending God in the name of morality and decency by trying to eliminate pornography in the Russian Federation.” They would be defending a country that just twenty years ago was a communist republic, a country they use to protest against, especially as it relates to religious freedom.

But now the Christian-Right would be coming out in a favor of a country that still cracks down on freedom, but in a different way: people’s ability to express themselves and be able to live their own lives and control their own bodies. And perhaps see Christian-Conservatives holding rallies against people speaking out in favor of free expression.

Which is how pornography has been ruled constitutionally protected under the First Amendment in the United States. I could see rallies organized by Christian-Conservatives that would one defend the what President Putin is doing in Russia as it relates to pornography and rallies speaking out against people who are speaking out in favor of people’s ability to express themselves sexually. And calling these people immoral and people who should be in prison for what they do in private and what they are speaking out in favor of. Which is a big part of what Christian-Nationalism is in America: restricting freedom to protect what they see as national security and morality.

Reason: 'Bikini Banners and Freakin Cops Cracking Down on Curse Words! The Nanny of The Month For June 2012'

Source:Reason Magazine- nanny of the month for June, 2012.

Source:Real Life Journal 

"June's busybodies want to shield your eyes from bikinis and remind you that they're not above ripping your garden out (even if you are complying with city codes).

But top dishonors go to the police chief who admitted on camera that his officers had "more important things to do," but still championed a measure that fines folks for swearing in public.

Presenting Reason.tv's Nanny of the Month for June 2012: Middleborough, Massachusetts Police Chief Bruce Gates!"

From Reason Magazine

Here’s more evidence that we overpay our politicians and don’t give them enough work to do. That they would actually take time, taxpayers time that is to look for new ways to restrict how the people who pay their salaries in how they live their own lives. That they would look for new ways to protect people from themselves. That individual freedom is too risky and some people might not know what to do with it and since they can’t take all of our freedom way from us and turn America into an authoritarian state, they look for new ways.

Nanny statists have to be clever and look for new ways to do this, without officially at least taking all of our freedom from us. Even risk violating the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution to do so. Which is what they are doing in Massachusetts by putting new limits on what people can say in public, the target of course of this being curse words. 

New Jersey trying to install crackdowns on what women can wear in public, meaning certain bikinis at their beaches. All they are doing there is just giving more men reason not to vacation in New Jersey. But they would be welcomed along with their women to come down to nearby Delaware and Maryland, where they wouldn’t have those restrictions.

These are just examples of what a nanny state looks like where the state takes it upon themselves to protect people from themselves. It ranges from speech, to what people can wear and say in public, to what they can eat, drink and smoke, to what they watch on TV, or listen to on the radio. All in an effort of course to protect people from themselves and to prevent us the people from doing things that they either don’t like, like cursing and certain forms of entertainment, which of course so-called Christian-Conservatives of course hate and see these things as a threat to our national morality and even national security.

When I hear those arguments, I think they must be high on something they believe should be illegal for everyone else. Or hate speech that today’s so-called Progressives (Neo-Communists, in actuality) hate, because they are worried that it may offend people they care about who are too sensitive to deal with it by themselves in an adult way and need the State to protect them. 

But my Nanny of the Month for June, 2012 is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is now the Mayor of the Nanny City thanks to his efforts to protect New Yorker’s from themselves, as it relates to junk food, soft drinks, marijuana, and even pornography. And represents why the term nanny is even involved in American politics and why we have the term nanny state. Government’s that want to protect their people from themselves.