Do you know what the most striking thing is about the 2012 presidential election? The biggest group of voters in America has no candidate to call their own. Yup, Gallup says 40% of Americans are Independent versus a combined total of 58% for Republicans and Democrats. If you think something is out of whack this election season, you’re right. And now you know the answer. I am one of the 40%, and I sure would rather have a party to identify with, one that would represent my idea of a constitutionally strong federal republic as intended by Thomas Jefferson and the Founders.
It appears that you and I will be facing a presidential ballot this November that features the names Obama and Romney. When asked what words come to mind quickly when hearing the name Obama, I quickly think strychnine, Marx, Sotomayor, Kagan, Obamacare, a 50% tax on dividends, wars, massive and intrusive central government, liberty destruction, anti-second amendment, presidential overreach, income redistribution, incompetence. You get the picture. Asked on Romney? Well nothing, nothing at all. Really swell choices, no? I will have no choice but to hold my nose tightly and vote Romney. At the top of the ladder is the Supreme Court issue. America simply cannot stand another Sotomayor, Kagan or, God forbid, Breyer.
OK then, I have neither a party nor candidate. And I know many of you are in the same sinking boat with me. Well, we do not have to go for the rules as written. The entrenched pols in Washington have rigged the game with campaign rules that stick you and me with our out-dated, two-party system. Today, many of us find ourselves pigeon-holed in one of two parties with groups of people with whom we have nothing in common. Special interest groups rule the day. Americans are trapped in a vice. The presidential choice today is one of two candidates, each of whom is in the pocket of the entrenched Washington special interest groups.
Two groups I hold in special distain are the public sector unions and the neocons. You are probably up to speed on the carnage the unions are wrecking on America’s cities and towns. E.J. Smith covers this sad story in depth regularly here at Richardcyoung.com. Check out E.J.’s weekly audios on The Helen Glover radio show. As to neocons, I will cover this crowd in my upcoming post. You undoubtedly will be in for a shock.
Meanwhile, we have put together a Party Planner display outlining how a multiparty system might look.
Where do you fit in? How about your family, friends and associates? Conduct your own poll. When your results are in, I doubt that either a Barack Obama or Mitt Romney would be the presidential favorite. Over the course of the last year, I have written often about Ron Paul and the Cato Institute. By a wide margin Ron Paul’s principles most closely square with my own. As to Cato, Debbie and I are Cato Club 200 members and feel that no other public policy think tank in the U.S. does a better job of laying out the principles of individual liberty, free markets, and peace than does Cato. Cato does not get involved in politics, endorse candidates, or seek to influence elections. A strict discipline of neutrality is maintained and is referred to regularly at all Cato conclaves. I know for a fact that Cato attendees much admire and respect the unaligned position that Chairman Bob Levy and President Ed Crane lay out at every Cato policy conclave Debbie and I have attended. So check out my Party Planner, take a poll with your gang, and join Debbie and me as Cato Institute supporters. There is much to learn. Warm regards,
Dick
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You never want to find yourself in a disaster situation, period—whether it’s an EMP attack, a solar flare, or a hurricane. But if you do, then you owe it to yourself and your family to be prepared to the best of your ability.
Before you can say “Houston, we have a problem,” it’s too late to get your passport renewed, have your financial statements faxed to you, or call your mother to mail you your birth certificate.
In Ron Howard’s Apollo 13, flight director Gene Kranz, played by Ed Harris, says, “What do we got on the spacecraft that’s good?” Sy Liebergot (Clint Howard) responds, “I’ll get back to you, Gene.”
What do we got that’s good? First, I’d tell my wife Becky we’ve got our and the kids’ passports and birth certificates, our licenses, full tanks of gas, and plenty of U.S. dollars, silver, and Canadian dollars. Plus the marriage license—more as a reminder in case she tries to ditch me.
How will you prove that you are who you are or that what you say is true? You should have up-to-date pictures of your family and your home. Up-to-date pictures of family members are vital if you’re separated, and pictures of your home are all the proof you’ll have if you need to file insurance claims.
Have copies of bank account and brokerage statements, including those for your kids, such as UGMAs, UTMAs, or 529s. In addition, make sure you’re banking with a company that has made sufficient disaster preparations. For disaster preparedness, the two companies that make me most comfortable are Fidelity Investments and the Vanguard Group.
As an aside, I’ve considered opening a bank account in Canada. I made some calls this week. One was to Bank of Nova Scotia. They tell me I can have an account set up in a couple of weeks without leaving my desk. But after further thought, I don’t want to be hassled with fees, account minimums, and the added responsibility.
So I redoubled my efforts at reviewing Fidelity’s and Vanguard’s disaster plans.
I remember from my days working at Fidelity how serious disaster planning was to the company. For one, Fidelity has multiple campuses, not just little retail outlets spread around the country. It also has plans for certain degrees of outages.
I know they have a team dedicated to hacking their own systems. My friend there tells me there’s a continuous review of potential weak spots that get revealed with mock outages and cyber-attacks.
Both companies have a disaster plan laid out that you can read on their websites—click here for Fidelity or here for Vanguard.
There are a lot of good commonsense reasons to have your own contingency plan. It makes all the sense in the world to back up your docs and accounts properly and have some cash on hand. If you’re asked to do what the guys on Apollo 13 did—the equivalent of driving a toaster through a car wash—at least you’ll be in the best possible position to come out the other side.
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 A Response to Charles Koch from Robert A. Levy, Chairman, Cato Institute
March 12, 2012
On March 1, after filing suit in Kansas court to gain control over the Cato Institute, Charles Koch issued a statement to the press: “We are not acting in a partisan manner, we seek no ‘takeover’ and this is not a hostile action.” The purpose of the suit, he insisted, was simply “to ensure that Cato stays true to its fundamental principles.”
Last week, Mr. Koch circulated a longer “Statement Regarding the Cato Institute,” again professing his “steadfast intent” that Cato remain “a principled and non-partisan organization that would advance the ideas that enable all people to prosper – by promoting individual liberty, limited government, free markets and peace.”
But actions speak louder than words. The Kochs’ takeover attempt has included packing Cato’s board of directors with individuals, almost all of whom are financially entangled with the Kochs and have no history of libertarian advocacy.
Moreover, their latest statement does nothing to address the genuine concerns expressed by their friends and ours that the action the Kochs have taken will pointlessly and grievously injure the movement for individual liberty that they have previously done so much to advance.
It should have been obvious to Charles Koch that filing this suit would necessarily result in a public battle that would threaten the Cato Institute’s credibility – wounding allied organizations and scholars in the process. You be the judge. Imagine that Charles Koch prevails in his lawsuit against Cato, and that he and his brother then “own” two-thirds of Cato’s stock. Would an Institute whose board of directors is appointed by the Kochs be viewed as a credible source of non-partisan, non-aligned, independent commentary on vital public policy questions? Or would the think tank now known as Cato cease to exist because its 35-year unimpeachable reputation is critically damaged by the (unfortunately accurate) perception that Cato is literally “owned by the Kochs”?
In his latest message, Mr. Koch relates “the facts behind what we have done and why.” I regret to report that his facts are, at best incomplete and accompanied by a host of misleading assertions. What follows are the Cato Institute’s responses to the central points Charles Koch raises.
Read Bob Levy’s point-by-point rebuttal of Charle Koch by clicking here.
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It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame. – Oscar Wilde
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 David Boaz of the Cato Institute lays out the similarities between Rick Santorum and Hillary Clinton in his piece, “Hillary in a Sweater Vest?” Boaz tells readers about how both Santorum and Clinton deny that individualism can be successful without government intervention in their lives.
Hillary wrote a book called It Takes a Village, Santorum wrote It Takes a Family. What they agree on is that individuals can’t manage their own lives, and that what “it” really takes is an expansive, nurturing government telling individuals what’s best for them. Clinton envisioned a federal government constantly advising, nagging, hectoring parents: “Videos with scenes of commonsense baby care — how to burp an infant, what to do when soap gets in his eyes, how to make a baby with an earache comfortable — could be running continuously in doctors’ offices, clinics, hospitals, motor vehicle offices, or any other place where people gather and have to wait,” she wrote. Santorum proposed such federal programs as national service, promotion of prison ministries, publicly financed trust funds for children, community-investment incentives, strengthened obscenity enforcement, covenant marriage, assorted tax breaks, and economic literacy programs in “every school in America.”
The similarities don’t end there. Click here to read more “Hillary in a Sweater Vest?”
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