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Author: Remso Martinez

Iowa Lawmakers Attempt to Legalize Psychedelics

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Criminal Justice, Drugs, Personal Liberty. No Comments on Iowa Lawmakers Attempt to Legalize Psychedelics

The times are changing. People have moved beyond discussing marijuana legalization. Now they’re talking psychedelics. Ten years ago, could you have imagined a respectable politician discussing magic mushroom legalization? State Rep. Jeff Shipley (R-IA) issued the following statement, “I believe an Iowan should not be criminalized for trying to use psychedelic substances for medicinal purposes. If these drugs can help our veterans who suffer from PTSD, our family members who suffer from addiction, or help a loved one get relief from near death anxiety, we should be doing all we can push making these options safe and available.” Then, Shipley introduced two bills:
  • House File 249 would remove Psilocybin, MDMA, and Ibogaine from the list of Schedule 1 controlled substances and allow for the state to create laws that would allow the drugs for medical purposes.
  • House File 248 effectively decriminalizes Psilocybin
Libertarians have fought for access to certain drugs and medicines for decades, and now these ideas of individual autonomy and better access to medical and recreational are becoming far more mainstream among American political discourse. Bills like this restore freedom to individuals and their health providers and give them access to the help they need. These advancements in the scientific understanding of these drugs benefit will people suffering countless medical conditions they can now seek alternative treatments and medicines for.. Iowa joins states such as Colorado, Oregon, and others attempting to expand medical research and access to psychedelics in 2019. They seem to be making progress. The Denver Psilocybin Mushroom Decriminalization Initiative collected 5,559 valid signatures – 16 percent more than necessary to get on the ballot. The fact that red states and blue states are showing an interest in something of a taboo topic shows that people are beginning to understand this issue is far more than simply about access to psychedelics and other drugs. Drug reform and medical freedom is not a traditional left-right issue. Partisans on both sides of the aisle have supported initiatives and efforts such as this, while at the same time many statists have attempted to prevent it by sticking to outdated, draconian beliefs and policies about psychedelics and other drugs. By pushing past the fixed narrative and giving citizens the opportunity to make decisions for themselves who knows what people can do to better their health, lives, and civil liberties.

West Virginia Takes a Step Closer to Sound Money

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Business and Economy, Monetary Policy. No Comments on West Virginia Takes a Step Closer to Sound Money

Since allowing the Federal Reserve a stranglehold over our dollar almost a century ago, Americans have had to deal with the rampant theft known as inflation and the hijacking of our sound currency backed by gold. The founders knew that fiat, paper currency would lead to the eventual death of the American dream. They had much to say about this issue. Our first President, George Washington, called paper currency “wicked.” Thomas Jefferson agreed,  writing that “its [paper money’s] abuses also are inevitable and, by breaking up the measure of value, makes a lottery of all private property.” Now, legislators in West Virginia are taking a step toward sound money. They plan to legally recognize gold and silver as recognized legal tender. The Tenth Amendment Center reports, “a West Virginia Senate committee passed a bill that would repeal the sales and use tax on gold and silver bullion. Final passage would eliminate one barrier to using gold and silver in everyday transactions, a foundational step for people to undermine the Federal Reserve’s monopoly on money.” While it is wise for constitutional respecting lawmakers to make such a rule in writing at the state level, it is simply justifying an ignored and disrespected portion of the Constitution that would have prevented the devaluation of the dollar and exit of sound currency in the first place. According to Article I, Section 10 of the US Constitution, “No State shall…make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payments of debts.” Without sound money, governments can simply print fiat currency on demand, thus inflating the money supply. This is as a pseudo-tax on you and your neighbors. Money in your pocket says it’s worth a specific amount, but with each dollar printed, it’s then worthless. There would be no need for a new law if the Constitution was simply obeyed. By respecting sound currency in the forms of metals and other scarce resources, you are respecting the right of the citizenry to save money and know the true value of their holdings. But since the Constitution is disobeyed, hyperinflation is sure to diminish the power and safety of our nation. No empire in history has ever been able to print itself into prosperity.

Journalism’s Purpose in a Free Society

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in First Amendment, Liberator Online, News You Can Use. No Comments on Journalism’s Purpose in a Free Society

The legacy media ranging from cable news to print newspaper has in many ways turned off many Americans from the news. The era in which your regular consumer imagined that the press was objective and unbiased has come and gone some will say, but I’d argue that era only existed in our mired imagination masquerading as a memory. The media has, and always will be biased, slanted, and unobjective, but even biased media has a place in a free society. Legendary outlaw journalist Hunter S. Thompson knew as far back as 1972 that anyone in media pretending to be objective was simply trying to make themselves appear more righteous than the rest. In his book Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72, Thompson wrote “So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here–not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.” The question left to be raised is if no journalism can be accomplished without bias or slant? Can it be true journalism? Can it be done for the benefit of all mankind or simply the preferred audience of the writer? In many countries outside of the United States, journalism is a dangerous field of work. Journalists are often blackmailed, beaten, or even murdered for simply investigating to find the truth of a matter. All journalism, at its core, is meant to shed light on areas of your life and the world around you that wouldn’t typically find its way into a regular conversation. While much of today’s media landscape has focused on the politics of personal destruction, clickbait, and over-exaggerated tabloids, the true purpose of journalism down to its core has been to expose fraud, waste, abuse, and injustice. Even in today’s day in age, the left-wing media needs the right-wing media, and vice versa, in order to keep each other balanced. From investigating corrupt business dealings to government injustices, the role of a journalist in a free society is to act as a watchdog on consolidated power and act as an alarm for the people. The issue at hand is that journalists provide a public service, yet are competing in an environment where their work is drowned out by the need to compete for clicks and ratings. True investigative journalism takes time, effort, and resources that in some cases don’t find the results that were expected and for that reason, big publishers don’t want to invest in something that might not bring them exactly what they want in order to get a positive return on investment. Instead, many so-called “journalists” today never leave their offices, and simply search the internet so they can summarize and reword the work of someone else. There is hope, however, and the market provides. The age of the internet has given true independent journalists the opportunity to find their own audience and voice, and use resources such as Kickstarter and Patreon in order to finance their day to day lives and projects. While the legacy media is seeing a purge as many writers are laid off, the era for independent journalists seems to be in bloom as consumers on the left and right side of the political aisle are individual supporting journalists they might not agree with on every issue, but know they report the facts in the best way possible. The American people might be losing faith in the media, but the people still have faith that the intentions of many journalists are to be the watchdogs’ society needs to remain free.

The Welfare State is the Root of the Yellow Vest Protest

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Economics, Environment and Energy. No Comments on The Welfare State is the Root of the Yellow Vest Protest

The Yellow Vest movement in France has marked its thirteenth week of constant protest in the streets of Paris. Journalist Ford Fischer, who arrived in Paris this past week in order to live broadcast the protests to his site News2Share, in order to fill the gap in information by the American media, showed up in time to witness some of the most violent interactions between the police and the protesters yet in the movement’s brief history (all of which were recorded for the world to witness). In a discussion with Fischer, I learned that the Yellow Vest movement is more of a coalition rather than a unified front. From populists raging against the immigration, the European Union, and obligations to NATO, to the anti-tax crowd and Marxists highlighting the apparent class struggle, this odd marriage of these multiple factions have united against President Macron’s expanded gas tax, which they claim disproportionally harms the French working and middle class. While the issue might be focused primarily on this one unpopular legislative decision, the roots of the now turned violent Yellow Vest protests run deeper than that. While politically center-right sympathizers in the United States have been quick to side with the protestors due to the anti-tax mantra, the substance beneath the slogans is far more insidious. Fischer stated that the issue at hand among most of the protestors is not simply the implementation of the tax, but who the tax is being directed towards- French workers. A majority of the protestors wish that the larger income earners and wealthy French elites would pick up more of the tax burden (as they already do with a top marginal tax rate of 45 percent), meaning they wouldn’t have too. With a class warfare mindset brewing hotter and hotter each week the protests continue, the more the real reason behind all of this controversy might get lost in the context of it all. The French welfare state is a model “Nanny State” for progressive Europe, and over the years has had to balance pleasing both ends of a Democracy that demands more entitlements with each election. The broad issue to paint things in simple terms is that compared to other developed nations in the West, the French don’t produce, and most don’t even work not because of a lack of opportunity, but because they have chosen not to. The Régime Général run by URSSAF (Union de Recouvrement des cotisations de la Sécurité Sociale et d’Allocations Familiales) is the largest entitlement fund in all of France. According to CompleteFrance.com, “The majority of employed, unemployed and retired people are covered by this fund and, in all, around 85% of the population living in France are affiliated to this general social security fund.” This means that with a guaranteed handout and regressive tax rate, you work to pay those who are in some cases, choosing not to work. The French abide by a basic socialist view of redistribution “based on the theory of repartition, with all collected funds redistributed to finance immediate welfare needs, such as unemployment, sickness benefit, and state pension payments.” This is the root of the issue, meaning that the French want to pass money around in a progressive style without wanting to directly understand the concept of other people having to foot the bill by producing the services, demand, and supply of which money can be freely allocated based off market principles. The Yellow Vest movement may have been brought about by recent developments in their politics, but the reason behind all this issue lies in the fact that one group of the nation wants to significantly move the burden of a cumbersome welfare state upon the other; passing rapidly back and forth a jug of water hoping nothing spills so they can’t be blamed for the little that is left inside the jug. While the father of Communism, Karl Marx, and his ideas are factually incompatible with the classical liberal view of individual autonomy and free markets, France seems to be falling in line with the Marxist’s view of history and cyclical, human behavior. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx stated what is to many people around the world a forced reality, that “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.” In a free enterprise system, free men and women can move up and down the social latter and aren’t confined to the rigid class system humanity has known for so long. However, the existence of the welfare state creates the false god the French are now prey to, having to sacrifice someone else’s liberty and treasure, never wanting it to be theirs.

European Gun Ownership is Rising

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Business and Economy, Gun Rights, Libertarianism. No Comments on European Gun Ownership is Rising

In a continent plagued with issues and challenges that most Americans are unaware of, working and middle-class people throughout Europe are starting to rediscover the liberal case for firearms ownership in an era where progressive gun control policies typically prevent private gun ownership. According to Paul Martin-Foss at RedTea News, “both individuals and businesses want to defend themselves against a threat that governments are trying to pretend doesn’t exist, more and more Europeans are deciding to arm themselves.” The threat comes from both uncontrolled immigration as well as regular violent crime. In a continent with a history of revolutions and two world wars, the images of Venezuelan Security Forces killing protestors in the summer of 2018 also shows the power of life and death that the state holds. Regardless as to whatever reason people are choosing to arm themselves, they know that the only person who will always defend their lives, their family, and their property, is – at the end of the day – themselves. The numbers of German gun owners alone show that people are starting to understand that firearms are the ultimate mechanism of self-defense, with Martin-Foss stating that, “In Germany, the number of registered weapons has risen by 10%, while the number of permits to carry firearms outside a shooting range has tripled. More people in Belgium, too, are beginning arm themselves and learning to shoot. But they’ll have a ways to go to catch up to criminals, with as many as 45 million illegal firearms estimated to be in circulation throughout Western Europe.” In the United States, American citizens have often taken the right to self-defense with a firearm for granted. While the Second Amendment of our Bill of Rights restricts the Federal government from infringing on the right to bear arms, the US is still a union with fifty states, meaning fifty separate Constitutions along with many more local and municipal laws regarding firearms ownership. By now, it is proven knowledge that there is a strong correlation between strict gun laws in cities, and cities with the most gun violence since criminals are still obtaining guns in order to exploit unarmed law abiding citizens. Along with that, research shows most mass shootings take place in gun-free zones. If the trend of residents purchasing guns in progressive Europe is an indicator of anything, it should remind Americans of all stripes that the right to bear arms is a natural right meant to ensure life, liberty, and property, meaning voters should be wary of anyone who wants to restrict those rights.

Virginia Smoking Bill is Simply Age Discrimination

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Economic Liberty, Issues, Personal Liberty. 1 Comment on Virginia Smoking Bill is Simply Age Discrimination

Currently, in the US, equal rights are discussed often in terms of sex or race, but the biggest discriminator in our nation is most arguably age, primarily the difference in rights between an eighteen-year-old and a twenty-one-year-old adult. According to federal logic, you are smart enough to vote at eighteen but too irresponsible to buy alcohol. You can join the military (even at age sixteen with parental consent) and die for your country, but you can’t rent a car in some states. There are other discriminative situations, now the Virginia General Assembly seems to want to add more. The war on vaping and smoking e-cigs isn’t only occurring on the federal level but is also being waged in individual states such as Virginia. On February 5th in the Virginia House of Delegates, bipartisan legislation was passed which raised “the minimum age required to purchase tobacco and nicotine products in the Commonwealth to 21.” Republican representative and Speaker of the House Kirk Cox celebrated the discriminatory bill stating that “By raising the minimum age for purchase to 21, this will have a positive effect on our schools by lessening the chances of teenagers obtaining vaping products from friends and classmates who are already 18.” What this bill really does is hit the vaping and tobacco industry by taking out a large chunk of the population which purchases tobacco and vape products. They claim it will reduce the number of high schoolers who smoke or vape, but raising the purchase age won’t stop those that were breaking the law and obtaining vapes and tobacco products when the age to purchase was eighteen. This bill also seems to be attacking a backward trend as well, since teen tobacco use is at an all-time low while vaping seems to have replaced tobacco as the go-to product. Even then, vaping shouldn’t be as much of a concern compared to the harmful effects of tobacco especially since an extensive report in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that vaping is essentially harmless. The politicians supporting this and similar legislation have a backer, however, the Virginia based Republican Standard reported that the “Henrico County-based tobacco leviathan Altria Group Inc. also supports the legislation, calling the rising underage use of nicotine delivery devices an ‘epidemic’ as well.” This shouldn’t be as much of a surprise however since the tobacco industry is a known enemy of the vaping industry. What this bill shows is that in an effort for a bipartisan win, Republicans and Democrats agreed to limit the rights of access for legal adults while the big tobacco lobby was able to look morally righteous, while also attacking their competitors in the vape industry since younger generations are falling out of love with tobacco. A free society shouldn’t legislate what legal adults have access to, while at the same time showing that these discriminatory age laws are less about helping society and more about curbing consumer decisions.

The 3D Printed Gun’s True Enemy is Ignorance

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Gun Rights, Libertarianism, Personal Liberty. No Comments on The 3D Printed Gun’s True Enemy is Ignorance

The 3D printed gun debate which captivated headlines in the fall of 2018 may feel like it is far behind us, but the battle rages on in the courts and throughout the country where individuals who own 3D printers are worried as to whether or not one day, they’ll wake up and suddenly be labeled a criminal for something which the day before was perfectly legal. In a recent episode of the BlazeTV series Kibbe on Liberty, the topic of 3D printers and 3D printed guns was discussed in more detail than you’ll probably have ever seen on any major cable news outlet. However, is this lone episode capable of changing the minds of what seems to be the majority of Americans who don’t support 3D printed guns? Perhaps yes, if you know what it is in fact what these people are opposing (assuming they have a full understanding of the issue in the first place, which never seems to be discussed longer than a soundbite). The subject matter expert in the episode was 3D printing expert Matt Larosiere, a first-generation American and firearms aficionado who believes the root of the opposition to the 3D printed gun is simply mass ignorance. Larosiere’s argument is that the pushback towards this groundbreaking technology, which was only very recently commercially available for the public, which he claims is a net positive for humanity in terms of creative discovery and innovation, is being met by a wall of uneducated opinionists. From politicians backed by the anti-gun lobby to politicians backed by the gun-manufacturer lobby, the combined ignorance, and disinformation by self-interested politicians and left-leaning media outlets creates an environment where it is incredibly difficult to get the truth out. The target of the coordinated outrage is typically aimed at the first 3D printed (and completely plastic) Liberator pistol. The Liberator is a bulky, unreliable hunk of plastic no serious person with an ounce of firearms experience would ever use in a defensive situation. Larosiere continues on during the interview to point out that people aren’t afraid of the frail, one-shot plastic gun which might explode in a user’s hands like the Liberator. The general populace is typically more terrified by weapons deemed as “assault rifles” such as the AR-15, even though the term “assault rifle” isn’t a real term in the first place. An example Larosiere provides is that if someone attempted to print a full rifle out of plastic such as an AK-47, the rifle would explode from the pressure of the gas from the expelled ammunition alone making the whole thing worthless. Back to the Liberator, a brief study of the plastic handgun shows that the barrel size, cartridge size, uneven rifling due to the difficulty of milling the plastic component (which deforms after a single shot) all make the Liberator a difficult pistol to even attempt to conceal compared to regular handguns criminals can more easily buy off the street. Aside from the manufacturing of the 3D printed parts, politicians and lobbyists have attempted to go after sites disseminating the files for these firearms which were available wide open on the internet way before 3D printers even existed. Larosiere pointed out that in order to stop the exchange of those specific files, the federal government would have to essentially shut down the internet and “effectively restrict the technology” as a whole. The costs in that situation would be far more dangerous than simply allowing things to continue as they have thus far. Lastly, the major piece of information most news outlets leave out is a reminder that people have been crafting their own guns and making their own custom components for as long as guns have existed. Larosiere commented on that fact stating that “It’s legal to make a gun that follows the National Firearms Act” as long as you don’t sell them, and the primary reason for that is they don’t want you to evade licensure and tax laws that would come with gun manufacturing and then selling them on the open market. The episode ends with a reminder as to why the Second Amendment was enshrined in our Constitution in the first place- to defend the citizenry from that of a dangerous government so that the people would have a way to defend their liberties, which sadly far too many Americans today take for granted. Evidence of what a world without private ownership of firearms can be seen easily today, such as Venezuela for example. In June of 2018 alone, hundreds of Venezuelan civilians were murdered by the Security Forces a very short time after privately owned guns were confiscated by the government. All in all, the true animosity behind the 3D printed gun has nothing to do with the access to firearms themselves, but with the spin and deceit aimed at this issue from those that fear a population with the knowledge of how to craft and maintain arms themselves out of their own self-interest. Still, like many issues, the biggest enemy of 3D printed guns isn’t necessarily the government which seeks to outlaw them, but the ignorant populace that has already chosen to oppose them without arming themselves with the reasons as to why they do so in the first place. You can watch the full short-documentary episode titled The Right to Bear 3D Printers today on Free the People’s website.

3 Reasons Why the Green New Deal is Rotten

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Business and Economy, Elections and Politics, Environment and Energy. No Comments on 3 Reasons Why the Green New Deal is Rotten

With a generational tilt towards socialism combined with a culture that demands both jobs and cleaner energy, many Democrats and Independents are falling in line with the progressive Green New Deal. This policy which has its roots in the Green Party going back all the way to 2000, and now has embedded itself in the progressive movement and younger wing of the Democratic Party. What should you know about this Green New Deal as it starts to get more attention as we get closer to the 2020 Presidential election? 1) It’ll Kill Our Fossil Fuel Industry and Energy Independence Economist Stephen Moore published an op-ed recently at the Investor’s Business Daily discussing the many problems with the Green New Deal. The biggest and most obvious issue with this progressive plan is that it would destroy our coal and natural gas industry, which obviously didn’t go too well for Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she threatened to put coal country out of work. The plan would place caps and limits on natural resource production harming our energy independence in the long run. Moore points out “competitors like China, India, Russia, and OPEC will replace the U.S. as major producers of cheap coal, oil, and natural gas. Because these countries have much lower environmental standards than we do, the GND could cause global greenhouse gas emissions to rise, not fall.” 2) Let’s Talk About Those Coal Jobs Again It didn’t go well for Hillary last time as mentioned previously, and with the job loss numbers, it might not get any better for the progressives this time around either. Moore points out an estimated 10 million jobs are tied to the oil, gas and coal industry within the United States. These are 10 million voters alone with families meaning they have an obvious interest in not losing their jobs. It is one thing if the free market replaced these jobs with jobs within the green or renewable energy sector, but this is purely an act of big government picking winners and losers. This plan wouldn’t only result in massive job losses, but would also hike up the price for electricity and other resources thus harming the lower and middle class. Moore states “Under this plan energy prices would rise dramatically, as we see in Europe with $5-a-gallon gasoline. Electric power and home heating costs could easily double as we know from the experience of states like California and New York with 50% renewable energy mandates that are much less onerous than the GND.” 3) Who Has to Pay For This? Lastly, who will have to pick up for this massive FDR New Deal-esq bill? The 1 percent or the average American taxpayer? Not the billionaires, because they can move their money overseas and use their connections and knowledge to get as many tax breaks out of the plan as possible. This means that the regular consumer is going to pay it all through their taxes and with what they consume. This progressive plan to save the environment and put people to work sounds good, but the unintended consequences show more jobs will be lost, our economy will spiral down, and the working class American will have to foot the bill. This is another case of central planners intervening in the market with lofty goals that over-promise, and underdeliver.

Why Are Cops Crafting Fake Crimes?

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Criminal Justice, Issues. No Comments on Why Are Cops Crafting Fake Crimes?

It seems like something out of a crime novel in nature, a world where cops aren’t arresting enough folks so, in order to justify a bogus arrest, they go ahead and create an opportunity to lure someone into committing a crime they wouldn’t have otherwise. This may sound ludacris, but this is a situation occurring right now in New York City. According to Reason Magazine, the NYPD has been conducting these unethical practices since 2006 under an NYPD sanctioned program called Operation Lucky Bag. “Operation Lucky Bag began in 2006,” reporter Joe Seyton states, was started “supposedly as a way for police to put away people with existing rap sheets. Undercover officers would plant a bag, usually with money or other valuables inside, in a public place. They’d wait for someone to ‘steal’ the planted property then make an arrest.” So what does this mean in simple terms? The cops wanted to lock up prior criminals so badly, they created crimes “out of thin air.” Operation Lucky Bag did face scrutiny during a massive lawsuit in 2013, but the case died without any sound or fury when both sides reached a settlement. Now, a new case has been filled recently by the New York County Defender Services (NYCDS) alongside the Legal Aid Society, in hopes of bringing this unjust violator of civil liberties to its grave. The intention of capturing repeat offenders alone defeats the intention of what our prison system should be used for; instead of rehabilitating offenders so they can be released into society to go about their lives, this system simply strengthens the prison industrial complex by proactively pushing for this revolving door system that has caused our criminal justice system to become such a farce. While some previous offenders could perhaps commit another crime in the future, it is not the job of law enforcement to facilitate crimes in order to justify an arrest. This system could be abused in order to extend to citizens without a record, thus creating a slippery slope towards a dangerous future paved with good intentions. In the United States, we have a Bill of Rights that prevent federal courts and law enforcement from violating a citizen’s rights, but states and cities have their own sets of laws, which sometimes enable this type of action or choose to ignore it. In a free society, the role of the state should only be to provide law enforcement and court system which serves the public interest by protecting the life and property of the citizenry, not crafting fake crimes for people to commit so they can lock them up again.  

A California Charity Becomes a Casualty of City Regulators

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Business and Economy, Economic Liberty. No Comments on A California Charity Becomes a Casualty of City Regulators

Charity is a beautiful thing that everyone tends to support, regardless of creed or partisan slant. However, there is a strange concept of “forced” charity that both Republicans and Democrats try to enforce in their own various ways. Whether it is through entitlements, bailouts, or pork spending, some in government think that their involvement makes everything better, but in reality, those good intentions more often than not have adverse consequences. In a press release issued by the California based charity Deliverance, the non-profit organization which has helped thousands of homeless individuals and those in need, announced that as of January 31st, 2019, the organization will cease to exist. Because of the added requirements and regulations by state entities, Deliverance was no longer capable of maintaining their current operations while at the same time trying to stay afloat as they were drowned by red tape and other expenses thrown at them by the state of California. Deliverance noted the main difficulties they encountered in their statement:
The San Diego Department of Environmental Health established requirements for LSCFOs [Limited Service Charitable Feeding Operation]. If an organization is distributing prepackaged, non-perishable food, or whole uncut produce, no action is required. However, if the organization wishes to prepare food for distribution, the LSCFO must register with SDDEH [San Diego Department of Environmental Health] and follow established best practices as set forth on their website. The primary change for Deliverance is the requirement that no food may be prepared in a volunteer’s home, which has been our primary method of food preparation. The Board of Directors discussed options for utilizing an existing food prep facility, but due to the distributed nature of the organization, this option would prove to be cumbersome and perhaps only a short term solution to the problem. As a result, Deliverance, San Diego can no longer prepare hot meals for distribution to the homeless population of downtown San Diego without incurring significant logistical and financial costs.
So instead of allowing volunteers to make food in their homes and bring it to those who didn’t have food nor a home, the SDDEH decided it was too risky for all parties involved, thus giving them the grounds to craft the rules and regulations which caused the premature death of this charitable organization. Across the country, there are many cases of state and local governments arresting people for giving food to the homeless. So the question is, in an absence of a private, voluntary exchange between consenting people, what is left? An impersonal welfare state that treats recipients like cogs in machine or numbers on a computer instead of flesh and blood human beings. If the government can create laws that restrict free people from providing a home cooked meal to the homeless, what is there to stop them from crafting a law that prohibits me from giving a pan of brownies to a neighbor? Or an office potluck where everyone brings a meal? This example might sound exaggerative but this whole situation creates a slippery slope for more state intervention in consensual and voluntary exchanges. While the intentions of the regulators might be good, the homeless and needy probably would prefer a free meal instead of going hungry.

Philly’s Soda Tax Killed Reputations and Jobs Instead of Calories

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Business and Economy, Economic Liberty, Personal Liberty. No Comments on Philly’s Soda Tax Killed Reputations and Jobs Instead of Calories

The socialist father of our modern economic system, John Maynard Keynes, may not have been right about everything, but he was right about one thing. Once upon a time, the elderly economist looked at the world and figured out something rather intriguing, that “Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.” Certainly, in the pursuit of adding a “win” to their scoreboard, officials in Philadelphia decided to raise money for schools and lower obesity by taxing something everyone loved- soda. The infamous Soda Tax was drafted to fight obesity in the city while at the same time using revenue from the tax to go towards additional school funding. While the mentality of the tax might be sound among fans of Keynes, taxing things at a rate which disincentivizes what consumers want to purchase is hardly moral. The economics aspect aside, the Soda Tax was created with an ulterior motive which came out of the shadows only recently. According to a Jan. 31st piece at the Washington Times, “a federal indictment unsealed Wednesday, corrupt Democratic city officials and electricians’ union leaders pushed through the soda tax in 2016 in a revenge feud against the Teamsters union, instead of a motivation to affect public health.” So there you have it, our elected officials who are often deemed to be more righteous than their private sector counterparts, used their offices and legislative authority to wage a war on the teamsters in hopes that the Soda Tax would kill trucking jobs. Now most would hope in this situation, the only thing to die would be the honorable reputation of those who will be trading city hall for a jail cell, but sadly there were some major casualties in the forms of jobs for regular people. An article at the Mises Institute collected accounts of all the damages done thus far by the Soda Tax, one of them is the sad demise of a major RiteAid retailer in Philadelphia that had to shut down as a result of supermarkets losing upwards of fifty percent of their gross sales. A research paper coming out of Stanford University showed that the Soda Tax didn’t even manage to raise the funds for schools the Philly city council had promised; instead of the thirty to forty percent increase in taxes collected, the Soda Tax caused a giant drop “by forty-two percent in response to the tax.” As far as fighting obesity and diabetes, not even the so-called experts know how to track the data to see whether or not the Soda Tax did anything to help the health of the city in the long run. So what can be gleaned from this tragedy of a policy? The Soda Tax targetted something people loved, and when they started to feel the costs hit home they stopped buying. When consumers stopped buying, stores closed down, and instead of an increase in taxes, tax revenue dropped. In terms of a health impact, experts didn’t know then nor know how to figure out if the city became healthier as a result of the decrease in sugar consumption from soda. However, at the end of the day, the simple reality summed up is this- some politicians in the pockets of labor union leaders wanted to use the force of government to help them in a feud, and as a result regular people bought less of the products they wanted, the schools didn’t get the money they were promised, and hardworking people lost their jobs as a result. Like all other government plots to manipulate the market, from Obamacare to tax-incentives for green vehicles, there will still be those loyal, pro-interventionists that say despite the controversies attached, the intention of the laws are at their heart pure even when the added results don’t go along the lines of the promises made. In their case, they need less Keynes and more F.A. Hayek, who in his book The Fatal Conceit stated, “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine the can design.”

FDA Running out of Excuses to Wage War on E-Cigs

Written by Remso Martinez on . Posted in Personal Liberty, Victimless Crime. No Comments on FDA Running out of Excuses to Wage War on E-Cigs

The Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) irrational war on electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) and vape devices are running out of room to fight in the court of public opinion. According to a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the evidence shows that after years of research and debate, e-cigs are in fact, not only effective in getting smokers to quit traditional cigarettes but also help them stay off smoking twice as effective as nicotine gum or patches. In light of the comprehensive report, Director of Public Policy Patrick Hedger of the non-partisan group FreedomWorks, took the opportunity to issue a statement regarding the FDA’s continued war on e-cigs, stating “Tobacco use kills 480,000 Americans annually, so why is Commissioner Gottlieb trying to ban safer alternatives that help people quit smoking? This study, funded by the U.K.’s National Institute for Health Research demonstrates exactly why E-cigs and vaping products are a benefit to public health.” Hedger is right, with the evidence provided why isn’t the FDA packing up shop and leaving e-cig producers alone? Time will tell what FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb will choose to do but until then the anti-e-cig war machine will continue to wage on. In a 2018 piece published at the Washington Examiner, contributor Guy Bently reported on the intentions of the FDA’s pursuit of eradicating the e-cig industry. In his article, Bently stated that the FDA “driven by the remorselessness of its own regulatory logic, is marching down a path that could see more than 99 percent of e-cigarette products taken off the market by 2022.” The campaign to kill e-cigs isn’t directly being led by Gottlieb and his FDA bureaucrats but in fact, an iron triangle of big tobacco lobbyists (who lose a customer each time someone quits cigarettes), elected representatives (who earn votes among middle-class families by targetting anything related to drugs, alcohol, or smoking), and regulators trying to justify their jobs by crafting more red tape and regulations. While the primary FDA campaign against vaping and e-cigs is crafted on the narrative that teens are obtaining e-cigs and other devices such as Juul (the bestselling e-cig product who already committed upwards of 30 million dollars to combat teenage vaping), the fact remains that teens, like adults, have always been capable of obtaining illegal substances. While it should not be understated that teen nicotine use is unhealthy and ill-advised, the FDA is choosing to attack a real benefit for adult smokers that could potentially save lives, and instead focusing entirely on the premise that teenagers are obtaining devices and substances they cannot, should not, legally obtain in the first place, which is a separate problem entirely and a distraction from the main issue at hand. So the question remains; if we know the truth about e-cigs, and the experts know the truth about e-cigs, how long until the FDA starts to realize the facts are against them? With the iron triangle of interest groups (big tobacco lobbyists), Congress (self-interested politicians), and the federal bureaucracy (the FDA), the war on e-cigs might continue to rage on and inflict lasting damage unless real change is made from the ground up. So how does that change occur? By hitting the weakest side of the triangle by organizing with your community of advocates to force your elected officials to change their stance or sponsor/co-sponsor legislation to stop the irrational war on e-cigs. By leveraging the power of your vote, the one tool you have that lobbyists and regulators don’t, real change can occur. In a country where nearly half a million Americans die from smoking-related cancer per year, the answer at this point is obvious. With the growing amount of public support and indisputable facts backing them up, the war on e-cigs is starting the show that the FDA can choose to be on the wrong side of history, or step aside so adult smokers can obtain access to a wider market of safer alternatives.