"Cap and Trade" Is Not The Way

I've just sent this email to my Congresspersons, though I expect a cap and trade scheme to be voted on soon. No government could resist that kind of a power grab.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist, though they haven't given me much reason not to be.

Please oppose all cap and trade proposals. Sen. Bob Corker brought up a much better solution in the Senate committee hearings: that Congress should impose a tax on all fossil fuels, and reimburse the earnings by cutting payroll taxes. This idea makes much more sense then adding new government regulations, especially since the cap and trade law in Europe, the Emissions Trading Scheme, has proven to have little to no effect in reducing European CO2 output, and ended up being abused by many companies to make windfall profits by selling carbon credits they didn't need in the first place.

A cap and trade scheme is not the solution to promoting green energy. Please do not support it. Instead, I urge you to please get behind Sen. Bob Corker's idea- the decreased payroll taxes would really benefit everyone in this recession.

Downsize D.C.

Downsizedc.org is one of my favorite sites on the web, and in honor of its greatness, I've applied a nice banner to the blog shamelessly plugging the "Read The Bills Act." If you support not being an idiot, I suggest you take a look.

The site makes it very easy to send messages to your Representative and Senators supporting small government and civil liberties issues. I use it all the time and it's one way to say "I did something" about issues you think are important. It's a great resource and their newsletter is well-written and very informative about bad legislation that are ignored by the news networks.

I also use congress.org to send messages, as I've found that I get a sooner reply from my Rep and Senators. Plus I can send emails to Mr. President, for what it's worth!

I encourage anyone who is passionate about these issues to check these sites out.

Hello, fellow humans

In light of my new-found political fervor brought on by the 2008 Presidential Election, I decided that maybe I should share my passion with the blogosphere.

Not that I am so arrogant as to believe that what I have to say has more validity than what anybody else says- in fact, I feel very strongly that every person deserves to have and share his own opinions, so long as he comes to his conclusion himself. But it seems that at the same time people seem to misunderstand what it all means, satisfied with unfounded information gotten in the same vein as rumors or hearsay, and accepting a philosophy that has been spoon-fed to them since childhood. I am 21 years old, and it seems like more and more people have this attitude- but it may just be because I realize it more than I used to.

On the other hand, I see that more and more people realize that they are being taken advantage of, and that they do have the power to fight back.

This being said, I believe that the 2008 election was nothing less than a travesty that reflects this country's political ignorance and exemplifies the arrogance of our leaders. I supported the Republican candidate Ron Paul, who unfortunately never got the attention he deserved, and who was pushed aside and made fun of by the GOP at large. In doing this, the GOP effectively stated that an anti-war, small-government candidate was not what the GOP wanted. I do not know if the Republicans expected to win by nominating John McCain, but many, including myself, saw his nomination as a guaranteed loss for the GOP.

How could a man with the economics knowledge of an average high school student and the stage presence of a scared animal compete with the cult of personality that is Barack Obama?

In any case, here we are, in the depths of a recession that Obama, his administration, and Congress at large vow to exacerbate through increased government intervention in the market, the very cause of the problem. I blame George Bush for destroying the reputation of the GOP, and for the rest of the Republicans who take the blame for this recession lying down. Time and time again I see journalists and politicians blaming the GOP and their free-market policies (HA!) for causing this economic crisis. And NOBODY, except perhaps Ron Paul, has stood up and said that these accusations are both false and slanderous.

It has come to the point where I wonder if I should even stay in this country as its people allow their Constitutional rights to be voted away by theives and liars. I now have to worry how much more Washington will steal from my paycheck in the future, and whether what's left over will be enough. I now have to worry that if I buy a house, whether it will keep its value. I now have to worry that if I have a child, if I'll be compelled to keep him away from the public school system that I attended since, looking back, I realize how pro-government the curriculum is.

And that is how I became an angry young man, and ever since I learned about Ron Paul and realized that there are at least a few people in Washington with the brains and the honesty to tell it like it is, I have vowed to fight the ever-expanding and ever-more intrusive Federal Government in any way that I can.