"Police fear those who loiter will eventually commit more serious crimes."*

*http://www.foxreno.com/news/16193035/detail.html

With national, state and local elections crisscrossing this year and next, a slew of fiscal promises are out there, some of them more realistic than others. Minimum wage always crops up but now states are debating how to comply with the Fair Minimum Wage Act (which decrees a gradual increase from $5.15 to $7.25), or to exceed it. Right now it is $5.85 until September.* And yet despite this measure people with competitive jobs can't support themselves and dual-income families are in debt. Virginia has no minimum wage laws of its own and relies on the federal rate, not counting jobs with some kind of exemption. Kansas currently has the lowest at $2.65.**

This problem is being tackled in a variety of ways. Yesterday Connecticut approved an increase to $8 starting next year. Illinois has an increase of 25 cents a year until 2010, while many states adjust their rate continuously based on inflation or the U.S. Consumer Price Index.** One idea for employers that can't afford to raise their rates is to increase benefits instead. Another is to stop paying hourly wages altogether and make them salaried.

Living wage is compensation based on a person's cost of living. In Europe this standard dictates a set lifestyle one is entitled to by their profession ("housing, food, utilities, transport, health care and recreation").*** This comes from a different school of thought than capitalism where wages are only a contract for doing the hired tasks. It suggests private businesses have a greater responsibility to the community, closer to socialism. Maryland and North Carolina are known for their campaigns to bring the minimum wage closer to the living wage for a given area, while other locales have posted restrictions on it.***

The downside to this is capitalism (especially laissez-faire) says an individual's life is in his own hands. An employer has no control over where he lives, how he chooses to spend and what his goals are. If employers took a more direct role in providing the needs of their workers, a set amount going directly to the landlord, another to the doctor, and allowances for food, fuel and spending money, they would become the new target of those who profit off the individual by raising those prices, along with any bad decisions he makes and unforeseen disasters that befall him.

There's a point where businesses can't say their employees' lives are not their business, which is where pensions and health plans come from. But this involvement is just a hairsbreadth away from owing your soul to the company store, which is where infringements on our rights come from (i.e. penalizing smokers and overweight people for having more health expenses). This catch-22 comes from wanting equality and laissez-faire when the current system is so economically mismatched the highest percentile would instantly gobble up the rest of us.

The only true solution is to lower our dependency on money and the workplace. Currency gives control over our lives to whoever has the most of it, and is therefore an enemy of true self-sufficiency and a smokescreen to the true cost of living, our needs overwhelmed by fees and gratuities toward our masters in every aspect of life. We require allowance to do almost anything and this makes us children competing for quite a pittance. The Dept. of Labor lists the minimum wage schedule and developments for each state at www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm, as does en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S.A._minimum_wages. Here are some resources on the living wage movement:
http://acorn.org/index.php?id=10265
http://www.livingwage.geog.psu.edu/
http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/issueguides_livingwage_livingwage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage
http://www.letjusticeroll.org/

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Minimum_Wage_Act_of_2007
**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S.A._minimum_wages
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage

Question of the Week: As an employer or employee you are the only person who knows exactly how much of a role a business should have in your life. What is the first thing that would put it closer to having that role? Is there no one move that won't eventually push everything one way or the other? Send your thoughts to russo@richmondliberty.org.

If you have topics of interest to libertarians please let us know. We welcome your input!

Del. Chris Peace (R)
candidate for 97th district
www.chrispeace.com

The PHSC will meet at its usual location, Eastern Buffet, 7586 W. Broad St. Richmond, VA 23294
(in Merchants Walk Shopping Center). Dinner is at 6pm and the main event is 7pm.

At Virginia Tech last Thursday the Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (whom I have praised before) had an unusual guest speaker, the gun dealer who sold Seung-Hui Cho one of the handguns he used in the massacre. Eric Thompson of Green Bay, Wisconsin spoke respectfully and candidly at his own expense, although his very presence there sparked outrage among the administration and others. In the words of their spokesman "I find it terribly offensive to learn that the gun-seller of the weapons used in the Virginia Tech campus murders would set foot on this campus".*

The biggest threat to our Second Amendment rights is perception, which can also be our greatest tool. Gun owners are perceived as an isolated minority with outdated views apart from the rest of society, which is why they must be presented as ordinary people inseparable amongst our coworkers, classmates and friends. The SCCC achieves this by revealing to people just how commonplace the need for concealed carry is and that it is a precaution that divides no one. Gun lobbyists are also perceived as being heartless, trigger-happy extremists who care more about their right to bear arms than the lives of victims. Undying promotion of our cause by any means necessary is not enough to change this misconception. A finely-crafted message must accompany it, not for existing members like Mr. Thompson's audience, but for outsiders like the school's administration.

Just as it is wrong to think permit-holders are uncompassionate toward gun-related violence, oppose gun control and place their personal rights above human lives, it is a mistake to think gun manufacturers and retailers don't feel great pain and responsibility when their product is used in this way. They are not guiltless. Therefore it is important to set an example that they are not the unscrupulous monsters they've been made out to be, by remaining neutral tradesmen of their wares, not engaging in this fight to the shocking point where the supplier of a murderer's weapons is visiting the scene of the crime to make a political statement. Nothing this man could have said can make up for the negative press his appearance there has caused. It is an abuse of his position in this matter. People now have more reason to get the wrong idea about a legitimate student organization than they did before.

Any successful civil movement requires tact. When a talk show brings out the child molester or arsonist as a surprise guest that is sensationalism, not a cause against child abuse and arson. Many frustrated political activists like the NRA have made a habit of overzealousness, which leads to one-sided journalism giving people the impression we are obsessed and incapable of listening. Victims' families and friends feel like they are being opposed for feeling grief like it's a political position. The best use of an advocate's voice is not preaching to the choir but reaching out to the opposition, showing them we are human beings no different than them.

As libertarians we are responsible for tempering ourselves from being too political and Machiavellian in pursuing our goals. The only thing all permit-holders have in common is their mode of self-defense, so don't make the cause any more than that. Don't make it a sportsmen's club. Being right doesn't mean "cornering" our opposition, it means selling the point. Our opponents include devastated people who did not become this way by choice, and if we threaten this sentiment they will grapple with us forever. We must also take personal responsibility for the trends we start and face some difficult questions. Violence increasing among students because of the call to arms is a distinct possibility, more so than a gunman being stopped in self-defense. (Just as a licensed handgun being misused sends a huge political blow while saving a life with one makes barely a ripple.)

On an unrelated subject, I was amazed the university allowed this, saying "Free speech is a hallmark of university life".* No, it isn't. Students have zero say over academic decisions, whether it's a teacher's grade or dorm policy. The financial aid center operates as if all students are deaf and dumb. If an assembly this offensive to the administration was allowed to take place, why isn’t there an antiacademic league burning the school's flag and calling for the president's resignation? (or at least a change in the school menu). It is not for this administration that we should tread carefully but for ourselves. I read this story at www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/25/vatech.guns/index.html. The SCCC's take is at www.concealedcampus.org/eric_thompson.htm.

*http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/25/vatech.guns/index.html

Question of the Week: Strategically speaking, students arming for defense is not as easy a platform for the public to get behind than banning all guns. How can we improve our PR standing instead of simply fighting tooth and nail and making people more agitated? Send your opinions to russo@richmondliberty.org.

If you have topics of interest to libertarians please let us know. We welcome your input!

Spring is the season for polls and surveys. The LP's annual report and membership survey has gone out, as well as VCU's triennial school census. This census is a thinly-disguised "child registration" to crack down on truancy. It is supposed to figure the amount of tax money allotted for public education in Richmond, but its procurers cannot be trusted. There should be some kind of vigil for all young people in light of the horror stories in the news every week, and true measure of statistics but it must be a pure source. Our children are not the government's business. There's a good article on this at dailywhackjob.com/index.php/2008/03/03/school-census.

These estuaries are where migratory birds from the entire length of the Eastern Seaboard came from, along with endemic species of the isolated maritime forests, but as this ambition moves west it is simply encroaching on rural Virginia communities nowhere near a naval base. The major purpose of the strip is the transfer of fighter squadrons to the east coast for deployment to Iraq, and the training of those pilots.*

The navy's "scoping" meetings to draw public support begin on April 29 in Prince George, Surry, Sussex and Southampton. (Surry's opposition is having a public meeting the same night.) The locations and times are posted at www.novaolf.com. Del. Bob Marshall is an outspoken opponent of the OLF, and Pres. Bush vetoed a defense bill in December which included a provision to withhold funding for an OLF site.** The official website for this project at www.olfeis.com is a shameless environmental pacifier and denial of the impact. More info can be found at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlying_Landing_Field, although this itself seems to grab at straws about the environmental effects of a massive habitat and community destruction to support an overseas war. One would think the navy would get the idea. Updates on this fight and ways to get involved are posted at www.noolf.com.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlying_Landing_Field
**www.noolf.com

"On this Earth Day, I celebrate capitalism -- the institution that, far more than any other, has made human lives clean, safe, dignified, and culturally rich. Capitalism is also responsible for giving people the wealth and leisure to permit them to mis-perceive nature as loving and bountiful, and to enjoy nature in a way that few of our pre-industrial ancestors could ever have enjoyed it."

Full Story at:
http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/04/capitalism-day.html

Our neighbors to the south have a good history of showing us previews of what things could be like in VA. Some examples of this are the NC Lemon Laws, the record of city authorities in Raleigh working together (unlike Richmond), the climate of course, and the fight against the Outlying Landing Field which Leonard spoke of in his report. (Although this cause includes the Virginia Beach area it is headquartered in NC and their website is calling for more Virginia chapters.) The race for governor in that state is mounting, with one candidate running on a platform of free community colleges.*

This idea has come and gone over the years with no state yet adopting it, Massachusetts coming closest in 2007.** The Scandinavian countries stand alone in the world for providing free education all the way through graduate school, even for foreign exchange students.*** There is very little history involving Virginia or libertarians that I can find, and here is probably why:

Someone might assume that if I have academic creditors knocking on my door after 11 years I would support easing this burden on the student. But I did not get anything of value for this money. Libertarians oppose dictatorial regimes as well as bilking the citizen. The goal of private institutions may be to take your money, but public institutions strive to take away our freedom. Free admission means more students and greater influence, so it plays right into their hands. Any monopoly tramples those who dare to disagree with it, so there has to be something that sets people apart (i.e. cost). As long as this exists the service is not universal and therefore there are other choices. Many have tried to reform these institutions but if it can't be done, we must widen this divide and make it more difficult to enroll, not easier. If no one can afford tuition there would be so few students the college degree would lose value and the rest of us move upward in the workforce. These sprawling self-serving campuses would shrink, releasing young people as fulltime participants into society.

So what to make of this depends on your definition of "free". Education is free, whatever institution says otherwise is standing in its way. Most libertarian sites on the subject of "free education" are referring to freedom for the student, to be his or her own person instead of brainwashed and dehumanized by regimes. More freedom in the classroom will probably come at greater cost, while a curriculum at no cost is likely to be serving someone else's plans for our offspring.

Then there is the argument that there is no such thing as free tuition because someone else has to pay for it. (Also called "subsidized education".) A lib would not only oppose this but say that no one besides those enrolled by choice should pay a cent. Democratic candidate Richard Moore says the first two years of this can be paid using interest from the state's settlement against tobacco companies.* So this is just a short-term proposal, one of many, of what to do with an available surplus. It's nice to see a politician vow to give it back to the people, but there are so many ways this can be done directly instead of feeding the school system.

Responses to Moore's platform at carolinapoliticsonline.com are all "let people fend for themselves" or "I had to pay so you have to pay", which aren't very libertarian. Right now the most successful provider of no-cost college courses and other training is the internet, and it's hard to know what to make of this. Distributing free information to use as we see fit empowers the citizen, but handing out free sheepskins with a government stamp on them enslaves the citizen unless he either designed it himself to speak his true credentials, or they are given out without having to earn them in which case the government's seal loses credibility and things like knowledge, integrity and determination are sought instead.

*http://www.carolinapoliticsonline.com/2008/03/05/moore-wants-free-community-college-and-higher-minimum-wage/
**http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/02/education/02massachusetts.html?ref=education
***http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education

Question of the Week: On the subject of paying for college, do you sympathize with the student, the taxpayer, the school or none of the above? Send your opinions to russo@richmondliberty.org.

If you have topics of interest to libertarians please let us know. We welcome your input!

This year the sign war didn't really start until you got into Wakefield. In previous years it started as soon as you got off the Interstate and onto US 460.

As I've done for the last several years, I helped with the VCDL table. The table volunteers met at The Virginia Diner for breakfast. As we ate, there were a lot of Mark Warner volunteers arrive an just starting to put out signs. There was no sign of other candidates.

On the ride from the diner to the Wakefield Sportsmen's Club where the event took place, the signs sprung out of the ground like a fungus spreading across the land. Warner had about 90% of the signs. There were a few for Bob Marshall. I saw none for Gilmore.

There was also a patch of "KC4AG" signs. These signs had a website or something printed below it, but the print was so small I couldn't read it.

Finally spread very thinly and almost lost in the sea of other signs was a few "NO OLF" signs.

Really someone needs to tell KC4AG and NO OLF that people don't know what this crap means and aren't going to bother to look it up. I'm involved in politics and even I'm not going to bother to figure these signs out.

Anyway the event area had lots of tents and tables. Many handing out free beer, hot dogs, or something. There was the usual Gill Davis hot dogs. However Bill Bolling had bigger tastier ones. Several groups also did popcorn.

Deeds and Moran had large tents as well. That race will certainly be an interesting one. Moran winning the Democrat's nomination for Governor, could mean an end to the traditional "Conservative" Virginia Democrat. Of course that's all for 2009.

Also inside the event area, it looked like Gilmore decided to go with a horde of volunteers carrying signs saying "McCain/Gilmore". Made me wonder if he thought he might be running for VP instead of Senate. I think Gilmore won the "how many volunteers can you get to this event" contest. However as we've seen in past years, the winner of the sign war wins the general election.

The VCDL tent was busy all day, as was most of the other tables.

I finally stumbled across the KC4AG table. It means Ken Cuccinelli for Attorney General.

I also stumbled across the NO OLF table. OLF stands for "Outlying Landing Field." Apparently the military is being pushed out of VA Beach because of development and they want a new landing field somewhere in a place where the residents don't want it.

There was a very big crowd at the "NO Real ID" table. I was personally glad to see them out here. There was also the Libertarian Party tent, which also had a steady stream of people.

The Sierra club, giving away free compact fluorescent light bulbs, attracted a large number of people as well.

There were numerous other groups operating tables. As always it was a lot of fun seeing talking to these people and seeing which issues motivate people.

The only one I couldn't understand was the AARP table with their petition "for the election" and something about "getting politicians to work together." It was so vague I don't think anyone could tell what they were advocating. Also don't forget usually when politicians work together, they're working to take away our rights.

Anyway about 1pm or so the shad was ready. I'm here to report, shad still have the most tiny little bones as they have ever had. As usual I was thankful I ate a huge breakfast.

Finally around about 2 or 3pm the speeches started. Around 4pm they got to the main folks (the ones running for US Senate).

Mark Warner spoke first. It was a nice warm and fuzzy speech. He's a radical centrist. He avoided the issue about his time as Governor and breaking his promise not to raise taxes. In fact his speech seemed to me to be completely devoid of any substance. After hearing him talk, I know nothing more about his positions than I did before hearing him.

Next came Bob Marshall. He talked more about God and Jesus than most preachers do on Sunday. He's a Catholic and wants to make sure marriage is one man and one woman (unfortunately he wants more government involvement to do this instead of getting government out of it). He closed with a statement about needing to fight gun violence. Well at least we know where he stands. I gathered from the No Real ID folks, that Marshall is championing the fight to stop that horrible intrusion on our liberty. Unfortunately he didn't mention it in his speech, so one has to wonder how important it is to him.

Finally came Jim Gilmore. He started his speech talking about how the only way to predict what a politician will do is by looking at what they have done. He then proceeded to talk about how he kept his word to eliminate the car tax. I must confess I stopped listening after that lie. My guess is that he probably went on to say something about how he increased spending by 40% during his term, which helped give Warner and the VA Senate Republicans an excuse not to eliminate the car tax and to eventually give us the largest tax increase in VA history.

After the windbags were done, people got back to eating shad and drinking free beer. Overall this is an extremely fun event and worth taking the day off to attend. Hope to see everyone next year.

Pictures will be posted as soon as I get them off the camera. Check back here in a few days.

The biggest threat to the second amendment is isolation. As students on every campus raise this flag people will understand it is not a small, isolated platform.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/15/candidates.guns/index.html

Sometime last year I saw a cover story in one of the business journals which pictured an environmental compliance specialist restocking fish into a river, refuting the mistaken claims by environmentalists that manufacturers are environmentally ignorant and do nothing to make up for their impact. Then I read the October 29 issue of Business Week, in which a whistleblower from within the ranks of corporate environmental science has come forward with the truth, that this entire field is a scam and industrial scientists are conditioned to report bad information, revealing trade secrets of how industrialists have pulled the wool over our eyes.

Auden Schendler is a corporate environmentalist and former student of Amory Lovins, founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute and the "going green" industrial movement that swept the 90's. An avid outdoorsman, he grew up with a different mindset than his corporate-raised colleagues and does his job so well, he was compelled to expose the hypocrisy and futility imposed by his employers. In "Little Green Lies: The Bitter Education of a Corporate Environmentalist" he admits "Who are we kidding? I've succeeded in doing a lot of sexy projects yet utterly failed in what I set out to do. How do you really green your company? It's almost... impossible.".*

He says every student of the institute was taught that "boosting energy efficiency and reducing harmful emissions constitute not just a free lunch but a lunch you're paid to eat", and took this to their companies. From there he describes the sad job of the "in-house corporate sustainability advocate".*

"Barely a day goes by without a prominent corporation loudly announcing its latest green accomplishments... Environmental stewardship has become a centerpiece of corporate image-crafting. General Electric says it is spending nearly all of its multimillion-dollar corporate advertising budget on 'Ecomagination', its collection of environmentally friendly products, even though they make up only 8% of the conglomerate's sales."

One way this fleecing is accomplished is by buying "renewable energy credits", a financial simulation of reductions to their contributions to global warming, which allows them to legally say they have reduced emissions when they haven't. Pepsi has used so many of these they claim their pollution has been reduced to zero. Johnson & Johnson spent $1 million in credits it claims are equal to a 17% reduction since 1990, earning it a Green Power award from the EPA when there has actually been a 24% increase.*

"Hailed as an environmental pioneer, FedEx says on its web site that it is 'committed to the use of innovations and technologies to minimize greenhouse gases'. With 70,000 ground vehicles and 670 planes burning fuel, the world's largest shipper is a huge producer of heat-trapping gases. Back in 2003, FedEx announced that it would soon begin deploying clean-burning hybrid trucks at a rate of 3,000 a year, eventually sparing the atmosphere 250,000 tons of greenhouse gases annually from diesel-engine vehicles. 'This program has the potential to replace the company's 30,000 medium-duty trucks over the next 10 years', FedEx announced at the time. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the effort a Clean Air Excellence prize in 2004. Four years later, FedEx has purchased fewer than 100 hybrid trucks, or less than one-third of one percent of its fleet."*

At age 29 Schendler was hired by a resort company whose industry is one of the most wasteful, where he found resistance to the simplest of energy-saving recommendations, and he has seen the same thing happen on a larger scale to every other environmentalist in the corporate world. "Companies continue to assess most green initiatives with the same return-on-investment analysis they would use with any other capital project. ...many major initiatives simply aren't money-savers. They come with daunting price tags that undercut the conviction that environmental salvation can be had on the cheap."* He is used to hearing justifications like "The availability of capital is not infinite", "We do have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders" and "There's always a question of balance between environmental concerns and satisfying expectations of the clientele".*

To this day the emissions of his own employer continue to go up every year despite Schendler's groundbreaking alternative energy projects. This is because as long as the number of tourists increases they will use more energy, and the same is true of whatever product or service a corporation provides. It is the growth of business itself that holds true environmental responsibility back. Profiteering and stewardship cannot coexist, at least not in this system. The ambition of big business to start and expand must itself be fought. The developers who eye Henrico's unclaimed land for subdivisions and deserts out west for superfactories are not healthy entrepreneurship. It is only nature's tolerance for abuse and the delay or displacement of the results that allow people to believe they are bettering their lives by profiting at the planet's expense. Only when they actually feel the burn will this change.

It does cite exceptional companies who employ unbiased environmental scientists in their programs and assessment, such as DuPont which has lowered its true emission levels and runs a respected water treatment service that actually monitors fish populations. It's hard to draw conclusions however about a company that makes products like Kevlar, Tyvek and Gore-tex using sulfuric acid, benzine and other supertoxins. As Earth Day approaches many retailers are having "green" sales of environmentally safe products, usually theme-based with green paint, nature-like shapes etc. What did it really take to produce, ship and market these?

Only those who were raised without knowing the environment is a personal necessity need promotions to convince them to "go green" or even call it that. The cover picture of this story is a man in a business suit crawling with vines, which is how industrialists view our ecosystem, as an issue/hobby/expenditure. It should be what people are used to seeing every day, the unnatural raising eyebrows instead. This is what sets Schendler and men like him apart. I would encourage you to read this article at www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_44/b4056001.htm?chan=search. If anyone has seen the opposition's cover story I described please let me know.

*http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_44/b4056001.htm?chan=search

Question of the Week: Does your employer or business have any knowledge of its environmental impact and is any action taken because of this? If so, do you think anyone knows the true impact when you count transportation, materials and energy? Send your opinions to russo@richmondliberty.org.

If you have topics of interest to libertarians please let us know. We welcome your input!

When: Wednesday, April 23, 10:00 AM

Where: Click the link below to find out!

Who should come: Opponents of REAL ID.

Meeting Description: We're meeting at the bell tower at 10 AM. This is VETO day of the special session the governor called for the General Assembly. We are going to distribute the rest of the STOP REAL ID books that were printed up for G.A. members, and to show our numbers once again to our legislators. They've all been contacted about REAL ID; whether those messages got past their staffs or they forgot, they'll sure get a reminder!

Learn more here:
http://ronpaul.meetup.com/531/calendar/7728408/

There will be a Henrico Democratic Caucus on April 19. More details at
http://www.vademocrats.org/page/event/detail/localcaucuses/wyf

Dear FairTax supporters:

Wow! We are close! I mean really, REALLY close!
Sign the FairTax petition now!

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We know you care about the FairTax, so we'll hope you'll take this last opportunity to add your name now at www.changedc.org and help us hit our 100,000-signature target. As you know, this is a critical time for the FairTax and every voice--especially yours!--counts. So please take a second, make a difference, and help us change DC this tax season.

As you know, we'll be delivering a copy of this petition and 100,000 names to Congress and the leading presidential candidates on April 15th. By signing now, you'll be there too and reminding our elected officials in Washington that demand for the FairTax is growing, and that real change is coming to Washington courtesy of engaged citizens just like you.

Again, thanks for your help during our April 15th "Pass the FairTax" petition. We, literally, could not do this without you!

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