Campaign For Liberty on the march!

[galtgulch]

<<<"25 Jan 4:48AM 101007,

100000 reached midday 20 Jan . As Victor Hugo said, "No armies can stop an idea whose time has come." ">>>

10Feb 6AM 102995, 5PM 103053, 8PM 103077; 11Feb 6AM 103111, 6PM 103156, 11PM 103189; 12FEB 5AM 103202, 6PM 103253, 8PM 103271; 13Feb 2AM 103368; 16Feb 103709; 19Feb 104094

So 102K on Feb 1 and 103K on Feb 10th thus ten days to add 1000 new members or torch bearers. There do not appear to be any lapses or lasting plateaus but an ongoing stream of increases in numbers every hour of the day and night which promises to continue and to accelerate over time. I know this is not as rapidly as one might wish. At this rate it would take an entire year to add just under 40K.

Notice the burst of almost 100 added between last evening and early morning today. Probably because Ron Paul was a participant in an online conference call over Republicmedia. He was on the phone whereas others were at a meeting in Denver but those watching could see as other listeners posted comments which everyone could see as well.

Needless to say I kept posting the www.campaignforliberty.com link which I cannot prove had anything to do with the burst of new members which usually takes a full day to add.

www.campaignforliberty.com

gulch

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” –Chinese Proverb

Edited February 19, 2009 by galtgulch

[BaalChatzaf]

<<<"25 Jan 4:48AM 101007,

100000 reached midday 20 Jan . As Victor Hugo said, "No armies can stop an idea whose time has come." ">>>

10Feb 6AM 102995, 5PM 103053, 8PM 103077; 11Feb 6AM 103111, 6PM 103156, 11PM 103189; 12FEB 5AM 103202, 6PM 103253, 8PM 103271; 13Feb 2AM 103368

So 102K on Feb 1 and 103K on Feb 10th thus ten days to add 1000 new members or torch bearers. There do not appear to be any lapses or lasting plateaus but an ongoing stream of increases in numbers every hour of the day and night which promises to continue and to accelerate over time. I know this is not as rapidly as one might wish. At this rate it would take an entire year to add just under 40K.

Notice the burst of almost 100 added between last evening and early morning today. Probably because Ron Paul was a participant in an online conference call over Republicmedia. He was on the phone whereas others were at a meeting in Denver but those watching could see as other listeners posted comments which everyone could see as well.

Needless to say I kept posting the www.campaignforliberty.com link which I cannot prove had anything to do with the burst of new members which usually takes a full day to add.

www.campaignforliberty.com

gulch

“The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it.” –Chinese Proverb

Even if you guys hit a million in the next five years it will not change the political outcome of the next congressional (bi) election or the next presidential election. Over 110 million people voted.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Guys:

I am surely no mathematician, but is there not a mathematical model which should project an explosive jump in membership or spikes as I have seen them.

Have they done a time line numbers graph? I would love to see that.

Adam

[Alfonso Jones]

Guys:

I am surely no mathematician, but is there not a mathematical model which should project an explosive jump in membership or spikes as I have seen them.

Have they done a time line numbers graph? I would love to see that.

Adam

Where do you see an explosive jump or a spike? I've noted very slow and steady growth. Of course, it should be noted that the count is nondecreasing by definition - as I understand it, one can basically sign up, but not leave. ("Welcome to the Hotel California...")

I haven't spent the time to look, but wonder if the growth rate is higher than the population growth rate.

Bill P

[Selene]

Bill:

Someone referred to the match line of population growth and the campaign's growth on a different thread. Might have been Brant.

At any rate, I have never seen a spike either which makes no "reality sense" to me.

Adam

[galtgulch]

<<<"Even if you guys hit a million in the next five years it will not change the political outcome of the next congressional (bi) election or the next presidential election. Over 110 million people voted.

Ba'al Chatzaf">>>

Ba'al,

I am unable to predict the outcome of the next Congressional races naturally. However I do believe that this "stimulus bailout" phenomenon is quite unpopular which may lead to more votes for whomever runs against the Democrats. Of course if the rebound occurs despite the stimulus the Demos will take credit for it even if the stimulus had nothing to do with it.

It is just possible that the Republicans will find fresh candidates for office from the ranks of the Campaign For Liberty. Perhaps enough of them will be able to articulate arguments which have not been heard heretofore in elections and that might just strike a responsive chord in the electorate. We may be on the verge of a sea change in politics as we know it from now on.

www.campaignforliberty.com membership 13 Feb 10 PM 103441; 14 Feb 1AM 103459, 7AM 103473, 2PM 103500, 10PM 103545; 15Feb 12noon 103577, 11PM 103636; 16Feb 8AM 103659, 4PM 103684, 7PM 103709, 10PM 103751; 17Feb 5AM 103783, 7PM 103871

The ranks do not have to exceed that required to win the election just be filled with enough spear carriers who have read the books, learned enough to enlighten the populace and confident enough to run for office.

We probably already have enough to support candidates in every Congressional district in the country. The trick will be to make sense to the voters for a change with rational arguments rather than appeals to emotions alone.

gulch

Edited February 17, 2009 by galtgulch

[galtgulch]

<<<"Even if you guys hit a million in the next five years it will not change the political outcome of the next congressional (bi) election or the next presidential election. Over 110 million people voted.

Ba'al Chatzaf">>>

Ba'al,

I am unable to predict the outcome of the next Congressional races naturally. However I do believe that this "stimulus bailout" phenomenon is quite unpopular which may lead to more votes for whomever runs against the Democrats. Of course if the rebound occurs despite the stimulus the Demos will take credit for it even if the stimulus had nothing to do with it.

It is just possible that the Republicans will find fresh candidates for office from the ranks of the Campaign For Liberty. Perhaps enough of them will be able to articulate arguments which have not been heard heretofore in elections and that might just strike a responsive chord in the electorate. We may be on the verge of a sea change in politics as we know it from now on.

www.campaignforliberty.com membership 13 Feb 10 PM 103441; 14 Feb 1AM 103459, 7AM 103473, 2PM 103500, 10PM 103545; 15Feb 12noon 103577, 11PM 103636; 16Feb 8AM 103659, 4PM 103684, 7PM 103709, 10PM 103751; 17Feb 5AM 103783, 7PM 103871

The ranks do not have to exceed that required to win the election just be filled with enough spear carriers who have read the books, learned enough to enlighten the populace and confident enough to run for office.

We probably already have enough to support candidates in every Congressional district in the country. The trick will be to make sense to the voters for a change with rational arguments rather than appeals to emotions alone.

gulch

And there was a point in time in which there was only one person on this planet, which is to say only one person in the entire universe who created and grasped Objectivism on the conceptual level, and you all know who I am referring to, Ayn Rand.

She might have kept it to herself. Can you imagine how different you would be if you were unaware of it?

There is an analogy here. Those of us who advocate for Objectivism have undoubtedly made others aware of it and that process goes on. There are more torch bearers for Objectivism than there once was and her books continue to sell. It is conceivable that one could find an Objectivist teaching in most of the colleges and universities in this country and perhaps in many other countries as well. There does not appear to be a "counter" evident on any website where we could track those who identify themselves as Objectivists. We can only hope and do our own share to pass the torch.

Most Objectivists whom I have met do not spend much time in the Johnny Appleseed role.

Those of us who find ourselves in America are enduring a catastrophe which was avoidable and which is going to get worse for many of our countrymen because of implementation of the wrong policies. There are many who are already living in a depression and many more who are already living in a recession. Most of those who are in the middle class and have dollars saved and seemingly protected by the FDIC in band accounts or money market funds will find their purchasing power diminish considerably over the next several years as the inflation of the dollar manifests itself. The tragedy is that all this suffering would be avoidable if enough people could be made aware of the issues, the principles involved, the ideas and premises which underlie the current policies, the reasons they are mistaken and if they were enlightened of the rational alternative policies. There are philosophical issues and ethical issues at work here as well and those premises need to be exposed and checked.

Clearly the Campaign For Liberty movement is more political and involves an educational endeavor at this stage. I expect that the numbers appear trivial now compared to the numbers needed to cause the kind of rational changes in policy required. As far as we know there is only one politician in office who is taking the Constitution seriously and he is the founder of the CFL movement and although he recommended Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, he is no Objectivist and has serious disagreements with Objectivism.

Nevertheless Ron Paul did encourage his supporters to read Atlas and I have posted on their major websites that it would be a good idea to read Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal and The Virtue of Selfishness and For The New Intellectual and listed links to the Objectivist websites.

If only more of us got involved so they would get to meet us in person we should be able to make Ayn Rand's ideas a part of this movement.

19 Feb 6PM 104097, 8PM 104108

gulch

Edited February 20, 2009 by galtgulch

[Selene]

Gultch:

"Most Objectivists whom I have met do not spend much time in the Johnny Appleseed role."

Again, well reasoned.

My biggest problem with NBI was that is was not political in my sense of the word and was not assertive in terms of a coordinated propaganda outreach campaign.

I am also reasonably sure that while Rand was in control, there were not to many "approved public speakers".

Adam

[galtgulch]

Gultch:

"Most Objectivists whom I have met do not spend much time in the Johnny Appleseed role."

Again, well reasoned.

My biggest problem with NBI was that is was not political in my sense of the word and was not assertive in terms of a coordinated propaganda outreach campaign.

I am also reasonably sure that while Rand was in control, there were not to many "approved public speakers".

Adam

Adam,

Good grief! How long are we to live in the past?

I think we have an opportunity here and we should take advantage of it. This country is well on its way to becoming a fascist dictatorship or a socialist state. The public schools have done their job, along with the effect of the churches on the minds of the populace. They have been beaten into submission. They can barely think for themselves. Indoctrinated with mysticism and altruism. Many look to the government for everything. Obama won on a campaign which lacked substance and was more like a combination of American Idol audition and a revival meeting.

Most politicians have ignored the Constitution for decades and most people pay it no regard if they have ever bothered to try to read through it.

Out of nowhere an obscure obstetrician and congressman took it all seriously for ten terms and ran for president igniting a movement and gleaning 1.24 million votes in the primaries. He challenges the very existence of the Federal Reserve and made his supporters aware of how this national bank has been inflating the currency thus causing loss of purchasing power of their hard earned dollars since its creation in 1913. These supporters have read Article 1 Sections 8,9 and 10 more than any other elected officials.

What I am saying is that the people involved in this movement share with Ayn Rand supporters a passion for individual freedom and limited government. I believe that they are willing to listen to reason in at least most if not all secular realms. I am not saying that it doesn't matter that Ron Paul and I am sure many of his supporters are religious. But it is true that like it or not in certain respects we are kindred

spirits and brothers in arms in the struggle for liberty.

We have an opportunity to unite with anyone who is an activist in this struggle despite nonessential disagreements which I trust could be resolved amicably once our freedom is assured at last.

www.campaignforliberty.com 19Feb 8PM 104113, 9:43PM 104121

gulch

Edited February 20, 2009 by galtgulch

[Selene]

Dude I have been doing that for 48 years lol.

Welcome aboard one and all, but I still believe a strike is definitely in order.

Adam

[galtgulch]

Dude I have been doing that for 48 years lol.

Welcome aboard one and all, but I still believe a strike is definitely in order.

Adam

Adam,

Did you notice that Bloomberg announced or revealed today that 40,000 New Yorkers are taxed to yield 50% of the cities revenue!? They wouldn't even have to go on strike, just move across the river to New Jersey and take their companies with them. I find it hard to believe that they would all be aware of the proper rationale for the kind of strike you have in mind. If even a handful of them did leave New York would have a hard time maintaining whatever is in their budget.

I grew up in Brooklyn and recall that a ride on the Brighton line of the subway only cost a nickel! Then a dime and then a token for fifteen cents. And now it is $3 dollars!

On another subject I think there is an analogy between the actions of the pilot of the ill fated flight in Buffalo and the actions of our illustrious leader president Obama. Each did the intuitive thing, one pulled back on the stick putting the plane in a stall and falling out of the sky, the other authorized printing of hundreds of billions of dollars and dispensing it in ways which will have devastating consequences as well.

Perhaps you saw the film starring Leslie Howard. I think it was called Spitfire or the like. It was about the fact that the early flyers who were unfortunate enough to go into a tailspin all crashed as they were unable to pull out of it. The drams builds around the puzzle to figure out what the pilots were doing wrong and what would be the proper thing to do under those life and death circumstances. Howard's character decides that they were all pulling the stick back which for some reason which was not understood just led to a tighter spin. He thought the proper thing to do would be counter intuitive, to push the stick forwards. He had to dare to try it as the climactic event of the film and it does work to regain control of the plane out of the tailspin.

Evidently the counterintuitive thing to have done in our economy would have been to let the companies which were in trouble, the banks and the auto companies, fail. But in addition the proper diagnosis would have included the role the govt played in causing the banks to lower their standards.

I understand that the Supreme Court once decided that unions could use physical force to counterbalance physical force used by certain industries. Other laws and decisions gave too much power to the unions which hampered the ability of companies to run their businesses in the face of union demands. Those laws have to go and the Supreme Court needs to be brought up to speed as well.

Just as doctors and nurses and other occupations have to take and pass continuing education courses to maintain their licenses I would propose that politicians be required to take and pass certain courses, not just in economics but in ethics, philosophy and history and Constitutional principles and law in order to run for office.

Just dreaming.

www.campaignforliberty.com 19 Feb 10PM 104122; 20Feb 4AM 104140, 10PM 104218, 11PM 104228

I continue to be impressed that the membership keeps growing at all hours of the day and night. Someone is passing the torch.

gulch

Edited February 21, 2009 by galtgulch

[Selene]

Actually that is a good analogy.

I taught Defensive driving for almost ten years and it is like steering into the skid or leaning into a left hook - totally counter intuitive.

I referred to the NY City mayor's statement on another thread tonight and Rush Limbaugh spent 20 minutes and directly related to the strike in Atlas Shrugged today.

Adam

[Selene]

"BLOOMBERG: One percent of the people that live in the city, the households that file in the city pay something like 50% of the taxes. That's about 40,000 people so, you know, a handful left, any raise would make it revenue neutral. The question is, "What's fair?" If one percent are paying 50% of the taxes, you want to make it even more? A little over half the people, half the households who file tax returns don't pay any taxes. And about 30% of the households that file get a credit from the government. The government sends them a check. That's the Earned Income Tax Credit.

RUSH: Now, let's put this in perspective. New York City is the financial capital of the world, right? New York City is considered the hub of the United States of America, right? How many people live in New York? I mean 14 million people go to work every day, eight million people in New York City, right? That right? Do you understand what you just heard? Forty thousand -- did he say people? He did. Forty thousand people (he means families, I'm sure, but 40,000 people) outta eight million pay half the tax load in the city. Do you realize all it would take to kill that city is half of them leaving? If 20,000 of that 40,000 paying 50% of all taxes fled and decamped, do you know what would happen to New York? It would die. These people, these 40,000 people, they ought to be treated like royalty.

They ought to be thanked. They ought to be respected. Instead, they are impugned. They are maligned. They are trashed, as often a day as Democrats can do so. They are said to be the problem. That 40,000 people is who Obama is aiming at. Those 40,000 people is who back home thinks are responsible for the blight that exists throughout the rest of the city. Those 40,000 people, they make too much money. They have too much of a good time. They have taken all that wealth from the other 50% of the city. As such, we have to target them: the stimulus package, the mortgage bailout, what Rick Santelli was talking about. Atlas Shrugged! The people who are making this country work are the targets, and the people who are the losers, the people who are the slackers, are the beneficiaries.

Forty thousand people, according to the mayor, provide over 50% of the revenue. Only now when revenue is down does anybody care about them. Only now when Wall Street has collapsed and tax revenues have gone down -- and now Obama wants to put maximums on the amount people can earn on Wall Street. I would like to know how many of the 40,000 people in New York that provide all this are in the financial business, and how of those people's caps on their pay will have a further effect on reducing tax revenues to the city. Now, the people that are doing this are not stupid. This is Bloomberg getting off the bus. This is Bloomberg getting off the Obama Air Force One. These people are not stupid. Don't think that they're just ignorant and socialist utopians who think they have better way.

They know exactly what they're doing. That's what's scary about this. That's what's enraging about this. I listened to the most amazing thing. I wish I could remember where. I was watching television. It might have been... It was. It was Shepard Smith. And I think he was talking to one of the Fox Business News infobabes or anchors, I'm not sure which, and it was about the mortgage debacle and it was about the stimulus package, and Shepard Smith kept talking about the laws of economics. (summarized) "Well, you know, if we don't do this, then that has to happen, and if we don't do this, then that has to happen." I got to thinking, "The laws of economics? Whose laws of economics?" Shepard Smith was talking about the laws of economics that are real, the ones that we know.

The economics of Friedrich Hayek, the economics of Milton Friedman, the economics of a free market, those are the economic rules or laws he was talking about; and it got me to thinking: Everybody knows these rules. Everybody knows the Law of Supply and Demand, for example. I mean, the people we're talking about know it. Everybody knows that when you raise taxes, you decrease the activity that occurs on that activity that you have increased taxes on. When you lower taxes on an activity, that activity increases. So, for example, if you lower income taxes, entrepreneurs are gonna bust ass earning more income. They'll pay less tax on it. If you lower capital gains taxes, people will be more incentivized to invest, because they'll be able to keep more of the profit they earn.

You might say, "Well, there aren't any profits right now." Well, there would be if we could re-incentivize people to invest again. But there's no investment in the free market. All the investment is going in the government. Now, that's "Keynesian," and it hasn't worked. The government is -- and, by the way, we're not gonna go back for the longest time until this bunch is defeated in the next election or the next two elections, if that happens at all. We're not going to go back to the free market economic rules that govern this country. What this is all about is replacing free market economics with government-centered central planning economics, picking of winners and losers. And that's exactly what's happening.

And right now the people being picked as winners are the people paying nothing, or very little of the tax bite that supports the government. The people who are being targeted as the losers are those of you who are playing by the rules, who can pay your mortgage, who did not go out and borrow more than you could afford. You're paying your taxes. You're doing what you can to support the institutions that govern where you live -- the federal government, state government, city government, and so forth. You're the targets now. We all are. We're the victims. We have to pay. We have to pay for the unfair advantage our hard work has given us. We have to pay for the unfair advantage that our perhaps birthright gave us.

We have to pay for whatever reason they in Washington decide we have more than we should have, because the fact that we have more than we should have is denying others who are just as deserving less than what they should have. In the process, the welfare state is going to expand like crazy. Those currently in it are being subsidized to stay in it. Those not in it are gonna go broke, are going to be forced to go on unemployment. You lost half of your 401(k). I don't know what's happened to your kids' college fund, but I dare say it's probably not in great shape. You think this is an accident? You think the effort to "fix" it is this dumb on purpose? Have you seen anything come out of Washington since Obama was inaugurated that is designed to help you, that is designed to get people outta your way so that you can once again start entrepreneuring, creating, inventing, investing?

It's just the opposite, is it not? You think this is happenstance? You think this is really seriously honest people who really believe that supply-side economics....? Which, by the way, supply side, trickle down, whatever you call it? It's free market economics is all it is, Basic Economic Rules 101, basic economic law. Basic economic law has been suspended and the people who practice it are practically under arrest. They're in the process of being charged for their own version of immorality. Make no mistake: 40,000 people in New York pay over half the taxes -- and Bloomberg knows that a tax increase on those people is going to cause some of them to leave, and they're just going to get outraged and split. They ought to be treated like royalty.

They should be thanked; they should be respected. Normally if you run a business, you cater to your good customers. You want to keep them, and you want them to be happy and you want them to be happy paying you. The government of Barack Obama doesn't even like you. The government of Barack Obama wants even more from you and they want you to be thankful to them that you're paying it on the basis that you are helping Obama fix the economy. They want all accolades, all credit, all bowing down and kissing the feet to occur in Washington, at the feet of Barack Obama. He doesn't even let members of Congress who wrote the stimulus Porkulus package surround him at the signing ceremony.

It's all him. He did it by himself. He wants everybody to think that he's the single, foremost driving force and authority that made it all happen. That's what he's cultivated, and he's a pied piper. He's got these people following him around like he's Svengali, but this news out of New York, it's not news to people like me; it's not news to people like you. My website for four years has published federal data, what percentage of income taxpayers pay what percentage of the total load; and it's similar to what it is in New York. It's hard to leave the country, but you can leave a city and relocate. It's happening in California. People are pulling out of there left and right, for a host of reasons, among them high taxes. If just 10,000 people left New York, if just 10,000 of these 50% left New York City, I shudder to think what would happen to the place.

END TRANSCRIPT

[galtgulch]

www.campaignforliberty.com

This thing grows all hours of the day and night which is why I suspect that it is growing substantially in the colleges:

21Feb 3AM 104244; 23 Feb 104536; 25 Feb 6AM 104700; 27 Feb 11PM 105068

It reminds me of the lyrics from Guthrie's anti war song Alice's Restaurant: "They will think it is a movement!"

gulch

Edited February 28, 2009 by galtgulch