A Month-by-Month 2008 Stroll Down Mount Virtus Memory Lane

by Ben DeGrow | 4:58 pm, December 31, 2008

It’s the last day of 2008, and time for a quick month-by-month retrospective. The following are posts I’ve selected as the best posts for each month:

January: Why did Ritter Leave Worker Protections Out of His Order?
February: Getting the Whole Story Behind Ritter’s Climate Action Plan
March: High-Ranking Democrat: Property Tax Hike Not Just for Schools
April: What [...]

End of the Year Funny

by Mr. Bob | 2:39 pm, December 31, 2008

Say “no” to the expansion of police power.

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 12:55 pm, December 31, 2008

The Rocky Mountain News carried a story captioned, “Cell phone use boosts accident risk, officials say.” The subhead said: “Using one at the wheel as unsafe as driving drunk, some say”

Who are these “some?” Are they police who stand to gain additional power if given the authority to stop safe drivers just because they on the phone?

The article states

“Research has shown that drivers on phones exhibit many of the same behaviors as drunk drivers. They weave. They blow stop signs. They cut off others.”

Weaving, blowing stop signs and cutting off others are all legitimate reasons for the police to stop a driver. They have that power right now.

They do not need the power to stop perfectly safe drivers because they might be negligent at a later time. All of us might become negligent at a later time.

Without production of value, there are no taxes to confiscate..

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 12:45 pm, December 31, 2008

The Saturday, December 27, 2008 edition of the Rocky Mountain News had this headline:

“Disabled hopes fade.” There was a jump to the story inside. The inside headline said: “Economy shreds hopes of disabled.”

The subhead: “As taxes dry up, state scales back legislative gains.”

The lesson, that pro-government statists never seem to learn, is that without people producing income, there is no money for government.

The statist believes that they can raise taxes on those producing value and raise money for government every single time.

They see the producers of value as a bottomless pit from which to scoop money whenever the whim strikes.

There is no bottomless pit. When the producers fail to make a profit, there is no money for the government to confiscate.

Ergo, those that desire to confiscate the production of those that produce should do whatever is in their power to make sure that profits never dry up. Of course, none of them understand this basic concept.

Denver Pally rally

by John Martin | 11:22 am, December 31, 2008

Didn’t even know it was happening until I got an e-mail from Codestink about 3:00 yesterday afternoon telling me the rally started at 5:00 p.m. Had to be doontoon anyhow, so I stopped by. West steps of the Capitol and along Lincoln, like always. Honk if you hate Jews! Lots of kiddies at this one. [...]

When Reality isn’t Fake Enough

by Eileen McGuire-Mahony | 4:10 am, December 31, 2008

A generation which ignores history has no past and no future. – Robert Heinlein Oprah swooned over the book, purring that it was “the single greatest love story in 22 years” (because – as you all doubtless know – love, humanity, and time itself only began to matter when Oprah started getting all worked up [...]

RMA 2.0: Rocky Mtn Blogs Radio Show #7

by elpresidente | 9:49 pm, December 30, 2008

Every Tuesday–next show December 30, 9pm.

The Blog Talk Radio version of the Rocky Mountain Alliance. A weekly chat about politics–national, state, and local.

**Update: This Tuesday, Joshua and fellow commentators will host a 2008 year-in-review.

Last Tuesday’s lineup– Joshua and fellow commentators (including yours truly) hosted Jim Pfaff of Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Opinion Times. Pfaff discussed the AFP Colorado report “Keeping Colorado Competitive” and bridging the Christian/libertarian gap.

On December 16 we hosted State Rep. Kevin Lundberg (District 49), and discussed the Salazar appointment as the Secretary of the Interior in the Obama cabinet.

The December 12 edition featured Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier.

**Bookmark the new RMA Radio home page, with embedded player and calendar of upcoming shows and featured guests.

Stream the show live, or play/download the podcast at your convenience.

I’ll update co-host and guest info for each episode as it becomes available. Stay tuned . . .

RMA’s shows are archived–if you missed any of them, be sure to check out the archive page to stream or download, or scroll down this page a bit, for the embedded archive player.

Is capitalism dead?

by David K. Williams, Jr. | 5:52 pm, December 30, 2008

An excerpt from a column by Carolina Baum from Bloomberg.com, in response to those that claim the govenment is better at producing fairness than the free market:

Alas, government isn’t some benevolent matriarch acting in the public interest, even if it knew what that was. It is a conglomeration of politicians acting in their own self-interest, guided by payoffs from special-interest groups. That’s a poor substitute for the market’s price signals, not to mention a guarantee of inefficiency and waste

Amen, sister.

Rocky Mountain Alliance Blog Talk Radio Year in Review Tonight at 9 PM

by Ben DeGrow | 1:26 pm, December 30, 2008

Tune in at 9 PM local Mountain Time this evening for the seventh edition of Rocky Mountain Alliance Blog Talk Radio. The year-end episode will take a look back at some of the big stories of 2008 and feature a discussion about Israel’s current military campaign against Hamas.

Don’t forget. If you miss the live broadcast [...]