I Stand by My Friend

I take personal umbrage at the invective hurled at my colleague, Kris Hansen, state representative from Havre. She has received threats and vitriol by phone. She has endured harsh verbal treatment, finger wagging, name calling and scorn, in Helena establishments. Kris is a fine person, a reasonable person, a person of distinction and accomplishment, a [...]

Government Diabetes Programs

Who benefits from diabetes prevention? If the government pays for all a person’s prevention and treatment, it saves a lot by convincing the person to prevent diabetes by walking and eating less food, proper foods. Assume that prevention programs, where persons are put through lectures, weigh-ins, group-support meetings, cost the government $1,100 per year. Assume [...]

State Spending Transparency

Microscope on State Spending Employees Montana State Employees: The Highest Paid 909 Employees State employee compensation website List of types of compensation for state employees Budget Budgets by department Legislative Fiscal Division perspective Spending by Department: go to the Appendix starting on page 12 Financial State of Montana report Governor’s budget Financial report Schools Great [...]

Books to the Legislature

Books to the legislature: I brought to Helena the following: The Bible and other sacred scriptures Immortal Poems of the English Language (Williams) The Patriot’s Toolbox (Heartland Institute) Principles for a Free Society (Epstein) Simple Rules for a Complex World (Epstein) The Structure of Liberty (Barnett) Rights Talk (Glendon) The Peacemaker As You Like It [...]

Competing Interests

Competing Interests. You Decide.   Imagine being a decider in the following circumstance. A, B and C need food, medicine and schoolteachers. X, Y and Z have surrendered their earnings to you, M, the decider. Available funds are $30,000. You can split the money three ways equally, or in any way you consider just. A,B, [...]

A Vigilant Authority

“It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life, and if it so monopolizes movement and life that when [...]

Looks Like a Win

Looks Like a Win Though it is not official yet, it appears we won. What a great accomplishment for our team! With 64 votes more than my opponent, there are 68 provisional ballots yet to count. If all were accepted and every one went to my opponent, I/we would lose. The chance of that is [...]

Persons or The People?

Honor Persons or The People? Contrast the U.S. Constitution with that of Communist China. Ours is an individualist document, theirs, collectivist. The Constitution begins with WE THE PEOPLE, but few collective references follow. The next and only other “the People” appears is in Article 1, Section 2: “the People of the several States.” The inclusion [...]

The Unseen Carbon Agenda

The Unseen Carbon Agenda The Wall Street Journal wrote today that, though cap and tax has been stymied for the moment, the White House is pursuing the aims of carbon abatement through other means, notably through EPA regulations. It made me reflect on the breadth of the carbon abatement agenda. It reaches throughout the realm. [...]

A Few Clarifications

Some people cast aspersions. One aspersion is that, “Tom would have us believe that anyone who accepts government assistance of any type for any reason has no dignity.” It is well accepted that it is more dignified to be self-reliant and that America is founded on a Declaration of Independence not a declaration of dependence. [...]