Friday, July 11, 2008

#136 - The Bottom Line about Government

The Bottom Line:

The role of the Constitution: to restrain Government from acting beyond it'd defined role in the constitution to ensure individual liberty

The role of the Government: to protect sovereignty and liberty of the nation, that's it, nothing about welfare nationally or internationally.

Why? Cause long as you have freedom over your property and life, you may not have the life you want or you may have more than others, but you'll have the freedom to decide where you end up even if the path there isn't the same or as easy for everyone, at least it exists.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

#135 - Revolutionaries join the Alex Merced network

Hey Guys,

I feel honored that two of my favorite revolutionaries has joined my social network, The Alex Merced Community. Trevor Lyman of ThisNovember5th and Break The Matrix fame and Eric Nordstrom of RonPaulMoneyBomb and Pyrabang.com fame, these two individual were pivotal figures in the huge fund raising figures of Ron Paul during the primaries and I'm honored to have them join my network.

So please join Pyrabang, Break The Matrix, and Freeople.com

and if you not to exhausted after than join the Alex Merced Community and add Eric Nordstrom or Trevor Lyman as a friend.

- Alex

#134 - Funding the Arts

I was watching recent edition of MobLogic with Lyndsay Campbell one of my favorite podcasts despite the differing views on some issues between me and the show. Basically it talked about how Bill Clinton cut funding by half to the NEA and was asking people on the street how they felt.

While I agree creativity is a priority in the development of the individual and it's our individual responsibility to cultivate that in our communities. If you constantly ask why the government isn't doing more you ask the wrong question and delay the solution which is well, let vested individuals take care of the problem and educate on the virtue of the cause. Thing only get fixed if people care about it, and no policy can force people to care only education and reason can. No one said it was easy.

While it's my job to improve the world around, the government does have a role in protecting my freedom to enact that responsibility whether it be by defense of our sovereignty or even protecting my personal property. While I guess we can say big brother hasn't been doing a good job of either with our atrocious foreign policy and tax laws.

In the case of the arts an appropriate government policy would be to create tax shelter incentives for investing in the arts. Not just merely a tax write off for your donations, but even a multiplier to that donation so that people get to keep more of their earnings for giving back. Basically if I donate 2k, I get a 4k write off and it's incentive.

Although while incentives might be able to stimulate more funds in that direction, the underlying ethical issues of taxation still mean we must phase out the income tax which makes a tax shelter a temporary fix.

In the end the ability communicate and inspire is the only to truly mobilize change. Policy is never an ends.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

#133 - Freeople.com & BreaktheMatrix.com

Freeople.com, which is a social network by Ron Shimrock has finally gone live. It was near the beginning of the year when Ron asked me to film a short promotional video for the site and now the site is finally here and it has a lot of great features.

http://www.freeople.com/users/alexmerced

that's my profile so make sure to add me. There is no reason to be choosing either BreaktheMatrix.com, Trevor Lymans social media effort or Freeople.com they both offer different features and are great networks to be part of so I urge you to join both of them. Of course, I still run the Liberty Independence Alliance if you want to join that as well. You can never be too connected.