Zacchaeus House

A private home in Asheville doubles as a place of worship and a sanctuary for the homeless. the home-church has been named Zacchaeus House and is operated by Rev. Amy Cantrell. But the home does not conform to the City of Asheville zoning laws for a public accommodation and the tenant has been issued a Notice of Zoning Violation for operating a "place of worship" in a neighborhood zoned for Single Family High Density.

The small “house-church” was cited by the city for having a church in a residence, and its two ministers, the Rev. Amy Cantrell and the Rev. Chrystal Cook, were told they would have to bring the house up to code as a public gathering place or close. - Asheville Citizen-Times.

...the property must satisfy a host of special building-safety requirements, such as multiple bathrooms, exit signs and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. - Mountain Xpress.

This type of “dumb” government action chokes the serendipity of spontaneous organization and occasions the stagnation of a compassionate human spirit.

Who is to say that Zacchaeus House will continue to be a refuge for the homeless? Today it might be Zacchaeus House, tomorrow it might be somewhere else.

Why should Zacchaeus House remodel at great expense to satisfy dumb government zoning rules when their mission may not persist beyond the morrow? Should another home take up the mission, they will also be required to renovate at great expense to comply with zoning regulations. And another, and another -- only later to revert to its former use. Nonsense!

This is how government intervention becomes a disincentive to charity; which is our right to exercise, as we see fit and in the style we see fit and to the extend we see fit.

It has been suggested that "the neighborhood doesn’t want 'those kind of people' in their midst." That is correct. When I spoke with Rev. Cantrell recently at Zacchaeus House, she called it gentrification.

My good friend Rev. Rightmyer supports the neighborhood. He thinks that requiring thousands of dollars to bring the home up to code for a public accommodation would help "clean up the neighborhood." This kind of expense is both unnecessary and prohibitive.

I suppose the neighbors would rather have the homeless wildly scrambling through the streets for food and shelter on their own than peaceably taking comfort in a friendly home setting with the solace of moral support.

FURTHER READING

RLUIPA: a federal statute that was passed in 2000 to provide stronger protection for religious freedom in the land-use and prison contexts.

Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act - DOJ.

Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act - Wikipedia.

Economic Pretention

In his commentary for World News Trust entitled Still Pretending, James Kunstler writes:

The maneuvers that the big banks are making nowadays, along with their enablers at the Federal Reserve and elsewhere in Washington, really amount to little more than the old Polish blanket joke -- in which (excuse my concision) the proverbial Polack wants to make his blanket longer, so he scissors twelve inches off the top and sews it onto the bottom. Only in this case, the banks are shearing x-billions of losses off the top of their blankets and re-attaching x-billions of new debt onto the bottom. This new debt, of course, goes to cover the old losses and only represents further losses-to-be-reported-later, since the banks are basically insolvent. Borrowing more money when you're broke doesn't make you less insolvent.

Congratulations Mr. Kunstler, you got it right.

But let’s put a little less blame on the “big banks” and a little more on the “enablers.” It is government interference in the economy, namely the central banking system, established by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, that set the current looming economic disaster on its present course.

With the total elimination of asset-based currency under Nixon, we now have a system of debt-based currency that allows the Fed to print fiat money at its discretion and pump that money supply into the economy in the form of easy credit. The “big banks” are only responding to the signals from the Fed and its enabler, the U.S. Government.

Currency that is based on debt only has value based on our future ability to repay (savings, assets, equity, incomes, population growth, earnings capability, currency strength). Therefore, all new additional money is debt and all debt is paid with weaker, devalued dollars -- or with new debt. Wealth is siphoned from the poor and middle-class through inflation and boom-bust business cycles. America is essentially insolvent as we speak because of our declining potential to back up this obligation to repay.

As Mr. Knustler says,

Sooner or later we’ll get back to money that stands for something and banks that function as credible repositories of wealth.

“Money that stands for something” means asset-based. “Banks that function as credible repositories of wealth” means banking and lending institutions that are not tools of the government.

We are all debt-slaves now and only 10% of Americans are voting for change this year. I have been supporting the only Presidential candidate who fully understands our economic situation, how we got where we are, what are the consequences, and what is the only remedy. This is the only authentic change: radical course correction — not simply branding the ’status quo.’

Americans have been offered their liberty and security on a silver platter and are content to let it pass in favor of “American Idol” politics. They deserve now whatever rot they get.

Thank you Mr. Kunstler for agreeing with me.

FURTHER READING

A Word From Ron Paul, Forbes Magazine, March 8, 2008.

Past the Point of No Return by Chris Mack, February 18, 2008.

What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray N. Rothbard. AUDIOBOOK

Money, Bank Credit, and Economic Cycles by Jesús Huerta de Soto.

Most Economists in Survey Say Recession Is Here -- Phil Izzo and Sudeep Reddy, WSJ.

How a lender bailout hurts the economy -- Colin Barr, CNN Money.

Media Overlook Fed Bailout in Plain View -- Dean Baker.

Happy Talk on the Bailout -- Dean Baker.

"The Fed Didn't Bail Out Wall Street? It Just Ain't So!" By Robert Murphy, The Freeman, January 2008.

"The Fed's New Tricks Are Creating Disaster" By Frank Shostak, Mises Blog, 3/18/2008.

LTE: Ron Paul

Ron Paul is the only hopeful providing real solutions

This election season, millions of Americans will go to the polls and voluntarily vote for slavery, theft and endless war.

No candidate in the 2008 Presidential election maintains the political philosophy of limited government, individual rights and free markets: There is no candidate who would devolve political power from the federal to the local level; who would do only what is authorized in the Constitution to defend this country against foreign aggression; who would fully dismantle the income tax monstrosity that maintains a prior claim on your labor; who would expose the folly of the central banking system responsible for boom-bust business cycles, inflation, and consequent poverty; who would place the control of the nation's money supply in the hands of the federal government instead of a private bank, the Federal Reserve; who advocates a foreign policy of non-interventionism; who would respect the sovereign right of every individual to exercise their civil liberties as they see fit, barring violations of other’s rights.

In short, there is no candidate in this race who consistently opposes the tyranny of statism into which America has descended.

There is no candidate. None, that is, with the sole exception of 10-term libertarian Congressman Ron Paul.

Atheism

Regarding the idea of the existence of God, it is the theist who makes the positive claim and it is his, therefore, to prove. The atheist has no negative obligation to disprove another's wild claims. It is an impossible task to soundly refute any and all fantastic claims through all of history every time they're made using logic and evidence -- there would be none. It is a logical impossibility to prove a negative. An inability to disprove does not prove.

No -- someone has to bear the burden of proof when making a claim and it should be the storyteller not the audience.

Atheism is not the positive claim that "there is no God." The atheist says, instead, "I don't believe in God." Non-belief is the proper logical starting point in thinking about God. The position of the atheist is that he remains unconvinced of the theist's claims. If someone maintains the positive claim that "God exists," then it is the claimant who should be eager and able to provide logical or physical evidence.

Atheism should be properly described as the mere non-belief in the unfounded and fantastic idea of God in the absence of any logical, legitimate and provable arguments.

Likewise, the person who makes the positive claim that there is no God is obliged to provide proofs for their claim. That person would not be an a-theist, but an anti-theist.

VIDEO

Reason vs. Faith, Ayn Rand Institute. Yaron Brook and Onkar Ghate discuss the roles of reason and faith in Western civilization.
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8

Gordon Lightfoot

Folk music legend Gordon Lightfoot performed at the Thomas Wolfe Auditorium in Asheville tonight. His first ever performance here. I don’t want to say that the audience skewed a little older, but three people died before the intermission.

Seriously, it was a fine concert — really fine. More of a tribute to a long and great career. Lightfoot was all about bidness. Very little onstage banter. He came on stage and started the first set before the applause died down. This continued, workmanlike, for each song on through to the encore. He did, at one point, share some old stories and one bad joke. His old bandmates were there: Terry Clements and Rick Haynes. The song selection was wide-ranging, but he seemed to favor his middle period, and "Shadows" in particular.

As was to be expected, the arrangements were spare, gentle, and masterfully punctuated. Lightfoot, gaunt and approaching seventy, sang quietly and sometimes strained for his old register. All in all, I was proud to be in his presence and say: “Farewell old friend, good friend.” I have always considered Lightfoot to be the Walt Whitman of folk music.

LTE: Highway Blogging

City efforts in stifling highway bloggers ‘grasping at straws’

Tim Peck, Asheville
AC-T
February 4, 2008 12:15 am

I have participated in several “highway blogging” parties and I’ve had only pleasant encounters with law enforcement.

If any law enforcement officer asked me to cease my peaceable and safe “highway blogging,” I would have to ask him to cite the law that is being violated. The bottom line is that there is no law that prohibits highway blogging. Who has pressed any charges?

First highway blogging was supposed to be impeding pedestrians on the sidewalk (which it doesn’t). Then it was a highway traffic hazard for the drivers below (which it is not, given the general atmosphere of common distractions that drivers face every day).

Then it was a violation of state advertising regulations. Now Assistant City Attorney Curt Euler wants a verbal opinion from the attorney general in order to enforce the advertising regulation — which, by the way, has no connection to traffic safety.

I call it grasping at straws. What we really need is law enforcement officers who know the law about political speech in public places and who can consistently enforce that law. Where there is no violation of the law (and in this case there is none), then police officers should wish us well.

Wither Stompers?

Dear Mountain Xpress Editors,

In a recent letter to the editor ["Good ol’ stomp-and-chant," Letters, Jan. 02], reader Jason Korol attempts to address some of the interesting questions posed by Lady Passion, Diuvei & Coven Oldenwilde, in these pages [Let’s have a good ol’ stomp-and-chant,” Letters, Dec. 26], who have challenged the fire-breathing Carolina Stompers to a live debate that they have humorously characterized as a “Spiritual Smackdown.”

I have enjoyed Mr. Korol's reply, and others I have seen here and there. But I think an actual formal debate ought to take place instead of a virtual debate online, in the papers, and through emails amounting to a series of disconnected rejoinders. Let the Christians and the Pagans make the best case for their particular brand of mystical faith, directly and in-person, using all of the logic, evidence, and persuasive power they can muster, if any, and let each argument rise or fall on the merits.

All of this confrontational ‘challenge-and-response’ comes, as your readers may recall, after Stompers Richard Bernier and Chad Nesbitt filmed and published videos of Asheville city council candidate Elaine Lite (D) participating in a protest demonstration to bring attention to the illegal, unethical and incompetent sale of public property to a private developer for erecting a nice block of condos a "stone’s-throw" from city hall—a story covered in your feature article “Fighting Mad”, Dec. 5, about the Stompers, their members and their intentions.

Thankfully, the famed magnolia tree, which was the symbolic focal point of the demonstration, is still standing. And still no condemnations from the Stompers of the government corruption that compelled the protesters to demonstrate their deeply-felt concern in the first place.

Since that negative political attack ad was made, the Stompers have also challenged their adversaries—Elaine Lite and other progressives and libertarians—to sit for interviews on URTV and submit to so-called “honest conversations.” If this is the model the Stompers uphold for rational debate in Asheville then the Wiccans are simply following the standard set by the Stompers themselves.

To date, the Stompers are still searching for their spines and furtively mumbling amongst themselves in dark corners, offering little more than the fallacious ‘tu quoque’ (or “You too have shied from our challenges, therefore, so shall we”). It seems oddly out of character for the Stompers to wither in face of an honest conversation.

Where now are the posturing Stompers and the former adolescent bravado that has so far typified their clique?

FURTHER READING

"Take this, you posturing Stompers!" by Tim Peck, Mountain Xpress, January 16, 2008.

"The liberal smackdown expands" by Chad Nesbitt, Mountain Xpress, January 16, 2008.

"Going down to their level" by Eamon Martin, Mountain Xpress, Jan 23, 2008.

High School Drop Out

The agonizing concern in the news over dropout rates is based on the premise that dropping out of a government owned and operated school is a bad thing. Students opt out of their government-driven indoctrination for a variety of reasons and we ought to know what those reasons are.

I realize that times have changed since the early 70's, but that's when I was attending public school in Atlanta. I dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. I got my GED and a job and moved forward with my life. I said then, and it's still true, that I dropped out of school because I wasn't getting an education and that bothered me. I've since fixed all that.

The State of North Carolina could improve dropout numbers by outlawing all other forms of education: charter schools, private schools, home schooling. Or the state could outlaw dropping out altogether. That way, with our formerly free children in total captivity to government education, we could finally achieve a perfect drop out rate.

Then we could turn our attention to government-run psychiatry.

The (Not So) New Republic

The New Republic article by James Kirchick, aimed at uncovering the "ugly truth" about libertarian Presidential candidate Ron Paul, is merely a dishonest hit piece without substance. It is a fraud -- a transparent, rhetorical fraud designed as a sequence of code words to stimulate automatic thinking among its readers who might be predisposed to disagree with Ron Paul's general advocacy of individual liberty and limited government; and serving to appeal as well to any opposing political strains who would search for any means, fair or foul, to boost their own favorite candidate at the expense of any other.

Or, for that matter, appealing to anyone who, for whatever reason, takes an interest in lurid potshots at any authentic, originalist, libertarian conception of government.

The detractors have now, and so soon, resorted to deceit; therefore, we win. And I strongly suspect that this font of opposition research is the best they've got in this silly season.

Authentic journalists should attempt to be valiant seekers after truth. Mr. Kirchick cannot count himself among that number. He, alas, has no backbone, and, it appears, no bottom.

Shall we move forward? There is so much to be done.

"The flowering of human society depends on two factors: the intellectual power of outstanding men to conceive sound social and economic theories, and the ability of these or other men to make these ideologies palatable to the majority." -- Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, p. 860.

FURTHER READING

"NAACP President: Ron Paul Is Not A Racist" by Paul Joseph Watson, Jan 13, 2008.


"Why the Old Ron Paul Newsletters Have Nothing to Do with the Ron Paul Revolution" by Brian Doherty, Reason Magazine, Jan 8, 2008.

"Left Out: Gay recovering leftist" explores why the dating life of a political minority can be lonely" By James Kirchick, Aug 5, 2007.

"Racism" by Ayn Rand

"Capitalism: The Cure for Racism" by George Reisman

"Issue: Racism" by Ron Paul

VIDEO

Ron Paul, Anti-Racist

Ron Paul on Leno . . . Again

Once again, libertarian congressman (R-Texas) and Presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, January 7, 2008.

PART ONE:


PART TWO:


VIDEO

Ron Paul DVD Project

Ron Paul on Jay Leno, Oct 30, 2007

Ron Paul on Jay Leno, Jan 7, 2008
Part 1 | Part 2

Ron Paul on Larry King, Jan 3, 2008 (UNAIRED)

Ron Paul on PBS Bill Moyer's Journal, PBS, Jan 4, 2008

Ron Paul on Meet The Press
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Ron Paul Town Hall, Manchester, NH, Jan 6, 2008
Part 1 | Part 2

Conversation With The Candidates (WMUR-TV, NH)
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6

Troops Speak Out: Paul v. Huckabee

Campaign Ads:

• Support the Troops
• Illegal Immigration
• Defender of Freedom

Ron Paul DVD Bomb


South Carolina Republican Debate, Jan 10, 2008.

FURTHER READING

NYT on Ron Paul. Retraction.

"Pimp My Ride" by Tucker Carlson, The New Republic, December 31, 2007.

John Stossel Interviews Ron Paul On Policing The World

"Mises and Austrian Economics: A Personal View" by Ron Paul
Podcast | Full Text (read along)

The Ron Paul Library, a collection of more than 1,000 articles and speeches.