Free New York Blog

I was away for many days in May and June and when I turned on the radio today the lead story was that the aud is finally coming down and we should send our stories and photos in to the station. Now, I know I am old and perhaps I have dementia that is worse than I fear but didn’t the aud come down two months ago? Haven’t there been parties and memorials and photo galleries yada yada?
Does anyone understand that this is the very problem with this area? MOVE ON WESTERN NY, let go of the past! My God it is over, behind us, finis! Give it up!
I was in Albuquerque two weeks ago and drove through Cleveland this past weekend and I must say there is a youthful feel to them. I’ve been in Charlotte to see my daughter a few times in the past few months, there is nothing special about Charlotte but what these cities have is a brighter, newer look They are nicely lit up at night. They look inviting. They don’t look old and tired. Maybe we could keep some young bright, productive people here if the place stopped looking like the thirties. Maybe we would do better if we let go of that mentality. Life really is for the young and to save this area that is exactly who has to be given a reason to stay.

Biggest WNY Tea Party Yet
Join your fellow Patriots in over 1300 cities!
July 4th—Noon to 1pm
Niagara Square Downtown Buffalo

Speakers:
Len Roberto
Rus Thompson
Jim Ostrowski

You will hear specific ideas on how to turn America and New York State around.

Sponsored by:
Buffalonyteaparty.wordpress.com
PrimaryChallenge.org
TeaNewYork.com
PoliticalClassDismissed.com

For more information, write to ilkitty@roadrunner.com or go to http://buffalonyteaparty.wordpress.com/

Everyone is promising reform of New York State government but few are doing anything real about it.

There are many proposals for faux reform. These are actually harmful to reform since they crowd out proposals that could actually get NY out of its downward spiral to oblivion.

New York’s problem is that it is the least free state both on economic and personal issues. See the magnificent study by WNY resident and UB professor Jason Sorens and his co-author William P. Rugar, Freedom in the Fifty States (PDF).

In plain terms, NY consumes too much of the capital of the citizenry to allow NY to be competitive in the Northeast, let alone the country as a whole or the world. Ironically, NY’s taxes are much higher than Vietnam’s, the country we allegedly had to liberate from state socialism.

Any reform that fails to reduce the government’s consumption of our capital or that fails to increase our personal freedom, is a faux reform that that citizens should assume is designed to con them into thinking something real is being done.

Freedom, by the way, is seamless. You can’t favor the citizens’ freedom to spend their own money while holding that they are too dimwitted and irresponsible to exercise freedom in personal matters. NY is proof positive of this as we have the least freedom across the board. In sharp contrast, the freest state, New Hampshire, ranks high in both personal and economic freedom.

New York’s motto should be: “Live free or die a slow, painful death.”

For years, Free New York advocated a drastic reduction in the size of state and local government in New York. Now that the political leadership has caught up with us, we are releasing a list of ten needed reforms most of which have been the subject of our policy studies published in recent years.

Free New York’s Agenda for Real Change in NY:

1. Make gerrymandering illegal. There is no need for a bipartisan committee to do so. Just mandate that the districts be geometrically compact and allow any citizen to sue to keep you honest.

2. Abolish all forms of corporate welfare, subsidies grants, loans, enterprise zones. These are just excuses to give politicians power to extract donations from business people. Roll all of the savings into an across the board tax cut.

3. Merge all school districts into the local towns; the town council becomes the board; no more special elections where few vote.

4. Abolish all authorities and special districts. Merge into local governments, privatize them, or, as with IDAs, abolish them.

5. Equalize private and public sector salaries and benefits.

6. Convert state pensions to defined contribution plans and eliminate pensions for all elected officials and all benefits of any kind for part-time elected officials.

7. Eliminate all the well-known pension scams such as the using overtime to inflate the “high-three.”

8. Abolish all Medicaid extras not required by federal law and cap spending until we spend the average of other states.

9. Hire the Ohio and PA budget directors for a million dollars each so they can tell us why they spend 68 cents to the NY dollar on state and local government.

10. Finally, legalize medical marijuana. Marijuana helps cancer patients better tolerate chemotherapy treatment. It helps them fight the severe nausea that destroys their appetites and threatens malnutrition. It is time that NY stop its barbaric practice of arresting sick people for taking medicine!

For the various policy studies that underlie these proposals, go to FreeNewYork.org.

Free NY’s roll-out of its ten point plan for real reform was a grand slam: all four TV news stations and the four main local radio stations covered the event: TW, 2, 4, 7, WBEN, WNED, WBFO and WECK. I called into WECK on the way down while Dave DiPietro was interviewing Carl Paladino and we had a nice quick chat.

Channel 7 went live at noon with Julie Fine while Rich Newberg followed us into Antoine Thompson’s office only to be told his cameras are barred from the building. Nice.

The lady from WBFO was on her first day and a wild day it was.

Anyway, here’s the ten point plan:

1. Make gerrymandering illegal. There is no need for a bipartisan committee to do so. Just mandate that the districts be geometrically compact and allow any citizen to sue to keep you honest.

2. Abolish all forms of corporate welfare, subsidies grants, loans, enterprise zones. These are just excuses to give politicians power to extract donations from business people. Roll all of the savings into an across the board tax cut.

3. Merge all school districts into the local towns; the town council becomes the board; no more special elections where few vote.

4. Abolish all authorities and special districts. Merge into local governments, privatize them, or, as with IDAs, abolish them.

5. Equalize private and public sector salaries and benefits.

6. Convert state pensions to defined contribution plans and eliminate pensions for all elected officials and all benefits of any kind for part-time elected officials.

7. Eliminate all the well-known pension scams such as the using overtime to inflate the “high-three.”

8. Abolish all Medicaid extras not required by federal law and cap spending until we spend the average of other states.

9. Hire the Ohio and PA budget directors for a million dollars each so they can tell us why they spend 68 cents to the NY dollar on state and local government.

10. Finally, legalize medical marijuana. Marijuana helps cancer patients better tolerate chemotherapy treatment. It helps them fight the severe nausea that destroys their appetites and threatens malnutrition. It is time that NY stop its barbaric practice of arresting sick people for taking medicine!

For the various policy studies that underlie these proposals, go to FreeNewYork.org.

News from Free New York, Inc.
Contact:
Jim Ostrowski
Free New York, Inc.
(716) 435-8918
jameso@apollo3.com
http://freenewyork.org
This release online at: http://blog.freeny.org/?p=3881

Free New York will hold a press conference on Thursday, June 18th, at noon in Niagara Square in downtown Buffalo, to release a ten point plan for real reform in NY. The people are demanding change but all they get is empty promises, vague cliches and meaningless procedural reforms that have failed in the past.

Free New York’s plan will actually address what is wrong with NY government: too many government agencies employing too many people making too much money.

For years, Free New York advocated a drastic reduction in the size of state and local government in New York. Now that some of the political leadership claims to have caught up with us, we are releasing a list of ten needed reforms most of which have been the subject of our policy studies published in recent years. They include abolishing gerrymandering, corporate welfare, and public authorities.

The public is encouraged to attend and take the reform proposals to the local offices of their state legislators.

DRAFT FOR COMMENTS

Everyone is promising reform of New York State government but few are doing anything real about it.

There are many proposals for faux reform. These are actually harmful to reform since they crowd out proposals that could actually get NY out of its downward spiral to oblivion.

New York’s problem is that it is the least free state both on economic and personal issues. See the magnificent study by WNY resident and UB professor Jason Sorens and his co-author William P. Rugar, Freedom in the Fifty States (PDF).

In plain terms, NY consumes too much of the capital of the citizenry to allow NY to be competitive in the Northeast, let alone the country as a whole or the world. Ironically, NY’s taxes are much higher than Vietnam’s, the country we allegedly had to liberate from state socialism.

Any reform that fails to reduce the government’s consumption of our capital or that fails to increase our personal freedom, is a faux reform that that citizens should assume is designed to con them into thinking something real is being done.

Freedom, by the way, is seamless. You can’t favor the citizens’ freedom to spend their own money while holding that they are too dimwitted and irresponsible to exercise freedom in personal matters. NY is proof positive of this as we have the least freedom across the board. In sharp contrast, the freest state, New Hampshire, ranks high in both personal and economic freedom.

New York’s motto should be: “Live free or die a slow, painful death.”

For years, Free New York advocated a drastic reduction in the size of state and local government in New York. Now that the political leadership has caught up with us, we are releasing a list of ten needed reforms most of which have been the subject of our policy studies published in recent years.

Free New York’s Agenda for Real Change in NY:

1. Make gerrymandering illegal. There is no need for a bipartisan committee to do so. Just mandate that the districts be geometrically compact and allow any citizen to sue to keep you honest.

2. Abolish all forms of corporate welfare, subsidies grants, loans, enterprise zones. These are just excuses to give politicians power to extract donations from business people. Roll all of the savings into an across the board tax cut.

3. Merge all school districts into the local towns; the town council becomes the board; no more special elections where few vote.

4. Abolish all authorities and special districts. Merge into local governments, privatize them, as with IDAs, abolish them.

5. Equalize private and public sector salaries and benefits.

6. Convert state pensions to defined contribution plans and eliminate pensions for all elected officials and all benefits of any kind for part-time elected officials.

7. Eliminate all the well-known pension scams such as the using overtime to inflate the “high-three.”

8. Abolish all Medicaid extras not required by federal law and cap spending until we spend the average of other states.

9. Hire the Ohio and PA budget directors for a million dollars each so they can tell us why they spend 68 cents to the NY dollar on state and local government.

10. Finally, legalize medical marijuana. Marijuana helps cancer patients better tolerate chemotherapy treatment. It helps them fight the severe nausea that destroys their appetites and threatens malnutrition. It is time that NY stop its barbaric practice of arresting sick people for taking medicine!

For the various policy studies that underlie these proposals, go to FreeNewYork.org.

On May 9th Rus Thompson and Carl Paladino will be holding a Tax Protest/Revolt in Niagara Square at 2 PM. It will focus on the insanity of Albany policies, politics, and the ever increasing taxes, fees, dysfunction and downstate influence on all our representatives. We will also be announcing a business/Citizen partnership to take on politics and politicians starting right here in Western New York. Thank you and please spread the word.

Rus Thompson
Carl Paladino

I wrote this about 20 years ago for a project called Citizens Against Prohibition (CAP). CAP never got launched for a variety of reasons including fierce opposition from turf-fighting liberals who fought us harder than they ever fought the drug war. (They assured us their own group against the drug war could do the job.)

I still think this is a viable strategy and as far as I know the name Citizens Against Prohibition is still available. If someone wants to come forward and lead this effort, PCD will help you as much as we can.

So, pretend it’s 1990 and enjoy:

How to End the War on Drug Users and Sellers

by James Ostrowski

Overview

CAP’s strategy will be to first change public opinion, then to change public policy. Changes in public policy will not occur until public support for legalization begins to approach 50 percent. It is important to avoid the tilting at windmills perception. A good rule of thumb is that serious political and legislation action should not be attempted until close to forty percent of the population appears to be supportive. At that point, the increased attention that political action brings will assist us in getting that extra ten percent support.

Thus, the goal of education will be to achieve a level of public support which makes political and legislative action credible. Initiating legislative action will then attract additional media and public attention which will increase support and lead to repeal.

So, at least on the national level, education will be the prime focus. We are about 15 percentage points short of the level of support we need to launch a serious legislative campaign and support for legalization is scarce among national political leaders. At the national level, we must then go directly to the public with our message. (This is not the case at the local level, about which more later.)

National Strategies

William Bennett is correct when he says that the American people are on his side in the “war on drugs.” Though the margins are decreasing, polls show that legalization is still opposed by most people. Since we can assume that the people are wrong here, we might ask why. The reasons include pervasive and systematic deception by prohibitionists over many decades, the resulting misapprehension of the nature of the drug problem by the public, and the intense quasi—religious emotional reaction that most people have to conscious—altering drugs. A successful strategy for repealing prohibition must deal with these realities. Strategies must be developed which are commensurate with the problems to be solved.

More

To go along with the national tea party movement, I believe we should have our next event on July 4th, 10am, in the Cheeektowaga-Lancaster area (center of WNY). If you know of a good location, let me know.

At the last event on April 18th, we rolled out a 12-point plan for victory. However, the plan sort of got lost in the shuffle of a complex, four hour event. Many people left without taking a flier. Also, the website that goes along with the plan was not ready for prime time but will be shortly.

I do not believe in having a rally for the sake of blowing off steam. Also, if you don’t give people a plan, they won’t come back nor should they.

I see this next rally as focusing on the goal of restoring the Republic through direct citizen action.

Please save the date and time.

If you wish to be on the committee, send me an email at jameso@apollo3.com.

The Populist Roundtable, an informal breakfast club which conspires to defeat the political machine, will meet this Saturday at 8-10am in Amherst NY.

This is for serious activists only, people who want to go the extra mile.

Seating is limited. Please send me an email at jameso@apollo3.com if you wish to attend.

We are a bit shorthanded on the Free NY blog since most of our team is over at PoliticalClassDismissed.com.

If you have writing talent and are in general agreement with the Free New York plan, send us an email.

jameso@apollo3.com

The real tea party movement

By Ilana Mercer

Posted: April 17, 2009
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009

Today I offer an interview with James Ostrowski, libertarian extraordinaire, lawyer, writer and tea party organizer. Mr. Ostrowski is the founder of Free Buffalo (2005) and author of the tea party manifesto, “How We Can Win the Second American Revolution Without Firing a Shot.” He’s been fighting the political machine for 35 years.

ILANA: The tea party protests across the country are all fueled by that indomitable America spirit. And that’s good. However, most tea protesters have yet to arrive at the principles that undergirded the American Revolution. Explain.

OSTROWSKI: What we have now in America is so far from the original idea that it would be unrecognizable to the founders. The old republic slipped away long ago, and while it’s not possible to pinpoint the date, I like to say 1917. That year we entered World War I. War leads to higher taxes and the level of federal spending has never returned to pre-World War I levels. Domestically, the twin evils of the income tax and the Federal Reserve started to kick in around then too. So, forget Obama – we need to clear away the dead wood of the Progressive Era to even begin to see what a true republic would look like. I don’t think most tea protesters are there yet, but perhaps they can be persuaded. In any event, we need to go far beyond simply bashing Obama and pork.

ILANA: I was coming to that. You’ve warned of tea parties that focus their attack on Obama and the “Democrats,” and whose “own positive agenda is rather thin and focuses on Pavlovian rank and file buzz words like ‘pork.’” Or tax tweaks to the exclusion of slashing government. You’ve cautioned of phonies who aim, in your words, “to return power to the same set of degenerate creeps who set the stage for the God Obama’s final sacking of America” – Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Tom DeLay, Dick Army, Lindsey Graham. What sort of agenda will help restore the republic and ward off the Republicans?

OSTROWSKI: I lay out a bold but simple plan, which starts with bringing the troops home and using the savings to begin to liquidate the federal welfare state by buying out Socialism Security recipients with lump sum payments. That paves the way for repeal of the 16th Amendment. Of course, we need to end the Fed and allow the market to determine the forms of money. The market usually chooses gold and silver. Now, establishment Republicans will not go along with that, but I am convinced the rank and file will. We kill two birds with one stone.

More

How We Can Win the Second American Revolution Without Firing a Shot

A Tea Party Manifesto

By James Ostrowski

April 15, 2009

Ladies and Gentlemen.

I have news for you. Barack Obama is not the problem with America. He is merely the symptom. When big government failed, the people, not knowing what went wrong, went for the fresh face who promised that government would solve the problems the people didn’t know government caused in the first place.

America went off course many, many decades ago. Blaming Obama for our problems is like saying a 500 pound man is fat because he just ate three pizzas. Obama is the captain of the Titanic and his ship is speeding recklessly along, but he did not design the ship nor place that giant iceberg in its path.
The tragedy is that the American people do not know why the economy collapsed. They do not know the nature of the regime that runs the country. They do not know that this regime is not the regime for which the Founding Fathers and Mothers fought. They do not know what the regime was that the Founders fought for. Finally, they do not know that the solution to our economic collapse is to restore that regime.

What were those Minute Men fighting for at Lexington and Concord? A republic of largely independent states. They weren’t fighting for the Constitution. There was no Constitution. They were fighting for a republic that would protect their natural right to liberty.

What is a republic? There’s much confusion about this. We must get this right. John Adams once complained that he “never understood” what the guarantee of republican government meant “and I believe no man ever did or will.” With apologies to John Adams, by “republican,” I mean a government exercising limited powers delegated to it by the people, whose officials are answerable to the people in regular, free elections.

Continue reading

Free New York Freedom Brigade

4:45pm Broadway Market, Buffalo.

We’ll be marching by the building my great-grandfather John Ostrowski built at Sienkiewicz and Fillmore.

Wear red and white and bring some candy to hand out to the kiddies.

My cell is 435-8918.

It’s great.

Despite what the lying left says, it’s mostly ordinary citizens acting spontaneously. The old hacks aren’t even invited or welcome to most events.

It’s not anti-Obama but anti-Big Government and that includes Bush and the Republican Congress when they had the majority. Naturally, as soon as they lost power, they fell in love with limited government again.

Alas, the Republican Party is a pathetic joke and the Tea Party Movement has become the real opposition party to the Democrats. Good.

Now, the blowing off steam phase is over and the movement must get serious fast or lose its momentum.

A movement needs a goal. Here’s a good one:

Restore the Republic.

By which I mean the pre-constitutional Republic. The American Revolution was not fought for the Constitution. The Constitution didn’t exist yet.

Nor will griping about the Constitution do. Face it. To the extent that the Constitution was designed to preserve the old Republic, and I have serious doubts about that, it failed. Constitutionalism failed. Parchment did not stop the steamroller of big government!

Why? That question has been answered by Learned Hand:

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.

A movement needs its own symbols and ours are there for the taking: The Betsy Ross flag is a no-brainer. And let’s use the old national anthem. My Country Tis of Thee. It speaks of liberty, not bombs bursting in air during a war whose meaning is still unclear. And let’s pledge allegiance to the principles of the American Revolution for Christ’s sake! (Peace is the common theme.)

Face it. The symbols of patriotism have been hijacked by evil men for evil purposes such as mass murder and massive bankster theft.

We will take patriotism back and make it true and good again.

Then, we need a plan. Why?

*Because most of us are naturally inclined to two activities that history shows are usually a waste of time: lobbying politicians and trying to elect new ones.

*Because no movement to shrink the federal government has succeeded since 1800-1804!

*Because many people are inclined to think we can reform our way out of this mess. In fact, reforming a rotten system merely extends its lifespan.

*Because the trajectory of America is downward fast and we have no time or margin of error for mistakes.

*Because if we do not give our people something constructive to do, right now, they will burn out and be gone.

At the April 18th WNY Tea Party, we will roll out a 12-point plan for direct citizen action that would make Gandhi smile. It’s a devastating one-two punch: education, then action! The plan fits on one side of one sheet of paper.

So, two things. If you are within driving distance of Buffalo and you miss this tea party, you will regret it when you see the video.

Two, if you are running a tea party on April 15th and wish to learn more about our plan, contact me.

Thanks and good luck at your event.

Jim Ostrowski
WNY Tea Party Program Committee
jameso@apollo3.com
Cell–(716) 435-8918