• "Ineptocracy"
• Presidental Ineptitude
• 6 Fixes to America's Fiscal Crisis
• Reform 'Entitlements'
• The Best Place in the World to be Born
• US Government Debt Clock
• MELTDOWN AMERICA
• Federal Government Sewage Leak!!
• YA GOTTA VOTE!
• Personal Responsibility or Government?
• DECLINE, DECAY, DENIAL, DELUSION, & DESPAIR
• WE DID BUILD THAT!
• Libertarian Party Platform - Amended 2012
• The Great Destroyer!
• The Great 'Equaliser'?
• Government is for Elites!
• Pay Your 'Fair Share'

I've noticed something strange over the past few weeks, maybe you have too. It seems that every 'contrarian' website out there has joined together to collectively bash the Olympics and anyone who tunes in to watch.

This seems nuts. Nobody should feel guilty for wanting to see athletes in peak condition push the boundaries of human performance. I certainly don't feel guilty about it. In fact I came to the UK several days ago specifically to catch some of the Olympics live.

Unfortunately it turned out to be much more difficult than I had expected.

As it turns out, the British government has centrally planned Olympic ticket issuance in a way that's so remarkably inefficient it would make Karl Marx look like Steve Jobs.

There's only one way to buy London Olympic tickets-- through the 'official' office that's controlled by the government. They've even solidified their monopoly by making it a CRIMINAL OFFENSE for individuals to resell Olympic tickets.

The concierge at my hotel, an affable Italian named Paulo, explained to me that the police even came around to warn (i.e. threaten) him against helping hotel guests find tickets.

Paulo directed me to the government's official website so I could buy tickets the legal way. I quickly found out how Byzantine it is-- there are all sorts of ridiculous hoops to jump through; if you're a resident of the UK, you follow one procedure. If you're a resident of the EU, you follow another. If you're a resident of other countries, you follow yet another.

Then after creating an online profile and giving them all sorts of personal information, they'll actually MAIL (i.e. snail mail) the physical tickets to the address you give them in your profile... and only to the address of your legal residency. It doesn't matter if you're traveling.

The alternative is that you could spend a couple of hours going to one of the ticket offices, all of which seem to have been strategically chosen for being in the most inconvenient locations possible.

Even if you can get through that maze, they've really screwed up their inventory management. Nobody seems to have any idea what tickets are available at any given time. An event may be 'sold out' at 10am, then have hundreds of seats available by noon.

The government's central planning of Olympic ticketing has been a complete failure, perhaps best evidenced by the THOUSANDS of empty seats at many of the events.

Annoyed beyond belief, I asked the concierge at my hotel if there were any alternatives. He said, 'maybe', told me to write down my phone number, and wait.

Within a few minutes, my phone started ringing off the hook with calls from ticket brokers; since the government made it illegal for these guys to sell tickets, they've been pushed into dodgy underground boiler rooms for the past two weeks as if they're Prohibition-era bootleggers trying to move a shipment of hooch.

Negotiating ticket prices with these guys, I couldn't believe we were talking about a sporting event... it seemed more like an arms deal. One guy asked me three times if I was a cop, and another refused to give me his phone number when I said I needed to call him back.

Totally crazy. The government has managed to monopolize an entire industry and screw it up with Soviet-level inefficiency... then make it a criminal offense for the private sector to fix it.

This is typical of how a government operates. They take a very cavalier attitude because they don't care about results, they only care about maintaining control. As a result, they run their operations based on the premise that people really have no choice.

With regard to Olympic ticketing, this is mostly true. My choice was either to go through the system legitimately (albeit painfully), deal with some dodgy backroom ticket broker at three times the price, or just watch it on television.

In our regular lives, though, we do have a choice. A single government need not have a monopoly over our lives.

As human beings, we are fundamentally free. We can choose where we live, where our money lives, where we pay taxes (and how much we pay), where to structure our companies, where to hire our employees, which regulations to adhere to, etc.

You can hold your savings in one country, store gold in another, own property in another, have legal tax residency in another, live in another, have a business in another, etc. This is what I call planting multiple flags... essentially using the system against itself.

And it is, by far, one of the most effective ways to take your freedom back and end your home government's monopoly over your life.

Simon Black
Senior Editor, SovereignMan.com

[Editor's Note: The above is happening and will happen more if Citizens of America permit government to advance socialism beyond its current level of control over us. The above first-hand experience with how

central planning destroys freedom and commerce is an example of how our 'mis-representatives' (using 'emergencies') have and will increasingly ruin capitalism and personal freedom in the USA.

Our 'mis-representatives' represent only themselves --- NOT their constituents! Mis-reps are on a power trip to gain more and more power over us. An informal historical study of the last 100 years with depression, recessions, world wars, 'police actions', and inflationary devaluation of the dollar (most of which was caused by government) shows that each event was used as an excuse to tighten the control over citizens.

Our mis-representatives have legislated themselves an increasingly larger slice of the economic pie while slowly destroying the private economy which provides their piece of the pie. Mis-representatives sit high above those who testify and make their photo-opportunistic speeches to impress the public and the suckers of America are impressed and vote for the best speech --- not the proof of a real representative's effort to downsize government and remove government intrusion from American life. Central Planning will INEVITABLY FAIL !

The government procedure for gaining complete, totalitarian control of a nation is first to make everyone dependent on government, either by supporting people financially or eliminating all choices except the government choice. Then, government can do anything it wants. These government clowns will succeed at one and only one thing: the government will cause the creation and expansion of a black market for all goods and services that will destroy the economy. Eventually, all citizens who can leave America will expatriate to a more favorable country. Government in this country was NEVER envisaged to consume 40% of the economy and NEVER meant to meddle in the lives of FREE people.

VOTE ONLY FOR REAL, TRUE, PROVABLE, VERIFIABLE, CONFIRMABLE CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERTARIANS. NOVEMBER, 2012 IS THE BEST POSSIBLE YEAR TO DO WHAT MANY AMERICANS HAVE THREATENED TO DO FOR YEARS...THROW-OUT EVERY CAREER, SOCIALIST, PROGRESSIVE POLITICIAN AND CONTINUE TO BUILD A RESPONSIBLE GOVERNMENT EVERY TWO YEARS and Restore America.]