Apps and Freedom

Today, I have the special opportunity to introduce, guest blogger, Dwight Johnson. He is a fascinatingly brilliant blogger and author. He recently wrote a book entitled “If Not Democracy” (Kindle Edition found here for $2.99
) that I would highly recommend you check out on Amazon.

Let me start by thanking Terry for this opportunity to guest post on his fantastic site.

Terry asked me to do a guest post after he found himself at my website, GovernmentByContract.com.

I have been a libertarian for many years, and have been working to develop a means to bring real freedom to our world. The specific means I have developed is thru the creation of ideologically-based voluntary organizations I call “cantons”. The inspiration for the name comes from the cantons of Switzerland, but unlike those cantons, the cantons I speak about are non-territorial. In this way they are more like political parties.

The difference between political parties and cantons is that the purpose of political parties is to get people of a certain ideological stripe elected to office. The purpose of cantons, on the other hand, is to decentralize the power of government. It does this by a contract between the canton and its members. That contract, good for one year, gives the canton the right to take possession of the taxes taken by a particular governing body. Here, for example, is what my contract with a federal level paleo-libertarian canton might say: “I, Dwight Johnson, authorize the Paleo-libertarian Canton of America to receive from the Internal Revenue Service all the taxes paid to that agency by me during the tax year of 2011″.

Now, if my canton goes to the IRS with just this one contract, not much will happen. (Do I have a gift for understatement?) But what would happen if some large proportion of the 90 million taxpayers in America signed such a contract with some number of cantons? If we believe the words of the Declaration of Independence about “governments … deriving there just powers from the consent of the governed”, we certainly could take control of our taxes.

What happens then? The canton then spends those taxes according to the principles and values of its members. There would be numerous cantons, each reflecting the myriad of principles and values that so clearly exist in the population. Each canton, receiving the taxes of its members, would spend those taxes accordingly on the services provided by the various departments of government. By this means we would be able to right-size government at every level, by making sure that the people who pay the taxes determine what the taxes pay for. Any canton that fails to act according to the principles and values of its members will find its members fleeing to other cantons. With such an incentive, I expect cantons to be fairly responsive to their members.

I owe a debt of gratitude to the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) people. It was in thinking about their causes that I was able to better understand the role of cantons. I agree with OWS in this: it is clear that there has been a concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. The wealthy are growing more wealthy in a disproportionate way, the middle class is disappearing, and the poor grow daily in number and desperation. This concentration of wealth coincides with a parallel concentration in power that has also been steadily growing thru the years. Cantons are a way to redistribute power back to the people. It is my firm belief that the redistribution of power will bring with it a redistribution of wealth. Where now the wealthy few, such as the bankers and many global businesses, use their armies of lobbyists to create regulations and laws that work to their advantage (this is called “crony capitalism”), when power is redistributed to the people thru cantons, the lobbyists will lose much of their power, and along with them the bankers and others who have been successful at redirecting the taxes we pay into their own pockets.

There is a lot of talk of big government versus small government, but who is to say what size government is the right size? If those who pay taxes can determine what the taxes pay for thru cantons, only those services that governments propose to supply will find funding if the service is considered necessary by enough cantons. Everything else will be starved to death by a lack of interest and funding. This is what I call “right-sizing” government.

I am a great fan of Ron Paul. I was very excited when he entered the presidential race back in 2007, and have contributed to his campaigns ever since. But we cannot depend on one man, however great, to ensure our freedom. Even if we have the great joy of witnessing the inauguration of President Ron Paul, we still need to find a way to redistribute power in government at every level: federal, state, county, and municipal. If anyone has a better way of doing it other than thru cantons, let me know.

For anyone living in South Jersey, join my meetup group, South Jersey Canton Formation Group, at meetup.com.

If you want to find out more about cantons, please come visit my blog, GovernmentByContract.com. You can also find my book on Amazon, called “If Not Democracy”.

So you got an invite to Google Plus, added friends to your circles and now you religiously check for updates every 45 minutes. Maybe next time you’ll see a new post.

In the interim, try adding some tech guys and gals on Google Plus that may interest you…

Amon RA

Android programmer from Belgium. He was the creator of the Amon RA recovery (Similar to Clockwork) that helped so many of us with our early android devices.

Terry Pearson

Advanced Venture Solutions: PHP and Java developer. He happens to be someone I know well ;-) Putting out information about technology, programming, Android, and political opinions.

Larry Page

Google: The most famous Googler. Of course we were going to include him.

Steve Kondik

Cyanogenmod: Founder of one of the most famous custom Android Operating Systems, this is Mr. Cyanogen himself. They currently have half a million users and growing!

Trevor Pearson

Advanced Venture Solutions: Architect of some amazing PHP and also my younger brother!

Andrew Mason

Groupon:Andrew is the CEO of the now world famous “Groupon.com.”

Patrick Norton

Tekzilla: Cohost of the show called “Tekzilla” on Revision3.com. While not technically a programmer, still an incredibly interesting technology infulencer.

Brian Cohen

BitTorrent: Inventor of the BitTorrent file sharing protocol. Despite what people say about the “bad” side of bittorrent, this has to be one of the greatest concepts in distributed computing since the invention of HTML. It has some incredible uses, especially downloading Linux distributions.

Do you have other programmers and/or technology experts to add? If so, leave a comment below. If you are a programmer and would just like to connect with other programmers, post a link to your profile in the comments as well.

This has been a couple of weeks in coming, but I finally have a moment to post about Jessica‘s and my new little daughter.

Elsie Neriah Pearson was born on September 13th at 2:03 am. Amazingly enough, this was 35 minutes after I got the car into the parking ramp. Yes it was a close one for sure!

Our other daughter, Abigail, loves her little sister. It seems like she has grown up so much since she became a big sister! But, she’ll always be daddy’s little girl too.

Jessica is doing great and she could be a mirror image of a TV mom; You know the ones that have their baby in one tv show and are up and at em by the next episode. She recovers well!

I am just loving the gift of two wonderful daughters! I absolutely would not trade being a dad of these two wonderful daughters for anything!

I would like to wish my dad (and every other dad) a happy father’s day.

To be honored with a special day, for something I enjoy being so much, is a special treat. For me, the joy of being Abigail‘s dad is worth far more than any single day could define.

Almost everybody has special memories of there dad’s. I would like to share one such memory today.

When I was in elementary school, I could not run fast at all. No matter how hard I tried, I was almost always one of the slowest sprinting boys in gym class.

This was very frustrating for me. I’d always gave it my all, but could not improve my time numbers.

My dad could tell I was very sad about this and he offered to help me practice my running. We went to the sidewalk across the street and ran and ran.

With his technique tips, I greatly improved my times. The next time we sprinted in gym, my scores were on the faster side of average.

So now I know to sprint on my toes! The help my dad gave me not only improved my sprint times, but helped me feel good about myself and helped me to learn that situations that seem hopeless from the start are usually something that can be succeeded at with the right technique and implementation.

If you are reading this on my blog, you will notice that there is a new domain name in the address bar! I’ll explain how you got here in a second, but first I’ll explain the reason why.

As you may know, Jessica has her own domain name, I have my own domain name, and Abigail has her own domain name. Jessica and I both have blogs that have traditionally focused on very different issues. Mine focused on technology and politics, with some references to family and mountain biking as well. Jessica‘s blog focused on Knitting, Cooking, and Family. Then Abigail‘s blog was a spattering of posts about her. They were usually crossposted from Jessica‘s or my sites.

I wanted to build a more integrated solution where we could have one main domain with subdomains for each blog. Then I don’t have to keep buying new domains for each child that we have. I also wanted to have one cms/platform for all blogs. Finally, I wanted the main site to aggregate all posts from each of the subdomains.

This was to be fulfilled through WordPress 3. The latest version of WordPress merges the features of WordPress MU (the multiuser version that powers WordPress.com) and the standard WordPress package.

So I talked it over with Jessica and we bought the domain name ‘iPearson.net’. I would have loved to have Pearson.com, but it seems a small book company took that first .

After purchasing the domain, I had to setup the server. I’ll talk about that some more in future posts. But please know that right now, we are redirecting anyone that goes to a post on blog.terrypearson.com, blog.jessicadpearson.com, and abigailpearson.com over to their new blog locations:

• http://terry.iPearson.net
• http://jessica.iPearson.net
• http://abigail.iPearson.net

One of the best parts is that you can go to http://iPearson.net and see all our latest blog posts in one central spot.

I’ll post a little more technical details about how I got there in a future posting.

Today, Jessica and I went mountain biking in Murphy Hanrehan park with a couple of friends of mine (Samar Upadhyay and Adam Bavier). It was a great ride, just like most of the MORC trails.

Jessica rode the beginner and intermediate loops with us, and to my surprise Adam and Samar were up for the expert loop.  The total length of the trail is about 10 miles with about 60% of this being on the expert loop. You can find a copy of the map here.

Here is Jessica doing the great job she always does on these trails!

On the expert trail, there are several obstacles. Some are natural, but the most challenging ones are man-made. For example, there is an amazingly long 1 foot wide pull bridge. It curves and twists while staying about four feet off the ground for most of it. At the end, it has a teeter-totter to get you off the bridge.

I tried it first and could not ride straight enough to make it to the higher sections.

Adam Bavier had an awesome fall, which is definitely worth watching. That’s what he gets for starting in the middle.

Samar Upadhyay also tried it, and he did pretty good at it:

Finally, we saw some guys come by who must have had no fear of death or dismemberment. One of them was able to do the bridge in parts. He made it look just easy enough to encourage us to come back and try it again on another day:

Just about six miles in to the trail, I took a banked curve a little too far. When the bank ended I tried to quickly turn to follow the trail. Unfortunately, there was a slippery spot. My front tire turned sideways and I flew over my handlebars.

The next thing I knew I was on the ground spitting out blood and feeling very sore. I yelled a couple times for help, but eventually rolled off the trail and laid there until Samar came by. He was a little shocked, and came over to help (and document the moment!).

All in all, it was a fun time. I can’t wait to get back on some of the other trails around the Twin Cities in the near future.

This is a Stonehenge style seating wall. Jessica and I had dreamed about building this for a while now.

Originally, we thought it would be awesome to surround our patio with a stone bench like this one. Due to several reasons, we decided to go smaller. After we get the planters taken care of, it will provide a nice “natural” seating area on our patio that still allows flow into the main part of our backyard.

The seating wall is made out of 15″ Catalina style blocks going horizontal and 15″ Belgian style patio blocks going vertical. The blocks are held together with PL masonry adhesive.

I originally saw this displayed at Menards. After talking to the guys who built the display, I realized that it was easy enough to do it myself.

The total length of the bench was about 11 feet. It’s total weight was approximately 1500 lbs.

Well, it finally happened, our little baby has turned one year old! It seems like just the other day that Jessica and I were creating videos for her a few hours before her birth.

During the past year, Abigail has grown and changed so much. I cannot begin to describe just how proud I am of her each and every day.

At first, we were thrilled when she gave us a smile, or stuck out her tongue, or even scooted up toward our faces.

It seems so recent and yet so long ago that she first held her bottle, or said her first words. Now she talks, gives hugs and kisses, and waves to everyone (and everything) in sight. She even takes a few steps.

Even more amazing is that in the next 17 years she will learn to walk without any help, learn read, learn to ride a bike, learn to drive, and even graduate from High School (In 2026).

Jessica and I look forward to every moment of it. Although, we hope it does not go too fast.

It’s one of the great paradoxes of life. You always want your child to learn something new, to gain strength, knowledge, and wisdom, and to take that next step. But, taking the next step means they leave behind the previous steps.

For the child, this is growth, but for the parent it is the last time something happens. There will be the last time you help your child roll over, or the last time your child needs a hand walking. There will be a last bottle, a last diaper change, and eventually a last day of school. Someday, you will even go to their wedding.

All these are wonderful things, and great steps, but there is something wonderful about helping your child through each one of these changes.

As you and your child work on the process of growing up, it builds a deep love and bond between the two of you. As they mature, this love grows into a fellowship, a friendship, and a strong bond.

I think that being a dad helps me truly understand what it means in 1 John 3:1 where it says “See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are!” Now that I understand the deep love that a parent has for their child, I can better appreciate the awesomeness of this statement!

Happy Birthday Abigail. You are, and always will be, loved!

This summer has gone by so fast. The biggest sign that summer is almost over is the start of the Minnesota State Fair.

Usually, we don’t make plans to go to the fair very far in advance. This year was no exception. We decided last night that we will be going on Sunday.

Some of my favorite activities at the fair include the Minnesota DNR booth, the Political Booths, seeing KTLK’s setup at the fair, and sometimes attending a morning service at Crossroads Chapel.

I will be sure to check out the MN GOP booth this year, if I can find it. It is never on the State Fair maps. I remember that they always have free water, and a shaded area to sit, so it is usually worth the visit.

I will also be looking forward to the Paddlefish, and other large fish that make up the DNR’s pond in front of their building. If you have a chance, stop by the pond and think about what could be swimming right below you next time you are tubing!

I will hopefully have some great pictures of Jessica, Abigail, my dad, and me at the fair sometime next week!