In talking with people about their political views, I often hear that "the free market is the best option, but we must have safeguards in place to defend the weak from exploitation by the powerful."

Actually, force and fraud (i.e. corruption) have always been illegal. The problem is that government, being comprised of imperfect people, rarely enforces laws equally and can't seem to avoid playing favorites.

But here's what I don't get: Why would we solve the problem with more of the problem? In other words, if the government has a problem playing favorites and occasionally turning a blind eye to corruption or is corrupt itself, why would our solution be to give the government MORE POWER? Keep in mind, the government by definition is the only legalized body of force. Shouldn't we be just a tad more careful than to solve this problem (of corruption) by handing yet more power to the entity that isn't using its force properly?

"I can give no adequate description of the Horror Camp in which my men and myself were to spend the next month of our lives. It was just a barren wilderness, as bare as a chicken run. Corpses lay everywhere, some in huge piles, sometimes they lay singly or in pairs where they had fallen.

It took a little time to get used to seeing men women and children collapse as you walked by them and to restrain oneself from going to their assistance. One had to get used early to the idea that the individual just did not count. One knew that five hundred a day were dying and that five hundred a day were going on dying for weeks before anything we could do would have the slightest effect. It was, however, not easy to watch a child choking to death from diptheria when you knew a tracheotomy and nursing could save it, one saw women drowning in their own vomit because they were too weak to turn over, and men eating worms as they clutched a half loaf of bread purely because they had had to eat worms to live and now could scarcely tell the difference.

Piles of corpses, naked and obscene, with a woman too weak to stand propping herself against them as she cooked the food we had given her over an open fire; men and women crouching down just anywhere in the open relieving themselves of the dysentery which was scouring their bowels, a woman standing stark naked washing herself with some issue soap in water from a tank in which the remains of a child floated.

It was shortly after the British Red Cross arrived, though it may have no connection, that a very large quantity of lipstick arrived. This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don't know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for those internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the postmortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tattooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity."

"Too big to fail" - politispeak used to justify the theft and transfer of taxpayer money to politicians' favorite businesses (i.e. corporate welfare). Generally effective when employed to persuade the public that said theft is in everyone's best interest.

The annual beloved GAI Christmas Dinner will be held on Saturday,December12th. Once again, we will be hosting the Christmas program before dinner in order for families with young children to attend. Please note, there will be fewer vendors at the Christmas Dinner this year, as they will instead be attending the Open Haus in November.

Christmas Dinner Schedule:

5:00 Christmas Program in the ballroom
6:00 Social Hour
6:30 Dinner (menu TBA)
8:30 Community sing-along

*Seats in the ballroom for the Christmas Program will be available on a first-come, first-served basis.  Please note, when making dinner reservations, please let the office know

• The number of GAI members, non-members, and children in your party
• If you would like to be seated with another party and their name
• Where you would prefer to be seated (main floor or Ratskeller). Seating preferences subject to availability.  Make your reservation early in order to state your preference!