Just a quick note to let you know that we'll be re-launching this blog shortly. The customizations are nearly complete, and, barring catastrophe, we hope to have it live by this weekend (or shortly thereafter). We'll resume regular daily blog posts once it's live.
For those that are interested - it'll be a WordPress blog, which is a powerful, open source blogging platform that will allow quite a few upgrades right off the bat - Commenting, Recommended Posts, Voting on Posts and Comments, Tagging, and much more.
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Although ex-Republican 2008 Presidential candidate Fred Thompson recently announced he was withdrawing his intent to join the RNC and instead return to acting, I believe he made a shrewd political move (or suicide??) here with this Youtube video release, which was well worth 8 minutes of my time even though I almost chortled myself to death near the end. As the Obama birth saga continued, I could not take too much more political humor.
In the video, Thompson makes a mockery of the entire federal government involving their bailout "plans." I suspect he may have even read some of the libertarian Austrians like Mises or Hazlitt after hearing him use the hole-digging stimulus plan example.
Watch it:
(Special Offer to Readers: Receive Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson from 1946 by emailing me or leaving your address below FOR FREE in PDF format. Yes, I know its a little old, but trust me, it has never been more relevant to explain why and how our government will utterly fail!) (photo)
On his political blog, Thompson has written about his fears for America with the Democrats led by Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton in charge and the Republicans relegated to the political sideline.
This is where Fred and I start to differ. A lot. I hold that it would not matter if the Republicans were in charge either. Why? Just look at what has happened this year, with a split Senate, House with just a 38-seat Democrat advantage AND a Republican President. With the pleasant exception of Dr. Paul, they are all just a bunch of plundering goons like Bastiat warned us all about in his monumental 1848 work, "The Law." [CAUTION! "The Law" has infected record amounts of Republicans and Democrats with libertarian fever.]
My suggestion of the day tell members of Congress that to earn their $169,000/year salary, they must just go and dig holes in the Nevada desert. At least that way they can not start new wars and continue to wreck our economy. Maybe they will find some gold or silver.
Point No. One: The anti-gun crowd is starting to pound on its collective puny chest once again. This time they are claiming the 2008 elections were a great victory for gun control. Actually, just about the biggest non-issue in the 2008 elections was gun control. This is because the Democrats were scared out of their minds that they would repeat their 2000 and 2004 political disasters. The 2000 and 2004 political disasters were in no small part due to the Democratic Party promoting gun control. Having finally learned their lesson they did not allow gun control in any form to be an issue in the 2008 elections.
Point No. Two: Historically all fascist regimes disarmed the populace by confiscating all privately, legally owned guns to make the populace easier to first subjugate and second control.
Point No. Three: In the past the pro-fascist faction in the Democratic Party has taken the position that it would begin to destroy the Second Amendment Right of American citizens to keep and bear arms ASAP after the pro-fascist Democratic Party assumed power.
Point No. Four: In the past the pro-fascist faction in the Republican Party has taken the position that it would tolerate the Second Amendment Right of American citizens to keep and bear arms. Actually, the pro-fascist faction in the Republican Party has been much smarter on gun control than the pro-fascist faction in the Democratic Party. This is because they have been willing to tolerate private firearms ownership to win the support of the defenders of the Second Amendment in order to acquire fascist power. Being fascists to the core they can be counted on to betray the defenders of the Second Amendment upon consolidating power. This may happen early in the establishing of their military/police state.
Point No. Five: All of the national organizations defending the Second Amendment appear to understand points one through four to some degree. Some much more than others.
Point No. Six: Because of point five the national organizations defending the Second Amendment have been a serious obstacle to the rise of fascist power in America. Particularly the Democratic Party's form of fascism.
Point No. Seven: Because of point number six it is the defenders of the Second Amendment that have been, and will continue to be, one of the real obstacles to the rise of fascism in America, and it will be the so-called progressives that will be unwittingly promoting the rise of fascism.
Will Buchanan and his wife, Brooke left Cannon Beach, Oregon for New Hampshire on April 14th. Will has walked all the way from the Pacific Coast in order to promote the idea of limited government. Brooke at times has walked with her husband, but has mostly acted as the faithful sidekick, driving the RV the couple camped out in, being the resourceful greasemonkey keeping their RV running, and generally keeping the project going. Will's brother John also accompanied the couple for part of the trip, doing some of the film editing.
Each day Will has made a video of his trip. These videos are available on his blog at http://walkforliberty.com/. If you want a primer on libertarianism and its interaction with the real world, watch these videos. As an added bonus, you can enjoy the stunning scenery - America on foot.
Even a activity as peaceful as going for a walk will get you hassled by police in today's America. On day 163 of his walk, Will was detained by Whiting, Indiana police, who intimidated Will into deleting his footage of an oil refinery. More recently on day 198, Will was detained in Seneca Falls, NY when apparently some woman called the police to report the suspicious activity of a white guy walking. Police demanded ID and all sorts of personal information. The officer was polite until Will began questioning. Some woman being uncomfortable about a guy walking down the road is now "just cause" to detain a person who was admittedly doing nothing wrong.
The Walk For Liberty is fast approaching New Hampshire. Will has, for the most part, walked the whole of America by himself. It is symbolic of the Free State Project that once Will enters New Hampshire, he will no longer be walking on his own - he'll be joined by Freestaters on the last leg of his journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
There will be a welcoming party to meet The Walk For Liberty at the New Hampshire border. This is scheduled to occur December 13th at 11:00am on Route 9, at the border between Brattleboro, VT and NH. Volunteers from the crowd will then walk with Will to Keene, and later, to the seacoast.
I admire the President Elect for his compassion and wisdom. To make us all safer, he supports registering, taxing, restricting, or outright banning all sorts of firearms and ammunition. He even supports prosecuting people who use guns in self-defense. He's been very consistent on this issue, consistently trying to disarm the entire citizenry. He doesn't think the people should be allowed to carry firearms, or even own them. I'm sure this is all because he cares deeply about us, and wants to keep us all safe from harm, and I think that's very noble.
Well, since he is so principled on this issue, I have no doubt in my mind that, as soon as he takes office, he will do the right thing, and lead by example, by disarming the Secret Service. After all, guns CAUSE crime, don't you know? Even using violence in self-defense is - according to the President Elect - a bad thing. So I'm sure his first act as President will be to completely disarm those whose job it is to protect him. The Secret Service folk can all still carry cell phones, instead of guns, so they can call 911 if someone tries to kill Mr. Obama. But since using force is always evil, even in self-defense - or so Mr. Obama apparently believes - then I'm sure he will be happy and proud to leave himself defenseless, just as he wants to leave the rest of us defenseless.
Come on, Mr. Obama, show what a principled, fine guy you are. Lead by example, and render YOURSELF helpless and vulnerable. That would be the progressive, responsible thing for you to do, and it would show us peasants how well unilateral disarmament works.
Until you do that, Mr. Obama, stay the hell away from MY guns, you hypocritical, elitist fascist bastard.
P.S. If you, or anyone you know, needs a lesson on why the Founders thought the common folk should always remain armed, and why government should never be allowed to violate our right of self-defense, check out the video found at the link below. And then circulate it far and wide, before too many more people fall for Obama's Stalinesque propaganda about firearms:
One of the rants I had been working on to send to this list had to do with looking at "politics" from the perspective of the tyrants, viewing the rest of us as their slaves. In short, the question was going to be, if you ruled the world, and were completely evil, what is the best way to get the most out of your slaves? Beating them and making them miserable is NOT it.
Well, I'm not going to finish my rant because, unbeknownst to me, someone else did it for me. And he did it via video, which seems to keep more peoples' attention than mere words. So here is a fairly short video made by Stefan Molyneux (another radical extremist) that makes the point so well that I really have nothing to add:
Immediately after his election, President-elect Barack Obama was properly deferential to George W. Bush and the U. S. Constitution: "We have only one president at a time." However, it has not worked out that way. Obama has dominated the news every day, with multiple press conferences announcing his teams of advisors and Cabinet appointments while answering questions on foreign and domestic policies. At the same time he makes personal appearances (60 minutes, Meet the Press, etc.) designed to establish close relationships with the citizens.
Clearly, the US has two presidents in effect. As Bush recedes in public consciousness, the outgoing president seems baffled by the Obama phenomenon. Plaintively, he told Charlie Gibson on ABC television that he ran for president in 2000 on a program for change and before that had been elected governor of Texas promising change. Then he giggled.
Some Obama supporters are questioning his appointments drawn from the pool of establishment figures who had worked in high positions in the Clinton and Bush administrations. They worry whether such people can deliver the change promised by Obama in his presidential campaign. There are also complaints that significant sectors of the electorate are unrepresented, particularly labor, liberals and anti-Iraq war activists. Obama supporters also worry that he will not receive a full range of options from teams of centrist advisors. While his appointment of Republicans will give the president the views of the right, it is not matched by views from the left. And this is a Democratic president.
When asked to respond to this situation, Obama says that he is the changer, the idea man, that his appointees were the best qualified to carry out his changes. However, as brilliant as he is, Obama is unlikely to know the full range of options and possibilities and history to change the way the government works in foreign and domestic policies. No one could.
With nostalgia, Obama supporters remember the glory days of the campaign when their candidate led the enormous crowds chanting "We are the people we have been waiting for", emphasizing repeatedly the mantra that change will bubble up from the people. They remember the repeated calls for "Change we can believe in ", and the denunciation of lobbyists: "When I am president, they won't find a job in my White House ".
These questions have not affected Obama's popularity, now at new heights. Most Americans along with most of the rest of the world are overjoyed that the failed Bush presidency is almost over and that America has repudiated its racist past by electing an African-American as president. Love is in the air but after the honeymoon, Obama will have to deliver.
