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.
By now, we should expect the soft Left (and more than a few radicals) to gleefully guzzle the Democrat Kool Aid every four years. In 2004, it was Anybody-But-Bush. This year, it was Attack of the Obamatrons. Hey, when you're a liberal, harboring multiple delusions comes with the territory, e.g.
*Sooner or later, the Democratic Party is gonna wake up and help us "take back" the country
*No matter what we think of war, we must always support the troops because sooner or later, the men and women in uniform are gonna wake up and help us "take back" the country
*There's a mysterious mass of Americans out there - just sitting on the proverbial fence as they wait for us to convince them we are right so they can wake up and help us "take back" the country
*There was once a time when the people actually "had" the country
During presidential election years, of course, the most contemptible liberal lie is this: We shouldn't vote for the third party candidates who actually represent our deeply held values because (drum roll please) they can't win. It should be obvious that the only reason a third party candidate "can't win" is because almost everyone who claims to be progressive votes for a Democrat instead.
This self-fulfilling prophecy comes courtesy of the same folks who apparently believe that marching with giant puppets might help end a war.
The same folks who apparently believe that holding a candlelight vigil might help end hate crimes.
The same folks who apparently believe that a giant rock concert might help end global warming.
The same folks who apparently believe that adhering to state sanctioned free speech zones is a legitimate method of expressing dissent.
I could go on but I'd rather ask this simple question: Why is anyone still trusting the entrenched Left on anything? Thanks to their archaic tactics and dogma, we now face four years of genuflecting before the Pope of Hope as he blatantly spits on every effort toward peace, justice, and solidarity.
It's gotten to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if Lord Obama announced that he's decided to keep Dick Cheney on as vice president.you know, in the name of bipartisanship and all. What would be most amusing is how quickly 90% of those on the Left would find a way to justify it (and call me "cynical" for not being stoked).
To paraphrase a certain Mr. Diderot, the planet will never be free (or detoxified) until the last politician is strangled with the entrails of the last liberal.
Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News seems to think that maybe, just maybe, we should've listened a little more to Ron Paul - and nominated him for that paper's "Texan of the Year" award. Here's an excerpt from his article:
The truth is, if U.S. economic policy looked a lot more like Ron Paul's ideal than what we've had these past decades, the nation wouldn't be tottering on the financial abyss. Dr. Paul has long argued that an economy built on easy credit, insatiable consumption and deficit spending is a time bomb. He backs a national economic model based on savings, investment and production.
An economy that depends so heavily on government intervention to keep it afloat is one that creates of necessity an ever more powerful state. The nationalization of the banking sector only increases the power of the central government and decreases liberty. Dr. Paul warned for years against what we're seeing happen today. But nobody - including me - listened to the old crank.
How much better off would America be today if we had? We'll never know. Poor us.
If you were to open your mouth and belt out the words "this land is your land," you could rest assured that someone nearby would add: "this land is my land." The chorus to Woody Guthrie's1940 classic is common knowledge.as are the first couple of verses. But it ain't until you get to the later verses - those often omitted from official versions - that you start comprehendin' what good ol' Woody had in mind:
As I was walkin' I saw a sign there
And that sign said "No tresspassin'"
But on the other side, it didn't say nothin'
Now that side was made for you and me
In the squares of the city/In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office, I see my people
And some are grumblin' and some are wonderin'
If this land's still made for you and me
Woody sez: "This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, 'cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
Let's not forget that Guthrie penned "This Land is My Land" in response to Irving Berlin's saccharine "God Bless America."
And let's not forget the words Woody scrawled on his guitar: "This machine kills fascists."
Let's also not forget the power and prescience of Guthrie's lyrics, like this from "Jesus Christ":
Jesus was a man who traveled through the land
A hard working man and brave
He said to the rich, "Give your money to the poor,"
But they laid Jesus Christ in His grave
And this from "Pretty Boy Floyd":
Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen
And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home
Woody Guthrie laid the foundation for generations of American singer-songwriters to use their music and lyrics to challenge the prevailing platitudes of popular music.and to provide a Greek chorus of protest and outrage to keep us all more honest and aware.
With the stakes having never been higher and the denial never deeper, what we choose to do with this awareness and outrage - right now - is genuinely a matter of life and death.
This week, I watched the introduction of the new "National Security Team." I noticed that, during the entire half hour, there was only one tiny reference to our Constitutional rights. The rest was all more military, more "security" more watchfulness.
The final sum up was that we must depend not only on our massive and growing military power, but also to convince the world that we mean it through, oh yeah, some diplomacy, too.
When I was a young man, the President chose his "Cabinet." Now it is his "National Security Team." As near as I could tell, we will be subjected to yet more draconian intrusions into our privacy (for our own good and freedom, of course).
We will probably have a draft, if poverty and unemployment doesn't give us more soldiers, so everybody can share the burden of bringing the world to peace and democracy (as we have in Iraq, right!). We are now about to plunge ourselves deeply into the Afghan quagmire, which will increase our body count and the count of villages destroyed and resistance increased.
I know you think I'm a cynic, but frankly, considering the timing of the recent attack in India, and the people targeted, it would not surprise me that it was another black op, to fire everybody up for a jihad against Pakistan.
That missing nuclear armed cruise missile has had me worried since I first read about it, as that is a black op in the making if I ever saw one. I thought maybe it would be used here and blame it on Iran, but what about hitting India and blaming it on Pakistan, as they do have nukes? Then retaliating full bore on Pakistan (and anybody that sympathizes with them, of course), with the world's backing.
I wish I saw more light at the end of the tunnel, but I don't. I think that more jobs for Americans re likely to be in munitions factories, providing arms for our glorious "peacekeepers" around the world and in space. (Horst Wessel song here)
Not one of those people introduced as part of the new "National Security Team" said anything that would benefit We the People, but I'm sure the Carlyle Group, etc., were raising their glasses high.
I've mentioned the following before, but not recently, and not nearly often enough. In short, this is the best, most succinct summary of human freedom I've ever seen. It's nothing short of brilliant in its simplicity, clarity, and obvious truth.
What amazes and sickens me is that such basic, self-evident truths are completely absent from what "normal" Americans think about. The average American college grad fails to comprehend what every six- year-old should be able to understand. It takes a lot of training (indoctrination) to have people NOT understand what is so painfully obvious, and what is expressed so plainly in the presentation at the link above.
So I think you should all forcibly coerce everyone you know into watching it. (That was sarcasm, if you couldn't tell.)
The door into this millennium opens upon a universe of possibilities. We've experienced thousands of years of forms of government all of which were deformed by the power which they concentrated. Some great concepts have been strangled by tyrants; others have been/are being corrupted by greed and the abuse of trust.
As of July 12, 2008, the ratio of persons represented in the House of Representatives to the Representatives increases by one person every ten seconds--3,153,600 persons per year. The longer one is alive, the less one is represented.
From the original ratio (1:30,000) when the Constitution was formed, we have fallen to one Representative per 700,192 persons (as of 11:25 pm GMT on 7/12/08), i.e. representation has become 435:304,583,546. Based on the founders' original intent, each person today is under represented. As of 11:25 pm GMT on 7/12/08, arguably 670,192 persons per Representative are either not represented or are under represented. As of 7/12/08, 435 X 670,192 (persons in excess of 30,000) = 291,533,520 persons in the US either under represented or not represented. This works out to 291,533,520/304,583,628 = 95.75% of the persons in the United States being under represented or not represented according to original intent.
These unheard persons are "heard" screaming in Detroit, in Watts, in New Orleans, San Francisco and everywhere there is injustice. Except in the House of Representatives where they are not heard.
The basic vote of the military-industrial complex, i.e., money, inundates the vote of the ordinary person. The ordinary person's voice is stifled by 95.75%. Tax legislation is controlled by industry lobbyists. The people's lobbyists are only the Representatives, yet 95.75% of the people are under represented or not represented. The vox populi is stifled and unheard.
The persons whose voices are effective on Congress are ever fewer minute by minute If the donation of money is a constitutional equivalent of "free speech", the enormous imbalance in influence and representation which ensues blocks the United States from being a republic with democratic principles. The basic factor of democracy in the United States Congress was designed to be in the House. The very concept, money being a condition precedent to the voting privilege, was discarded by the founders in the Constitutional Convention.
Yet the corporation has such an extraordinary leverage through the power of money, it is able to manipulate Representatives. A grave factor is the diminution of our vote: Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution provides that representation in the House of Representatives shall not fall below one Representative for every thirty thousand citizens.
In 1929, the House limited the total number of Representatives to 435. The 2000 census counted 281,424,177 people in the US. Rather than the Constitutional ratio, 1:30,000, the 2000 census ratio (435:281,424,177) equates to 1:646,952. No wonder the American government is like a runaway train No one is steering.
The very interests from whom government was created to protect us are in charge. The real question is "what can we do now"?
Michele Lynn Ballarin notes that she is trying to market a solution for failed states through Black Star. If she can demonstrate that it works in Somalia, which has not had a functioning unitary government in 19 years, she would have an excellent product to sell.
Once again, the CIA is repeating the same gambit it first used to fuel the original war on terror against the Soviets in Afghanistan, that of using an attractive wealthy socialite to front for the agency, in promoting the government's secret agenda for world domination. Ballarin owns a Blackwater clones, called Select Armor and Black Star, which she is using to further the agency's mercenary solution for failed states, using ruthless unaccountable private soldiers to do the work that is too dirty for regular government troops.
She is playing the same role formerly perfected by Joanne Herring, the Houston socialite turned mujahideen fund-raiser "Charlie Wilson's War" fame. Persuasive CIA tool Herring was the motivational force behind Congressman Wilson's crusade to create the global Islamist insurrection. The secret agency knows that it is always best to hide their sinister plans behind a pretty face. As the trusted sweetheart and champion of the Somalian pirates (the latest CIA ploy, using the concept of limited warfare sown by "Islamic extremists"), Ballarin is doing her part to sow death and destruction, moving the game of terror by contract to the next level, that of privatized contractors.
Ballerin discussed her company's participation as a CIA intermediary in the militarization of Somalia, even revealing her company's use of three military bases. In the email dated Friday, 16 June, the chief executive of Select Armor:
"Ballarin claimed she has been given 'carte blanche' to use three bases in Somalia 'and the air access to reach them'.
She then suggests that the CIA have been kept informed of the plans. Ballarin states: 'My contact whom we discussed from the agency side requested an in-person meeting with me. I arrived in New York at 2340 last night and was driven to Virginia - arriving at 0200 today.'
The recipient of Ballerin's email, Chris Farina of the Florida-based military company ATS Worldwide, "boasts it 'can execute operations in support of host national indigenous forces'. ATS claims it uses former US and British special operations personnel.'"
Like all aspects of the war on terror, things are not as they seem; in fact, reality is usually the opposite of that reported in the media. In the case of the Somalian pirates, who have hijacked Ukrainian arms shipments, Saudi oil tankers, and possibly even suspicious Iranian cargoes, their actions justify every military solution carried-out by the forces of the United States or its allies. Even American ally against Pakistan, India, is getting a chance to use its own navy to push its weight around.
The help of the Indian Navy will be greatly appreciated in the forging of the New World Order alliance that has Pakistan, Iran, even Russia in its sights.
