" For the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone would embrace a philosophy and policies that are failed and have no chance of success. That sure seems impractical to me. On the other hand, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t embrace libertarianism, especially given the fact that it works. Embracing a philosophy that works seems to me to be infinitely practical."

The Practicality of Libertarianism
by Jacob G. Hornberger

People sometimes accuse libertarians of being impractical. That befuddles me because libertarianism is the only practical philosophy there is. Why is that? Because libertarianism works. The only philosophies don’t.

Consider immigration. People say: “You libertarians are so impractical with your call for open borders.”

Yet, what could be more practical than a policy that brings about peace, prosperity, and harmony?

Look at what statism has done in the area of immigration. We have endless cycle of crises and reforms, accompanied by paroxysms of anger, frustration, and exasperation. With the possible exception of the drug war, foreign policy, public schooling, and healthcare, you couldn’t find a more dysfunctional program than immigration controls.

Let’s also not forget the police-state environment along the border, including the Berlin Fence and those Soviet-style domestic checkpoints where Stasi-like guards demand to see your papers and get horribly angry when you refuse to answer their questions.

That’s an aberrant system. How can anyone say otherwise?

The results of immigration controls shouldn’t surprise anyone. After all, immigration controls are nothing more than a variation of socialist central planning. Wouldn’t we expect the consequences of socialism here to be just as perverse as they are in the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, and China?

Consider the libertarian idea of open borders. No more immigration crises, deaths, human smuggling, and police state along the border. Just a normal flow of people back and forth across the border.

What’s more practical than a philosophy that works? What’s more impractical than a philosophy that doesn’t?

Look at the drug war. A perverse and dysfunctional system if there ever was one. Decades of violence, death, destruction, and corruption, without any noticeable effect on the supply of or demand for drugs. And notice something important: the more they crack down, the worse the problem gets.

Statists remain deeply wedded to the drug war, notwithstanding its decades of manifest failure and destructiveness. How practical is that? Can you think of anything more impractical than doubling down on a failed and destructive policy, especially in the hope of achieving a different result?

Consider the libertarian position: End the drug war by repealing all laws that criminalize the use, possession, distribution, or sale of drugs — all drugs, not just marijuana. What would that do? It would bring an immediate end to the drug gangs, drug lords, gang wars, and governmental corruption along with all the police-state practices and violations of liberty and privacy that have accompanied the drug war.

Pray tell: What could be more practical than that? Again, what could be more practical than a philosophy that works, especially compared to one that doesn’t work, hasn’t worked, and will never work?

Consider healthcare. Conservative statists spend their time exclaiming against Obamacare, while liberal statists spend their time defending it. What could be more impractical than those two positions? What good would it do to repeal Obamacare? Wasn’t there a huge healthcare crisis that Obamacare was intended to address? What good will it do to maintain Obamacare? Isn’t it just another socialist reform measure that is certain to provide more healthcare crises down the road?

In other words, both conservatives and liberals are just wasting their time, money, and energy. Their respective hopes and dreams regarding healthcare will continue to provide nothing but crises.

The libertarian position? Repeal Medicare, Medicaid, occupational licensure, and healthcare and insurance regulation. A total separation of healthcare and the state. What could be more practical than that, especially given we would once again be relying on the free market to deliver healthcare. Everyone knows — or should know — that the free market delivers the best of everything, especially compared to socialistic plans like Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare.

Just think: Under libertarianism, no more healthcare crises, and everyone receiving reasonably priced, high-quality healthcare from doctors and others who, once again, love what they do in life. What could be more practical than that?

Foreign interventionism? Nothing but violence, death destruction, horrific consequences, and foreign anger and hatred toward the United States under the statist philosophy.

World War I didn’t make the world safe for democracy or end all wars. It led to World War II, the war that delivered Eastern Europe and East Germany to the Soviet communists, which were then made the target of a 45-year Cold War along with the establishment of the national-security state, the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Persian Gulf War, and then came the war on terrorism, the debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan, torture, rendition, indefinite detention, militarism, and the ever-growing assaults on the civil liberties and privacy of the American people.

What could be more dysfunctional and impractical than all that? Compare that to libertarianism, which would dismantle the warfare state, including the empire of foreign and domestic military bases, the Cold War national-security state apparatus, the CIA, the NSA, and the entire military-industrial complex—and abolish the taxes that fund them.

What would that accomplish? Only a peaceful, prosperous, and harmonious society, that’s all. What could be more practical than that?

Public schooling? By the time kids reach 18 years of age, they have had the love of learning smashed out of them through a rigid system of regimentation, conformity, deference to authority, and obedience. Of course, this is where people receive their indoctrination — mental training from the state to ensure that people remain faithful, loyal, and obedient drones of the system and lack the mental capability of challenging it at a fundamental level.

Everyone, even the most stalwart defenders of public schooling, acknowledge what a fiasco the system has been. Why, even the president of the United States refuses to send his children into the public schooling system. That’s because he loves his children and, therefore, refuses to hand them over to the state’s “educational” system.

What could be more impractical than a system that destroys or damages people’s minds in their formative years?

Libertarians? We say: Separate school and state. Get rid of all state involvement in education. Rely totally on the free market for education. What could be more practical than a free-market educational system, one in which people love to learn?

The good news is that more and more people, especially young people, are figuring all this out and self-describing as libertarians. That includes people from both the left and the right. You see this playing out especially in the drug war, where countless people are popping up everywhere calling for an end to the drug war.

For the life of me, I don’t understand why anyone would embrace a philosophy and policies that are failed and have no chance of success. That sure seems impractical to me.

On the other hand, I don’t understand why everyone doesn’t embrace libertarianism, especially given the fact that it works. Embracing a philosophy that works seems to me to be infinitely practical.

Link:
http://fff.org/2014/07/24/the-practicality-of-libertarianism/

This says it all...

Map of US Military and CIA Interventions since World War 2

By William Blum

Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/07/william-blum/us-military-and-cia-intervention/

"Call it what you will—taxes, penalties, fees or fines—but the only word that truly describes the constant bilking of the American taxpayer by the government and its corporate partners is theft."

The Stealing of America by the Cops, the Courts, the Corporations and Congress

By John W. Whitehead

Call it what you will—taxes, penalties, fees or fines—but the only word that truly describes the constant bilking of the American taxpayer by the government and its corporate partners is theft.

We’re operating in a topsy-turvy Sherwood Forest where instead of Robin Hood and his merry band of thieves stealing from the rich to feed the poor, you’ve got the government and its merry band of corporate thieves stealing from the poor to fatten the wallets of the rich. In this way, the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. All the while, the American Dream of peace, prosperity, and liberty has turned into a nightmare of endless wars, debilitating debt, and outright tyranny.

What Americans don’t seem to comprehend is if the government can arbitrarily take away your property, you have no rights.

In this way, the police state with all of its trappings—from surveillance cameras, militarized police, SWAT team raids, truancy and zero tolerance policies, asset forfeiture laws, privatized prisons and red light cameras to Sting Ray guns, fusion centers, drones, black boxes, hollow-point bullets, detention centers, speed traps and abundance of laws criminalizing otherwise legitimate conduct—is little more than a front for a high-dollar operation aimed at laundering as much money as possible through government agencies and into the bank accounts of corporations.

Indeed, as I point out in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the real motivating factor behind erecting a police state is not to protect the people, but to further enrich the powerful.

Consider the following costly line items, all part of the government’s so-called quest to keep us safe and fight terrorism while entrenching the police state, enriching the elite, and further shredding our constitutional rights:

$34 billion for police departments to add to their arsenals of weapons and equipment. Police departments across the country “have received tens of thousands of machine guns; nearly 200,000 ammunition magazines; thousands of pieces of camouflage and night-vision equipment; and hundreds of silencers, armored cars and aircraft.” The result: increased use of SWAT teams for routine tasks.

$6 billion in assets seized by the federal government in one year alone. This civil asset forfeiture scheme operates on the legal theory that one’s property can not only be guilty of a crime but is also guilty until proven innocent. Whether or not any crime is proven to have taken place, police seize and keep private property they “suspect” may be connected to criminal activity.

$3.8 billion requested by the Obama administration to build additional detention camps and add border patrol agents to the southern border. Border Patrol agents are already allowed to search people’s homes, intimately probe their bodies, and rifle through their belongings, all without a warrant.

$61 billion for the Department of Homeland Security, one of the most notoriously bloated government agencies ever created. The third largest federal agency behind the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the DHS—with its 240,000 full-time workers and sub-agencies—has been aptly dubbed a “runaway train.”

$80 billion spent on incarceration by the states and the federal government in 2010. Providing security, housing, food, medical care, etc., for six million Americans is a gold mine to profit-hungry corporations such as Corrections Corp of America and GEO Group. CCA has offered to buy and manage public prisons officials in 48 states offering at a cost savings to the states. In exchange, the prisons would have to contain at least 1,000 beds and states would have to maintain a 90% occupancy rate for at least 20 years. This has led to the phenomenon of overcriminalization of everyday activities, in which mundane activities such as growing vegetables in your yard or collecting rainwater on your property are criminalized, resulting in jail sentences for individuals who might otherwise have never seen the inside of a jail cell.

93 cents an hour for forced, prison labor in service to for-profit corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret. What this forced labor scheme has created, indirectly or not, is a financial incentive for both the corporations and government agencies to keep the prisons full to capacity.

$1.4 billion per year reportedly lost to truancy by California school districts, which receive government funding based on student attendance. The so-called “solution” to student absences from school has enabled schools to rake in millions, fine parents up to $500 for each unexcused absence, with the potential for jail time, and has given rise to a whole new track in the criminal justice system devoted to creating new revenue streams for communities.

$84.9 million collected in one year by the District of Columbia as a result of tickets issued by speeding and traffic light cameras stationed around the city. Multiply that income hundreds of times over to account for the growing number of localities latching onto these revenue-generating, photo-enforced camera schemes, and you’ll understand why community governments and police agencies are lining up in droves to install them, despite reports of wide scale corruption by the companies operating the cameras.

$1.4 billion for fusion centers. These fusion centers, which represent the combined surveillance and intelligence efforts of federal, state and local law enforcement, have proven to be exercises in incompetence, often producing irrelevant, useless or inappropriate intelligence, while spending millions of dollars on “flat-screen televisions, sport utility vehicles, hidden cameras and other gadgets.”

In sum, the American police state is a multi-billion dollar boondoggle, meant to keep the property and the resources of the American people flowing into corrupt government agencies and their corporate partners. For those with any accounting ability, it’s clear that the total sum of the expenses being charged to the American taxpayer’s account by the government add up to only one thing: the loss of our freedoms. It’s time to seriously consider a plan to begin de-funding this beast and keeping our resources where they belong: in our communities, working for us.

Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/07/john-w-whitehead/gang-of-thieves/

"What if the government made believe that it is always right? What if it made believe that the majority can do no wrong? What if the tyranny of the majority is as destructive to human freedom as the tyranny of a madman? What if the government knows this? What do we do about it?"

What If Democracy Is a Fraud?

By Andrew P. Napolitano

What if you were allowed to vote only because it didn’t make a difference? What if no matter how you voted the elites always got their way? What if the concept of one person/one vote was just a fiction created by the government to induce your compliance?

What if democracy as it has come to exist in America today is dangerous to personal freedom? What if our so-called democracy erodes the people’s understanding of natural rights and the reasons for government and instead turns political campaigns into beauty contests? What if American democracy allows the government to do anything it wants, as long as more people bother to show up at the voting booth to support the government than show up to say no?

What if the purpose of contemporary democracy has been to convince people that they could prosper not through the voluntary creation of wealth but through theft from others? What if the only moral way to acquire wealth is through voluntary economic activity? What if the government persuaded the people that they could acquire wealth through political activity? What if economic activity includes all the productive and peaceful things we voluntarily do? What if political activity includes all the parasitical and destructive things the government does? What if the government has never created wealth? What if everything the government owns it has stolen?

What if governments were originally established to protect people’s freedoms but always turn into political and imperialist enterprises that seek to expand their power, increase their territory and heighten their control of the population? What if the idea that we need a government to take care of us is a fiction perpetrated to increase the size of government? What if our strength as individuals and durability as a culture are contingent not on the strength of the government but on the amount of freedom we have from the government?

What if the fatal cocktail of big government and democracy ultimately produces dependency? What if so-called democratic government, once it grows to a certain size, begins to soften and weaken the people? What if big government destroys people’s motivations and democracy convinces them that the only motivation they need is to vote and go along with the results?

What if Congress isn’t actually as democratic as it appears? What if congressional elections don’t square with congressional legislation because the polls aren’t what counts, but what counts are the secret meetings that come after the voting? What if the monster Joe Stalin was right when he said the most powerful person in the world is the guy who counts the votes? What if the vote counting that really counts takes place in secret? What if that’s how we lost our republic?

What if the problem with democracy is that the majority thinks it can right any wrong, write any law, tax any event, regulate any behavior and acquire any thing it wants? What if the greatest tyrant in history lives among us? What if that tyrant always gets its way, no matter what the laws are or what the Constitution says? What if that tyrant is the majority of voters? What if the majority in a democracy recognizes no limits on its power?

What if the government misinforms voters so they will justify anything the government wants to do? What if the government bribes people with the money it prints? What if it gives entitlements to the poor and tax breaks to the middle class and bailouts to the rich just to keep everyone dependent on it? What if a vibrant republic requires not just the democratic process of voting, but also informed and engaged voters who understand first principles of human existence, including the divine origin and inalienable individual possession of natural rights?

What if we could free ourselves from the yoke of big government through a return to first principles? What if the establishment doesn’t want this? What if the government remains the same no matter who wins elections? What if we have only one political party — the Big Government Party — and it has a Democratic wing and a Republican wing? What if both wings want war and taxes and welfare and perpetual government growth, but offer only slightly different menus on how to achieve them? What if the Big Government Party enacted laws to make it impossible for meaningful political competition to thrive?

What if the late progressive Edmund S. Morgan was right when he said that government depends on make believe? What if our ancestors made believe that the king was divine? What if they made believe that he could do no wrong? What if they made believe that the voice of the king was the voice of God?

What if the government believes in make believe? What if it made believe that the people have a voice? What if it made believe that the representatives of the people are the people? What if it made believe that the governors are the servants of the people? What if it made believe that all men are created equal, or that they are not?

What if the government made believe that it is always right? What if it made believe that the majority can do no wrong? What if the tyranny of the majority is as destructive to human freedom as the tyranny of a madman? What if the government knows this?

What do we do about it?

Link:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/07/andrew-p-napolitano/democracy-is-a-fraud/

"Get your money out of money market funds now!!!"

It's Official: SEC Will Allow Money Market Funds To Stop Redemptions During Tumultuous Periods
By Robert Wenzel

As expected (SEE ALERT: Pull Your Money From Money Markets Now!), the Securities and Exchange Commission has voted 3-2 to implement a number of new rules and regulations surrounding money market mutual funds.

The most significant new rules, as far as individual investors are concerned, are rules which will now allow funds to impose a fee on shareholders who want to sell their shares, or allow funds to halt redemptions altogether.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank in April warned in a paper of the consequences of such a rule:

[T]he possibility of suspending convertibility, including the imposition of gates or fees for redemptions, can create runs that would not otherwise occur... Rules that provide intermediaries, such as MMFs, the ability to restrict redemptions when liquidity falls short may threaten financial stability by setting up the possibility of preemptive runs...one notable concern, given the similarity of MMF portfolios, is that a preemptive run on one fund might cause investors in other funds to reassess whether risks in their funds...

Got that? The Fed recognizes the possibility of preemptive runs that could spread throughout the money market sector because of these new rules.

Bottom line: The risk of holding funds in a money market fund just increased exponentially. Your money will be much more liquid in an elitist, establishment bank account.

Get your money out of money market funds now!

Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/07/its-official-sec-will-allow-money.html

Inflation??? What inflation??? Keep printing that money...

There Is No Inflation If You Don't Eat Dairy, Seafood, Fresh Fruit, Pork, Beef/Veal or Eggs....

But if you do, prices have soared since September 2013:

Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/07/there-is-no-inflation-if-you-dont-eat.html

Help us stop the construction of a 130 ft. cell phone tower on Eel's Hill in Milford, Ct. The location is within 1/4-1/2 mile of over 250 residential properties...