Papa Jack's Bedtime Stories For The San Jose Protestors
By Jack Perry
I have observed very interesting phenomena. The people protesting the violence they say Trump’s supporters commit have outmatched them in terms of violence. Take for example the latest near riot and assaults against Trump supporters in San Jose. Wow! I guess you sure showed them to not engage in violence by committing even greater amounts of violence! Who do you people think you are, anyway? The United States government?
I can tell you who these so-called “protestors” are. They’re from a loosely-knit coalition of various Far Left groups that often go by the name “The Black Block”. Now, they don’t use that name out loud when pulling together various groups for a demonstration. They like to think of themselves as “anarchists” but, in reality, they’re communists. And I don’t use that word lightly. Because I remember back when that word was used wrongly by the government to justify the insanity of the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan. But here’s what I don’t get about these jokers. You can’t be an “anarchist” and still believe in a central government! Hel-LO “Black Block”! Communism and socialism are another central government! It’s the flip side of the coin of the current government.
Look here, children. Papa Jack will explain it all to you, my misguided waifs. You might think tying a black bandana around your face and throwing hen fruit at cops makes you a real, genuine article “anarchist”. Excuse me, but you guys were still crapping in diapers when I had already abandoned the entire premise of a government. Know why I don’t go to political demonstrations? Because I don’t believe in political systems! Why would I waste my time taking a side in an election if I am not voting in the first place?
Papa Jack says: Do unto governments as you would have them do unto you. In other words, ignore them. Maybe they’ll go away. But sitting out there throwing tomatoes (because they’re red, maybe?) at Trump supporters and punching them in the face demonstrates what? I’ll answer that: That you are fools. You think that violence persuades people not to vote for him? On the contrary, it swells his ranks. But besides all of that, what have you accomplished besides showing us all that you have not yet mastered your own ego and abandoned the concept of a government? Anarchists, are you? Since when did a real anarchist believe in a central government?
See, I saw all the protest signs from the various splinter factions that show up to these cop-pelting exercises. Many were professionally made. As in someone had the money to have them printed. Meaning someone with money is playing you clowns like a cheap fiddle. Wake up and pull your heads out of your fourth point of contact. You’ve all been had. Not only are you out there demanding your own version of a central government, which is comical enough as it is, but some shadow group with money is out there paying for the protest signs and egging you all on. If I had to venture a guess as to who that entity is, I’d have to say it’s the CIA or some other intelligence agency. Because guess what? You’re all making a case for a crackdown on “domestic terrorism”. See, my little wayward orphans, that is why you don’t get involved in politics and especially not demonstrations that obviously had violence planned for them. If you were real anarchists, that would not be needful to explain to you.
You cuddle-bunnies might all ask yourself this question: Whose idea was the violence? Was this planned? If so, by whom? You might also keep in mind this fact. For every group such as this, there are at least two informants in your midst. When the hammer comes down from the state, which it will, they’ll already have your names on the arrest warrants. Plus the evidence that the violence was planned. Of course, who actually instigated it might have, gosh, disappeared. Probably back to Langley.
Anarchists, huh, yeah right. You people couldn’t hold the line against your own minds. That’s where the real battle is fought, dummies. Not in the streets. He who realizes the concept of government itself is a falsehood also realizes “fighting” it only leads to another government manifesting like maggots in a corpse. Violence is not a solution because there is nothing to fight against here. As for myself, the government can criticize, slander, defame, or ridicule me and I simply do not care. If I thought I needed praise from the government, or cared if they slandered me, would be to say I care about the government or admit it’s ideas have value. I don’t pay attention to the government. To think I need to “fight” the government would be saying the government is a concept I’m attached to.
Listen to me now, children. What if they gave a government and nobody came? What if they held an election and no one showed up? Protests and demonstrations are futile. They are simple exercises in obtaining felony convictions, your name on the no-fly list and domestic terrorism list, and quite often a prison sentence. In a very real sense, you are doing the government’s work for them. You guys all use the term “brother” and “sister” for one another out there throwing rocks at the cops. Let me tell you this. A brother doesn’t do it with a rock or his fist. A brother does it with his mind peacefully. A sister doesn’t do it with an egg or a bat. A sister does it with her mind peacefully. Violence is not a solution. Know why? Because that, my brothers and sisters, is what the government uses. How are you different now? You’re wearing a black bandana? That is your badge and gun. Welcome to the State you have created in your own mind and enforce with your fists.
No, this isn’t the way. You had all this time to go out there and throw crap at the cops and punch people in the face? Really? Where were you that day when food banks needed help? See, I know you people. You’re big on talk, but you don’t walk the walk. “Food should be free!” Unless you have to work passing it out, right? Yes, I know you people more than you might realize. I’m not some dude that went through life in a bubble called a sheltered life. That’s why I’m telling you to stop this madness. Before it’s too late and you’re in a Homeland Security holding cell. Did you know they can hold your keesters indefinitely when it comes to terrorism charges? You can go to a military prison now, not just county lockup. Wake up, fools.
If you really were anarchists, you wouldn’t concern yourself with a political election! How many times must that be repeated? Come out from this illusion you’re living in! Someone scammed you and you think you’re a revolutionary. That dude on your t-shirts? Che Guevara? Know what happened to him? He got smoked by the CIA. Whatever it is you are doing, the government is two steps ahead of you and ordering your own steps, too. I guess your community college classes didn’t discuss covert agent provocateur operations by central governments. What then is to be done? Nothing. The government thrives on this sort of thing. And there you all are, puppets of the government thinking the tune you’re dancing to is one you wrote. Huh. That’s a good one.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/jack-perry/communist-rioters-san-jose/
Saturday, June 4, 2016
"I guess your community college classes didn’t discuss covert agent provocateur operations by central governments. What then is to be done? Nothing. The government thrives on this sort of thing. And there you all are, puppets of the government thinking the tune you’re dancing to is one you wrote. Huh. That’s a good one."
A libertarian perspective...
Hillary, Bernie, Donald, Gary: A Libertarian Perspective
By Walter E. Block
Before I begin, let me take note of the fact that I can call all four remaining candidates in the 2016 race for president by their first names. With the possible exception of the latter, and this will prove less and less so as time goes on, there is little chance that anyone who is not a very low information voter will fail to know of the four people of whom I am speaking. Informality seems to have taken hold of our culture.
Now to business. I will attempt to offer a libertarian perspective on these four candidates. What is a libertarian perspective? That of course, is based on the libertarian philosophy, which is, in turn, predicated upon the non-aggression principle ( NAP: do not initiate violence against innocent people or take their possessions without permission); on free association (all interactions between persons should be on the basis of individual choice; no one should be forced to associate with anyone else against his will) and private property rights (based on Lockean-Rothbardian homesteading). To the degree a political candidate adheres to these principles is the extent to which, other things being equal, a libertarian should support him (I am not politically correct, but, in honor of our fellow citizens who have come under the thrall of this pernicious doctrine, I now offer a trigger warning: this is not a typographical error; rather, “him” includes members of both genders.)
There are three broad arenas to which these libertarian principles can apply: foreign policy, economics, and personal liberties. But the first is by far the most important. It probably outweighs the other two, even put together, by a wide margin. This is because, as Murray Rothbard and Robert Higgs have emphasized, this area determines what occurs in the other two. There are of course some feedback effects in all directions, but the causation is mainly a one-way street. For example, if the country is at war, the central banking system is typically strengthened, as taxes and borrowing become unable to finance the gargantuan appetites of the imperialist intervention abroad. And, too, the military draft is more likely to be implemented, reducing not only economic liberties but personal ones as well.
Now, let us weigh the candidates against these criteria. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Bernie is clearly ahead of the Wicked Witch of the East. And I say this not because I was a boyhood chum of the former; I do so based on their widely divergent foreign policies. Killary is a vicious warmonger as ever seen on the boards of the play which constitutes U.S. imperialism. (By the way, I favored my man Barack Obama vis a vis John Mccain in 2008 on these grounds and see La Clinton as very much in the camp of the latter; with only slight exaggeration I can say that neither has ever met a foreign war they did not like). Bernie is far from being a libertarian non-interventionist, but he stands head and shoulders above the espionage by e-mail former Secretary of State. They are both bloody awful on the subject of economics and personal liberties, although, I concede, she is perhaps less horrendous than the Vermont commie-socialist. However, as said above, foreign policy is more important than the other two venues; thus, Bernie is more congruent with libertarianism than Hillary. Moreover, she will have to prove that as a woman she’s just as tough as a man; how? By seeking war, which will only cement her natural inclinations.
What of The Donald? He is the only one of the Republican contenders (apart from Rand Paul) who said anything along the lines of: he could get along with Putin; that he wanted to end NATO; that we were mistaken to get into the Middle East; that US soldiers should leave Korea, German, Japan, etc. He said of dictators Saddam Hussain and Muammar Ghadafi, sure, they were monsters, but at least they fought the far-worse ISIL type terrorists! He asked are Iraq and Libya better off for our intervention? He answered with a resounding No. And now they want to go into Syria? Not on my watch, he averred. It cannot be denied that Mr. Trump also said a few things incompatible with these sterling statements such as we are going to kick the butt of ISIS, but this only shows he is becoming “Presidential.” However, no one else, again except for Rand Paul, has channeled the thoughts of our founding fathers such as George Washington: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible” (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” (emphasis added). John Quincy Adams: “America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy.” When the neo-cons hear views of this sort, they go berserk and start gnashing their teeth and frothing at the mouth. This shows that Mr. Trump is on the right path. When I was involved in the setting up of “Libertarians for Trump” this group was aimed, mainly, at garnering for him the Republican nomination vis a vis the right-wing war-mongers Cruz and Kasich; it was to ensure that this nomination was not stolen from the candidate overwhelmingly supported by the voters. Then, too, Trump’s thrashing of political correctness, an excrescence of the cultural Marxists which attempts to stifle all debate, at least that emanating from libertarians or conservatives, is a breath of fresh air.
Is Donald Trump a libertarian? He is no Ron Paul, but he is pretty close to foreign policy. Hey, give the man a B-, at least. He is execrable on free trade and does not seem to understand economics. He seems ambivalent about the minimum wage and supports such socialist nostrums as welfare and Social Security. Of course, Bernie and Hillary are far worse than Donald on these issues from a libertarian point of view. At least the GOP standard bearer is not an out and out egalitarian. We should perhaps thank goodness for his vast wealth.
How does Gary Johnson stand on libertarianism? Is he even a libertarian? I answer Yes, but only if the tent is big enough, and it will have to be a really big tent in order to fit him into it. Stupendous violations include his support for U.S. atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is blatantly incompatible with the NAP. The argument in favor of this war crime is that it ended the hostilities sooner than would have a land invasion, saving more lives, on both sides, than the actual atomic conflagration. Bah, tosh, fiddlesticks and nonsense. For one thing, the U.S. never should have been at war with Japan in the first place. FDR ran on a peace platform and initiated the war with the Japanese by cutting off their oil supplies with a blockade. He knew their navy was steaming toward Pearl Harbor, their secret codes were compromised, but wanted an excuse to go to war with them. In 1945, the Japanese were willing to surrender, but not unconditionally. They wanted a face-saving provision for their Emperor. The U.S. insisted on a total surrender, at the cost of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people. Why did not Truman drop the bombs in uninhabited areas of Japan to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new weapon? Surely, that would have sufficed. But no. This is because that mass murder had little to do with World War II. Instead, these were the opening salvos of the Cold War. The U.S. government wanted to demonstrate to the U.S.S.R. not only the power of this new weaponry but of their willingness to use it against civilian populations.
Gary Johnson also favors the 1964 so-called civil rights act, which outlaws discrimination against certain arbitrarily protected groups (why is it still legal to discriminate against those of us who are follically challenged? Against short people?) But picking and choosing friends, mates, business associates, customers, employers, merchants, is part of yet another bedrock of libertarianism, Free Association. The former governor of New Mexico went so far as to hypothetically support compelling a Jew to bake a cake for a Nazi. Worse, he does not seem to realize that this stance of his contradicts black letter libertarian law. It is as if he has no libertarian compass and takes things on a case by case basis. Nor does he want to legalize all drugs for adults, only marijuana. His instincts are vaguely libertarian on a whole host of issues (the BIG libertarian tent will indeed hold him), but he does not appear to apply libertarian PRINCIPLE to anything. Nor is he, either, any Ron Paul on foreign policy. He would not want to withdraw all US troops from foreign lands, where they simply do not belong. And, to make matters worse, he advocates US intervention (but only benevolently!) in areas our country has not yet heavily invaded, such as in Africa.
Why am I being relatively more harsh with Gary than with Donald? It is due to the fact that the former is running on the Libertarian Party ticket, and the main present purpose of this organization, given that its standard bearer will not be the next president of the US (I am going out on a limb, here) is to promote liberty, not win. This task if difficult to accomplish for a non-principled libertarian who takes numerous positions incompatible with that philosophy. (What is it with the LP anyway? Apart from Ron Paul and Harry Brown, only a mere two or three others fit this bill. For example, Bob Barr, the candidate of 2008, was an unmitigated disaster; far worse, even, than Gary Johnson. Several of the leading candidates, beaten by our nominee, confessed that they had never read Murray Rothbard, never even heard of him; that they rejected the NAP; these are leading libertarians?). And this is to say nothing of Johnson’s choice for VP of the LP: William Weld. The less said about him from a libertarian point of view the better.
At last, we arrive at the $64,000 question. As a purist libertarian of the Rothbardian stripe, as one of the conveners of “Libertarians for Trump,” as a long-time supporter and activist for the LP (I ran for office in New York State for the Assembly there in 1969, before even the formation of the National Libertarian Party in 1971) who do I now support for president? Now that Trump and Johnson are running against one another this is a challenging question. On the one hand, I desperately want Donald to beat Hillary. Now only are two and maybe three Supreme Court nominations likely to be in play in the next four years, but more important, far more important, a second President Clinton (gulp, I can barely make myself write those words) is likely to usher in World War III, with nuclear not atomic bombs, this time. I oppose this with every fiber of my being. A nuclear exchange between the US and either Russia or China or both of them, could ruin our entire day. Not only is she bloodthirsty by inclination, but as a woman, she will likely feel she has to prove she is tough. Already NATO forces are on the front porch of Russia, and there have already been “incidents” between the US and Chinese warships in the Pacific. All we need is for Killery to light the conflagration.
So, who in my opinion should libertarians support, vote for? Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party, or Donald Trump and the Republican Party? Donald is our last best chance of averting a nuclear war. On the other hand, Gary will (sort of) spread the “libertarian” word. Well, at least the mass media will mention “libertarianism” even if in a decidedly watered-down version, thanks to him. If Mr. Johnson garners more than 5% of the vote, something completely unprecedented in the history of the party (its usual share hovers around 1%), the “libertarian” word will be on everyone’s lips. Who are these guys, people will ask, and, maybe, possibly, some of them, many of them? will explore a more radical version of this political economic philosophy, hopefully along the lines laid out by Murray Rothbard, “Mr. Libertarian.” Surely, this is something also to be fervently wished for. Further, if libertarianism is given a boost this time around, perhaps at some future time fewer innocents will be slaughtered in foreign adventures.
When asked if we want vanilla or chocolate ice cream, Mozart or Bach, the best answer is, both. How can we apply that insight in the present context? How can we have our cake and eat it too? How can we both reduce the chances of a modern all-out war, and, also, spread the libertarian message via the LP?
I am glad you asked. Here is the plan. In states where either Clinton or Trump is leading by a wide margin, vote for, support Johnson. Trump either does not need our backing there or, it will do him little or no good in any case if he gets it. However, in purple states such as Florida or Ohio, in which the polls indicate a virtual tie between Mr. Pretty Good and Mrs. Evil, then and only then pile on in behalf of Donald. He will need every bit of sustenance we can give him on such occasions. Who to support financially? Both. Let us hedge our bets.
I realize this advice is a bit Machiavellian; somewhat strategic; rather tactical; even unprincipled. Ok, ok, very much in that direction. I make no apology for this. We are not now in the realm of libertarian principle or deontology. In choosing who to support, we are in the arena of prudential judgment. Principled libertarians may disagree with each other over such matters, without anyone’s purist credentials being called into question. Here, I claim, we have a reasonable compromise. In this suggestion, we have a chance of achieving both desiderata: reducing the chances of a war that can threaten the entire human race, and, also, spreading the libertarian word, however truncated and cloudy. It is not, I insist, a violation of libertarian principle to aid and abet Donald Trump. It may be wise or not, a very different matter. Similarly, it is not a violation of the NAP to support Gary Johnson, even though this will to some degree increase the chances of Bill Clinton becoming the “first husband.” Which course of action will more likely promote liberty and bring us the free and safe society? Donald or Gary? It is hard to say, given far less than the information we would like to have about the future course of events.
Here is a word of advice to the man I want to become the next president of the U.S.
Dear Mr. Trump:
More important than any of your policies, more important than all of them put together, at least from your own personal point of view and from that of those who love you, is that you finish out (at least) your first four-year term, unscathed, let alone your first few weeks. If you choose as your Vice Presidential running mate someone who the powers that be think they can get along with far better than they think they can get along with you — several have so far been mentioned who fit this bill — I fear you will be assassinated. Yes, I make no bones about this. Our country, unfortunately, has a history of this sort of thing. But, never have a president and a vice president both been assassinated in the same term. There are, hopefully, limits as to how even far the Deep State will go. Therefore, as a life insurance policy, I ask, no, I beg, that you will pick someone equally, or at least almost equally, hated by the establishment.
I suggest Senator Rand Paul.
Yes, yes, you and he have had words with each other. But that is now in the past. Senator Paul has recently endorsed you, so, at least in my opinion, that episode is water under the bridge. I cannot think of any other person of substance sufficient to be Vice President of the U.S. who, one, has endorsed you, and two, far more important for your very survival, is utterly reviled – as are you — by certain political leaders. Choose him, then, as a life raft, as a lift insurance policy, as protection for your very life.
Nor, of course, is that his only merit as your VP. He is also a successful senator, likely to re-elected. He, like you, can bring into the voting booth in your behalf moderate or independent voters. He, along with you, can help make inroads for your ticket amongst the Bernie Sanders supporters, assuming that Hillary (or Biden??) takes the Democratic nomination since there is something of an overlap in foreign policy between you, Rand and Bernie.
God-speed to you, Mr. Trump.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-block/hillary-bernie-donald-gary/
By Walter E. Block
Before I begin, let me take note of the fact that I can call all four remaining candidates in the 2016 race for president by their first names. With the possible exception of the latter, and this will prove less and less so as time goes on, there is little chance that anyone who is not a very low information voter will fail to know of the four people of whom I am speaking. Informality seems to have taken hold of our culture.
Now to business. I will attempt to offer a libertarian perspective on these four candidates. What is a libertarian perspective? That of course, is based on the libertarian philosophy, which is, in turn, predicated upon the non-aggression principle ( NAP: do not initiate violence against innocent people or take their possessions without permission); on free association (all interactions between persons should be on the basis of individual choice; no one should be forced to associate with anyone else against his will) and private property rights (based on Lockean-Rothbardian homesteading). To the degree a political candidate adheres to these principles is the extent to which, other things being equal, a libertarian should support him (I am not politically correct, but, in honor of our fellow citizens who have come under the thrall of this pernicious doctrine, I now offer a trigger warning: this is not a typographical error; rather, “him” includes members of both genders.)
There are three broad arenas to which these libertarian principles can apply: foreign policy, economics, and personal liberties. But the first is by far the most important. It probably outweighs the other two, even put together, by a wide margin. This is because, as Murray Rothbard and Robert Higgs have emphasized, this area determines what occurs in the other two. There are of course some feedback effects in all directions, but the causation is mainly a one-way street. For example, if the country is at war, the central banking system is typically strengthened, as taxes and borrowing become unable to finance the gargantuan appetites of the imperialist intervention abroad. And, too, the military draft is more likely to be implemented, reducing not only economic liberties but personal ones as well.
Now, let us weigh the candidates against these criteria. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Bernie is clearly ahead of the Wicked Witch of the East. And I say this not because I was a boyhood chum of the former; I do so based on their widely divergent foreign policies. Killary is a vicious warmonger as ever seen on the boards of the play which constitutes U.S. imperialism. (By the way, I favored my man Barack Obama vis a vis John Mccain in 2008 on these grounds and see La Clinton as very much in the camp of the latter; with only slight exaggeration I can say that neither has ever met a foreign war they did not like). Bernie is far from being a libertarian non-interventionist, but he stands head and shoulders above the espionage by e-mail former Secretary of State. They are both bloody awful on the subject of economics and personal liberties, although, I concede, she is perhaps less horrendous than the Vermont commie-socialist. However, as said above, foreign policy is more important than the other two venues; thus, Bernie is more congruent with libertarianism than Hillary. Moreover, she will have to prove that as a woman she’s just as tough as a man; how? By seeking war, which will only cement her natural inclinations.
What of The Donald? He is the only one of the Republican contenders (apart from Rand Paul) who said anything along the lines of: he could get along with Putin; that he wanted to end NATO; that we were mistaken to get into the Middle East; that US soldiers should leave Korea, German, Japan, etc. He said of dictators Saddam Hussain and Muammar Ghadafi, sure, they were monsters, but at least they fought the far-worse ISIL type terrorists! He asked are Iraq and Libya better off for our intervention? He answered with a resounding No. And now they want to go into Syria? Not on my watch, he averred. It cannot be denied that Mr. Trump also said a few things incompatible with these sterling statements such as we are going to kick the butt of ISIS, but this only shows he is becoming “Presidential.” However, no one else, again except for Rand Paul, has channeled the thoughts of our founding fathers such as George Washington: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible” (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson: “Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none” (emphasis added). John Quincy Adams: “America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy.” When the neo-cons hear views of this sort, they go berserk and start gnashing their teeth and frothing at the mouth. This shows that Mr. Trump is on the right path. When I was involved in the setting up of “Libertarians for Trump” this group was aimed, mainly, at garnering for him the Republican nomination vis a vis the right-wing war-mongers Cruz and Kasich; it was to ensure that this nomination was not stolen from the candidate overwhelmingly supported by the voters. Then, too, Trump’s thrashing of political correctness, an excrescence of the cultural Marxists which attempts to stifle all debate, at least that emanating from libertarians or conservatives, is a breath of fresh air.
Is Donald Trump a libertarian? He is no Ron Paul, but he is pretty close to foreign policy. Hey, give the man a B-, at least. He is execrable on free trade and does not seem to understand economics. He seems ambivalent about the minimum wage and supports such socialist nostrums as welfare and Social Security. Of course, Bernie and Hillary are far worse than Donald on these issues from a libertarian point of view. At least the GOP standard bearer is not an out and out egalitarian. We should perhaps thank goodness for his vast wealth.
How does Gary Johnson stand on libertarianism? Is he even a libertarian? I answer Yes, but only if the tent is big enough, and it will have to be a really big tent in order to fit him into it. Stupendous violations include his support for U.S. atom-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is blatantly incompatible with the NAP. The argument in favor of this war crime is that it ended the hostilities sooner than would have a land invasion, saving more lives, on both sides, than the actual atomic conflagration. Bah, tosh, fiddlesticks and nonsense. For one thing, the U.S. never should have been at war with Japan in the first place. FDR ran on a peace platform and initiated the war with the Japanese by cutting off their oil supplies with a blockade. He knew their navy was steaming toward Pearl Harbor, their secret codes were compromised, but wanted an excuse to go to war with them. In 1945, the Japanese were willing to surrender, but not unconditionally. They wanted a face-saving provision for their Emperor. The U.S. insisted on a total surrender, at the cost of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent people. Why did not Truman drop the bombs in uninhabited areas of Japan to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new weapon? Surely, that would have sufficed. But no. This is because that mass murder had little to do with World War II. Instead, these were the opening salvos of the Cold War. The U.S. government wanted to demonstrate to the U.S.S.R. not only the power of this new weaponry but of their willingness to use it against civilian populations.
Gary Johnson also favors the 1964 so-called civil rights act, which outlaws discrimination against certain arbitrarily protected groups (why is it still legal to discriminate against those of us who are follically challenged? Against short people?) But picking and choosing friends, mates, business associates, customers, employers, merchants, is part of yet another bedrock of libertarianism, Free Association. The former governor of New Mexico went so far as to hypothetically support compelling a Jew to bake a cake for a Nazi. Worse, he does not seem to realize that this stance of his contradicts black letter libertarian law. It is as if he has no libertarian compass and takes things on a case by case basis. Nor does he want to legalize all drugs for adults, only marijuana. His instincts are vaguely libertarian on a whole host of issues (the BIG libertarian tent will indeed hold him), but he does not appear to apply libertarian PRINCIPLE to anything. Nor is he, either, any Ron Paul on foreign policy. He would not want to withdraw all US troops from foreign lands, where they simply do not belong. And, to make matters worse, he advocates US intervention (but only benevolently!) in areas our country has not yet heavily invaded, such as in Africa.
Why am I being relatively more harsh with Gary than with Donald? It is due to the fact that the former is running on the Libertarian Party ticket, and the main present purpose of this organization, given that its standard bearer will not be the next president of the US (I am going out on a limb, here) is to promote liberty, not win. This task if difficult to accomplish for a non-principled libertarian who takes numerous positions incompatible with that philosophy. (What is it with the LP anyway? Apart from Ron Paul and Harry Brown, only a mere two or three others fit this bill. For example, Bob Barr, the candidate of 2008, was an unmitigated disaster; far worse, even, than Gary Johnson. Several of the leading candidates, beaten by our nominee, confessed that they had never read Murray Rothbard, never even heard of him; that they rejected the NAP; these are leading libertarians?). And this is to say nothing of Johnson’s choice for VP of the LP: William Weld. The less said about him from a libertarian point of view the better.
At last, we arrive at the $64,000 question. As a purist libertarian of the Rothbardian stripe, as one of the conveners of “Libertarians for Trump,” as a long-time supporter and activist for the LP (I ran for office in New York State for the Assembly there in 1969, before even the formation of the National Libertarian Party in 1971) who do I now support for president? Now that Trump and Johnson are running against one another this is a challenging question. On the one hand, I desperately want Donald to beat Hillary. Now only are two and maybe three Supreme Court nominations likely to be in play in the next four years, but more important, far more important, a second President Clinton (gulp, I can barely make myself write those words) is likely to usher in World War III, with nuclear not atomic bombs, this time. I oppose this with every fiber of my being. A nuclear exchange between the US and either Russia or China or both of them, could ruin our entire day. Not only is she bloodthirsty by inclination, but as a woman, she will likely feel she has to prove she is tough. Already NATO forces are on the front porch of Russia, and there have already been “incidents” between the US and Chinese warships in the Pacific. All we need is for Killery to light the conflagration.
So, who in my opinion should libertarians support, vote for? Gary Johnson and the Libertarian Party, or Donald Trump and the Republican Party? Donald is our last best chance of averting a nuclear war. On the other hand, Gary will (sort of) spread the “libertarian” word. Well, at least the mass media will mention “libertarianism” even if in a decidedly watered-down version, thanks to him. If Mr. Johnson garners more than 5% of the vote, something completely unprecedented in the history of the party (its usual share hovers around 1%), the “libertarian” word will be on everyone’s lips. Who are these guys, people will ask, and, maybe, possibly, some of them, many of them? will explore a more radical version of this political economic philosophy, hopefully along the lines laid out by Murray Rothbard, “Mr. Libertarian.” Surely, this is something also to be fervently wished for. Further, if libertarianism is given a boost this time around, perhaps at some future time fewer innocents will be slaughtered in foreign adventures.
When asked if we want vanilla or chocolate ice cream, Mozart or Bach, the best answer is, both. How can we apply that insight in the present context? How can we have our cake and eat it too? How can we both reduce the chances of a modern all-out war, and, also, spread the libertarian message via the LP?
I am glad you asked. Here is the plan. In states where either Clinton or Trump is leading by a wide margin, vote for, support Johnson. Trump either does not need our backing there or, it will do him little or no good in any case if he gets it. However, in purple states such as Florida or Ohio, in which the polls indicate a virtual tie between Mr. Pretty Good and Mrs. Evil, then and only then pile on in behalf of Donald. He will need every bit of sustenance we can give him on such occasions. Who to support financially? Both. Let us hedge our bets.
I realize this advice is a bit Machiavellian; somewhat strategic; rather tactical; even unprincipled. Ok, ok, very much in that direction. I make no apology for this. We are not now in the realm of libertarian principle or deontology. In choosing who to support, we are in the arena of prudential judgment. Principled libertarians may disagree with each other over such matters, without anyone’s purist credentials being called into question. Here, I claim, we have a reasonable compromise. In this suggestion, we have a chance of achieving both desiderata: reducing the chances of a war that can threaten the entire human race, and, also, spreading the libertarian word, however truncated and cloudy. It is not, I insist, a violation of libertarian principle to aid and abet Donald Trump. It may be wise or not, a very different matter. Similarly, it is not a violation of the NAP to support Gary Johnson, even though this will to some degree increase the chances of Bill Clinton becoming the “first husband.” Which course of action will more likely promote liberty and bring us the free and safe society? Donald or Gary? It is hard to say, given far less than the information we would like to have about the future course of events.
Here is a word of advice to the man I want to become the next president of the U.S.
Dear Mr. Trump:
More important than any of your policies, more important than all of them put together, at least from your own personal point of view and from that of those who love you, is that you finish out (at least) your first four-year term, unscathed, let alone your first few weeks. If you choose as your Vice Presidential running mate someone who the powers that be think they can get along with far better than they think they can get along with you — several have so far been mentioned who fit this bill — I fear you will be assassinated. Yes, I make no bones about this. Our country, unfortunately, has a history of this sort of thing. But, never have a president and a vice president both been assassinated in the same term. There are, hopefully, limits as to how even far the Deep State will go. Therefore, as a life insurance policy, I ask, no, I beg, that you will pick someone equally, or at least almost equally, hated by the establishment.
I suggest Senator Rand Paul.
Yes, yes, you and he have had words with each other. But that is now in the past. Senator Paul has recently endorsed you, so, at least in my opinion, that episode is water under the bridge. I cannot think of any other person of substance sufficient to be Vice President of the U.S. who, one, has endorsed you, and two, far more important for your very survival, is utterly reviled – as are you — by certain political leaders. Choose him, then, as a life raft, as a lift insurance policy, as protection for your very life.
Nor, of course, is that his only merit as your VP. He is also a successful senator, likely to re-elected. He, like you, can bring into the voting booth in your behalf moderate or independent voters. He, along with you, can help make inroads for your ticket amongst the Bernie Sanders supporters, assuming that Hillary (or Biden??) takes the Democratic nomination since there is something of an overlap in foreign policy between you, Rand and Bernie.
God-speed to you, Mr. Trump.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-block/hillary-bernie-donald-gary/
Thursday, June 2, 2016
THINK!!!
Socialism for the Uninformed
by THOMAS SOWELL
Testing easy assumptions against facts reveals uncomfortable truths.
Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster. While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families. With national income going down, and prices going up under triple-digit inflation in Venezuela, these complaints are by no means frivolous. But it is doubtful if the young people cheering for Bernie Sanders have even heard of such things, whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run.
The anti-capitalist policies in Venezuela have worked so well that the number of companies in Venezuela is now a fraction of what it once was. That should certainly reduce capitalist “exploitation,” shouldn’t it? But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists’ exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts — such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries. Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated. When Senator Sanders cries, “The system is rigged!” no one asks, “Just what specifically does that mean?” or “What facts do you have to back that up?” Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that. But the very idea of subjecting their pet notions to the test of hard facts will probably not even occur to those who are cheering for socialism and for other bright ideas of the political Left.
How many of the people who are demanding an increase in the minimum wage have ever bothered to check what actually happens when higher minimum wages are imposed? More often they just assume what is assumed by like-minded peers — sometimes known as “everybody,” with their assumptions being what “everybody knows.” Back in 1948, when inflation had rendered meaningless the minimum wage established a decade earlier, the unemployment rate among 16- to 17-year-old black males was under 10 percent. But after the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation, the unemployment rate for black males that age was never under 30 percent for more than 20 consecutive years, from 1971 through 1994.
In many of those years, the unemployment rate for black youngsters that age exceeded 40 percent and, for a couple of years, it exceeded 50 percent. The damage is even greater than these statistics might suggest. Most low-wage jobs are entry-level jobs that young people move up out of, after acquiring work experience and a track record that makes them eligible for better jobs. But you can’t move up the ladder if you don’t get on the ladder. The great promise of socialism is something for nothing.
It is one of the signs of today’s dumbed-down education that so many college students seem to think that the cost of their education should — and will — be paid by raising taxes on “the rich.” Here again, just a little check of the facts would reveal that higher tax rates on upper-income earners do not automatically translate into more tax revenue coming in to the government. Often high tax rates have led to less revenue than lower tax rates. In a globalized economy, high tax rates may just lead investors to invest in other countries with lower tax rates. That means that jobs created by those investments will be overseas. None of this is rocket science. But you do have to stop and think — and that is what too many of our schools and colleges are failing to teach their students to do.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436022/bernie-sanders-fans-dont-bother-think?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=May31Sowell
by THOMAS SOWELL
Testing easy assumptions against facts reveals uncomfortable truths.
Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster. While throngs of young people are cheering loudly for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders, socialism has turned oil-rich Venezuela into a place where there are shortages of everything from toilet paper to beer, where electricity keeps shutting down, and where there are long lines of people hoping to get food, people complaining that they cannot feed their families. With national income going down, and prices going up under triple-digit inflation in Venezuela, these complaints are by no means frivolous. But it is doubtful if the young people cheering for Bernie Sanders have even heard of such things, whether in Venezuela or in other countries around the world that have turned their economies over to politicians and bureaucrats to run.
The anti-capitalist policies in Venezuela have worked so well that the number of companies in Venezuela is now a fraction of what it once was. That should certainly reduce capitalist “exploitation,” shouldn’t it? But people who attribute income inequality to capitalists’ exploiting workers, as Karl Marx claimed, never seem to get around to testing that belief against facts — such as the fact that none of the Marxist regimes around the world has ever had as high a standard of living for working people as there is in many capitalist countries. Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
What matters to the true believers are the ringing slogans, endlessly repeated. When Senator Sanders cries, “The system is rigged!” no one asks, “Just what specifically does that mean?” or “What facts do you have to back that up?” Facts are seldom allowed to contaminate the beautiful vision of the Left.
In 2015, the 400 richest people in the world had net losses of $19 billion. If they had rigged the system, surely they could have rigged it better than that. But the very idea of subjecting their pet notions to the test of hard facts will probably not even occur to those who are cheering for socialism and for other bright ideas of the political Left.
How many of the people who are demanding an increase in the minimum wage have ever bothered to check what actually happens when higher minimum wages are imposed? More often they just assume what is assumed by like-minded peers — sometimes known as “everybody,” with their assumptions being what “everybody knows.” Back in 1948, when inflation had rendered meaningless the minimum wage established a decade earlier, the unemployment rate among 16- to 17-year-old black males was under 10 percent. But after the minimum wage was raised repeatedly to keep up with inflation, the unemployment rate for black males that age was never under 30 percent for more than 20 consecutive years, from 1971 through 1994.
In many of those years, the unemployment rate for black youngsters that age exceeded 40 percent and, for a couple of years, it exceeded 50 percent. The damage is even greater than these statistics might suggest. Most low-wage jobs are entry-level jobs that young people move up out of, after acquiring work experience and a track record that makes them eligible for better jobs. But you can’t move up the ladder if you don’t get on the ladder. The great promise of socialism is something for nothing.
It is one of the signs of today’s dumbed-down education that so many college students seem to think that the cost of their education should — and will — be paid by raising taxes on “the rich.” Here again, just a little check of the facts would reveal that higher tax rates on upper-income earners do not automatically translate into more tax revenue coming in to the government. Often high tax rates have led to less revenue than lower tax rates. In a globalized economy, high tax rates may just lead investors to invest in other countries with lower tax rates. That means that jobs created by those investments will be overseas. None of this is rocket science. But you do have to stop and think — and that is what too many of our schools and colleges are failing to teach their students to do.
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436022/bernie-sanders-fans-dont-bother-think?utm_source=NR&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=May31Sowell
"Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy."
The Troops Did Not Die for Our Country or Our Freedom
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Yesterday, I received an email from an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Margaret Stock, which pointed out that she is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former professor at West Point. In her email, Stock stated that she had served alongside and mentored soldiers “who have given their lives for our country.”
It would be difficult for me to find anything more nonsensical than that. Does she really mean what she says? Or is it just political pabulum?
Show me U.S. one soldier — just one — in the past 65 years who has died for his country or, as others assert, in the defense of our freedoms here at home. You can’t do it.
Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy.
Some soldiers volunteered to go and fight in order to improve their chances for promotion. During the Vietnam War I knew of an Air Force colonel who volunteered to go to Vietnam because he was convinced that that was the only way he could make general. I also knew of several officers who were trying to get to Vietnam in the waning stages of the war to pad their combat resumes.
One thing is for certain: Contrary to what Stock asserts, the deployment of U.S. troops in wars for the past 65 years have had nothing to do with defending America or the freedom of the American people for one simple reason: America and American freedom were never under attack.
Suppose that U.S. troops had not gotten involved in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Ask yourself: How many Americans would have voluntarily traveled to Korea and helped the South Koreans defeat the North Korean communists?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have done that, even if President Truman and his national-security establishment had pointed out the dangers that international communism posed to America.
Suppose the U.S. national-security establishment had never invaded Vietnam and simply decided to stay out of that country’s civil war. Suppose President Johnson, the Pentagon, and the CIA told Americans that a victory by North Vietnam would pose a grave threat to U.S. national security because the dominoes would begin falling to the communists, with the big domino (the United States) ultimately falling to the Reds.
How many Americans would have traveled to South Vietnam and joined up with South Vietnamese forces to help them prevent a communist victory?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have gone to fight the commies in Vietnam.
Suppose George H.W. Bush had refused to involve his army in his war against Iraq in 1991, but had exhorted Americans to travel to the Middle East and join up with forces that were attempting to reverse Iraq’s (i.e., Saddam Hussein’s) invasion of Kuwait. Suppose that Bush had told Americans that while the U.S. government had partnered with Saddam during the 1980s in his war on Iran, Saddam had since become a “new Hitler” who threatened the world.
How many Americans would have traveled to the Middle East to join up with forces attempting to liberate Kuwait from Saddam?
Answer: None! Zip!
Suppose George W. Bush had declined to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks but instead simply put out an arrest warrant and bounty for Osama bin Laden.
How many Americans would have traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq to oust the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power?
Answer: None. The only ones who would have gone over there would have been the ones looking for bin Laden in the hopes of collecting a large bounty.
If the U.S. government evacuated the Middle East and Afghanistan today, how many Americans would travel to Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria or the rest of the Middle East to fight ISIS and prevent it from taking over those countries?
Answer: Not one single one, including the infamous neocons who continue to tell us that “national security” is at stake. In fact, if all U.S. troops were ordered to withdraw from that part of the world today, not one single U.S. soldier, including officers and enlisted men, would seek to resign from the U.S. military and travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent ISIS and the Taliban from winning and taking control in that part of the world.
So, does all that mean that the American people are cowards? That they are only courageous when it comes to sending the troops to do the fighting for them? That they’re not willing to put their lives on the line in the defense of their country? That they’re not willing to defend their own freedom and the freedom and security of their family members and countrymen?
No, it doesn’t mean any of those things. It simply means that the American people are not stupid. The reason they wouldn’t have traveled to South Korea or South Vietnam and helped them to defeat the communists is simply because giving their lives in a civil war thousands of miles away wasn’t worth it to them. If someone had told them that a communist victory in Korea or Vietnam could mean that the Reds would ultimately take over the federal government and run the IRS, they would have summarily rejected that notion as ridiculous.
The same holds true for the Middle East and Afghanistan today. Deep down, every American knows that it’s not going to make one whit of difference, insofar as the United States is concerned, if ISIS wins or if the Taliban wins. If they really believed that America’s existence and freedom were at stake, you’d see Americans traveling over there and volunteering to help the Iraqi and Afghan armies.
Oh, for sure, most (but certainly not all) Americans would have sympathized with the South Koreans and the South Vietnamese but they never would have gone over there to commit their lives fighting a communist unification of both countries.
Now, imagine that the United States were suddenly invaded by the troops of some foreign nation-state. How many Americans would come to the defense of their country, their families, and their freedom?
Answer: 98 percent.
Everything changes, however, when it comes to the U.S. national-security establishment, the totalitarian apparatus that came into existence with the Cold War. When the national-security establishment says that it’s imperative that U.S. military forces defeat North Korea or North Vietnam or Saddam Hussein or the Taliban or Iran or whoever, everyone hops to, clicks his heels, salutes, and automatically accepts it as gospel. People have converted the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA into their god — their idol — and heaven help anyone who dares to criticize what their warrior angels — the troops — do with respect to all those foreign interventions.
Suddenly, everyone’s mindset changes. “The troops in Korea are dying for our freedom!” “The troops are dying in Vietnam for their country.” “The troops are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq for their country and our freedom.”
It’s all a crock. They’re dying because the national-security state deemed it necessary to involve the United States in overseas conflicts whose participants never invaded the United States or threatened our nation or our freedom in any way.
It’s been a racket since the day the national-security establishment was grafted onto our original governmental system. It’s the national-security state that has gotten America into all these unnecessary wars and conflicts. And they’re not stopping. They’re now provoking two other major nuclear powers, Russia and China. If anyone thinks that nuclear war isn’t possible, he is naïve to the extreme.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that suicides among soldiers who have experienced repeated deployments to the Middle East and Afghanistan are suffering record suicide rates. We all know about the family violence, the alcoholism, the drug addiction, and the depression that U.S. troops who have fought in that part of the world are experiencing.
And of course there are the dead — the soldiers who, we are told, made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and our freedom. It’s all one great big lie, one that people feel is necessary to keep intact at all costs, just like everyone was expected to admire the emperor’s new clothes. The naked truth is that U.S. soldiers who died in all those overseas military adventures died for nothing — that is, they died for something that no American would have been willing to die for if the U.S. national-security establishment had not gotten America embroiled in those (illegal and unconstitutional) wars.
As our ancestors understood so well, there will always be monsters in the world in the form of such things as tyrannical dictatorships, civil wars, and famines. (See John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address to Congress entitled “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.”) America, Adams said, would not send soldiers abroad to slay any of those dragons but instead would serve as a sanctuary for people fleeing those monsters. He also pointed out that if America ever abandoned this non-interventionist philosophy, it would inevitably change America in drastic ways, for the worse. Who can argue that he was wrong?
The Cold War national-security state apparatus overturned that non-interventionist philosophy, committing America to a perpetual crusade to slay monsters overseas. That’s what every U.S. soldier has died for and sacrificed for during the past 65 years — not for freedom, not for our country but instead for such things as regime-change operations, coups, partnerships with dictators, and other vital interests of the national-security establishment, all with the aim of keeping that old Cold War dinosaur, the national security state, in perpetual existence.
The sooner Americans, including the troops, acknowledge this truth, as discomforting as it might be, the better off America and the troops will be, because then we can restore a constitutional republic to our land and make America, once again, a peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, and free country.
Link:
http://fff.org/2016/05/31/troops-not-die-country-freedom/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
Yesterday, I received an email from an independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Alaska, Margaret Stock, which pointed out that she is a retired Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and a former professor at West Point. In her email, Stock stated that she had served alongside and mentored soldiers “who have given their lives for our country.”
It would be difficult for me to find anything more nonsensical than that. Does she really mean what she says? Or is it just political pabulum?
Show me U.S. one soldier — just one — in the past 65 years who has died for his country or, as others assert, in the defense of our freedoms here at home. You can’t do it.
Most of those soldiers died because officials within the national-security branch of the federal government ordered to go to some foreign country thousands of miles away, where they were placed in a position of kill or be killed. In fact, many of them were first conscripted (i.e., seized) and then ordered to deploy.
Some soldiers volunteered to go and fight in order to improve their chances for promotion. During the Vietnam War I knew of an Air Force colonel who volunteered to go to Vietnam because he was convinced that that was the only way he could make general. I also knew of several officers who were trying to get to Vietnam in the waning stages of the war to pad their combat resumes.
One thing is for certain: Contrary to what Stock asserts, the deployment of U.S. troops in wars for the past 65 years have had nothing to do with defending America or the freedom of the American people for one simple reason: America and American freedom were never under attack.
Suppose that U.S. troops had not gotten involved in the Korean War in the early 1950s. Ask yourself: How many Americans would have voluntarily traveled to Korea and helped the South Koreans defeat the North Korean communists?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have done that, even if President Truman and his national-security establishment had pointed out the dangers that international communism posed to America.
Suppose the U.S. national-security establishment had never invaded Vietnam and simply decided to stay out of that country’s civil war. Suppose President Johnson, the Pentagon, and the CIA told Americans that a victory by North Vietnam would pose a grave threat to U.S. national security because the dominoes would begin falling to the communists, with the big domino (the United States) ultimately falling to the Reds.
How many Americans would have traveled to South Vietnam and joined up with South Vietnamese forces to help them prevent a communist victory?
Answer: Zero! None! Not one single American would have gone to fight the commies in Vietnam.
Suppose George H.W. Bush had refused to involve his army in his war against Iraq in 1991, but had exhorted Americans to travel to the Middle East and join up with forces that were attempting to reverse Iraq’s (i.e., Saddam Hussein’s) invasion of Kuwait. Suppose that Bush had told Americans that while the U.S. government had partnered with Saddam during the 1980s in his war on Iran, Saddam had since become a “new Hitler” who threatened the world.
How many Americans would have traveled to the Middle East to join up with forces attempting to liberate Kuwait from Saddam?
Answer: None! Zip!
Suppose George W. Bush had declined to invade Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks but instead simply put out an arrest warrant and bounty for Osama bin Laden.
How many Americans would have traveled to Afghanistan and Iraq to oust the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power?
Answer: None. The only ones who would have gone over there would have been the ones looking for bin Laden in the hopes of collecting a large bounty.
If the U.S. government evacuated the Middle East and Afghanistan today, how many Americans would travel to Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Syria or the rest of the Middle East to fight ISIS and prevent it from taking over those countries?
Answer: Not one single one, including the infamous neocons who continue to tell us that “national security” is at stake. In fact, if all U.S. troops were ordered to withdraw from that part of the world today, not one single U.S. soldier, including officers and enlisted men, would seek to resign from the U.S. military and travel to Iraq and Afghanistan to prevent ISIS and the Taliban from winning and taking control in that part of the world.
So, does all that mean that the American people are cowards? That they are only courageous when it comes to sending the troops to do the fighting for them? That they’re not willing to put their lives on the line in the defense of their country? That they’re not willing to defend their own freedom and the freedom and security of their family members and countrymen?
No, it doesn’t mean any of those things. It simply means that the American people are not stupid. The reason they wouldn’t have traveled to South Korea or South Vietnam and helped them to defeat the communists is simply because giving their lives in a civil war thousands of miles away wasn’t worth it to them. If someone had told them that a communist victory in Korea or Vietnam could mean that the Reds would ultimately take over the federal government and run the IRS, they would have summarily rejected that notion as ridiculous.
The same holds true for the Middle East and Afghanistan today. Deep down, every American knows that it’s not going to make one whit of difference, insofar as the United States is concerned, if ISIS wins or if the Taliban wins. If they really believed that America’s existence and freedom were at stake, you’d see Americans traveling over there and volunteering to help the Iraqi and Afghan armies.
Oh, for sure, most (but certainly not all) Americans would have sympathized with the South Koreans and the South Vietnamese but they never would have gone over there to commit their lives fighting a communist unification of both countries.
Now, imagine that the United States were suddenly invaded by the troops of some foreign nation-state. How many Americans would come to the defense of their country, their families, and their freedom?
Answer: 98 percent.
Everything changes, however, when it comes to the U.S. national-security establishment, the totalitarian apparatus that came into existence with the Cold War. When the national-security establishment says that it’s imperative that U.S. military forces defeat North Korea or North Vietnam or Saddam Hussein or the Taliban or Iran or whoever, everyone hops to, clicks his heels, salutes, and automatically accepts it as gospel. People have converted the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA into their god — their idol — and heaven help anyone who dares to criticize what their warrior angels — the troops — do with respect to all those foreign interventions.
Suddenly, everyone’s mindset changes. “The troops in Korea are dying for our freedom!” “The troops are dying in Vietnam for their country.” “The troops are dying in Afghanistan and Iraq for their country and our freedom.”
It’s all a crock. They’re dying because the national-security state deemed it necessary to involve the United States in overseas conflicts whose participants never invaded the United States or threatened our nation or our freedom in any way.
It’s been a racket since the day the national-security establishment was grafted onto our original governmental system. It’s the national-security state that has gotten America into all these unnecessary wars and conflicts. And they’re not stopping. They’re now provoking two other major nuclear powers, Russia and China. If anyone thinks that nuclear war isn’t possible, he is naïve to the extreme.
Yesterday, the New York Times reported that suicides among soldiers who have experienced repeated deployments to the Middle East and Afghanistan are suffering record suicide rates. We all know about the family violence, the alcoholism, the drug addiction, and the depression that U.S. troops who have fought in that part of the world are experiencing.
And of course there are the dead — the soldiers who, we are told, made the ultimate sacrifice for our country and our freedom. It’s all one great big lie, one that people feel is necessary to keep intact at all costs, just like everyone was expected to admire the emperor’s new clothes. The naked truth is that U.S. soldiers who died in all those overseas military adventures died for nothing — that is, they died for something that no American would have been willing to die for if the U.S. national-security establishment had not gotten America embroiled in those (illegal and unconstitutional) wars.
As our ancestors understood so well, there will always be monsters in the world in the form of such things as tyrannical dictatorships, civil wars, and famines. (See John Quincy Adams’ July 4, 1821, address to Congress entitled “In Search of Monsters to Destroy.”) America, Adams said, would not send soldiers abroad to slay any of those dragons but instead would serve as a sanctuary for people fleeing those monsters. He also pointed out that if America ever abandoned this non-interventionist philosophy, it would inevitably change America in drastic ways, for the worse. Who can argue that he was wrong?
The Cold War national-security state apparatus overturned that non-interventionist philosophy, committing America to a perpetual crusade to slay monsters overseas. That’s what every U.S. soldier has died for and sacrificed for during the past 65 years — not for freedom, not for our country but instead for such things as regime-change operations, coups, partnerships with dictators, and other vital interests of the national-security establishment, all with the aim of keeping that old Cold War dinosaur, the national security state, in perpetual existence.
The sooner Americans, including the troops, acknowledge this truth, as discomforting as it might be, the better off America and the troops will be, because then we can restore a constitutional republic to our land and make America, once again, a peaceful, harmonious, prosperous, and free country.
Link:
http://fff.org/2016/05/31/troops-not-die-country-freedom/
"Big government cannot solve the problems of our age and the future because they are the problem. Only these central governments can confiscate wealth from citizens, turn it into weapons, and then use those weapons to destroy life in other countries. All of these resources are literally going up in smoke. How can this be called sustainable? And how can this central government be looked to in order to solve these problems?"
Good News About Central Governments (They’re not sustainable)
by PatriotRising
I suppose we’ve all overdosed on hearing “Freedom isn’t free!” for the past few days. Your humble scribe is pleased to report that freedom actually is free. It’s government that isn’t free. Yes, there is a difference. Even the founding documents of this nation agree that freedom isn’t bestowed upon us by the government via human sacrifice in some orgy of blood and violence, but from God. My Bible does not say that God received a purchase order from the United States government that sets them up as a vendor to sell freedom to us.
Indeed, it is a government that isn’t free. As I am sure you’ll agree, it costs a lot of money and lives. Take for example the purchase price of a 1,000-pound bomb. Our government sprinkles these across the Middle East like you grind pepper over a baked potato. Well, anyway, at least if you pepper a potato as I do. How much does one of this cost? Anyone know? I’m guessing they’re not cheap. However, the United States government has purchased enough bombs that they’ve actually lost some within the United States. Last year, a 500-pound bomb ended up here in a South Tucson salvage and scrap yard where the poor soul tasked with cutting it apart was vaporized in the explosion. The air force never did tell us how this bomb ended up in a South Tucson salvage yard. And this is the government that tells us other countries are not responsible weapons owners.
I learned something interesting through some recent reading. Everyone speculates on the “vanishing civilization” thing that asks why certain civilizations just up and became one with the desert once again. The usual thing said is, “Why, they were great! They had just created a huge central government!” Stop right there. It appears to me the collapse of civilizations begins once they create a huge central government. Why would this be the case? I suspect because the government keeps getting bigger and bigger and siphoning off more and more of the wealth. People talk about “sustainability”? Central governments are not sustainable. In fact, it appears they act as cancer that eventually kills the host.
See, civilizations start once people have some certain thing that creates an advantage. That could be a natural resource, an agricultural breakthrough, water resources, or they sit at a terminus of the Silk Road. They begin to prosper and the resources are controlled by what basically amounts to a syndicate of peoples within the community. However, what then happens is a central government arises and begins taxing the wealth that is either created or flows through that civilization. As the greed of the government for more taxation grows, the civilization itself must expand in order to accommodate that. In many cases, they outstripped the natural resources and so the civilization collapsed. It wasn’t an environmental disaster brought on by a normal market economy. It was one brought on by that central government whose voracious appetite for wealth caused it. Because if people didn’t pay taxes, they were punished.
Take our central government, for example. Let’s get back to that 1,000-pound bomb. Let’s assume that device costs $10,000. Now, think about the man-hours involved in laboring to provide the tax money to buy it. I daresay that this is the genuine reason behind the government desperation to create jobs. They need the tax revenue. It all revolves around the central government and collection of tax money. But think of all the resources being used to generate that tax money! And what is done with the 1,000-pound bomb? It is dropped on other human beings, where it blows up killing people and destroying private property. Not only that, but the collected wealth of the taxpayers is literally blown into smithereens. Can this be called sustainable?
We can sit there and talk about sustainability all day long. But history shows that the most obscene and profligate squandering of natural resources is perpetrated by central governments. Excuse me, but what private individual has a fleet of aircraft carriers and an air force with which he is wasting untold millions of gallons of aviation fuel each day in senseless “training missions”? These are not commercial flights to deliver passengers or freight. These are guys tooling around up there fighting an imaginary enemy the United States may or may not provoke into a war in the future. Can this be called sustainable?
Does it not come to pass that once a central government comes into existence in a society that has existed for centuries prior, the civilization created collapses soon afterward? Take the Anasazi, for example. From a collection of small agrarian tribes, they coalesced into a society with an identity. They then discovered a method by which to control the trade routes into and out of their region. The hypothesis is, a central government then arose which began taxing that wealth. Then a drought occurred and the civilization collapsed. Why? Because the central government could not exist on its own merits. It provided nothing, but could only exist by taking wealth that was no longer flowing. But what happened to the Anasazi? They returned from whence they came: Small agrarian tribes without a central government. It would appear they learned from that past mistake of creating a huge government. They discovered that central governments are not sustainable over time.
I haven’t got time or space to go into greater detail about this, but let me say this: We’re asking the wrong questions as a nation and, ergo, obtaining the wrong answers. Big government cannot solve the problems of our age and the future because they are the problem. Only these central governments can confiscate wealth from citizens, turn it into weapons, and then use those weapons to destroy life in other countries. All of these resources are literally going up in smoke. How can this be called sustainable? And how can this central government be looked to in order to solve these problems?
In truth, our central government is what needs to be consigned to the scrap heap. They cannot create peace because they start wars over ego-embellishing missions more akin to that of Roman emperors. Who, by the way, drove their civilization into the ground with their central government. They cannot create prosperity because they confiscate the prosperity of the people and turn it into weapons used against innocent people elsewhere. Therefore, our central government is not sustainable. It might not be a drought that causes the United States to collapse, although that is certainly possible. It might be that we provoke a war with a nation we cannot defeat or underestimate and lose that war. It might be another economic collapse or the realization our money is backed by electrons. But one thing is certain: This central government will collapse and sooner than anyone thinks.
Link:
http://patriotrising.com/2016/06/01/good-news-central-governments/
by PatriotRising
I suppose we’ve all overdosed on hearing “Freedom isn’t free!” for the past few days. Your humble scribe is pleased to report that freedom actually is free. It’s government that isn’t free. Yes, there is a difference. Even the founding documents of this nation agree that freedom isn’t bestowed upon us by the government via human sacrifice in some orgy of blood and violence, but from God. My Bible does not say that God received a purchase order from the United States government that sets them up as a vendor to sell freedom to us.
Indeed, it is a government that isn’t free. As I am sure you’ll agree, it costs a lot of money and lives. Take for example the purchase price of a 1,000-pound bomb. Our government sprinkles these across the Middle East like you grind pepper over a baked potato. Well, anyway, at least if you pepper a potato as I do. How much does one of this cost? Anyone know? I’m guessing they’re not cheap. However, the United States government has purchased enough bombs that they’ve actually lost some within the United States. Last year, a 500-pound bomb ended up here in a South Tucson salvage and scrap yard where the poor soul tasked with cutting it apart was vaporized in the explosion. The air force never did tell us how this bomb ended up in a South Tucson salvage yard. And this is the government that tells us other countries are not responsible weapons owners.
I learned something interesting through some recent reading. Everyone speculates on the “vanishing civilization” thing that asks why certain civilizations just up and became one with the desert once again. The usual thing said is, “Why, they were great! They had just created a huge central government!” Stop right there. It appears to me the collapse of civilizations begins once they create a huge central government. Why would this be the case? I suspect because the government keeps getting bigger and bigger and siphoning off more and more of the wealth. People talk about “sustainability”? Central governments are not sustainable. In fact, it appears they act as cancer that eventually kills the host.
See, civilizations start once people have some certain thing that creates an advantage. That could be a natural resource, an agricultural breakthrough, water resources, or they sit at a terminus of the Silk Road. They begin to prosper and the resources are controlled by what basically amounts to a syndicate of peoples within the community. However, what then happens is a central government arises and begins taxing the wealth that is either created or flows through that civilization. As the greed of the government for more taxation grows, the civilization itself must expand in order to accommodate that. In many cases, they outstripped the natural resources and so the civilization collapsed. It wasn’t an environmental disaster brought on by a normal market economy. It was one brought on by that central government whose voracious appetite for wealth caused it. Because if people didn’t pay taxes, they were punished.
Take our central government, for example. Let’s get back to that 1,000-pound bomb. Let’s assume that device costs $10,000. Now, think about the man-hours involved in laboring to provide the tax money to buy it. I daresay that this is the genuine reason behind the government desperation to create jobs. They need the tax revenue. It all revolves around the central government and collection of tax money. But think of all the resources being used to generate that tax money! And what is done with the 1,000-pound bomb? It is dropped on other human beings, where it blows up killing people and destroying private property. Not only that, but the collected wealth of the taxpayers is literally blown into smithereens. Can this be called sustainable?
We can sit there and talk about sustainability all day long. But history shows that the most obscene and profligate squandering of natural resources is perpetrated by central governments. Excuse me, but what private individual has a fleet of aircraft carriers and an air force with which he is wasting untold millions of gallons of aviation fuel each day in senseless “training missions”? These are not commercial flights to deliver passengers or freight. These are guys tooling around up there fighting an imaginary enemy the United States may or may not provoke into a war in the future. Can this be called sustainable?
Does it not come to pass that once a central government comes into existence in a society that has existed for centuries prior, the civilization created collapses soon afterward? Take the Anasazi, for example. From a collection of small agrarian tribes, they coalesced into a society with an identity. They then discovered a method by which to control the trade routes into and out of their region. The hypothesis is, a central government then arose which began taxing that wealth. Then a drought occurred and the civilization collapsed. Why? Because the central government could not exist on its own merits. It provided nothing, but could only exist by taking wealth that was no longer flowing. But what happened to the Anasazi? They returned from whence they came: Small agrarian tribes without a central government. It would appear they learned from that past mistake of creating a huge government. They discovered that central governments are not sustainable over time.
I haven’t got time or space to go into greater detail about this, but let me say this: We’re asking the wrong questions as a nation and, ergo, obtaining the wrong answers. Big government cannot solve the problems of our age and the future because they are the problem. Only these central governments can confiscate wealth from citizens, turn it into weapons, and then use those weapons to destroy life in other countries. All of these resources are literally going up in smoke. How can this be called sustainable? And how can this central government be looked to in order to solve these problems?
In truth, our central government is what needs to be consigned to the scrap heap. They cannot create peace because they start wars over ego-embellishing missions more akin to that of Roman emperors. Who, by the way, drove their civilization into the ground with their central government. They cannot create prosperity because they confiscate the prosperity of the people and turn it into weapons used against innocent people elsewhere. Therefore, our central government is not sustainable. It might not be a drought that causes the United States to collapse, although that is certainly possible. It might be that we provoke a war with a nation we cannot defeat or underestimate and lose that war. It might be another economic collapse or the realization our money is backed by electrons. But one thing is certain: This central government will collapse and sooner than anyone thinks.
Link:
http://patriotrising.com/2016/06/01/good-news-central-governments/
Gary Johnson is a fraud...
Libertarianism Is Not About Being "Fiscally Conservative and Socially Liberal"
By Robert Wenzel
The Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, has adopted the horrific mantra "Libertarianism is about being fiscally conservative and socially liberal."
Libertarianism is no such thing. Libertarianism is about "radical freedom from government."
"Fiscally conservative" in no way reflects the radicalness of the libertarian desire for freedom from government.
It is noteworthy to consider the Wikipedia entry for "fiscal conservative":
Fiscal conservatism is a political-economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility advocating low taxes, reduced government spending and minimal government debt.
This explanation of fiscal conservative is probably a good working explanation that reflects what people think about when hearing the term. Let's consider how far away this is from radical freedom from government.
Nowhere in the definition do we find what is meant by low taxes. I don't want to get into the debate, here, with regard to no-government libertarians and extremely limited government libertarians, but the term "fiscal conservative" in no way reflects the radical nature of what either such libertarian groups would consider "low taxes." I would suggest for starters an income tax rate of 1% is a low tax, where over time it could be cut down to more reasonable levels.
The idea of government debt is repulsive to a radical freedom lover. As a starting point in cutting government down to size, a true libertarian would call for the immediate default on all outstanding government debt and the prohibition of government ever issuing debt again.
Are any of these radical freedom positions reflected in the term "fiscal conservative"? Absolutely not, in fact, the term does nothing but suggest tweaking the system at the edges. To a true libertarian, it is calling for nothing but an aspirin taking regime in a battle against cancer.
As for the term "socially liberal." It is even more repulsive than "fiscal conservative."
Let us turn once again to Wikipedia to get a sense for how the term is generally viewed:
Social liberalism...is a political ideology that seeks to find a balance between individual liberty and social justice.
How horrific!
The great Nobel prize winner F.A. Hayek wrote in Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice:
It is not only by encouraging malevolent and harmful prejudices that the cult of 'social justice' tends to destroy genuine moral feelings. It also comes, particularly in its more egalitarian forms, into constant conflict with some of the basic moral principles on which any community of free men must rest. This becomes evident when we reflect that the demand that we should equally esteem all our fellow men is irreconcilable with the fact that our whole moral code rests on the approval or disapproval of the conduct of others; and that's similarly the traditional postulate that each capable adult is primarily responsible for his own and his dependents' welfare, meaning that he must not through his own fault become a charge to his friends or fellows, is incompatible with the idea that 'society' or government owes each person an appropriate income.
In this day and age, social liberal advocates also demand that all curtesy to certain "victim" groups, e.g. gays, transgenders and blacks.
This is why Johnson came down in favor of coercing bakers to bake cakes for gays. He, when all is said and done, is a social justice warrior.
This, of course, flies in the face of radical freedom. where in a world of radical freedom one would be free to love or hate gays, blacks, blondes or those wearing tattoos, to say, on one's own property (or where permitted by another property owner) anything pro or anti gays, blacks, blondes or those wearing tattoos . Or be free to permit or ban anyone, for any reason, from one's own property, including from diners, buses or hotels---and be allowed to serve on one's own property anyone one chooses to serve.
This is radical freedom. This is libertarianism.
Gary Johnson is a fraud when it comes to advocating true libertarianism. He must be used as a foil by true radical freedom lovers. He must be intellectually attacked mercilessly for his misleading characterization of libertarianism and exposed for the statist hugger that he is.
Liberty isn't at the root of the term libertarianism because it is a sometimes option. It is an always, and only, option within the framework of a private property society.
This is the message that must get out. Radical freedom forever!
Link:
http://www.targetliberty.com/2016/06/libertarianism-is-not-about-being.html
By Robert Wenzel
The Libertarian Party presidential candidate, Gary Johnson, has adopted the horrific mantra "Libertarianism is about being fiscally conservative and socially liberal."
Libertarianism is no such thing. Libertarianism is about "radical freedom from government."
"Fiscally conservative" in no way reflects the radicalness of the libertarian desire for freedom from government.
It is noteworthy to consider the Wikipedia entry for "fiscal conservative":
Fiscal conservatism is a political-economic philosophy regarding fiscal policy and fiscal responsibility advocating low taxes, reduced government spending and minimal government debt.
This explanation of fiscal conservative is probably a good working explanation that reflects what people think about when hearing the term. Let's consider how far away this is from radical freedom from government.
Nowhere in the definition do we find what is meant by low taxes. I don't want to get into the debate, here, with regard to no-government libertarians and extremely limited government libertarians, but the term "fiscal conservative" in no way reflects the radical nature of what either such libertarian groups would consider "low taxes." I would suggest for starters an income tax rate of 1% is a low tax, where over time it could be cut down to more reasonable levels.
The idea of government debt is repulsive to a radical freedom lover. As a starting point in cutting government down to size, a true libertarian would call for the immediate default on all outstanding government debt and the prohibition of government ever issuing debt again.
Are any of these radical freedom positions reflected in the term "fiscal conservative"? Absolutely not, in fact, the term does nothing but suggest tweaking the system at the edges. To a true libertarian, it is calling for nothing but an aspirin taking regime in a battle against cancer.
As for the term "socially liberal." It is even more repulsive than "fiscal conservative."
Let us turn once again to Wikipedia to get a sense for how the term is generally viewed:
Social liberalism...is a political ideology that seeks to find a balance between individual liberty and social justice.
How horrific!
The great Nobel prize winner F.A. Hayek wrote in Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2: The Mirage of Social Justice:
It is not only by encouraging malevolent and harmful prejudices that the cult of 'social justice' tends to destroy genuine moral feelings. It also comes, particularly in its more egalitarian forms, into constant conflict with some of the basic moral principles on which any community of free men must rest. This becomes evident when we reflect that the demand that we should equally esteem all our fellow men is irreconcilable with the fact that our whole moral code rests on the approval or disapproval of the conduct of others; and that's similarly the traditional postulate that each capable adult is primarily responsible for his own and his dependents' welfare, meaning that he must not through his own fault become a charge to his friends or fellows, is incompatible with the idea that 'society' or government owes each person an appropriate income.
In this day and age, social liberal advocates also demand that all curtesy to certain "victim" groups, e.g. gays, transgenders and blacks.
This is why Johnson came down in favor of coercing bakers to bake cakes for gays. He, when all is said and done, is a social justice warrior.
This, of course, flies in the face of radical freedom. where in a world of radical freedom one would be free to love or hate gays, blacks, blondes or those wearing tattoos, to say, on one's own property (or where permitted by another property owner) anything pro or anti gays, blacks, blondes or those wearing tattoos . Or be free to permit or ban anyone, for any reason, from one's own property, including from diners, buses or hotels---and be allowed to serve on one's own property anyone one chooses to serve.
This is radical freedom. This is libertarianism.
Gary Johnson is a fraud when it comes to advocating true libertarianism. He must be used as a foil by true radical freedom lovers. He must be intellectually attacked mercilessly for his misleading characterization of libertarianism and exposed for the statist hugger that he is.
Liberty isn't at the root of the term libertarianism because it is a sometimes option. It is an always, and only, option within the framework of a private property society.
This is the message that must get out. Radical freedom forever!
Link:
http://www.targetliberty.com/2016/06/libertarianism-is-not-about-being.html
The great socialist Utopia...
Feel the Bern/Pope Francis Utopia Update
Thomas DiLorenzo
Democratic socialist utopia Venezuela, according to the Los Angeles Times, has the following characteristics (for starters):
•Shuttered shops
•“Lines, lines, lines . . . queuing up for basics, from pasta to toilet paper.”
•“One of the planet’s great oil producers is now unable to pay for basic commodities, like the milk, flour and rice, which are mostly imported . . .”
•“The poor and working classes . . . are suffering most.” (Emphasis added). Pope Francis: Call your office!.
•“Authorities limit purchase of basic items — nearly 4.5 pounds of pasta and rice per customer for instance . . .”
•“People are assigned certain days to shop based on the numbers on their government-issued IDs.”
•“Rampant corruption . . .”
•“Venezuelans regularly structure their day around la cola, the line.”
•“[H]ardly any food, beyond crates of tinned sardines and canned tomatoes, plus some bins of moldy potatoes and onions” are in many stores.
•“[F]resh meat and seafood sections [of grocery stores] are shuttered.”
•“Images of [Hugo] Chavez . . . adorn [grocery] stores’ walls . . .”
•“To buy . . . diapers [one Maigualida Perez] had to produce her son’s birth certificate, a government anti-hording requirement enforced at stores.”
•“I can’t find diapers, milk or sugar” in the stores, said one Andreina Escalante.
•Not surprisingly: “The shortages have eroded support for the socialist government . . .” (Emphasis added).
A little too late for that, one would think. Still no word in this from the pope, whose smile was as wide as the Grand Canyon when he had his picture taken with Fidel Castro a while back. If he does mention it, he’ll probably blame it all on too many “pockets of capitalism” in Venezuela.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/feel-bernpope-francis-utopia-update/
Thomas DiLorenzo
Democratic socialist utopia Venezuela, according to the Los Angeles Times, has the following characteristics (for starters):
•Shuttered shops
•“Lines, lines, lines . . . queuing up for basics, from pasta to toilet paper.”
•“One of the planet’s great oil producers is now unable to pay for basic commodities, like the milk, flour and rice, which are mostly imported . . .”
•“The poor and working classes . . . are suffering most.” (Emphasis added). Pope Francis: Call your office!.
•“Authorities limit purchase of basic items — nearly 4.5 pounds of pasta and rice per customer for instance . . .”
•“People are assigned certain days to shop based on the numbers on their government-issued IDs.”
•“Rampant corruption . . .”
•“Venezuelans regularly structure their day around la cola, the line.”
•“[H]ardly any food, beyond crates of tinned sardines and canned tomatoes, plus some bins of moldy potatoes and onions” are in many stores.
•“[F]resh meat and seafood sections [of grocery stores] are shuttered.”
•“Images of [Hugo] Chavez . . . adorn [grocery] stores’ walls . . .”
•“To buy . . . diapers [one Maigualida Perez] had to produce her son’s birth certificate, a government anti-hording requirement enforced at stores.”
•“I can’t find diapers, milk or sugar” in the stores, said one Andreina Escalante.
•Not surprisingly: “The shortages have eroded support for the socialist government . . .” (Emphasis added).
A little too late for that, one would think. Still no word in this from the pope, whose smile was as wide as the Grand Canyon when he had his picture taken with Fidel Castro a while back. If he does mention it, he’ll probably blame it all on too many “pockets of capitalism” in Venezuela.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/feel-bernpope-francis-utopia-update/
"You can cast your ballot for one of the many slogan-spouting politicians who are long on lies and short on loyalty to their constituents. At the end of the day, these people work for the government and their primary purpose is to remain in office, living the kind of rarefied, pampered, privileged life that the average American only gets to dream about."
Congress’ Treachery, the FBI’s Double-Crossing and the American Citizenry’s Cluelessness: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?
By John W. Whitehead
“The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.” — Admiral Ben Moreell (1892 – 1978), chief of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks and of the Civil Engineer Corps
As the grandfather of three young ones, ages 5 to 9, I get to see my fair share of kid movies: plenty of hijinks, lots of bathroom humor, and an endless stream of slapstick gags. Yet even among the worst of the lot, there’s something to be learned, some message being conveyed or some aspect of our reality being reflected in celluloid.
So it was that I found myself sitting through The Angry Birds Movie on a recent Sunday afternoon, doling out popcorn, candy and drinks and trying to make sense of a 90-minute movie based on a cell phone video game that has been downloaded more than 3 billion times.
The storyline is simple enough: an island nation of well-meaning, feel-good, flightless birds gets seduced by a charismatic green pig and his cohort who comes bearing food, wine and entertainment spectacles (the Roman equivalent of bread circuses). Ignoring the warnings of one solitary, suspicious “angry” bird that the pigs are up to no good, the clueless birds eventually discover that the pigs have stolen their most precious possessions: their eggs, the future of their entire society. It takes the “angry bird” to motivate the normally unflappable Bird Nation to get outraged enough to do something about the violation of their trust by the pigs and the theft of their personal property.
While one would be hard-pressed to call The Angry Birds Movie overly insightful, it is, as The Atlantic concludes, a “feather-light metaphor for our times… The film functions, effectively, as a fairy tale: It uses its status as fantasy to impart lessons about reality.”
It turns out that we’re no different from the wine-guzzling, food-noshing, party-loving Bird Nation. We too are easily fooled by charismatic politicians bearing gifts. And we too are easily distracted as those same politicians and their cohorts rob us blind.
Case in point: while Barack Obama winds down his presidency with a flurry of celebrity-studded events that is causing the media to hail him as the “coolest” president, and the presidential candidates continue to distract us with spectacular feats of chest-thumping, browbeating, and demagoguery, the police state continues its steady march onward.
All of the revelations of government wrongdoing, spying and corruption disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Nothing has improved or changed for the better.
There has been no real reform, no significant attempts at greater transparency, no accountability, no scaling back of the government’s warrantless, illegal domestic surveillance programs, and no recognition by Congress or the courts that the Fourth Amendment provides citizens with any protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents.
In fact, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’ve been subject to even more obfuscation, even more lies, even more sleight-of-hand maneuvers by government agencies determined to keep doing what they’re doing without any restrictions on their nefarious activities, and even more attempts by government agencies to listen to our phone calls, read our emails and text messages, monitor our movements, and generally imprison us within an electronic concentration camp.
Writing for the New Yorker, investigative reporter Maria Bustillos concludes, “the machinery of our government seems to have taken on an irrational life of its own. We live in a surreal world in which a ‘transparent’ government insists on the need for secret courts; our President prosecutes whistle-blowers and maintains a secret ‘kill list’; and private information is collected in secret and stored indefinitely by intelligence agencies.”
It’s no coincidence that almost exactly three years after Snowden began his steady campaign to leak documents about the government’s illegal surveillance program, Congress is preparing to adopt legislation containing a secret provision that would expand the FBI’s powers to secretly read Americans’ emails without a court order.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The government is planning to push through secret legislation that would magnify its ability to secretly spy on us without a warrant.
After three years of lying to us about the real nature of the government’s spying program, feigning ignorance, dissembling, and playing at enacting real reforms, it turns out that what the government really wants is more power, more control, and more surveillance.
A secret provision tacked onto the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act will actually make it easier for the government to spy on Americans’ emails as well as their phone calls.
If enacted, this law would build upon the Patriot Act’s authorization of National Security Letters (NSL) which allows the FBI to secretly demand—without prior approval from a judge and under a gag order that carries the penalty of a prison sentence—that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands to the person being investigated or even indicate that they have been subjected to an NSL.
As Reuters reports, federal agencies do not need a warrant to access emails or other digital communications more than 180 days old due to a provision in a 1986 law that considers them abandoned by the owner. However, legislative efforts to require government authorities to obtain a search warrant before accessing old emails have been turned on their head by the insertion of this secret provision giving the FBI carte blanche access to Americans’ emails.
As if the FBI didn’t have enough corrupt tools in its bag of tricks already.
NSLs—in existence since the 1970s—empower FBI operatives to delve into Americans’ most personal affairs based only on the say-so of an agency that has come to be known as America’s Gestapo, or secret police. Incredibly, all the FBI needs to assert in order to justify such a search is that the information sought is relevant to a national-security investigation.
Nicholas Merrill can tell you all about NSLs. The head of a web-hosting company, he challenged the FBI’s unwarranted request for information on one of his customers and its companion gag order. Only after the FBI withdrew its request and a subsequent court-ordered lifting of the gag order was Merrill able to share his experiences. As Merrill recounts:
It was not a warrant. It was not stamped or signed by a court or a judge. It was this letter demanding this information from me. And it also told me that I could never tell anyone that I had gotten the letter. It said that I could tell ‘no person.’ The amount of information that the government can get with one of these letters can paint an incredibly vivid picture of all aspects of a person’s life — from the professional, to the personal, to the political, to their religious beliefs, to invading the privacy of their marriage, to being able to figure out what their sexual preference is. The amount of information that comes out of a national security letter is just so invasive. The fact that the government has been treating it so casually, and essentially going out on mass fishing expeditions and gathering the data of potentially millions of Americans without any suspicion of wrongdoing is very upsetting to me as someone who was raised on ideas about American exceptionalism and the belief that our system of government — with its built-in checks and balances and safeguards against abuse — were what made our country different from other countries.
Clandestine requests. Broad powers. Minimal insight. Intimidation tactics.
That’s how the FBI’s use of NSLs are described, but it can easily be applied to the government-at-large and its voracious quest for ever-greater powers without any real accountability to the citizenry or any adherence to the rule of law.
It’s estimated that the FBI issues approximately 40,000 to 60,000 such NSLs per year and that number is growing.
In 2008, the Justice Department’s inspector general revealed that the FBI had been abusing its NSL authority by making improper requests, collecting more data than they were allowed to, not having proper authorization to proceed with a case, and attempting to sidestep the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret court charged with overseeing the government’s secret surveillance program. In one case, after having its search request denied by the FISA Court on the basis that “the ‘facts’ were too thin” and the “request implicated the target’s First Amendment rights,” the FBI used its NSL power to carry out its surveillance.
Even after being called on the carpet for abusing its information-gathering powers, the FBI continued to flout the very laws put in place to keep government abuses in check.
Incredibly, Barack Obama criticized President Bush for his administration’s mass government surveillance programs only to fully embrace them once he himself had attained the White House. Indeed, the Obama administration has been lobbying for years to expand the FBI’s use of NSLs to include emails.
Now, here we are, eight years later, and we’re still being treated like the gullible birds in The Angry Birds Movie, easily pacified with bread, easily distracted by circuses, and easily robbed of our most precious possessions—our freedoms, our privacy and our right to have a government that abides by the rule of law and answers to us.
There are many ways of reacting to this latest news about the government’s treachery.
You can subscribe to the simplistic, head-in-the-sand routine and do as one of my so-called Facebook “friends” suggests and just obey the law, hoping that it will keep you out of the government’s clutches, but that’s no guarantee of safe passage. Of course, that will mean knowing the law—federal, state and local—in all of its convoluted, massive, growing permutations, understanding that overcriminalization has resulted in the average person unknowingly committing three crimes a day. As author Harvey Silvergate points out, even the most honest and informed citizen “cannot predict with any reasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinary activities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies.” For instance, you could be charged criminally for receiving an odd package, taking a fake sick day, reporting on government wrongdoing based on an anonymous source, or creating a website for a religious charity.
You can insist that such concessions to security are making us safer, even though facts suggest otherwise.Barring a few notable exceptions, the politicians are singing the same tune: security at any cost. The NSL provision sailed past the 15-member Senate Intelligence Committee with only Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) dissenting. In a joint statement that underscores the ease with which the Republicans and Democrats work together in order to sell us out, Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice-Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) declared the expanded powers necessary to “keep America safe” and “vital” in order to “provide intelligence agencies with all the resources they need to prevent attacks both at home and abroad.”
This whole line of reasoning, as Nicholas Merrill explains, is hogwash. As he points out, the terrorist attacks in Paris were carried out by individuals “communicating without the use of any type of security or encryption. They were speaking in Facebook groups and using regular text messaging on their phones, without taking any steps to cover their tracks or make it harder to listen in on what they were doing. To me this proves that the whole dragnet surveillance system that we’ve built is actually useless, because it didn’t help us at all to prevent that type of attack.”
In other words, government spying isn’t making us safer, but it is making us less free. “In the end, we’ve lost part of our freedom that maybe we’ll never get back. We’ve lost some part of what makes our system great, but in the end, we’ve not really gained the security we thought we would get in the tradeoff for the freedom that we’ve given up.”
You can cast your ballot for one of the many slogan-spouting politicians who are long on lies and short on loyalty to their constituents. At the end of the day, these people work for the government and their primary purpose is to remain in office, living the kind of rarefied, pampered, privileged life that the average American only gets to dream about. Every one of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who voted for this legislation is a traitor to their oath of office and should be booted off that committee. What’s more, any member of Congress who votes for this legislation should be sent packing back to where they came from. As Brewster Kahle, another recipient of an NSL who successfully challenged the government’s gag order, reminds us, “The government is not one monolithic thing. It’s a bunch of people, thinking they’re doing their jobs.” It’s our job to make them toe the line when their thinking goes awry.
Or you can stop drinking the happy juice, stop believing the politicians’ lies, stop being so gallingly gullible and out to lunch, and start getting angry. In our politically correct, feel-good, play nice culture, anger has gotten a bad rap, but there’s something to be said for righteous anger acted upon in a nonviolent, effective fashion. It’s what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “military nonviolent resistance.” It means caring enough to get off your caboose, get on your feet and get actively involved in holding government officials accountable to the simple fact that they work for “we the people.”
It’s not an easy undertaking.
The government has been playing fast and loose with the rules for too long now, and its greed for power and riches is boundless.
Still we are not powerless, although the government’s powers grow daily. We have not yet been altogether muzzled, although the acts of censorship increase daily. And we have not yet lost all hope for restoring our republic, although the outlook appears bleaker by the day.
For the moment, we still have some small allotment of freedoms by which we can express our displeasure, push back against injustice and corruption, and resist tyranny. One Texas man, outraged at being fined $212 for driving 39 in a 30 mph zone, chose to pay his fine with 22,000 pennies. It was a small act of disdain in the face of a government machine that tolerates little resistance, but it was acts such as these that sowed the early seeds of resistance that birthed this nation.
As revolutionary patriot, Samuel Adams observed, “It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/john-w-whitehead/congressional-treachery-fbis-double-cross/
By John W. Whitehead
“The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.” — Admiral Ben Moreell (1892 – 1978), chief of the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks and of the Civil Engineer Corps
As the grandfather of three young ones, ages 5 to 9, I get to see my fair share of kid movies: plenty of hijinks, lots of bathroom humor, and an endless stream of slapstick gags. Yet even among the worst of the lot, there’s something to be learned, some message being conveyed or some aspect of our reality being reflected in celluloid.
So it was that I found myself sitting through The Angry Birds Movie on a recent Sunday afternoon, doling out popcorn, candy and drinks and trying to make sense of a 90-minute movie based on a cell phone video game that has been downloaded more than 3 billion times.
The storyline is simple enough: an island nation of well-meaning, feel-good, flightless birds gets seduced by a charismatic green pig and his cohort who comes bearing food, wine and entertainment spectacles (the Roman equivalent of bread circuses). Ignoring the warnings of one solitary, suspicious “angry” bird that the pigs are up to no good, the clueless birds eventually discover that the pigs have stolen their most precious possessions: their eggs, the future of their entire society. It takes the “angry bird” to motivate the normally unflappable Bird Nation to get outraged enough to do something about the violation of their trust by the pigs and the theft of their personal property.
While one would be hard-pressed to call The Angry Birds Movie overly insightful, it is, as The Atlantic concludes, a “feather-light metaphor for our times… The film functions, effectively, as a fairy tale: It uses its status as fantasy to impart lessons about reality.”
It turns out that we’re no different from the wine-guzzling, food-noshing, party-loving Bird Nation. We too are easily fooled by charismatic politicians bearing gifts. And we too are easily distracted as those same politicians and their cohorts rob us blind.
Case in point: while Barack Obama winds down his presidency with a flurry of celebrity-studded events that is causing the media to hail him as the “coolest” president, and the presidential candidates continue to distract us with spectacular feats of chest-thumping, browbeating, and demagoguery, the police state continues its steady march onward.
All of the revelations of government wrongdoing, spying and corruption disclosed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden seem to have fallen on deaf ears.
Nothing has improved or changed for the better.
There has been no real reform, no significant attempts at greater transparency, no accountability, no scaling back of the government’s warrantless, illegal domestic surveillance programs, and no recognition by Congress or the courts that the Fourth Amendment provides citizens with any protection against unreasonable searches and seizures by government agents.
In fact, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we’ve been subject to even more obfuscation, even more lies, even more sleight-of-hand maneuvers by government agencies determined to keep doing what they’re doing without any restrictions on their nefarious activities, and even more attempts by government agencies to listen to our phone calls, read our emails and text messages, monitor our movements, and generally imprison us within an electronic concentration camp.
Writing for the New Yorker, investigative reporter Maria Bustillos concludes, “the machinery of our government seems to have taken on an irrational life of its own. We live in a surreal world in which a ‘transparent’ government insists on the need for secret courts; our President prosecutes whistle-blowers and maintains a secret ‘kill list’; and private information is collected in secret and stored indefinitely by intelligence agencies.”
It’s no coincidence that almost exactly three years after Snowden began his steady campaign to leak documents about the government’s illegal surveillance program, Congress is preparing to adopt legislation containing a secret provision that would expand the FBI’s powers to secretly read Americans’ emails without a court order.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The government is planning to push through secret legislation that would magnify its ability to secretly spy on us without a warrant.
After three years of lying to us about the real nature of the government’s spying program, feigning ignorance, dissembling, and playing at enacting real reforms, it turns out that what the government really wants is more power, more control, and more surveillance.
A secret provision tacked onto the 2017 Intelligence Authorization Act will actually make it easier for the government to spy on Americans’ emails as well as their phone calls.
If enacted, this law would build upon the Patriot Act’s authorization of National Security Letters (NSL) which allows the FBI to secretly demand—without prior approval from a judge and under a gag order that carries the penalty of a prison sentence—that banks, phone companies, and other businesses provide them with customer information and not disclose the demands to the person being investigated or even indicate that they have been subjected to an NSL.
As Reuters reports, federal agencies do not need a warrant to access emails or other digital communications more than 180 days old due to a provision in a 1986 law that considers them abandoned by the owner. However, legislative efforts to require government authorities to obtain a search warrant before accessing old emails have been turned on their head by the insertion of this secret provision giving the FBI carte blanche access to Americans’ emails.
As if the FBI didn’t have enough corrupt tools in its bag of tricks already.
NSLs—in existence since the 1970s—empower FBI operatives to delve into Americans’ most personal affairs based only on the say-so of an agency that has come to be known as America’s Gestapo, or secret police. Incredibly, all the FBI needs to assert in order to justify such a search is that the information sought is relevant to a national-security investigation.
Nicholas Merrill can tell you all about NSLs. The head of a web-hosting company, he challenged the FBI’s unwarranted request for information on one of his customers and its companion gag order. Only after the FBI withdrew its request and a subsequent court-ordered lifting of the gag order was Merrill able to share his experiences. As Merrill recounts:
It was not a warrant. It was not stamped or signed by a court or a judge. It was this letter demanding this information from me. And it also told me that I could never tell anyone that I had gotten the letter. It said that I could tell ‘no person.’ The amount of information that the government can get with one of these letters can paint an incredibly vivid picture of all aspects of a person’s life — from the professional, to the personal, to the political, to their religious beliefs, to invading the privacy of their marriage, to being able to figure out what their sexual preference is. The amount of information that comes out of a national security letter is just so invasive. The fact that the government has been treating it so casually, and essentially going out on mass fishing expeditions and gathering the data of potentially millions of Americans without any suspicion of wrongdoing is very upsetting to me as someone who was raised on ideas about American exceptionalism and the belief that our system of government — with its built-in checks and balances and safeguards against abuse — were what made our country different from other countries.
Clandestine requests. Broad powers. Minimal insight. Intimidation tactics.
That’s how the FBI’s use of NSLs are described, but it can easily be applied to the government-at-large and its voracious quest for ever-greater powers without any real accountability to the citizenry or any adherence to the rule of law.
It’s estimated that the FBI issues approximately 40,000 to 60,000 such NSLs per year and that number is growing.
In 2008, the Justice Department’s inspector general revealed that the FBI had been abusing its NSL authority by making improper requests, collecting more data than they were allowed to, not having proper authorization to proceed with a case, and attempting to sidestep the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the secret court charged with overseeing the government’s secret surveillance program. In one case, after having its search request denied by the FISA Court on the basis that “the ‘facts’ were too thin” and the “request implicated the target’s First Amendment rights,” the FBI used its NSL power to carry out its surveillance.
Even after being called on the carpet for abusing its information-gathering powers, the FBI continued to flout the very laws put in place to keep government abuses in check.
Incredibly, Barack Obama criticized President Bush for his administration’s mass government surveillance programs only to fully embrace them once he himself had attained the White House. Indeed, the Obama administration has been lobbying for years to expand the FBI’s use of NSLs to include emails.
Now, here we are, eight years later, and we’re still being treated like the gullible birds in The Angry Birds Movie, easily pacified with bread, easily distracted by circuses, and easily robbed of our most precious possessions—our freedoms, our privacy and our right to have a government that abides by the rule of law and answers to us.
There are many ways of reacting to this latest news about the government’s treachery.
You can subscribe to the simplistic, head-in-the-sand routine and do as one of my so-called Facebook “friends” suggests and just obey the law, hoping that it will keep you out of the government’s clutches, but that’s no guarantee of safe passage. Of course, that will mean knowing the law—federal, state and local—in all of its convoluted, massive, growing permutations, understanding that overcriminalization has resulted in the average person unknowingly committing three crimes a day. As author Harvey Silvergate points out, even the most honest and informed citizen “cannot predict with any reasonable assurance whether a wide range of seemingly ordinary activities might be regarded by federal prosecutors as felonies.” For instance, you could be charged criminally for receiving an odd package, taking a fake sick day, reporting on government wrongdoing based on an anonymous source, or creating a website for a religious charity.
You can insist that such concessions to security are making us safer, even though facts suggest otherwise.Barring a few notable exceptions, the politicians are singing the same tune: security at any cost. The NSL provision sailed past the 15-member Senate Intelligence Committee with only Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) dissenting. In a joint statement that underscores the ease with which the Republicans and Democrats work together in order to sell us out, Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) and Vice-Chairman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) declared the expanded powers necessary to “keep America safe” and “vital” in order to “provide intelligence agencies with all the resources they need to prevent attacks both at home and abroad.”
This whole line of reasoning, as Nicholas Merrill explains, is hogwash. As he points out, the terrorist attacks in Paris were carried out by individuals “communicating without the use of any type of security or encryption. They were speaking in Facebook groups and using regular text messaging on their phones, without taking any steps to cover their tracks or make it harder to listen in on what they were doing. To me this proves that the whole dragnet surveillance system that we’ve built is actually useless, because it didn’t help us at all to prevent that type of attack.”
In other words, government spying isn’t making us safer, but it is making us less free. “In the end, we’ve lost part of our freedom that maybe we’ll never get back. We’ve lost some part of what makes our system great, but in the end, we’ve not really gained the security we thought we would get in the tradeoff for the freedom that we’ve given up.”
You can cast your ballot for one of the many slogan-spouting politicians who are long on lies and short on loyalty to their constituents. At the end of the day, these people work for the government and their primary purpose is to remain in office, living the kind of rarefied, pampered, privileged life that the average American only gets to dream about. Every one of the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee who voted for this legislation is a traitor to their oath of office and should be booted off that committee. What’s more, any member of Congress who votes for this legislation should be sent packing back to where they came from. As Brewster Kahle, another recipient of an NSL who successfully challenged the government’s gag order, reminds us, “The government is not one monolithic thing. It’s a bunch of people, thinking they’re doing their jobs.” It’s our job to make them toe the line when their thinking goes awry.
Or you can stop drinking the happy juice, stop believing the politicians’ lies, stop being so gallingly gullible and out to lunch, and start getting angry. In our politically correct, feel-good, play nice culture, anger has gotten a bad rap, but there’s something to be said for righteous anger acted upon in a nonviolent, effective fashion. It’s what Martin Luther King Jr. referred to as “military nonviolent resistance.” It means caring enough to get off your caboose, get on your feet and get actively involved in holding government officials accountable to the simple fact that they work for “we the people.”
It’s not an easy undertaking.
The government has been playing fast and loose with the rules for too long now, and its greed for power and riches is boundless.
Still we are not powerless, although the government’s powers grow daily. We have not yet been altogether muzzled, although the acts of censorship increase daily. And we have not yet lost all hope for restoring our republic, although the outlook appears bleaker by the day.
For the moment, we still have some small allotment of freedoms by which we can express our displeasure, push back against injustice and corruption, and resist tyranny. One Texas man, outraged at being fined $212 for driving 39 in a 30 mph zone, chose to pay his fine with 22,000 pennies. It was a small act of disdain in the face of a government machine that tolerates little resistance, but it was acts such as these that sowed the early seeds of resistance that birthed this nation.
As revolutionary patriot, Samuel Adams observed, “It does not take a majority to prevail… but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/john-w-whitehead/congressional-treachery-fbis-double-cross/
We're from the government...
Government Can’t Help; It Can Only Hurt
By Ron Paul
Three recent stories regarding three government agencies — the IRS, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — show why we should oppose big government for practical, as well as philosophical, reasons.
In recent months, many Americans have missed their flights because of longer-than-usual TSA security lines. In typical DC fashion, the TSA claims the delays are because of budget cuts, even though Congress regularly increases the TSA’s funding!
The TSA is also blaming the delays on the fact that few Americans have signed up for its “PreCheck” program. Under PreCheck, the TSA considers excusing some Americans from some of the screening processes. Those who wish to be considered must first submit personal information to the TSA and pay a fee. Only a bureaucrat would think Americans would be eager to give the TSA more information and money on the chance that they may be approved for PreCheck.
The TSA is much better at harassing airline passengers than at providing security. TSA agents regularly fail to catch weapons hidden by federal agents testing the screening process. Sadly, Congress will likely reward the TSA’s failures with continued funding increases. Rewarding the TSA’s incompetence shouldn’t surprise us since the TSA owes its existence to the failure of the government to protect airline passengers on 9/11.
If Congress truly wanted to protect airline passengers, it would shut down the TSA and let airlines determine how best to protect their passengers. Private businesses have a greater incentive than government bureaucrats to protect their customers and their property without stripping their customers of their dignity.
The head of the VA also made headlines last week when he said it is unfair to judge the VA by how long veterans have to wait for medical care since no one judges Disney World by how long people have to wait in line. Perhaps he is unaware that no one has ever died because he waited too long to go on an amusement park ride.
For years, socialized medicine supporters pointed to the VA as proof that a government bureaucracy could deliver quality health care. The stories of veterans being denied care or receiving substandard care demolish those claims.
If Congress truly wanted to ensure that veterans receive quality health care, it would stop forcing veterans to seek health care from a federal bureaucracy. Instead, the government would give veterans health-care vouchers or health savings accounts and allow them to manage their own health care. Congress should also dramatically reduce the costs of providing veterans care by ending our militaristic foreign policy.
Another story last week highlights the one thing government does do well: violate our rights. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on impeaching IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over his role in the IRS’s persecution of conservative organizations.
Those who value liberty and the constitutional government should support impeaching Koskinen. However, truly protecting Americans from IRS tyranny requires eliminating the income tax. Despite the claims of some, a flat tax system would still require a federal bureaucracy to ensure Americans are accurately reporting their income. Since the income tax is one of the foundations of the welfare-warfare state, it is folly to think we can eliminate the income tax without first dramatically reducing the size and scope of government.
The TSA, VA, and IRS are just three examples of how government cannot effectively provide any good or service except authoritarianism. Individuals acting in the free market are more than capable of providing for their own needs, including the need to protect themselves, their families, and their property if the government gets out of the way.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/ron-paul/get-rid-irs-tsa-va/
By Ron Paul
Three recent stories regarding three government agencies — the IRS, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — show why we should oppose big government for practical, as well as philosophical, reasons.
In recent months, many Americans have missed their flights because of longer-than-usual TSA security lines. In typical DC fashion, the TSA claims the delays are because of budget cuts, even though Congress regularly increases the TSA’s funding!
The TSA is also blaming the delays on the fact that few Americans have signed up for its “PreCheck” program. Under PreCheck, the TSA considers excusing some Americans from some of the screening processes. Those who wish to be considered must first submit personal information to the TSA and pay a fee. Only a bureaucrat would think Americans would be eager to give the TSA more information and money on the chance that they may be approved for PreCheck.
The TSA is much better at harassing airline passengers than at providing security. TSA agents regularly fail to catch weapons hidden by federal agents testing the screening process. Sadly, Congress will likely reward the TSA’s failures with continued funding increases. Rewarding the TSA’s incompetence shouldn’t surprise us since the TSA owes its existence to the failure of the government to protect airline passengers on 9/11.
If Congress truly wanted to protect airline passengers, it would shut down the TSA and let airlines determine how best to protect their passengers. Private businesses have a greater incentive than government bureaucrats to protect their customers and their property without stripping their customers of their dignity.
The head of the VA also made headlines last week when he said it is unfair to judge the VA by how long veterans have to wait for medical care since no one judges Disney World by how long people have to wait in line. Perhaps he is unaware that no one has ever died because he waited too long to go on an amusement park ride.
For years, socialized medicine supporters pointed to the VA as proof that a government bureaucracy could deliver quality health care. The stories of veterans being denied care or receiving substandard care demolish those claims.
If Congress truly wanted to ensure that veterans receive quality health care, it would stop forcing veterans to seek health care from a federal bureaucracy. Instead, the government would give veterans health-care vouchers or health savings accounts and allow them to manage their own health care. Congress should also dramatically reduce the costs of providing veterans care by ending our militaristic foreign policy.
Another story last week highlights the one thing government does do well: violate our rights. The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on impeaching IRS Commissioner John Koskinen over his role in the IRS’s persecution of conservative organizations.
Those who value liberty and the constitutional government should support impeaching Koskinen. However, truly protecting Americans from IRS tyranny requires eliminating the income tax. Despite the claims of some, a flat tax system would still require a federal bureaucracy to ensure Americans are accurately reporting their income. Since the income tax is one of the foundations of the welfare-warfare state, it is folly to think we can eliminate the income tax without first dramatically reducing the size and scope of government.
The TSA, VA, and IRS are just three examples of how government cannot effectively provide any good or service except authoritarianism. Individuals acting in the free market are more than capable of providing for their own needs, including the need to protect themselves, their families, and their property if the government gets out of the way.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/ron-paul/get-rid-irs-tsa-va/
Wednesday, June 1, 2016
"Not so long ago public education was approached with elements of Ancient Greece and the penchant for questioning all things. Today, public education has become a fascist institution where the teacher is seen as an oracle not to be challenged."
Book-banning Greens bent on programming school-age children
by John Myers
Welcome to the Brave New World. As in the novel by Aldous Huxley, we live in a time where even children are targeted with propaganda.
Yet another example of this occurred last month in Portland, Oregon when a resolution was introduced by school board superintendent Mike Rosen. Rosen wants to ban from all public schools any material that questions the veracity of man-made global warming.
You might think that some of the students would object. To the contrary, at least some students have embraced removing materials that question the truth of global climate change; the same climate change that is discredited by some of the world’s top climatologists who have since stood up to criticism from the zealous Greens who carry themselves much like a fanatic religion.
“It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux said during board testimony last week. In her wisdom she added that “climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.”
It is as though Gaby fears she might come across materials that would challenge her beliefs, which is an indication to me that this student and perhaps millions more have made up their minds on climate change.
Not so long ago public education was approached with elements of Ancient Greece and the penchant for questioning all things. Today, public education has become a fascist institution where the teacher is seen as an oracle not to be challenged.
I find this troubling because I have known a lot of teachers over the years and they typically do not have exceptional intelligence, but they are certainly sticklers for rules.
Quite an education
I was called into my son’s principal’s office. Her complaint was that my eldest had openly questioned the use of atomic weapons on Japan. She said that the use of them was in the curriculum. As I was leaving I told her that I thought it was good for children to question things.
I urge you to watch a documentary that questions man’s impact on climate. It is titled, “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” by Martin Durkin and is available for free.
Top scientists in it cast doubt on carbon being the primary cause of global warming. Among many of the scientific facts is that carbon makes up less than 1 percent of the elements in the atmosphere. It is argued by top climatologists that this is too minuscule an amount of carbon in the life cycle to cause warming. The truth is, volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans, as do animals. But the largest amount of carbon comes from the ocean.
The history of temperature change is an interesting study. From 1940 until 1975, when industry was spewing carbon, the earth’s temperature actually fell.
Further studies show tremendous variations in temperatures of the earth’s surface over time. As the Dark Ages came to a close a millennium ago, ice core samples show that the earth’s surface temperature increased significantly. This was the age of building great cathedrals in northern climates, and some archeologists speculate this was aided by the particularly warm temperatures of that period. But the heat did not last and Europe was faced with the Little Ice Age, a period so cold that the Thames River in London froze over.
As you can see extreme climate change happens without any actions by man. Studies have shown that the earth’s temperature lags sea temperatures by decades. Thus, the prime driver in the earth’s temperatures is the oceans which absorb very little surface CO2 but are heated by the sun. Sun spot activity and thus solar radiation has been correlated with the earth’s temperatures.
While you can’t build a case of political and economic gain based on the sun, you can make a bundle of money and win political advances by blaming industries. When Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election he had a net worth of $1 million dollars. In 2015 he was reported to have a net worth of $300 million.
The political left is using climate change as propaganda and will not tolerate doubters. Fortunes change hands and money flows to unscrupulous scientists and politicians, some with little or no background in climatology. It doesn’t matter the notion of man-made climate change is all one big lie. It serves its purpose enriching the elite and entrenching the leftists.
Certainly President Barack Obama does not have the consensus for man-made warming that he claims. He tweeted that 97 percent of scientists believe that man-made CO2 is warming the climate.
Skeptical Science reported less than half of published scientists endorse man-caused global warming. Klaus-Martin Schulte examined all papers published from 2004 to 2007. Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38, or 7 percent, gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. Thirty-two papers, or 6 percent, reject the consensus outright. Forty-eight are neutral on the subject, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. Just one published paper made any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
Admittedly, the review is dated, but there has been no breakthrough in climatology studies over the past decade so I doubt many minds in the scientific community have been changed.
Global warming was first swallowed up by the peaceniks that who longer had a cause after the Berlin Wall fell. They then moved on as opportunists who saw the personal gain in preaching global warming.
The 21st century inquisition
If you are a scientist who questions man-made global warming, it’s not the principal’s office you will be sent to but the Department of Justice (DOJ) for investigation.
Last Wednesday, five Republican Senators sent a letter to the DOJ arguing that efforts to prosecute climate-change skeptics constitute a “blatant violation of the First Amendment and an abuse of power that rises to the level of prosecutorial misconduct.”
Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders thought he needed to clear the air with a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed by Sanders and three Democratic Senators. The gist of the letter was for the DOJ to keep probing non-believers.
This reads like an episode of “The X-Files” and makes me wonder if there is not a conspiracy to cripple oil and gas producers by using a false ideology.
In time the federal government will have cradle-to-grave oversight on Americans’ use of energy. And who would rebuke it? After all, what can be more important than saving the planet for our children and grandchildren?
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/book-banning-greens-bent-programming-school-age-children/
by John Myers
Welcome to the Brave New World. As in the novel by Aldous Huxley, we live in a time where even children are targeted with propaganda.
Yet another example of this occurred last month in Portland, Oregon when a resolution was introduced by school board superintendent Mike Rosen. Rosen wants to ban from all public schools any material that questions the veracity of man-made global warming.
You might think that some of the students would object. To the contrary, at least some students have embraced removing materials that question the truth of global climate change; the same climate change that is discredited by some of the world’s top climatologists who have since stood up to criticism from the zealous Greens who carry themselves much like a fanatic religion.
“It is unacceptable that we have textbooks in our schools that spread doubt about the human causes and urgency of the crisis,” Lincoln High School student Gaby Lemieux said during board testimony last week. In her wisdom she added that “climate education is not a niche or a specialization, it is the minimum requirement for my generation to be successful in our changing world.”
It is as though Gaby fears she might come across materials that would challenge her beliefs, which is an indication to me that this student and perhaps millions more have made up their minds on climate change.
Not so long ago public education was approached with elements of Ancient Greece and the penchant for questioning all things. Today, public education has become a fascist institution where the teacher is seen as an oracle not to be challenged.
I find this troubling because I have known a lot of teachers over the years and they typically do not have exceptional intelligence, but they are certainly sticklers for rules.
Quite an education
I was called into my son’s principal’s office. Her complaint was that my eldest had openly questioned the use of atomic weapons on Japan. She said that the use of them was in the curriculum. As I was leaving I told her that I thought it was good for children to question things.
I urge you to watch a documentary that questions man’s impact on climate. It is titled, “The Great Global Warming Swindle,” by Martin Durkin and is available for free.
Top scientists in it cast doubt on carbon being the primary cause of global warming. Among many of the scientific facts is that carbon makes up less than 1 percent of the elements in the atmosphere. It is argued by top climatologists that this is too minuscule an amount of carbon in the life cycle to cause warming. The truth is, volcanoes produce more CO2 than humans, as do animals. But the largest amount of carbon comes from the ocean.
The history of temperature change is an interesting study. From 1940 until 1975, when industry was spewing carbon, the earth’s temperature actually fell.
Further studies show tremendous variations in temperatures of the earth’s surface over time. As the Dark Ages came to a close a millennium ago, ice core samples show that the earth’s surface temperature increased significantly. This was the age of building great cathedrals in northern climates, and some archeologists speculate this was aided by the particularly warm temperatures of that period. But the heat did not last and Europe was faced with the Little Ice Age, a period so cold that the Thames River in London froze over.
As you can see extreme climate change happens without any actions by man. Studies have shown that the earth’s temperature lags sea temperatures by decades. Thus, the prime driver in the earth’s temperatures is the oceans which absorb very little surface CO2 but are heated by the sun. Sun spot activity and thus solar radiation has been correlated with the earth’s temperatures.
While you can’t build a case of political and economic gain based on the sun, you can make a bundle of money and win political advances by blaming industries. When Al Gore lost the 2000 presidential election he had a net worth of $1 million dollars. In 2015 he was reported to have a net worth of $300 million.
The political left is using climate change as propaganda and will not tolerate doubters. Fortunes change hands and money flows to unscrupulous scientists and politicians, some with little or no background in climatology. It doesn’t matter the notion of man-made climate change is all one big lie. It serves its purpose enriching the elite and entrenching the leftists.
Certainly President Barack Obama does not have the consensus for man-made warming that he claims. He tweeted that 97 percent of scientists believe that man-made CO2 is warming the climate.
Skeptical Science reported less than half of published scientists endorse man-caused global warming. Klaus-Martin Schulte examined all papers published from 2004 to 2007. Of 528 total papers on climate change, only 38, or 7 percent, gave an explicit endorsement of the consensus. Thirty-two papers, or 6 percent, reject the consensus outright. Forty-eight are neutral on the subject, refusing to either accept or reject the hypothesis. Just one published paper made any reference to climate change leading to catastrophic results.
Admittedly, the review is dated, but there has been no breakthrough in climatology studies over the past decade so I doubt many minds in the scientific community have been changed.
Global warming was first swallowed up by the peaceniks that who longer had a cause after the Berlin Wall fell. They then moved on as opportunists who saw the personal gain in preaching global warming.
The 21st century inquisition
If you are a scientist who questions man-made global warming, it’s not the principal’s office you will be sent to but the Department of Justice (DOJ) for investigation.
Last Wednesday, five Republican Senators sent a letter to the DOJ arguing that efforts to prosecute climate-change skeptics constitute a “blatant violation of the First Amendment and an abuse of power that rises to the level of prosecutorial misconduct.”
Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders thought he needed to clear the air with a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed by Sanders and three Democratic Senators. The gist of the letter was for the DOJ to keep probing non-believers.
This reads like an episode of “The X-Files” and makes me wonder if there is not a conspiracy to cripple oil and gas producers by using a false ideology.
In time the federal government will have cradle-to-grave oversight on Americans’ use of energy. And who would rebuke it? After all, what can be more important than saving the planet for our children and grandchildren?
Link:
http://personalliberty.com/book-banning-greens-bent-programming-school-age-children/
Feel the Bern...
University students demand all grades below 'C' be nullified, and all midterms be eliminated
by: Daniel Barker
At many American universities, academic achievement is being sacrificed in favor of political correctness and activism; getting a solid education is no longer the main focus, as students are now demanding relaxed grading standards so that they have more time to engage in protests.
That's not an exaggeration. At Ohio's Oberlin College, more than 1,300 students have signed a petition calling for the college to drop any grades below a "C" for the semester. Many are also calling for the elimination of standard written midterm exams, suggesting that a conversation with a professor might serve as an alternative to a submitted essay.
From The Week:
"The students say that between their activism work and their heavy course load, finding success within the usual grading parameters is increasingly difficult. 'A lot of us worked alongside community members in Cleveland who were protesting,' Megan Bautista, a co-liaison in Oberlin's student government, said, referring to the protests surrounding the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014. 'But we needed to organize on campus as well — it wasn't sustainable to keep driving 40 minutes away. A lot of us started suffering academically.'"
In a piece published by The New Yorker, Nathan Heller addressed the situation at Oberlin, "a school whose norms may run a little to the left of Bernie Sanders." Heller admits that the leftist constituency on American campuses has "stopped being able to hear itself think," becoming as authoritarian in its opinions and methods as its theoretical arch-enemies on the far right.
The death of diversity – in the name of diversity
Heller spoke of incomprehension regarding the new paradigm among "old-school" liberals, such as himself:
"Wasn't free self-expression the whole point of social progressivism? Wasn't liberal academe a way for ideas, good and bad, to be subjected to enlightened reason? Generations of professors and students imagined the university to be a temple for productive challenge and perpetually questioned certainties. Now, some feared, schools were being reimagined as safe spaces for coddled youths and the self-defined, untested truths that they held dear. ...
"At some point, it seemed, the American left on campus stopped being able to hear itself think."
Liberal intolerance on American campuses
Other liberal academics have also made "confessions" regarding the existence of a climate of "liberal intolerance" on American campuses. Ultimately, the quality of education declines, with a truly diverse range of viewpoints no longer being tolerated.
As columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece:
"WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives.
"Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us."
Kristof notes that conservatives are far under-represented within university faculties:
"Four studies found that the proportion of professors in the humanities who are Republicans ranges between 6 and 11 percent, and in the social sciences between 7 and 9 percent.
"Conservatives can be spotted in the sciences and in economics, but they are virtually an endangered species in fields like anthropology, sociology, history and literature. One study found that only 2 percent of English professors are Republicans. ...
"Universities should be a hubbub of the full range of political perspectives from A to Z, not just from V to Z. So maybe we progressives could take a brief break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values that we supposedly cherish — like diversity — in our own dominions."
It's clear that the left-leaning university system is not interested in tolerating any viewpoints outside of its own self-defined reality, and a few honest liberals, such as Heller and Kristof, are willing to admit it.
It appears that the campus progressives are also willing to forfeit a real education, as they pursue their precious social and political agendas. It's been argued by the Left that if they are paying for an education, then they should be able to modify the parameters to serve their needs.
One can't help but feel sorry for the poor student who simply wants to go to college to learn something useful.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/054220_Oberlin_University_academic_standards_liberalism.html#ixzz4AKSQldcz
by: Daniel Barker
At many American universities, academic achievement is being sacrificed in favor of political correctness and activism; getting a solid education is no longer the main focus, as students are now demanding relaxed grading standards so that they have more time to engage in protests.
That's not an exaggeration. At Ohio's Oberlin College, more than 1,300 students have signed a petition calling for the college to drop any grades below a "C" for the semester. Many are also calling for the elimination of standard written midterm exams, suggesting that a conversation with a professor might serve as an alternative to a submitted essay.
From The Week:
"The students say that between their activism work and their heavy course load, finding success within the usual grading parameters is increasingly difficult. 'A lot of us worked alongside community members in Cleveland who were protesting,' Megan Bautista, a co-liaison in Oberlin's student government, said, referring to the protests surrounding the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice by a police officer in 2014. 'But we needed to organize on campus as well — it wasn't sustainable to keep driving 40 minutes away. A lot of us started suffering academically.'"
In a piece published by The New Yorker, Nathan Heller addressed the situation at Oberlin, "a school whose norms may run a little to the left of Bernie Sanders." Heller admits that the leftist constituency on American campuses has "stopped being able to hear itself think," becoming as authoritarian in its opinions and methods as its theoretical arch-enemies on the far right.
The death of diversity – in the name of diversity
Heller spoke of incomprehension regarding the new paradigm among "old-school" liberals, such as himself:
"Wasn't free self-expression the whole point of social progressivism? Wasn't liberal academe a way for ideas, good and bad, to be subjected to enlightened reason? Generations of professors and students imagined the university to be a temple for productive challenge and perpetually questioned certainties. Now, some feared, schools were being reimagined as safe spaces for coddled youths and the self-defined, untested truths that they held dear. ...
"At some point, it seemed, the American left on campus stopped being able to hear itself think."
Liberal intolerance on American campuses
Other liberal academics have also made "confessions" regarding the existence of a climate of "liberal intolerance" on American campuses. Ultimately, the quality of education declines, with a truly diverse range of viewpoints no longer being tolerated.
As columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote in a recent New York Times op-ed piece:
"WE progressives believe in diversity, and we want women, blacks, Latinos, gays and Muslims at the table — er, so long as they aren't conservatives.
"Universities are the bedrock of progressive values, but the one kind of diversity that universities disregard is ideological and religious. We're fine with people who don't look like us, as long as they think like us."
Kristof notes that conservatives are far under-represented within university faculties:
"Four studies found that the proportion of professors in the humanities who are Republicans ranges between 6 and 11 percent, and in the social sciences between 7 and 9 percent.
"Conservatives can be spotted in the sciences and in economics, but they are virtually an endangered species in fields like anthropology, sociology, history and literature. One study found that only 2 percent of English professors are Republicans. ...
"Universities should be a hubbub of the full range of political perspectives from A to Z, not just from V to Z. So maybe we progressives could take a brief break from attacking the other side and more broadly incorporate values that we supposedly cherish — like diversity — in our own dominions."
It's clear that the left-leaning university system is not interested in tolerating any viewpoints outside of its own self-defined reality, and a few honest liberals, such as Heller and Kristof, are willing to admit it.
It appears that the campus progressives are also willing to forfeit a real education, as they pursue their precious social and political agendas. It's been argued by the Left that if they are paying for an education, then they should be able to modify the parameters to serve their needs.
One can't help but feel sorry for the poor student who simply wants to go to college to learn something useful.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/054220_Oberlin_University_academic_standards_liberalism.html#ixzz4AKSQldcz
"In short, the so-called social contract is nothing more than a scam that needs to be scuttled and replaced with the principles of a free--voluntary--society."
The "Help the Next Generation" Government Scam
Murray Sabrin sent the following letter to the editor of the North Jersey Record:
Regarding “Warren, ‘Bern whisperer,’ could play a pivotal role” (Other Views, May 31):
The author highlights Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support for the idea of a “social contract” to justify (more) taxation to pay for essential “government services” which benefits business owners, for example, who use public roads to transport their goods.
In addition, the argument goes, business owners benefit from a taxpayer funded educated workforce. Sen. Warren thus concludes the federal government and other levels of government are entitled to coerce money from those who have earned it to pay for roads, schools, and other so-called essential public services.
The current beneficiaries of these services are not supposed to squawk about their tax burden, because they have an obligation to make sure that the next generation of Americans receives their share of public largess. In other words, Sen. Warren’s describes an (coercive) “intergenerational” method to fund government.
There is another term that actually describes Sen. Warren’s theory of government, a Ponzi scheme. At least in a Ponzi scheme, people are duped voluntarily, because unscrupulous individuals have promised them unrealistic returns on their investments. In government Ponzi schemes the kind Sen. Warren and her colleagues in Congress from both political parties embrace unapologetically have created a $200 trillion unfunded liability of the federal government to pay for future Social Security, Medicare and other “essential” programs.
In short, the so-called social contract is nothing more than a scam that needs to be scuttled and replaced with the principles of a free--voluntary--society.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2016/06/the-help-next-generation-government-scam.html
Murray Sabrin sent the following letter to the editor of the North Jersey Record:
Regarding “Warren, ‘Bern whisperer,’ could play a pivotal role” (Other Views, May 31):
The author highlights Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s support for the idea of a “social contract” to justify (more) taxation to pay for essential “government services” which benefits business owners, for example, who use public roads to transport their goods.
In addition, the argument goes, business owners benefit from a taxpayer funded educated workforce. Sen. Warren thus concludes the federal government and other levels of government are entitled to coerce money from those who have earned it to pay for roads, schools, and other so-called essential public services.
The current beneficiaries of these services are not supposed to squawk about their tax burden, because they have an obligation to make sure that the next generation of Americans receives their share of public largess. In other words, Sen. Warren’s describes an (coercive) “intergenerational” method to fund government.
There is another term that actually describes Sen. Warren’s theory of government, a Ponzi scheme. At least in a Ponzi scheme, people are duped voluntarily, because unscrupulous individuals have promised them unrealistic returns on their investments. In government Ponzi schemes the kind Sen. Warren and her colleagues in Congress from both political parties embrace unapologetically have created a $200 trillion unfunded liability of the federal government to pay for future Social Security, Medicare and other “essential” programs.
In short, the so-called social contract is nothing more than a scam that needs to be scuttled and replaced with the principles of a free--voluntary--society.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2016/06/the-help-next-generation-government-scam.html
Trump myth...
The Donald Trump Dove Myth: Why He’s Actually a Bigger Hawk Than Hillary Clinton
By Zack Beauchamp
Hillary Clinton is, without a doubt, a hawkish Democrat. She has been consistently to the interventionist right of the party mainstream on issues like the Iraq War, the Afghanistan surge, and arming the Syrian rebels.
Donald Trump, by contrast, has criticized the Iraq War and the Libya intervention. He's been skeptical of America's commitments to defend traditional allies in Europe and East Asia, and said the Middle East in general is "one big, fat quagmire" that the US should stay out of.
This sure makes it sound like Trump is some kind of dovish neo-isolationist, a principled skeptic of military intervention. Clinton seems like a superhawk by contrast. Steve Schmidt, a prominent Republican strategist who ran John McCain's 2008 campaign, put this theory well during an MSNBC appearance in early May: "Donald Trump will be running to the left as we understand it against Hillary Clinton on national security issues."
But the problem is that the way "we understand" Trump's national security position is bollocks. Trump isn't a leftist, nor is he a pacifist. In fact, Trump is an ardent militarist, who has been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years. It's a kind of nationalist hawkishness that we haven't seen much of in the United States since the Cold War — but has supported some of the most aggressive uses of force in American history.
As surprising as it may seem, Clinton is actually the dove in this race.
In the past five years, Trump has consistently pushed one big foreign policy idea: America should steal other countries' oil.
He first debuted this plan in an April 2011 television appearance, amid speculation that he might run for the GOP nomination. In the interview, Trump seemed to suggest the US should seize Iraqi oil fields and just operate them on its own.
"In the old days when you won a war, you won a war. You kept the country," Trump said. "We go fight a war for 10 years, 12 years, lose thousands of people, spend $1.5 trillion, and then we hand the keys over to people that hate us on some council." He has repeated this idea for years, saying during one 2013 Fox News appearance, "I’ve said it a thousand times."
Trump sees this as just compensation for invading Iraq in the first place. "I say we should take it [Iraq's oil] and pay ourselves back," he said in one 2013 speech.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump has gotten more specific about how exactly he'd "take" Iraq's oil. In a March interview with the Washington Post, he said he would "circle" the areas of Iraq that contain oil and defend them with American ground troops:
POST: How do you keep it without troops, how do you defend the oil?
TRUMP: You would... You would, well for that— for that, I would circle it. I would defend those areas.
POST: With U.S. troops?
TRUMP: Yeah, I would defend the areas with the oil.
After US troops seize the oil, Trump suggests, American companies would go in and rebuild the oil infrastructure damaged by bombing and then start pumping it on their own. "You’ll get Exxon to come in there … they’ll rebuild that sucker brand new. And I’ll take the oil," Trump said in a December stump speech.
Trump loves this idea so much that he'd apply it to Libya as well, telling Bill O'Reilly in April that he'd even send in US ground troops ("as few as possible") to fight off ISIS and secure the country's oil deposits.
To be clear: Trump's plan is to use American ground troops to forcibly seize the most valuable resource in two different sovereign countries. The word for that is colonialism...
Read more here:
http://www.vox.com/world/2016/5/27/11608580/donald-trump-foreign-policy-war-iraq-hillary-clinton
By Zack Beauchamp
Hillary Clinton is, without a doubt, a hawkish Democrat. She has been consistently to the interventionist right of the party mainstream on issues like the Iraq War, the Afghanistan surge, and arming the Syrian rebels.
Donald Trump, by contrast, has criticized the Iraq War and the Libya intervention. He's been skeptical of America's commitments to defend traditional allies in Europe and East Asia, and said the Middle East in general is "one big, fat quagmire" that the US should stay out of.
This sure makes it sound like Trump is some kind of dovish neo-isolationist, a principled skeptic of military intervention. Clinton seems like a superhawk by contrast. Steve Schmidt, a prominent Republican strategist who ran John McCain's 2008 campaign, put this theory well during an MSNBC appearance in early May: "Donald Trump will be running to the left as we understand it against Hillary Clinton on national security issues."
But the problem is that the way "we understand" Trump's national security position is bollocks. Trump isn't a leftist, nor is he a pacifist. In fact, Trump is an ardent militarist, who has been proposing actual colonial wars of conquest for years. It's a kind of nationalist hawkishness that we haven't seen much of in the United States since the Cold War — but has supported some of the most aggressive uses of force in American history.
As surprising as it may seem, Clinton is actually the dove in this race.
In the past five years, Trump has consistently pushed one big foreign policy idea: America should steal other countries' oil.
He first debuted this plan in an April 2011 television appearance, amid speculation that he might run for the GOP nomination. In the interview, Trump seemed to suggest the US should seize Iraqi oil fields and just operate them on its own.
"In the old days when you won a war, you won a war. You kept the country," Trump said. "We go fight a war for 10 years, 12 years, lose thousands of people, spend $1.5 trillion, and then we hand the keys over to people that hate us on some council." He has repeated this idea for years, saying during one 2013 Fox News appearance, "I’ve said it a thousand times."
Trump sees this as just compensation for invading Iraq in the first place. "I say we should take it [Iraq's oil] and pay ourselves back," he said in one 2013 speech.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump has gotten more specific about how exactly he'd "take" Iraq's oil. In a March interview with the Washington Post, he said he would "circle" the areas of Iraq that contain oil and defend them with American ground troops:
POST: How do you keep it without troops, how do you defend the oil?
TRUMP: You would... You would, well for that— for that, I would circle it. I would defend those areas.
POST: With U.S. troops?
TRUMP: Yeah, I would defend the areas with the oil.
After US troops seize the oil, Trump suggests, American companies would go in and rebuild the oil infrastructure damaged by bombing and then start pumping it on their own. "You’ll get Exxon to come in there … they’ll rebuild that sucker brand new. And I’ll take the oil," Trump said in a December stump speech.
Trump loves this idea so much that he'd apply it to Libya as well, telling Bill O'Reilly in April that he'd even send in US ground troops ("as few as possible") to fight off ISIS and secure the country's oil deposits.
To be clear: Trump's plan is to use American ground troops to forcibly seize the most valuable resource in two different sovereign countries. The word for that is colonialism...
Read more here:
http://www.vox.com/world/2016/5/27/11608580/donald-trump-foreign-policy-war-iraq-hillary-clinton
"NATO outspends Russia by a factor of 18 to 1; European NATO countries outspend Russia by a factor of 5.5 to 1. NATO and all US allies outspend Russia and China combined by almost 6 to 1."
Poor NATO
By Bionic Mosquito
Several weeks ago, the [RAND Corporation] released [a] study that received a fair amount of attention. Financed by the Pentagon, they created a series of simulations for a hypothetical Russian invasion of the two Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia.
“The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO,” the RAND researchers wrote in their report. In each simulation, the Russians were able to either circumvent the outnumbered NATO units, or even worse, destroy them. Between 36 and 60 hours after the beginning of hostilities, Russian troops stood before the gates of Riga or Tallinn — or both.
Says Spiegel. The solution? Spend more money:
The Americans in particular are putting pressure on the Europeans to once again invest more significantly in their own defense. In March, US President Barack Obama complained about the European “free riders” who are profiting from American protection while refusing to take on their “fair share.”
Donald Trump must be Obama’s new speech writer.
Since then, numerous NATO states have announced that they intend to once again invest more money in defense. Fifteen of the 28 member states have increased their military spending…
Let’s Look at the Numbers
NATO countries spend $920 billion in military expenditures. By the time you include various clandestine and off-budget items, I will suggest the figure is significantly higher, but we will go with this figure. Take out the United States and Canada (the non-European countries) and the spending is $293 billion.
Other US allies (Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Israel, and Taiwan), all useful in hounding and surrounding Russia, spend about $210 billion.
Russia spends $52 billion. For kicks, China (the other global island enemy) spends $145 billion.
So…NATO and other US allies spend $1.13 trillion dollars a year on military expenditures, Russia and China spend under $200 billion. European NATO countries spend over $290 billion and Russia spends about $50 billion.
Yet somehow the problem, as Spiegel offers, is that NATO does not spend enough; NATO needs to spend more. Unfortunately for NATO (do you see my tears), this spending increase isn’t going to happen. None of the alliance members meet the list of nine parameters held by NATO to measure capabilities and readiness – not even the United States.
One key parameter is to spend 2% of GDP on defense; only 6 out of 28 NATO member countries reach this target. What might hinder one of the larger NATO members from ever achieving this 2% target…well, I will allow Spiegel to explain:
If it was taken seriously, Germany would need to increase its defense budget by 5.5 billion year after year until 2024. In the end, Germany would be the continent’s greatest military might by far, which probably wouldn’t make all of its European neighbors happy.
No, it wouldn’t. Probably the opposite, actually.
Conclusion
NATO outspends Russia by a factor of 18 to 1; European NATO countries outspend Russia by a factor of 5.5 to 1. NATO and all US allies outspend Russia and China combined by almost 6 to 1.
Yet there is no protection for Estonia and Latvia. More spending by NATO countries isn’t going to change this reality.
Maybe they can try diplomacy?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/bionic-mosquito/poor-little-nato/
By Bionic Mosquito
Several weeks ago, the [RAND Corporation] released [a] study that received a fair amount of attention. Financed by the Pentagon, they created a series of simulations for a hypothetical Russian invasion of the two Baltic states of Estonia and Latvia.
“The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO,” the RAND researchers wrote in their report. In each simulation, the Russians were able to either circumvent the outnumbered NATO units, or even worse, destroy them. Between 36 and 60 hours after the beginning of hostilities, Russian troops stood before the gates of Riga or Tallinn — or both.
Says Spiegel. The solution? Spend more money:
The Americans in particular are putting pressure on the Europeans to once again invest more significantly in their own defense. In March, US President Barack Obama complained about the European “free riders” who are profiting from American protection while refusing to take on their “fair share.”
Donald Trump must be Obama’s new speech writer.
Since then, numerous NATO states have announced that they intend to once again invest more money in defense. Fifteen of the 28 member states have increased their military spending…
Let’s Look at the Numbers
NATO countries spend $920 billion in military expenditures. By the time you include various clandestine and off-budget items, I will suggest the figure is significantly higher, but we will go with this figure. Take out the United States and Canada (the non-European countries) and the spending is $293 billion.
Other US allies (Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Israel, and Taiwan), all useful in hounding and surrounding Russia, spend about $210 billion.
Russia spends $52 billion. For kicks, China (the other global island enemy) spends $145 billion.
So…NATO and other US allies spend $1.13 trillion dollars a year on military expenditures, Russia and China spend under $200 billion. European NATO countries spend over $290 billion and Russia spends about $50 billion.
Yet somehow the problem, as Spiegel offers, is that NATO does not spend enough; NATO needs to spend more. Unfortunately for NATO (do you see my tears), this spending increase isn’t going to happen. None of the alliance members meet the list of nine parameters held by NATO to measure capabilities and readiness – not even the United States.
One key parameter is to spend 2% of GDP on defense; only 6 out of 28 NATO member countries reach this target. What might hinder one of the larger NATO members from ever achieving this 2% target…well, I will allow Spiegel to explain:
If it was taken seriously, Germany would need to increase its defense budget by 5.5 billion year after year until 2024. In the end, Germany would be the continent’s greatest military might by far, which probably wouldn’t make all of its European neighbors happy.
No, it wouldn’t. Probably the opposite, actually.
Conclusion
NATO outspends Russia by a factor of 18 to 1; European NATO countries outspend Russia by a factor of 5.5 to 1. NATO and all US allies outspend Russia and China combined by almost 6 to 1.
Yet there is no protection for Estonia and Latvia. More spending by NATO countries isn’t going to change this reality.
Maybe they can try diplomacy?
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/bionic-mosquito/poor-little-nato/
Truth...
9/11 Redux: “Truth” Goes Viral
By Trevin Pinto
The entrepreneur who wants to “once and for all” settle the debate over how the towers fell on 9/11 is facing obstacles and skepticism from both sides.
In a video introducing his now-defunct 9/11 Redux campaign on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo, Paul Salo pledges to fly an empty, auto-piloted Boeing 767 filled with jet fuel into an abandoned building — to see if it will result in the building’s collapse.
Many skeptics of the official narrative for what transpired on 9/11 are wary of Salo’s capacity to prove anything, despite his stated intention to be as true as possible to the physics of the tragic incident.
One expert who asked not to be identified told WhoWhatWhy that “it’s completely unscientific and cannot support any theory at all no matter what happens.”
In response, Salo acknowledged that it would be impossible to recreate the exact circumstances of that day. But he said that calling his test worthless for that reason is a “knee-jerk response.”
WhoWhatWhy contacted Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a collection of arguably the most respected researchers in scientific opposition to the official story. They offered another alternative — computer modeling.
“Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth commends Paul Salo for his interest in getting to the bottom of the tragic events of September 11, 2001,” said Ted Walter, the group’s director of strategy and development.
“Of course, the experiment he wishes to undertake, which is to fly an airplane into an old high-rise building, will not yield meaningful results, because it will be a different structural system and because it is impossible to recreate precisely the conditions experienced on 9/11.”
Walter’s group is funding a computer-model study “to evaluate the possible causes of World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse. “If done correctly,” he said, “computer modeling can recreate the World Trade Center Towers with great accuracy and allow for a range of scenarios to be simulated.”
Walter expressed regret that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which was tasked with investigating the WTC failures, “terminated its modeling at the moment the collapses initiated, thus neglecting to model the actual collapses.”
NIST’s Senior Communications Officer, Michael E. Newman told WhoWhatWhy that the organization “does not have any comment on the proposed experiment by Mr. Salo to recreate the collapses of World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 (the Twin Towers).”
Newman added that “the NIST WTC investigation team members feel that since our study of the WTC collapses ended in 2008, there has been no new evidence presented that would change our findings and conclusions, and therefore, nothing new that we can contribute to the discussion of alternative theories about the destruction of the Towers or WTC 7, the office building that fell later on the afternoon of 9/11.”
The Media Flips Out
Meanwhile, some elements in the media seemed determined to discredit Salo. Most of the online articles have been sloppy cut-and-paste jobs that blame director Michael Moore for creating 9/11 conspiracy theories by bringing up “alleged” ties between the Bush and the bin Laden families in his 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
The reporting consistently refers to the “expat” Salo — who is currently living in Thailand — as a “conspiracy theorist,” even though he has actually expressed belief in the official story more than once.
Accusations of insensitivity are accompanied by photos of the Twin Towers ablaze, and terrified – sometimes bloodied – 9/11 witnesses running for their lives from giant clouds of smoke and debris, next to those of Salo’s smiling face. (Examples here, hereand here.)
GQ at least took the time to write something original:
I mean the words ‘Fuck Off’ don’t begin to do it justice. It’s so on its face insane and insensitive and that’s not even addressing the fact that this dude wants to spend anywhere from $300,000 (which is the number he quotes in the video) to $1.5 Million (the number he asks for on the Indiegogo [sp], which I’m not linking to, because fuck him).
In which other circumstance would the reaction of the media to someone questioning the official line be so severe? Why would someone be condemned outright for even suggesting that more research may resolve doubts that many people have expressed about the events of 9/11? Even if one doesn’t believe that 9/11 was anything other than what we have been told, what, precisely is the harm in what he is trying to do?
Read the rest here:
http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/05/31/911-redux-truth-goes-viral/
By Trevin Pinto
The entrepreneur who wants to “once and for all” settle the debate over how the towers fell on 9/11 is facing obstacles and skepticism from both sides.
In a video introducing his now-defunct 9/11 Redux campaign on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo, Paul Salo pledges to fly an empty, auto-piloted Boeing 767 filled with jet fuel into an abandoned building — to see if it will result in the building’s collapse.
Many skeptics of the official narrative for what transpired on 9/11 are wary of Salo’s capacity to prove anything, despite his stated intention to be as true as possible to the physics of the tragic incident.
One expert who asked not to be identified told WhoWhatWhy that “it’s completely unscientific and cannot support any theory at all no matter what happens.”
In response, Salo acknowledged that it would be impossible to recreate the exact circumstances of that day. But he said that calling his test worthless for that reason is a “knee-jerk response.”
WhoWhatWhy contacted Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a collection of arguably the most respected researchers in scientific opposition to the official story. They offered another alternative — computer modeling.
“Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth commends Paul Salo for his interest in getting to the bottom of the tragic events of September 11, 2001,” said Ted Walter, the group’s director of strategy and development.
“Of course, the experiment he wishes to undertake, which is to fly an airplane into an old high-rise building, will not yield meaningful results, because it will be a different structural system and because it is impossible to recreate precisely the conditions experienced on 9/11.”
Walter’s group is funding a computer-model study “to evaluate the possible causes of World Trade Center Building 7’s collapse. “If done correctly,” he said, “computer modeling can recreate the World Trade Center Towers with great accuracy and allow for a range of scenarios to be simulated.”
Walter expressed regret that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which was tasked with investigating the WTC failures, “terminated its modeling at the moment the collapses initiated, thus neglecting to model the actual collapses.”
NIST’s Senior Communications Officer, Michael E. Newman told WhoWhatWhy that the organization “does not have any comment on the proposed experiment by Mr. Salo to recreate the collapses of World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 (the Twin Towers).”
Newman added that “the NIST WTC investigation team members feel that since our study of the WTC collapses ended in 2008, there has been no new evidence presented that would change our findings and conclusions, and therefore, nothing new that we can contribute to the discussion of alternative theories about the destruction of the Towers or WTC 7, the office building that fell later on the afternoon of 9/11.”
The Media Flips Out
Meanwhile, some elements in the media seemed determined to discredit Salo. Most of the online articles have been sloppy cut-and-paste jobs that blame director Michael Moore for creating 9/11 conspiracy theories by bringing up “alleged” ties between the Bush and the bin Laden families in his 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.
The reporting consistently refers to the “expat” Salo — who is currently living in Thailand — as a “conspiracy theorist,” even though he has actually expressed belief in the official story more than once.
Accusations of insensitivity are accompanied by photos of the Twin Towers ablaze, and terrified – sometimes bloodied – 9/11 witnesses running for their lives from giant clouds of smoke and debris, next to those of Salo’s smiling face. (Examples here, hereand here.)
GQ at least took the time to write something original:
I mean the words ‘Fuck Off’ don’t begin to do it justice. It’s so on its face insane and insensitive and that’s not even addressing the fact that this dude wants to spend anywhere from $300,000 (which is the number he quotes in the video) to $1.5 Million (the number he asks for on the Indiegogo [sp], which I’m not linking to, because fuck him).
In which other circumstance would the reaction of the media to someone questioning the official line be so severe? Why would someone be condemned outright for even suggesting that more research may resolve doubts that many people have expressed about the events of 9/11? Even if one doesn’t believe that 9/11 was anything other than what we have been told, what, precisely is the harm in what he is trying to do?
Read the rest here:
http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/05/31/911-redux-truth-goes-viral/
"This experimentation with minimum wages on the livelihoods of low-skilled workers is ethically atrocious..."
Elitist Arrogance
By Walter E. Williams
White teenage unemployment is about 14 percent. That for black teenagers is about 30 percent. The labor force participation rate for white teens is 37 percent, and that for black teens is 25 percent. Many years ago, in 1948, the figures were exactly the opposite. The unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4 percent, while that of whites was 10.2 percent. Up until the late 1950s, black teens, as well as black adults, were more active in the labor market than their white counterparts. I will return to these facts after I point out some elitist arrogance and moral bankruptcy.
Supporters of a $15 minimum wage are now admitting that there will be job losses. “Why shouldn’t we in fact accept job loss?” asks New School economics and urban policy professor David Howell, adding, “What’s so bad about getting rid of crappy jobs, forcing employers to upgrade, and having a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed by that?” Economic Policy Institute economist David Cooper says: “It could be that they spend more time unemployed, but their income is higher overall. If you were to tell me I could work fewer hours and make as much or more than I could have previously, that would be OK.”
What’s a “crappy job”? My guess is that many of my friends and I held the jobs Howell is talking about as teenagers during the late 1940s and ’50s. During summers, we arose early to board farm trucks to New Jersey to pick blueberries. I washed dishes and mopped floors at Philadelphia’s Horn & Hardart restaurant, helped unload trucks at Campbell Soup, shoveled snow, swept out stores, delivered packages and did similar low-skill, low-wage jobs. If today’s arrogant elite were around to destroy these jobs through wage legislation and regulation, I doubt whether I and many other black youths would have learned the habits of work that laid the foundation for future success. Today’s elite have little taste for my stepfather’s admonition: Any kind of a job is better than begging and stealing.
What’s so tragic about all of this is that black leadership buys into it. What the liberals have in mind when they say there should be “a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed” is that people who are thrown out of work should be given welfare or some other handout to make them whole. This experimentation with minimum wages on the livelihoods of low-skilled workers is ethically atrocious.
In the first paragraph, I pointed out that black youths had lower unemployment during earlier times. How might that be explained? It would be sheer lunacy to attempt to explain the more favorable employment statistics by suggesting that during earlier periods, blacks faced less racial discrimination. Similarly, it would be lunacy to suggest that black youths had higher skills than white youths. What best explain the loss of teenage employment opportunities, particularly those of black teenagers, are increases in minimum wage laws. There’s little dispute within the economics profession that higher minimum wages discriminate against the employment of the least skilled workers, and that demographic is disproportionately represented by black teenagers.
President Barack Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, black state and local politicians, and civil rights organizations are neither naive nor stupid. They have been made aware of the unemployment effects of the labor laws they support; however, they are part of a political coalition. In order to get labor unions, environmental groups, business groups and other vested interests to support their handout agenda and make campaign contributions, they must give political support to what these groups want. They must support minimum wage increases even though it condemns generations of black youths to high unemployment rates.
I can’t imagine what black politicians and civil rights groups are getting in return for condemning black youths to a high rate of unemployment and its devastating effects on upward economic mobility that makes doing so worthwhile, but then again, I’m not a politician.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-williams/proof-elite-hate-people/
By Walter E. Williams
White teenage unemployment is about 14 percent. That for black teenagers is about 30 percent. The labor force participation rate for white teens is 37 percent, and that for black teens is 25 percent. Many years ago, in 1948, the figures were exactly the opposite. The unemployment rate of black 16-year-old and 17-year-old males was 9.4 percent, while that of whites was 10.2 percent. Up until the late 1950s, black teens, as well as black adults, were more active in the labor market than their white counterparts. I will return to these facts after I point out some elitist arrogance and moral bankruptcy.
Supporters of a $15 minimum wage are now admitting that there will be job losses. “Why shouldn’t we in fact accept job loss?” asks New School economics and urban policy professor David Howell, adding, “What’s so bad about getting rid of crappy jobs, forcing employers to upgrade, and having a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed by that?” Economic Policy Institute economist David Cooper says: “It could be that they spend more time unemployed, but their income is higher overall. If you were to tell me I could work fewer hours and make as much or more than I could have previously, that would be OK.”
What’s a “crappy job”? My guess is that many of my friends and I held the jobs Howell is talking about as teenagers during the late 1940s and ’50s. During summers, we arose early to board farm trucks to New Jersey to pick blueberries. I washed dishes and mopped floors at Philadelphia’s Horn & Hardart restaurant, helped unload trucks at Campbell Soup, shoveled snow, swept out stores, delivered packages and did similar low-skill, low-wage jobs. If today’s arrogant elite were around to destroy these jobs through wage legislation and regulation, I doubt whether I and many other black youths would have learned the habits of work that laid the foundation for future success. Today’s elite have little taste for my stepfather’s admonition: Any kind of a job is better than begging and stealing.
What’s so tragic about all of this is that black leadership buys into it. What the liberals have in mind when they say there should be “a serious program to compensate anyone who is in the slightest way harmed” is that people who are thrown out of work should be given welfare or some other handout to make them whole. This experimentation with minimum wages on the livelihoods of low-skilled workers is ethically atrocious.
In the first paragraph, I pointed out that black youths had lower unemployment during earlier times. How might that be explained? It would be sheer lunacy to attempt to explain the more favorable employment statistics by suggesting that during earlier periods, blacks faced less racial discrimination. Similarly, it would be lunacy to suggest that black youths had higher skills than white youths. What best explain the loss of teenage employment opportunities, particularly those of black teenagers, are increases in minimum wage laws. There’s little dispute within the economics profession that higher minimum wages discriminate against the employment of the least skilled workers, and that demographic is disproportionately represented by black teenagers.
President Barack Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, black state and local politicians, and civil rights organizations are neither naive nor stupid. They have been made aware of the unemployment effects of the labor laws they support; however, they are part of a political coalition. In order to get labor unions, environmental groups, business groups and other vested interests to support their handout agenda and make campaign contributions, they must give political support to what these groups want. They must support minimum wage increases even though it condemns generations of black youths to high unemployment rates.
I can’t imagine what black politicians and civil rights groups are getting in return for condemning black youths to a high rate of unemployment and its devastating effects on upward economic mobility that makes doing so worthwhile, but then again, I’m not a politician.
Link:
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/06/walter-e-williams/proof-elite-hate-people/
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