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Welcome to SAM'S RANTS & RAVES A Digest of News & Commentary  Inveighing Against Coercive Busybodyism, Socialism, Greenism, and Big Government Tyranny & Injustice Generally  "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely!"   ~ Acton "Giving money and power to politicians and bureaucrats is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys"  ~ P. J. O'Rourke more or less weekly Archives Links Banner Ads Leave Comments, Questions, or Rude Remarks Please Make a Contribution to Support this Site Books Contact Us About this Site

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CONFLICTING BASIC ATTITUDES

Right wingers (conservatives, constitutionalists, libertarians, and normal peaceful regular Americans) basically JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE -- left alone from criminals, government intrusions into peaceful activities, higher taxes, unnecessary regulations and stupid mandates, Woke fascism, forcing their school children into unnatural or perverted relationships, etc. These are folks who have always tried to "play by the rules" and generally have had a "live and let live attitude" about other peoples' lifestyles.

By sharp contrast, the left wingers ("Liberal" control freaks, socialist whackjobs, neurotic Alinskyites, anarcho-marxist "Antifa" miscreants, DC elitists, corrupt FBI/DOJ activists, "deep state" control maniacs, klymate cultists, militant Democrats, RINOs, etc.) ARE DRIVEN TO CONTROL, DOMINATE, AND INTERFERE WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES AND THEIR PROPERTIES. They have an insatiable urge to control and tyrannize other people and take over other people's lives and properties.

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MYTHS, FALLACIES, & CLICHES OF BIG GOVERNMENT

Perhaps the refutation of a few widespread wrong beliefs is the only thing that separates the American people from a return to a much more free and prosperous society.  If so, here are a few of the most important to debunk.

1.  The more complex a society becomes, the more government controls are needed.  Really?
2.  Good intentions are all that are necessary to do the right thing.  "Liberals" and socialists don't actually have to know what they're doing because their emotions always lead them to do the right thing.
3.  Federal agencies are politically neutral and intervene for the common good, and never act in a partisan manner. (Ignoring "regulatory capture" and special-interest agendas)
4.  The bogeyman of human-caused klymate catastrophe. and the alleged need to greatly expand government power to deal with the crisis.  (Why electric cars involve much more pollution than gasoline vehicles.)
5.  The claim of rampant "systemic racism" in America, and that all Caucasians are racist oppressors and all black people are innocent victims.
6.  The alleged problem of economic inequality in the U.S. and the supposed need to impose more political redistribution schemes.         
7.  The notion of "peak oil" and the idea that the Earth is "running out of" resources.
8.  The supposed need to reduce our "carbon footprints" (or send some money to Al Gore so he will grant you a special dispensation) and to destroy American oil and gas production and rely instead on solar and wind for all our energy needs.
9.  The idea that tariffs help a country "balance" out a "trade deficit" with another country.  
10.  Runaway population growth worldwide requires global government to impose population controls.                                                                                                                                                                         
11.  Corporations and the rich should be made to pay their "fair" share of taxes.
12.  Tax cuts always result in less revenue to government.
13.  Free-market capitalism engenders coercive monopolies.
14.  Free-market capitalism generates unstable cycles of boom and bust.
15.  If the federal government does not care for the needy, nobody else will.

Many of these fallacies are just variants of much older fallacies and can be included in one of three broad categories:  mercantilism, Malthusianism, and Marxism.

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OUR 17TH CENTURY BRITISH ROOTS

by Sam Wells

Most of the key writings and ideas that influenced America's 18th-century founders came to them out of seventeenth-century England. This was the century of William Shakespeare, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, John Lilburne, Richard Overton, Algernon Sidney, Isaac Newton, Anthony Ashley Cooper , John Locke, and other writers of brilliance. In Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, the whole idea of political government was to protect the natural individual rights of life, liberty, and property of peaceful citizens from criminal violence and foreign threats, and the first part of the Declaration reads like a summary of Lockean political principles.  One of the most widely read publications in the American colonies was Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government which, in its essentials, advocated that government be strictly limited to protecting the just rights of peaceful citizens from criminal violence and also unjust intrusions by government officials, and that if and when a government became routinely destructive of that legitimate purpose, it was the right of the citizens to alter or abolish the government and start over with a government bound down by such constitutional limitations which in their judgement would help prevent overreach in the future.  Many now ask:  has that time come once again?   

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THE SOURCE OF TRUE PROGRESS

The source of true progress is secure private property rights and economic freedom -- freedom to use, trade, or dispose of ones private property in any non-violent way the owner desires, the freedom to buy and sell, the freedom to pursue profit and risk losses in entrepreneurial ventures, freedom to keep what one earns, freedom to save and invest, and freedom to invent and discover.  But such freedoms are routinely abrogated by capital gains taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, death taxes, tariffs, unnecessary and superfluous government regulations on what people may do with their own properties, and direct government confiscation of private property for private or public use (Kelo ruling).  Anti-discrimination laws are an attack on private property rights -- on what people are allowed to do with their own properties.  So-called "environmental" laws and regvulations are another way of attacking private property righrts and they amouint to an enormous obstacle to real progress of humankind.  Let us minimize such obstacles and maximize freedom instead.        

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You might be a "liberal" Democrat if:

You really believe black people are not competent enough to get driver's licenses or other state-issued photo ID, but insist you are not a racist.

You believe you�re a caring and compassionate person because you advocate giving other people�s money away to people you hope will vote for candidates you like.

You simultaneously believe that police are violent trigger-happy racists who shoot black people for no good reason and also that we should disarm the law-abiding citizens so that only the government and criminals have guns.

You believe the biggest terrorist threat to America is from "White Supremacists" and neonazis, but pretend that "environmentalist" whackos do no harm when forests burn down as a result of their stupid policies opposing conservative clear cutting to provide firebreaks.

You think wealth comes from the federal government and is inexhaustible.

You believe all life on Earth is threatened to extinction in 12 years from Global Warming UNLESS Americans give up using oil, coal, and natural gas, and go instead to solar and wind for energy sources even though these alternatives are unsustainable and global warming is a myth of left-wing cult followers. 
You believe the United States is a racist nation against black people.  

You believe BLM is a civil rights organization and that Antifa is anti-fascist, but hate the NRA and GOA for defending the right of peaceful citizens to own and use firearms for their own protection.

You believe that poverty can be solved permanently by federal redistribution programs and urban renewal projects even though such schemes have a history of failure and only tend to trap people onto government dependence.

You believe that only the force of Big Government can provide adequate medical care and education to all citizens that need or want them. 

You believe that there are five or six or 37 different sexes.

You believe Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden are telling the truth. About anything.

You favor defunding the police, but turn your head away and pretend not to see all the resulting violent crime and anarchy in those cities which have tried it. 

You blame the Republicans for the failures of Obamacare even though none of them voted for it.

You deplore name-calling and partisan divisiveness, but call Republicans and conservatives "racists" and "extremists" and bigots.

You claim fences don't work and gun-free zones do, but if Republicans wanted the fence around the White House taken down and demanded that the Secret Service be disarmed, you'd accuse them of trying to get Joe Biden killed. 

You believe that everything you don't like must be banned for everybody, and everything you do like is a "human right" and government must force others to pay for it.

You believe that emotions ("feelings") are the path to truth instead of careful observation and logical reasoning.
You believe that your kooky goals are so good and important that the attempt to impose them on everyone else justifies any and all means, including immoral and criminal acts, such as vote fraud.

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     LIBERTAS ACADEMY

In 1994 Libertas Academy was organized and presented by Michael Everling, Director of Operations of the Libertarian Party of Los Angeles County, and co-developed by Sam Wells (BA, Political Science; MA, Political Philosophy and Economics) with input from consultants Ernst Ghermann and Dennis Decherd, based on The Law by C. F. Bastiat and Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt and other sources, to help prepare political candidates ideologically and in debating skills.

In our efforts to preserve and extend the Lockean-Madisonian Constitutional Republic of the founders, a general policy of laissez faire, and market capitalism, and to cogently advocate the values and principles which underlie and make possible a closer approach to the ideal of the Laissez-Faire Republic, we have dedicated our perspective and efforts.

http://www.fredericbastiat.com/libcert.htm

 
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  FACT VS MARXIST PROPAGANDA 
  
 

FACT CHECK:  Socialism will ensure all Americans get their fair share and will wipe out poverfty, ignorance, disease, and inequality.

FACT:  One system has abolished more poverty and economic dependence for more people than any other throughout history:  American capitalism.  Hundreds of millions of jobs and economic opportunities have been created through the freedom to save and invest and invent and market within American free enterprise made possible by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

No socialist regime has ever even come close to the achievements of American freedom and free enterprise, even as imperfectly approached as it was.  On the contrary, socialism has failed to fulfill its promises anywhere and everywhere it has been tried.  

Under market private enterprise the prices of goods and services generally go down or quality goes up over time, making them more affordable for more and more people. There are positive incentives to improve production technologies.  Under socialism things tend to stagnate and prices tend to go up, not down.  Socialism cripples markets and fosters monopolies and oligopolies.     

What do young, impressionable people think of "liberal" Democrats?  If they watch television, their view of the world of politics is colored by what they see and hear on TV.  They probably believe that Democrats are valiantly combating the evils of racism, climate change, and COVID-19 in order to create a world of perfect equality  and equity without suffering, poverty, disease, or discrimination.  But it's a Big Lie, as most of us know.  America's youth is most vunerable to the constant barage of the Propaganda War against freedom, privateness, enterprise, equal justice, and American constitutional liberty.   And, most ironically, Marxist hate group BLM has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize!  Independent pro-American news networks and agencies  such as The Epoch Times and NewsMax TV must take the place of the discredited New York Times, Washington Post, and TV networks. 

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BACK TO THE FUTURE
by Sam Wells

Despite its flaws, the implicit direction of the original American Republic was toward a fully free society.  It was history's greatest step in that direction.

I Ideally, in a fully free society every peaceful adult citizen would have exclusive right of control of his or her own person and property -- free from violent interference from either criminals or political government. It would be a society in which peaceful adult citizens would each be secure in his or her enclave of privacy and freedom from coercive interference. That remains our ultimate goal, the ideal toward which we strive.

As American Conservatives we seek to preserve those values and principles which made America great -- the Lockean-Madisonian Constitutional Republic which recognized and protected the rights of peaceful individuals to their own persons and properties from criminal violation and arbitrary or unwarranted government intrusion.

This is not to imply that what the founders started was perfect or the full realization of constitutional freedom or that we should not build on their foundation to construct a fully free and enduring culture of market capitalism and true progress.

A government has got to know its limitations. That's what the Constitution and Bill of Rights were for. These written guards against tyranny did not fail; they were simply ignored and abandoned. Better means for limiting government (lawful violence in the fight against crime) to its proper roles must be innovated, developed, and applied. But innovation requires freedom.

We need to relearn the wisdom of the founders and the constitutional republic they established which provided at least ENOUGH FREEDOM for such innovations as automobiles, radios, televisions, dishwashers, washing machines, microwave ovens, the Internet, and hand-held cell phones to be developed and actually be produced for consumers by market capitalism. Without the partial freedom provided by our original constitutional republic, partial market capitalism could not have developed, and the aforementioned innovations (and many more) would not have become realities.

We need more freedom, not less. That means improved protections for private property rights -- more advanced property boundary technologies to secure each peaceful citizen's personal sovereignty over that which is his or her own from criminal violaton or unwarranted government intrusion. Better locks on doors, novel encryption applications, maybe even force fields around persons and their properties to keep out uninvited intruders. . . .

In the meantime what is needed is a sufficient number of influential people in our country with enough understanding of the need to limit government to its preper scope who can maintain eternal vigilance to keep government in its proper place.

The founders were on the right track. We are still living on the momentum of freedom and partial capitalism they created. Today, however, the Democrat Party is going in the opposite direction from the founders -- toward socialistic tyranny and oppression.

An improved social system of full freedom and advanced capitalism cannot be built on the corrupt, reactionary left-wing ideas which currently dominate the universities and mass media. Only on the basis of reason, individual freedom and responsibility, and our heritage of Lockean-Madisonian constitutionalism can an improved or "perfected" social sysem of true progress and advancement be constructed. Americans must impose a general policy of laissez faire on government -- tough on crime while leaving peaceful adult citizens alone as much as is possible -- until new guards against tyranny can be developed and established.

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The Tuttle Twiins

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AUGUST 2021

BIDEN'S BAD JUDGEMENT ON TOP OF POOR INTEL

Maybe if Biden's "intel" agencies had paid more attentikon to what was happening in Afghanistan instead of fixating on tiny groups of Caucasian Supremacists, the administration would not have been taken by surprise by the alacrity of the Talliban takeover of Kabul.

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Fake Conservatives & RINOs

David Brooks, George Will, Mitt Romney, John McCain, Jeff Flake, Ramesh Ronnuru, David Frum, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, Chris Christie, Karl Rove. 

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THERE IS A HOME FOR YOU IN AT LEAST ONE FACTION OR ANOTHER ON THE AMERICAN RIGHT

The different aspects and emphases in the American Right coalition include Lockean-Madisonian constitutionalists, free-market private enterprise advocates, anti-illegal immigration activists, anti-tax reformers, libertarians, Objectivists, activists opposing the Deep State Establishment, pro-life defenders, gun rights enthusiasts (NRA, GOA, etc.), anticommunists, privacy supporters, anti-Big Government conservatives, religious conservatives, protectors of family values, school choice promoters, military defense supporters, and other factions.  Of course, most or possibly even all these issues and concerns could belong together in a single, very well-rounded person.  But, usually, each American conservative tends to emphasize some issues more than others.  We cannot do everything, after all. It may be advantageous to specialize in ones areas of most concern instead of spreading ourselves too thin on too many fronts and reforms. 

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Aesopian Language

"Liberals" do not call themselves Fabian socialists or neo-fascists.  They call themselves "progressives" but they are progressive only in the sense of a cancer progressively spreading to other organs of the body.  They are in fact reactionaries.  Lying about their real agenda is part of their modus operandus.  They first tell their lunatic leftist base they are for defunding police, but after it is discovered that is unpopular and may hurt them politically, they admonish their candidates to claim they are against defunding police but are instead in favor of "reallocating funds to support people and services in marginalized communities" -- meaning ignoring criminal activity and ordering police to stand down when Marxist hate groups BLM and Antifuh riot and destroy businesses. 

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"Reinvesting for social progress" just means looting the taxpayers to subsidize left-wing unions and socialist organizations.     

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POSITIVE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IS ALWAYS BAD

By Sam Wells

As a general rule, any time the government positively intervenes to grant a special privilege to special interests, it will be at the  forced expense of other people  and ultimately  the consequences will not be good. 

Such was the case with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which grants social media Internet sites a special immunity from lawsuits on the assumption that they will always act as neutral platforms or passive carriers of what others may post on their sites.  It is really clear that if that assumption was ever true, it is certainly no longer the case with Twitter or Facebook, who cannot resist the urge to restrict or cancel those with whom they disagree amd substitute their own opinions as facts not ever to be questioned.  Young Sandman has been successful in suing printed and broadcast media for slander and libel.  Americans should have that same right when it comes to the giant Internet media as welol.  Congress should repeal Section 230.  

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VIOLENCE OR "COERCION" IN THE BROADEST SENSE

Several words can be placed on the left of the equal sign to mean "that which violates the rights of others, and therefore comes under government's purview" (violence, coercion, trespass, violation, theft) =  an act by a human or humans against the will or without the permission of another human being with respect to that which is his or her own (his own person or property).  It means for someone to take, use, meddle with or otherwise do something to the body or property of another adult human being without the permission or against the will of that other human being.  This includes fraud and embezzlement and other indirect uses of "force" as well as direct physical violence.  It is the violation of the self-ownership or property rights of peaceful human beings.

All other human activities -- private affairs and voluntary (market) relationships -- ideally should not be subject to government involvement. 

There are two kinds of violation: INITIATORY coercion (the use of coercive force against someone who has not committed a coercive act against anyone), and RETALIATORY coercion (the use of coercive force in retaliation against someone who has initiated the use of coercion against someone).  I am using the word "coercion" here in a broad sense to iinclude direct physical violence.  

Like the American founders, I favor the proper and righteous use of coercive force, according to rules of due process, against criminals, those who have been convicted of violating the rights of someone by committing initiatory coercion.  Clearly, a cop has the right to use retaliatory force against a criminal who has assaulted someone or is stealing property from a store.
A VOLUNTARY relationship is a human relationship in which the wills of all the participants coincide (agree) with respect to the terms of the relationship.  A voluntary relationship does not (necessarily) mean one in which a person "volunteers" in the sense of performing some work for no material compensation (such as donating ones time and energies to working for a charity or on civic activities).  It includes any mutually agreed-upon exchange (such as working as an employee for a company in exchange for a salary or wages.).  A PRIVATE act is one between a person and himself or herself within his or her own property boundaries.

THE ARROGANT IGNORANCE OF "WOKENESS"

I was always led to believe that mathematics is a useful tool for helping us solve problems and conduct business.  But today the Gramcian Marxists tell us that math is racist!  It is anti-black and anti-Hispanic.  Math is something supposedly imposed on hapless minorities by the Evil White Man.  Math is a product of White Western Culture, they say.  Oh, yeah?  What kind of numerals do we use to represent numbers?  We don't use Roman numerals.  We use Arabic numerals.  The concept of zero comes to us from India.  Algebra was invented by an Arab, and simultaneous linear equations were used by Moslem crusaders to decipher European military codes during the Crusades.  This is insanity based on ignorance. 

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WHO'S TO BLAME FOR BAD GOVERNMENT?

I don't judge people by their skin color.  I judge them on how they vote politically.  I feel sorry for New York, which is losing more of its population as more people flee to the South.  But, after all, they voted for assholes like Chuck Schumer and Cuomo and DiBlazio.  Schumer is pushing to pass H.R. 1, using his alleged "anti-racism" as a cover for this unconstitutioinal nationalization of elections and change the rules to make outright voter fraud easier to commit.  HR 1 is a naked power grab.  Democrats use the smear of "racism" on any issue and against anyone who dares disagree with their sordid schemes. The tactic usually works as so many Republicans are deathly afraid of being labeled "racist" or being called names of any kind.

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DEMOKRATS WANT THE "RIGHT" TO CHEAT?

For elections people can believe in, they need to be conducted under close supervision with objective rules, signatures verified against those on file on the Registrar's list, no mass mail-in balloting or ballot harvesting, and legitimate state-issued photo ID (driver's license or state ID) to verify identity.  

The Republican reforms basically restore voting rules to their pre-pandemic state -- before Marc Elias and other Clinton operatives had the rules changed in certain states on the claim that the pandemic would prevent people from traveling to polling places. The rules changes that Elias and other Dem lawyers instigated allowed greater vote fraud to take place in certain states.  In the wake of the 2020 presidential elections, an unusual number of irregularities were reported and sworn to in affidavits. 

The Dems are desperate to maintain their grip over the federal government. That's why they are lying their heads off claiming that Republicans are somehow keeping legitimate minority voters from voting.  What the Dems really want is the right to cheat.  Anyone who opposes legitimate photo ID for voting wants the freedom to cheat in elections.

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DON'T FORGET WHERE PREGNANT CHADS CAME FROM

In the presidential election of 2000 the result came down to Florida vote counts. It seems some Dems got their hands on a bunch of blank ballot cards before the election. During the vote count, many ballot cards were found to have incomplete punches on them. A "pregnant chad" was created by Democrat activists who put too many ballot cards in a voteamatic machine at the same time and then attempted to punch a hole for the Dem slate, but in many cards the attempted punch just left a bulge because the punch didn't actually punch all the way through all the cards. A "hanging chad" is created when they tried to punch a hole in several cards at the same time, and it didn't punch the whole way leaving a little dangling piece. Only a single ballot card should be inserted in such a voting machine. That's the election rule. And it is not possible to create a hanging chad or pregnant chad by punching a single ballot card in that machine. But some people wanted to vote more than once. They stuffed the machine with dozens of cards. If more than one card is inserted at the same time, that is vote fraud. Obviously, these were spoiled ballots and should have been discarded and not counted, but Democrat lawyers insisted they be counted if the bulges or hanging chads were on the Democrat side. And many of these ballots were indeed counted, but the total for Gore still never reached the vote total for Bush. Finally, the courts put a stop to this nonsense and America dodged a bullet by avoiding getting carbon con man Al Gore for president.

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THE TYRANNY OF SUBJECTIVISM

The allegedly "conservative" Supreme Court is disappointing many Americans with decisions that side with current left-liberal identity politics rather than the rule of law and the Constitution.

A key controversy is whether someone who identifies as a "transgender female" should be allowed to participate in women's sports or not.   

Just because a boy or a man says he feels like a woman doesn't mean he really is a real woman in fact. There are OBJECTIVE criteria to determine a person's sex.  Does he have a penus and testicles?  Do his chromosomes indicate male or female?  We must separate the objective facts from subjective whims.  There is no such thing as a "right" of a male, whether transgender female or not, to participate in girls or womens sports.  To claim otherwise is to elevate the subjective above the objective facts.  The law must rest, as much as is possible, on objective reality, not subjective whim or personal wish. There is nothing wrong with a law that prohibits males from participating in female-only sports.  Discrimination is a right, not a violation of anybody's alleged rights.  

Perhaps "transgender" persons should start a league of their own rather than crashing others' sporting events.

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FREE WILL AND FALLIBILITY

Humans have and depend on volitional consciousness ("free will").  The cost or drawback of having free will is fallibility.  We can make mistakes. Even the most intelligent, the very smartest people we can think of, have made some mistakes.  Errors can be made in many different ways.  A very intelligent person may be extremely good at logic, but fail to verify one or more of the assumptions on which a particular line of logical reasoning is based.  The most perfect logic can lead to very faulty conclusions if its premises are wrong. Strong emotions can distract and distort anyone in their thinking. Assumptions which may seem quite reasonable can be wrong.  As Galileo reminded us, unless thoroughly vetted, an assumption should not be easily accepted as absolute truth, though tghey usually are.  Do heavier objects fall faster than lighter objects? Seems "reasonable" to make that assumption -- but careful observation shows that it is not true. Standing on Gallileo's shoulders, Isaac Newton calculated that, when differences caused by wind resistance are excluded, all bodies of mass fall to Earth at the same rate of acceleration, namely 32 feet per second every second. Other planets, with different masses, have different rates for falling bodies. So, assumptions may give us a starting point for investigation, but are not themselves factual knowledge.

Many mistakes are made because they were based on false assumptions.  An assumption may "seem reasonable" but without knowing for sure by inestigating and finding out for sure, it is just an assumption that could still be either true or false.  How many people still believe erroneously that the "AR" in "AR-15" means assault rifle?  It actually stands for ArmaLite Rifle to specify the original manufacturer's particular design.  https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/what-does-ar-stand-for-in-ar-15/?fbclid=IwAR3aMqe1M5KWF6QX8keQumCw00coM9upFX0DjlxknsKurLzR4e5iI90-vUU

Another "reasonable" but false assumption is that the Earth is "running out of resources" because an ever-growing population is using more and more resources so the rresult must be less and less resources in the Earth. This is a simple form of the old Malthusian fallalcy that goes back to the late 18th/early 19th century economist  named Thomas Malthus.  He is best known for his theory that population growth will always tend to outrun the food supply and that the betterment of humankind is impossible without strict limits on reproduction to stem population growth. Malthus thought that poverty would be inescapable for humanity in general. Similar notions have been expressed by Paul Ehrlich in his Population Bomb and Rachel Carson's Silent Spring   Variations of this discredited theme are behind much of the globalist push for schemes to reduce or limit the growth of world population and halt or limit industrial growth. 

Malthusianism assumes that resources are fixed and limited from the start and ignores that more people also means more producers of more food and new resources. Malthus failed to anticipate or appreciate the ongoing British and American agricultural improvements, which have caused food production to exceed population growth, making prosperity possible for a larger number of people. In the context of the price system of a capitalist economy, resources are actually limitless for practical purposes. Also unforeseen was a tendency in the wealthier semi-capitalist countries of decreased fertility along with increased production of good and energy resources. 

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Climate cultists should have got a clue about how they have been manipulated when the emails among the climate activists at East Anglia leaked out to the public and revealed that they admitted among themselves that they had fudged the data to make their study come out the way they wished, namely that radical climate change was occurring because of human industry.  GIGO!  Yet, Congress, often scientifically behind, is still basing its policies on the assumption of man-caused climate crisis. We see this in the latest "infrastructure" bill with wasteful schemes that will have a negligible effect on climate.

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HERBERT MARCUSE, ANTONIO GRAMSCEI, AND "CRITICAL RACE THEORY"

The Mushy Muddled Marxists of the Left have attempted to apply Marx's discredited class conflict notions onto race and gender in America, but this narrative has even less credibility or justification than Marx's own exploitation theory -- long ago refuted by Bohm-Bawerk, Mises, Sowell, and Reisman.  Leftists delude themselves with claims of victimhood based on long-past enslavements even though no one alive today has ever been enslaved and deserve no reparations. The only way leftists avoid recognizing the internal contradictions of left-wing theories is through intellectual dishonesty and self delusion.  Their theories have been discarded, but their subversive movement continues to operate like a blind and deaf robot which has no purpose other than the attainment of frank power over the rest of society.  The lies, tactics, and arrogant duplicity of the Democrat Party can only be explained in terms of a chronic craving to acquire more power for its own sake to oppress peaceful citizens.           

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The 3/5 of a person for blacks myth

Much of the anti-white racism and propaganda put forth in Crticial Race Theory rests on widespread ignorance of the history and contents of the U.S. Constitution.

A propaganda line which has taken in many people is the claim that in the early United States black people were counted only as 3/5 of a person because they were not seen as worth the same as non-blacks. Untrue. What is the truth?

During the constitutional convention one of the main debates was over how to compute representation for the House of Representatives. The southern states wanted ALL people, including slaves, in their states counted as a full person for the purposes of computing representation (and therefore the number of congressmen per state). AGAIN, IT WAS THE SOUTHERN STATES WHERE SLAVERY WAS LEGAL THAT ADVOCATED THAT SLAVES BE COUNTED 100% LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. The northern states objected to the counting of slaves in the southern states as unfair because that would give southern states the advantage of more representatives (more congresspersons).

So, the northern states did not want slaves counted at all -- zero. After all, most slaves did not own landed property (although some did) and did not vote in elections. Southern states argued that slaves were people who shared in what happens in their states like anyone else.

Finally, a compromise was arrived at. The northern states were partially successful in getting their way by getting a COMPROMISE accepted in which slaves in the southern states would be counted only as 3/5 of a person FOR THE PURPOSES OF RECKONING REPRESENTATION. The southern states reluctantly went along with this compromise in order to relieve the deadlock that the convention was otherwise stuck in.

Always remember that the U.S. was never intended to be a democracy. The national government was a compact among the several and equal states. Each state government had an equal voice in determining some things, such as choosing a president. In the U.S. Senate each state had and still has two senators, regardless of population. The idea and hope was to divide up power and influence so that no one faction, whether minority or majority, had too much power over everyone else. Hence, compromises were made.

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IN A FULLY FREE SOCIETY, PRIVATE PROPERTY CREATES ENCLAVES OF FREEDOM

Do as you wish with your own stuff on your own property -- not with someone else's stuff on their property (without their permission) or on taxpayer-funded areas like government streets or court houses.  If you own and live on a farm and have a private road that goes around to the South 40, you can speed in your motor vehicle on your road without a seat belt if you choose.  In that context you are risking only your own life and are not a danger to others. If you speed or drtive recklessly on PUBLIC roads or streets you can be judged to be a risk to the life, liberry, and property of others who share those thoroughfares, and can be fined accordingly.  The owner of the street has the right to set the terms of its use.

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THE RIGHT TO DISCRIMINATE

"Liberals" have championed "anti-discrimination" laws which make it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, sex. or religion. And so on. But notice such laws do not make it illegal to discriminate against someone for their political views. American Conservatives -- those who support the values and virtues that the U.S. was based on since 1776 and 1791 -- have obviously been discriminated against greatly and the immoral "Liberal" Establishment has increasingly fomented hatred against American Conservatives, constitutionalists, tea partiers, libertarians, Trump supporters, and others who advocate Philadelphia freedom.

Today, there is a two-tier system of "justice" in this country: If you are part of the evil elite of the Democrat Party and its important political allies, you are above the laws that fall on everyone else and are given a pass. Hillary is still free as a bird when she should be in federal prison. If you are a Republican or Conservative or Trump supporter, you can be imprisoned for just about anything the DOJ/FBI/NSA/CIA wants to pin on you.

But, of course, this is beside the point. People SHOULD be free to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, and religion as well as political beliefs.

Discrimination, as long as it is nonviolent, is not necessarily a bad thing. The right to discriminate is a corollary of the right of private property ownership and the right of self ownership in freedom of speech and press. Anti-discrimination laws are attacks on the principle of private property, one of the principles that made America great (to the extent it was approached consistently). I advocate the repeal of all anti-discrimination laws. And I strongly advocate equal treatment under the law for all, even American Conservatives. The evil, unprincipled Democrat hacks and power trippers who have taken over FBI/DOJ/NSA/CIA etc. must be cleaned out with a huge enema. Who will clean out the "Augean stables" of today's DC swamp?

***

ON DISCRIMINATION

Discrimination may not always be "fair" and it may be motivated by fear or malevolence, but my point is not to defend unfairness or inconvenient or irrational discrimination, which should not be the concern of the law, but to point out that it does not rise to the level of violence, which is and should be the concern of the law. If you don't happen to like someone, just pass them by. There is no such thing as the "right" to have the government force others to deal with or support you simply on the basis that you have been discriminated against. But "liberal" control freaks have perverted the law.

*  *  *

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND THE RIGHTS OF BIGOTS

It must be admitted that there are those Caucasian Americans who distrust and even dislike Black folk, and there are also African-Americans who distrust and even dislike White folk. They all have a right to believe what they believe, whether justified or not, and should be free to express their opinions as long as they do not initiate violence on others. Prejudging all blacks (or all whites) on the basis of acts by only a few is a logical error, not a crime. Considering that black on white crime is many times that of white on black crime, it is somewhat surprising that there is no more anti-black bigotry than there is.

Those who actively advocate "White Supremacy" and organize with others of like mind represent a tiny subculture of America's 330 million people. Yet, the DOJ claims that White Supremacists are the primary terrorist threat to our country -- much more dangerous than either bloody socialist gangs (Antifa, BLM) or Islamic extremists. I don't believe it.

I believe -- and I have a right to my belief -- that the corrupt lawyers of the Justice Dept are greatly exaggerating the size and danger of the alleged threat to our way of life from White Supremacy or "neonazi" activists. TV cop shows routinely expose their viewers to the narrative of evil, Hitler-loving and race-hating cults bent on nefarious mischief and mayhem. But that is fiction, not reality. The truth is most people of whatever racial backgournd try to get along with other people the best they can despite the efforts by the Democrat Party, marxist hate groups like BLM and Antifa, leftist activists in the media who posture as journalists, and other race baiters and hate mongers to divide Americans. Most of the TV network media is solidly behind the promotion of racial divisions in America.

My advice is for people to stop watching CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS and other TV sources for their news and opinion, and turn instead to listening to news/talk radio. Ignoring those who are fanning the flames of "racism" for the divisive Democrats -- and avoioding supporting their sponsors would go a long way to solving the problem.

*   *   *

WHAT IF WHITEY SHRUGS?

When a neighborhood acquires a high enough proportion of criminals and social parasites, the more decent people tend to leave for other places to live. Businesses move away. It is called "White Flight" even though it can include decent folks of any race. The productive middle class is what keeps regular America going. They repair and maintain the equipment, make the sales, work in manufacturing plants, and do the jobs that the very wealthy (including the multi-millionaire founders of BLM and Antifa) are not even familiar with (since they don't have to work). The White Middle Class is also where the bulk of investment molney comes from as they save and invest in their 401K's and other pension funds. Can an economy as complex and interrelated as ours keep going without these productive citizens doing their jobs and without their investment money?

The Democrat Party has betrayed and abandoned the White Middle Class, forcing an increasing number of middle-income earners into the Republican Party. Now the OBiden Administration wants to radically increase taxes on capital gains. Investment money will flee and there will be far less capital for business starts, wages and salaries, or expansions of existing enterrprises. Such taxes don't really hurt the super rich who after all are already comfortably wealthy, and have more than enough to spend on themselves for the rest of their lives. Taxes on income and capital gains only reduce opportunities for upward mobility for those lower on the ladder of progress.

It has been predominantly White people who have largely played by the rules and acted as great benefactors to lower-income folks by pursuing their self interests and working to feed, clothe, and shelter their families. If the Democrats have their way, more and more middle-income folks will seek income opportunities in the underground economy. In short, what if Whitey shrugs?

*  *  *

THE UNIVERSAL PRACTICE OF SLAVERY
THAT WAS ABOLISHED IN AMERICA

Slavery, a sad inheritance from the Old World, was practiced almost universally, especially in Africa and Asia. But it could not survive very long in a nation where the Bill of Rights had been ratified in 1791.  From the beginning of the U.S.A. there were those who opposed slavery in both the North and the South.  But it wasn't until 18s63, when the Emancipation Proclamation was used by President Lincoln as a military tactic during the Civil War, that slavery really became a major issue of national debate.  Although slavery would certainly have eventually ended without a war, it was abolished more abruptly as a result of or byproduct of the war between North and South.  Slavery still exists to this day in parts of northern and central Africa.

*    *   *

   "Government is instituted to protect property of all sorts as well as that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses.  That being the end of government, that alone is a JUST government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his OWN."  
                                                                           ~James Madison   

*   *   *

J ULY 2020

WHAT IS MONEY?

What is money? Let me try to untangle this knotty topic. Money is anything that is widely used and widely accepted as a store of value and as a medium of exchange. Throughout history many commodities have been used as money. There are two kinds of money:

1) Market-chosen money -- commodities (such as gold or silver coins) that are widely accepted as money because their characteristics make them useful for that purpose, and

2) Legal tender money (government-imposed money) -- anything that is used and accepted as money because government forces people to use and accept it for all debts, public or private. Legal tender laws are laws which legally compel people to accept something as money in payment for all debts, public or private. The U.S. Constitution requires that if states pass any legal tender laws, that they make only gold or silver legal tender.

Fiat money is legal tender money that is a commodity (such as special cloth paper with special ink printed on it) that is NOT a note standing for or redeemable in gold or silver, but is legal tender which must be used and accepted ITSELF as money by law. The money we use today, since the 1930s, is fiat money. By the force of law, such "dollars" must be accepted in payment for all debts, public or private. In short, it is real money but only because the government says it is.

Old school economists define inflation as an increase the supply of money and credit. This is one possible cause which tends to result in a general rise in prices or rise in the mathematical average of selected prices (such as the Consumer Price Index). These days many confuse "inflation" with a general rise in the level of prices or CPI. Inflation occurs when a government or its "central bank" increases the quantity of money or credit in circulation, usually to pay off debts or other payment obligations. The economic impact of this is no different from that of illegal counterfeiting. The people who get the new money first benefit at the expense of those who get it later on. Thus, a subtle transfer of wealth takes place, which causes some economists to call inflation a hidden tax.

Inflation distorts interest rates and causes people to invest in some areas of production but not others. This "malinvestment" is unsustainable and eventually the artificial boom or "bubble" will collapse. It is inflation that induces "cycles" of boom and bust.

* * *

MONETARY INFLATION AND THE REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

Any time the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury send out checks, the "new money" does not represent new wealth being created by new production.  The fiat money payments merely shift existing wealth AWAY FROM those who get the checks later on and TO those who get the new money first.  It is a transfer of existing wealth and does not add new wealth to the economy as a whole.  Like any counterfeiting scheme, the people who benefit are the counterfeiters themselves and those who get the new money first and who spend the new phony money on real goods and services before it circulates to others who get it later on.  So it represents a temporary gain to some at the expense of others, but not a benefit to the economy as a whole.

But some would argue that many good Americans need just such a temporary benefit at this time.  Maybe so, but should that include subsidies for the Kennedy Center for the Arts -- a cultural center that serves exclusively wealthy patrons of the liberal-left literatti? Or $1800 to illegal aliens?  Or foreign aid giveaways as well as other Pelosi pork fats included in the legislation? . 

*****

SAVING MILLIONS OF LIVES BY ENDING WWii

 
 
 Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki  got Japan back for its sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, 
 
 
 

but more importantly it shortened the war by many years and avoided the deaths of perhaps millions more lives, 
 
 
 

and got Japan to surrender to the United States instead of Communist Russia.  If the communists had taken over 
 
 
 

Japan in the wake of WWII, Japan would never have become one of the leading economies in the world, but 
 
 
 

would have fallen into poverty and despotism like East Germany and other Russian sattelites.
 
 
 
 
 
 

*****

TALK RADIO VS THE "LIBERAL" ESTABLISHMENT TV NETWORKS

With their long dominance in the TV network news game, the Dems figure all they have to do is just repeat their agreed-upon narrative and talking points (lies) about Trump and his supporters enough to get people to accept them as fact. But, some of us listen to Talk Radio -- Rush, Sean Hannity, Mark LeVin, Brian Kilmeade, et alia -- where a different reality is revealed, an increasingly coherent account by independent jo urnalists Gregg Jarrett, John Solomon, Sara A, Carter, and others who have done the real investigative work to ferret out the facts ignored or deliberately suppressed by the "mainstream" echo chamber (CNN, MS-NBC, ABC, CBS, Buzzfake, etc. generally led by the NY Times and WashPost) about the behind-the-scenes acts of some in the FBI. DOJ, CIA, and other rogue agents at the top levels within the executive bureaucracy to spy on, infiltrate, frame, and undermine a duly elected president of the United States.

The legacy media networks are now being exposed as having been consistently wrong and deceptive, while Hannity, Rush, LeVin, and Kilmeade of Talk Radio are now shown to have been telling the truth, and having got the real story right all along about what was going on, and have been predicting what is now finally coming out in fits and spurts despite Big Media's best efforts at coverup. There are now several books which independently connect the dots, and they are being read by many inquiring minds.

The viewers of CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. have been lied to for so long. They have been presented with a false reality which is now breaking apart every day. As more and more facts continue to emerge to contradict the Establishment "Liberal" narrative, those viewers will be experiencing increasing cogdis while those who followed Hannity, Kilmeade, Rush, and LeVin now know thaf they are being fully vindicated in their reporting, analysis, and expectations

JANUARY 19, 2020

The bush fires in Australia and in California to a large extent have been set by environmental whackos.  There is also the factor of the abandonment of traditional clear cutting and clearing of brush which allow fires, once started, to spread to larger areas. This change in policy is from environmentalist pressures. Our forests are not burning up from "global warming"; they are burning up from global warming cultists trying to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

JANUARY 18, 2020

     Instead of dismissing the partisan "impeachment" charges as the political campaign gambit that they are, the Senate under Mitch McConnell appears to be going to hold a trial based on the House Democrat claims. The Senate ought to pass a resolution ruling the impeachment charges as null and void and not following rules of due process or good faith practices. Adam Schiff and Gerald Naddler should be denounced as persistent liars and rejected as illegitimate House managers

JANUARY 15, 2020

NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW -- except (so far) Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, the Podesta brothers, Strzok and Page, Comey, McCabe, Clapper, Brennan, Rosenstein, Weismann, et alia. They all belong in prison, yet none have been indicted much less prosecuted for their known crimes. None have had their homes broken into by dozens of FBI goons to confiscate their computers and search for evidence.

There may have been a time in the distant past when journalists actually stood for truth, justice, and the American way, and reported on abuses of power by government bureaucrats and corruption scandals in the FBI and DOJ and CIA. But, now that the Left has their people ensconced in the "deep state" bureaucracy, the network media covers up for the crooks and does not report on what is really going on. They are in league with the bad guys now

JANUARY 10, 2020

American Leftists and "Liberals" Sympathize with Chief Terrorist Slain b y Trump

DECEMBER 2019

The so-called impeachment came about supposedly because a "whistleblower" overheard gossip about a July 25 phone call between Pres. Trump and the new Ukrainian president. Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi claim that Trump DEMANDED that the Ukrainians investigate the Bidens and if they didn't do it then a planned increment of military aid would be held up until they dug up or created the "dirt" on the Bidens since Joe Biden was planning to run against Trump in 2020. But on reading the verbatim transcript of the telephone call, which was released to the public, no such language can be found. The transcript shows that Trump suggested the Ukrainians check into the Bidens near the end of the call, almost as an afterthought, and clearly as part of a wider investigation into Ukrainian corruption especially in 2016. There is no demand, no quid pro quo extortion, and no bribery. This "interpretation" of the call was total fiction made up by Schiff, Nadler, and Pelsoi. And both Zelensky and Trump later publicly confirmed that no "pressure" or "demand" had been made. The aid WAS temporarily held up by people in the State Dept who TOOK IT ON THEMSELVES to do so without authorization and against the wishes of President Trump who had explicitly told his EU ambassador that he didn't want anything in return, no quid pro quo. It looks more like the Deep State tried to set Trump up. They never thought that the president would make an unredacted transcript of the actual call public. In any event, it's all pretty flimsy for an impeachment. But the Dems are counting on the least informed people not reading the transcript and believing three obvious liars instead. And of course such faux news groups as CNN and MSNBC broadcast the lie of Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi but not the relevant portion of the transcript of the actual call.  It's all a hoax.

*   *   *

Political Terminology

Who and What Comprises the Far Left in America Today?
Sam Wells

What term or terms should be used to identify the political left in the U.S? Current usage refers to everyone left of center as "liberal." Yet, as former leftist David Horowitz points out, "what are currently identified liberals liberal about except hard drugs and sex? In regard to everything else, they are determined to intervene, regulate and control your life, or redistribute your income."

Exactly right. (And even when it comes to drug prohibition, many if not most "liberal" Democrats are just as opposed to legalization or decriminalization as any Republican.)

Obviously, when terrorist-loving left-wing reactionaries like Ramsey Clark and Communist hacks like Angela Davis are referred to as "liberals" - as they routinely are in the "liberal" press and TV media - the obfuscation works to their advantage and against the interests of veracity and what's left of our constitutional republic. Instead of calling them "liberals" perhaps they should be called welfare-state neofascists.

Another aspect of political lexicography, however, involves how to identify the "hard" Far Left, i.e.,, those who are dedicated enemies of America, private property, market capitalism ( i.e., the freedom to exchange, save, and invest), and who instead support higher taxes, heavy government regulations, and/or outright socialism (political ownership and control of the major industries, including education, transportation, communication, and health care).

It is usually fairly easy to identify such leftists and it is not difficult to describe them. They almost always champion the failed system of socialism and are often either self-conscious Marxists or have absorbed much of the rhetoric of the old Marxist Left. These include those who have sympathies with such hostile regimes as those now in control of North Korea, Cuba, and mainland China, or - more commonly -- those who believe that most if not all the ills of the world are caused by American capitalism and White middle-class greed. Having absorbed a great deal of leftist propaganda, they tend to believe the United States to be the imperialist guardian of a world system that the militant Left (i.e., anti-capitalist reactionaries) must defeat before they can impose their "social justice" dictatorship all over the world.

Adherents to this anti-American creed variously describe themselves as "Marxists," "Trotskyists," "anti-globalists," "anti-war activists," "Larouchites," or, more generally, "progressives" or even "radicals" -- even though what they really want to do would take the world back to something resembling medieval serfdom if not Stalinist totalitarianism. I hasten to point out -- as I have before elsewhere -- that by no stretch do I consider all those who are truly anti-war to be necessarily part of the Marxist Left -- and if "anti-globalist" includes those who oppose a One World socialist regime, then count me in that category myself! No, I am talking about the hard-core leftists who oppose the spread of market capitalism and American influence anywhere in the world, and who spend their time inveighing against what they call "American imperialism" as being far more of a threat to world peace and freedom than either communism or Islamic extremism.

Their belief system claims that America is responsible for oppression, exploitation, and poverty across the planet and this belief results in their regarding the U.S. and market capitalism as the equivalent of militant Islam's "Great Satan." This explains the otherwise incomprehensible practical alliances that individuals who claim to be avatars of social justice make with Islamo-fascists like Saddam Hussein. (An apparent exception to this anti-American attitude of the hard-core Left is the tactic used by the followers of political cult leader Lyndon Larouche (aka Lyn Marcus) who initially seem to be patriotic and pro-American, but on closer examination reveal a far-left agenda for America and the world.)

The leaders of this anti-Aemrican Left include Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, and Cornel West along with such aging red icons as Angela Davis, Ramsey Clark and Mikhail Gorbachev. Its cultural noisemakers include Tim Robbins, Michael Moore, , . Among its political gurus are Ralph Nader and the heads of the three major "peace" organizations (Leslie Cagan, Brian Becker and Clark Kissinger) and the leadership of such groups as the Green Party and the Peace and Freedom Party. Its most outspoken and extreme elected representatives include Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-California) and Congressman Dennis Kucinch (D-Ohio).

Among its activist organizations:are the misnamed Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild, just to name a couple. And, its publications and media outfits include The Nation, Z Magazine, The Progressive, Counterpunch, Pacifica radio, Indymedia.org and commondreams.org. Its front groups include many sham "environmentalist" organizations which seek government controls on American industry and economic growth. Like the Communist Party in the heyday of the Soviet empire, the influence of the today's hard left -intellectually and organizationally - extends far beyond the institutions, organizations and publications it controls.

One of the Marxist Left's survival tactics has been its ability to divert attempts to identify it to the public by labeling those who do as "red-baiters" and "witch-hunters" -- as though even to name it honestly is to persecute it. These same people, on the other hand, think nothing of labeling their opponents "racists" and "fascists," or calling the President of the United States a "Nazi" puppet of an oil cartel. Standing on the freedoms recognized by our First Amendment, they get away with propagating lies and half-truths, but when they are exposed as telling lies or even if someone merely disagrees with them, they react shrilly as if their freedom of speech is being taken away from them by force of censorship! They act as if freedom of speech is only for them -- not for those who dissent with their views. This technique has successfully silenced many of the Left's detractors, especially on college campuses where the "poilitically correct" left-wing thought police often have great influence in punishing dissenters. Yet, unfortunately, that strategy has been a highly effective ploy in the tolerant American society they are determined to destroy.

As writer David Horowitz -- himself a former hard-core leftist who knows whereof he speaks -- observes:

"I myself have been called a 'red-baiter' and 'McCarthyite' for pointing out that the current "peace" organizations like International ANSWER and Not In Our Name are fronts for the Workers World Party - a Marxist-Leninist vanguard that identifies with North Korea - and the Revolutionary Communist Party, a Maoist sect. The facts are obvious and unarguable, but their implications are unpleasant and therefore suspect [to "liberals" in denial]."

Of legitimate concern is that the term "Communist" in the context of the contemporary left can be somewhat misleading. While the Communist Party still exists and is even growing, it is a minor player and enjoys nothing approaching its former influence or power in the left. Even in the hard left, the Communist Party USA is only a constituent part of the whole whereas once, along with its front groups, it dominated so-called "progressive" politics.

Because of this and other reasons, Horowitz maintains that the best term to describe this new "New Left" is "neo-communist" or "neo-coms" for short.

By way of background, during the late 1950s and early sixties, what became known as the "New Left" emerged after temporarily jetisoning its old Communist (Marxist-Leninist) substrate or at least some of the more doctrinaire jargon.

Communist expert David Horowitz recalls, "While starting out as a rejection of Stalinism, by the end of the Sixties the 'new left' had devolved into a movement virtually indistinguishable from the Communist predecessor it had claimed to reject. This was as true of its Marxist underpinnings, as its anti-Americanism or its indiscriminate embrace of totalitarian revolutions and revolutionaries abroad.

"The New Left imploded at the end of the Sixties a victim of its own revolutionary enthusiasms, which led it to pursue a violent politics it could not sustain. America's withdrawal from Vietnam in the early Seventies deprived the Left of the immediate pretext for its radical agendas. Many of its cadre retired from the 'revolution in the streets' they had tried to launch and entered the Democrat Party. Others turned to careers in journalism and teaching, the professions of choice for secular missionaries. Still others took up local agitations and discrete campaigns in behalf of saving the environment, feminist issues, and gay rights -- without giving up their radical illusions. In the 1980s, spurred by the Soviet-sponsored 'nuclear freeze' campaign and by the 'solidarity' movements for Communist forces in Central America, the left began to regroup without formally announcing its re-emergence or proclaiming a new collective identity as its Sixties predecessor had done.

"At the end of the decade, the collapse of the Soviet empire ushered in an interregnum of confusion for the left, calling a temporary halt to this radical progress. In the Soviet debacle "revolutionary" leftists confronted the catastrophic failure of everything they had believed and fought for during the previous 70 years. Even those radicals who recognized the political failures of the Soviet regime, believe in what Trotksy had called 'the gains of October' - the superior forces of socialist production. But the leftist faith proved impervious to this rebuttal by historical events. Insulated by its religious devotion to the progressive[sic] idea, the left survived the refutation of its socialist dreams. Instead of acknowledging their wrongheaded commitment to the socialist cause, they looked on the demise of what they had once hailed as 'the first socialist state' as no more than an albatross that providence had lifted from their shoulders.

"In short, having defended the indefensible for 70 years, they were suddenly relieved that they would no longer have to defend it. Turning their backs on their own past, they pretended it was someone else's. They said, 'The collapse of socialism doesn't prove anything because it wasn't real socialism. Real socialism hasn't been tried.' This subterfuge rescued them from having to make apologies for abetting regimes that had killed tens of millions and enslaved tens of millions more. Broken eggs with no omelet to show for it -- not a workable socialist result. Better yet, there was no need to acknowledge that the country whose efforts they had opposed and whose actions they had condemned had liberated a billion people from the most oppressive empire the world had ever seen. They had no need for second thoughts about what they had done. They just went on to the next destruction, the newest incarnation of the radical (i.e., reactionary leftist) cause."

In other words, the Left's ideology stands fully refuted philosophically (by Ayn Rand), economically (by Bohm-Bawerk, Bastiat, and Mises), and practically (by the historical examples of the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea -- anywhere hard-core socialism has been approached in the real world), but those who still believe in the false promises of socialist utopias are so intellectually dishonest that they refuse to acknowledge their intellectual bankruptcy and continue, like blind robots, with their irrational hatred of America and capitalism and private property and freedom to trade -- and they continue to try to tear down or take over the U.S. while using its freedoms and tolerance for dissent to do so. The Left is acting in bad faith. But, then, it always has.

The difference is that it is increasingly obvious to any rational observer today that the contemporary left wing in America can no longer even pretend to be "scientific" or "rational" at all (as the Marxists of old tried to do) -- and what pseudo-scientific trappings remain are increasingly falling away to reveal the mystic cult movement that the Far Left always was. But I will have more to say about that on another occasion.

So what do we call it? None dare call it "communism"? Well, actually, some do dare call it that, at least with the prefix "neo" to distinguish it from the old-fashioned Commies of the past. Horowitz, for one, says:

"If one looks at almost any aspect of this Left - its self-identified intellectual lineage (Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Heidegger, Fanon, Gramsci -- in sum, the totalitarian tradition), its analytic model (hierarchy and oppression), its redemptive agenda (social justice as state-enforced leveling), and its enemies - 'imperialist' America and the American 'ruling class' -- one would be hard put to find a scintilla of difference with the Communist past. Of course leftists themselves will have none of this. Most of them will proclaim their anti-Stalinism (even as they embrace its practices); and will not defend the Communist systems that have in any case collapsed. But so what? The Soviet rulers denounced Stalin. Were they any less Communists for that?

"It seems appropriate, therefore, to call the unreconstructed hard-liners 'neo-communists' --a term that accurately identifies their negative assaults on American capitalism and their anti-American 'internationalist' agendas. . . . . "

Hmmmm, maybe David Horowitz has a point. For those who have a prejudice against using the left-right political spectrum (or the up-versus-down spectrum which I endorse), the term "neo-com" may have appeal.

*   *   *

THE COPOUT OF THE "INDEPENDENTS", "MODERATES",
AND POLITICALLY NEUTRAL

There is no rational basis for denouncing both sides in today's political war -- to say a pox on both their houses -- as if there was no clear choice. In 2020, there is a real choice, not an echo. One side is lying or wrong on the issues. The other side has the truth or is very much closer to the truth. So, no reason to be a mugwomp sitting on the fence with your mug on one side and your womp on the other.

DEMOCRATS ___________ REPUBLICANS
Anti Gun Rights __________ Pro 2nd Amendment
Anti Law Enforcement _____ Pro Law Enforcement
Pro Antifa _______________ Anti Antifa
Pro Open Borders _________ Pro Border Security
Pro Illegal Immigration _____ Anti Illegal Immigration
Pro Abortion _____________ Pro Life
Pro Solar/Wind Subsidies ___ Pro Market Energy
Pro Partisan Judges ________ Pro Rule of Law
Anti Voter ID _____________ Pro Voter ID
Anti Economic Growth _____ Pro Economic Growth
Pro "Political Correctness" __ Pro Freedom of Speech
Pro High Taxes ___________ Anti High Taxes
Pro Unlimited Govt ________ Pro Limited Govt
Pro Man-Caused Climate ___ Pro Private Property
Change Cult _____________ Pro Real Science
Pro Single Govt Health Plan_ Pro Freedom of Choice
Anti U.S. Sovereignty ______ Pro U.S. Sovereignty

As far as sexual abuse is concerned, the vast majority of abusers are big-shot Democrats, not Republicans. The Democrat candidates promise pie in the sky. There is not enough money to take from the rich to even begin to pay for their tyrannical schemes. We need realistic solutions, not pie ion the sky. Ultimately, the choice is between having control freaks regulate every aspect of your life through Big Government or an attempt to get this nation back to its constitutional roots and getting unnecessary government intrusions out of our lives.

The Republicans are far from perfect, but compared to the left-wing extremism and desperate insanity of the Democrat Party, they are the only rational choice for 2020 IMO.

BEING INCONSISTENT IS RISKY

Ideally, there would be no tariffs on either side. That would be best for both economies. Conservatives risk the charge of inconsistency and hypocrisy when they claim to be for free enterprise but support government control over or taxes on our trade even as a temporary tactic.  This issue, after all, was one of the primary reasons for the American revolution against King George's usurpations.

I hate to think that the previous tax cuts and deregulation that Trump obtained will be blamed for the bad economic results of the Trump tariffs. He confuses us when he runs Right and then runs to the Left.

*   *   *

WHY THERE WILL NEVER BE A ROTHBARDIAN ANARCHIST SOCIETY AND WHY THE CONSTITUTIONALIST APPROACH IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA WAS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL REALIZATION OF LIBERTY FOR THE GREATEST NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN HISTORY

There are limits to "privatization" (marketization). Such functions as police and courts (real courts, not arbitration agencies) and the military are inherently violent, of necessity in order to do their job. They are NOT market entities.  Market entities are non-coercive and bilateral by nature. Any attempt to "privatize" such activities still leaves one with political entities acting just like government no matter what they call themselves. Real courts have the police power to enforce their decisions on unwilling participants. No arbitration agency or other purely market entity has that power or authority. Merely calling a political entity Murray's Anarcho-Fascist Insurgency Association does not make it a market agency. A state by any other name still smells much the same. If it uses violent force in any way, initiatory or retaliatory, for any reason (just or unjust), it is not a market agency.

There is no such thing as a market version of what a proper government does.  If criminal violence breaks out and a private group organizes to arrest or detain the criminal or alleged criminal, that group cannot be considered a market entity since market entities do not involve the use of violence of any kind (either initiatory or retaliatory).  Holding anyone against his or her will involves the use of coercion, of violence.  That is not a market practice or function.  Market entities -- business enterprises as such  -- operate by bilateral voluntarism.  As soon as anyone resorts to violence for any reason they cease to be a purely market entity and in that instance at least act as a Coercive Entity or state-like entity.  It doesn't matter what such a violent group calls itself -- a vigilante committee, a hanging mob, a retaliation agency, an ethnic gang, or Murray's Anarcho-Fascist Insurgency Association (MAFIA) -- it is NOT a market entity.  Nor does "competition" among such violent groups behave in the same salutary way as competitive alternatives in price and quality offered in the non-violent marketplace.  The "competition" between the USA and the CSA in the 1860s resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.  It was not market competition.  It was war.  The failure to understand the distinction between market entities on the one hand and the essence of political government (violence) on the other is the fatal flaw of the Rothbardian anarchists.  They further confuse the issue by believing that violent agencies can compete within the same territory without appreciationg that violence always tends to be monopolisitc in terms of territory.  The definition of government or political state is basically the biggest MF in the valley; it is the entity that can, at least potentially, impose or enforce its will more than any other entity within a given area or territory.  Such an entity has the power to punish anyone who uses coercive force or violence without its permission within its claimed territory, if it wants to do so.  What constitutes the de facto government in a given territory depends in part on the extent of the territory under consideration.  Within the context of a couple of blocks, that may be a criminal gang.  Within the context of a single room, it may be a maniac who threatens to shoot anyone else in the room if they do not do what he wants.  It is contextual.  For any de facto government (whether called that or not), there is a natural monopoly on its claimed territory.  If more than one group fight among themselves to gain control over the same territory, it is called civil war, and there is no reason to believe that the winner or strongest will acknowledge or defend the lives and properties of innocent peaceful folk or improve freedom for peaceful individuals.

Since they do not use violence of any kind (either initiatory or retaliatory), market entities ("businesses") cannot routinely or ordinarily fight criminal violence except by non-violent prophylactic means (security guards, locks, burglar alarms, elect ric fences, automatic security lighting and monitoring the premises, etc.) In this connection, there are no market counterparts to government courts. There ARE market arbitration agencies, marriage counseling agencies, etc. which involve only the voluntary participation of all those involved, but they do not have the police power to enforce their rulings or recommendations on unwilling participants as real courts do. Under special circumstances a businessman or his employees may be deputized and form a temporary posse to hunt down criminals or those accused of crimes. Similarly, bounty hunters operate under the authority and discretion of the state or federal governments that license them.   Letters of marque may be granted by a government.

A political state or government may be either a constitutional republic limited in scope to protecting the rights of peaceful citizens or a totalitarian socialist tyranny -- or anything in between those extremes.

The constitutionalist approach supports a popular reverence for the Rule of Law (as opposed to the arbitrary whims of rulers) and recognizes the reality of existing political institutions and seeks to impose on them legal, constitutional restraints, based on fundamental principles,  if and when possible in practice. Through logical and persuasive argument, this approach extols the advantages of respecting the individual rights of life, liberty, and property of peaceful people and the need to limit violence to the defense of and just retaliation against criminal activity by the prevailing government.

This was the way the most successful approaches to liberty have occurred historically -- the United States republic based on the English constitutional tradition and Lockean political heritage.  Gradually and admittedly imperfectly early on, it was this evolving constitutionalism that culminated in the Declaration orf Independence, the original U. S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights.  It is no coincidence that, next to the Bible, the most widely read book in the American colonies was John Locke's Second Treatise of Civil Government. The basic ideas would later be expressed more cogently or perhaps more succinctly by others (such as Frederic Bastiat), but it was the logical triumph of certain fundamental principles (natural individual rights of peaceful adults) and the proper use of violent force that did in fact lead to the greatest expansion of freedom for more people than at any other time in history.  This relative success should be preserved and emulated, not overthrown for what would amount in practice to warring gang lords.

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A GOVERNMENT LIMITED IN SCOPE, NOT NECESSARILY IN "SIZE"

There are those who favor a weak ineffective government that cannot deal with crime, because they know they can get away with violence under such a system or use it to their privileged advantage. As Bastiat pointed out so long ago, they would pervert the law to make government itself the biggest criminal instead of an instrument for justice.

I favor a strong government capable of defending against and justly retaliating against genuine crimes and foreign threats to the lives , liberties, and properties of peaceful citizens. But it has to be a constitutional republic that is limited in SCOPE to fighting crime and not using its police power against peaceful citizens. This means a market free of criminal and political coercive intervention and the private property of all peaceful citizens, whether rich or poor, would be protected. A constitutional republic means a government whose power is restricted in scope to certain purposes (fighting crime) but ideally non-existent in other areas of human life, such as peaceful market activities or strictly personal matters. This is the ideal toward which the original American Republic was the most important step in human history.

The idea of the SIZE of government seems ambiguous.  How is size to be measured?  Does it mean the number of persons who work in the government?  Or the number of buildings that are part of the government? Or the number of political agenci3s under its direction?  Or, does it mean the size of the area of the territory over which the government makes claim?  And then the question arises:  what is the optimal size of government?  I reject this approach.

I contend that political government should be limited by principle.  What principle?  The principle of the individual rights of person, liberty, and property of peaceful citizens.  So, my answer is the same as that of John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason, Frederic Bastiat, and Ayn Rand.

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ON DISCRIMINATION

Discrimination may not always be "fair" and it may be motivated by fear or malevolence, but my point is not to defend unfairness or inconvenient or irrational discrimination, which should not be the concern of the law, but to point out that it does no t rise to the level of violence, which is and should be the concern of the law. If you don't happen to like someone, just pass them by. There is no such thing as the "right" to have the government force others to deal with or support you simply on the basis that you have been discriminated against. But "liberal" control freaks have perverted the law.

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NEW TARIFFS TO BE IMPOSED ON MEXICO?

Pres. Trump announces new tariffs to be imposed beginning June 10 against Mexican imports. This is an effort to pressure Mexican government officials to crack down on those "migrants" going through Mexico to cross the U.S. border illegally. So, Trump is imposing the new tariffs not in response to pressure from domestic special business interests, but as a tool to pressure Mexican officials to do more to thwart illegal immigration over their own southern border and the borde r with the U.S. Yes, the new tariffs will hurt us as well as Mexicans, but the president believes it is worth the risk of his losing support for his 2020 re-election campaign. I am opposed to protective tariffs in general, but in view of the border crisis, I don't blame Trump for doing this. This instance of the use of tariffs can be viewed as a national security tactic instead of a trade strategy (which I do oppose). Let us hope this gets the Mexican government's attention.

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Proposal for a New Podcast

A weekly countdown of the current events, issues, and people being discussed on talk radio by the leading talk radio show hosts.  It would be a summary of what real radio talk show hosts are really talking about  including Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Brian Kilmeade, Mike Gallagher, Mark LeVin, Jimbo Hannon, Dana Loesch, Glenn Beck, Michael Reagan, Dennis Prager, Chad Benson, Seb Gorka, and Richard Donner.

TALK RADIO SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK

15.   SpaceX Celebrates Successful Launch `

SpaceX is celebrating its successful launch of 60 satellites into Earth orbit as part of Operation Starlink with the goal to provide Internet access to poor people around the world.

https://www.livescience.com/65556-spacex-launches-60-starlink-internet-satellites.html

14.  Stephen Moore withdraws from Fed board consideration

Stephen Moore has withdrawn himself from consideration for the board of the Federal Reserve because of left-wing attacks.  His withdrawal is grudgingly accepted by President Trump.  Moore is a Caucasian, but even worse than that he has criticized identity politics, especially in the arena of sports.  Identity Politics means that race, ethnicity, gender and the liberal establishsment's "political correctness" are way more important than the content of a man's character.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/trumps-fed-pick-stephen-moore-withdraws-candidacy

13.  Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Seen by Military Pilots

https://www.thedailybeast.com/navy-pilots-report-seeing-unidentified-flying-objects-over-east-coast-nyt

12.  Video Game Addiction

World Health Organization now classifies video game addiction as a disease.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hnewman/2019/05/31/researchers-release-new-test-for-video-gaming-addiction/#3ef72192279c

11.  Tornadoes in the Midwest

https://www.vox.com/2019/5/29/18643166/tornado-2019-ohio-kansas-missouri

10.  Private Sector Helping to Build the Wall

https://www.theblaze.com/news/privately-funded-border-wall-construction-begins-in-el-paso

9.  Trump Sends Response to Iranian Threat

The Trump Administration has intel that Iran is a "credible threat" to U.S. interests and allies in the Middle East.  Trump sends a carrier force to the Persian Gulf to deter the Mullah regime.

8.  Illegals & Crime in Sanctuary County

Two MS13 gang members sought for murder of 14-year-old girl after being released by St. Georges County despite being charged with attempted murder.  Meanwhile, Governor of Washington State declares his state a sanctuary state!

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2019/05/22/ice-tried-to-track-down-illegal-aliens-suspected-of-murdering-a-teen-n2546692

7.  Stock Market Fluctuations Continue Over Concerns about Tariff Wars

https://reason.com/2019/04/25/the-trump-administration-is-finally-admitting-that-trade-wars-arent-easy-to-win/

https://www.barrons.com/articles/trump-tariff-threat-stock-market-51557158716

6.  New Hampshire does away with death penalty.

The legislature overrides the governor's veto.

https://reason.com/2019/05/30/new-hampshire-just-abolished-the-death-penalty/

5.  More Pro-Life Challenges to Rose vs. Wade

Louisiana is the latest state to make elective abortions illegal after the fetal heart begins beating.

https://nypost.com/2019/05/29/louisiana-passes-strict-anti-abortion-bill-dem-governor-expected-to-sign/

4.  Impeachment?

Nancy Pelosi is trying to tamp down pressure from more extreme Democrats in favor of impeaching President Trump.  She feels if they go that way, it will guarantee his re-election.  At present there are only 50 individuals in Congress in favor of impeachment.

https://hotair.com/archives/2019/05/02/support-impeachment-craters-now-29-66-new-quinnipiac-poll/

3.  New Tariffs To Be Imposed Against Mexican Imports

Pres. Trump announces new tariffs to be imposed beginning June 10 against Mexican imports.  This is an effort to pressure Mexican government officials to crack down on those going through Mexico to cross the U.S. border illegally. So, Trump is imposing the new tariffs not in response to pressure from domestic special business interests, but as a tool to pressure Mexican officials to do more to thwart illegal immigration over their own southern border and the border with the U.S.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/trump-tariffs-mexico-illegal-immigration-may-30-2019

2.  The Obama/Clinton FBI/DOJ FISAgate/Spygate scandal

The attempted "Deep State" overthrow of an elected president by using the infamous concocted Steele dossier as the only predicate to justify a 2-1/2-year "investigation" against Trump is unraveling.  Pres. Trump has granted AG Barr authority to declassify any and all material related to Obama's FBI/DOJ wiretaspping and attempts to frame Trump associates, including the fraudulent FISA warrant applications. (Trump has been the most open and transparent (sometimes to a fault) president in long memory, but House Leader Nancy Pelosi accuses him of "coverup"!).  The evidence against the Obama FBI/DOJ continues to mount.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-gives-ag-barr-authority-to-declassify-documents-related-to-2016-campaign-surveillance

1.  Mueller's Mini-Monologue

Is there anything new from this 9-minute "press conference" (in which he refused to take any questions) or statement reading by Roibert Mueller?  Not really, except perhaps that in it he contradicts what he had told William Barr and Rod Rosenstein.  He had told them that the DOJ rule that a president cannot be indicted while in office was NOT the only reason he did not bring any formal charges against Trump.  Presumably a lack of evidence was also a factor. Now, he seems to be saying that it IS the only reason, implying perhaps that there was some evidence of wrong-doing worthy of impeachment.  He admits by indirect wording that his group of anti-Trump/pro-Clinton prosecutors failed to turn up sufficient evidence to support the specific charge of obstruction of justice against the president, but says so in a negative and confusing way apparently to mislead people into thinking that they had found something after all.  According to the president, Mueller hates him (Trump) because Trump turned him down for FBI Director and also because of a business deal he had with Trump that Mueller disliked.  Even so, Deputy AG Rosenstein picked his friend Mueller to be Special Counsel despite the obvious conflicts of interest.  Because of his weasel wording in his 9-minute swan song, Robert Mueller reveals himself again as part of the political anti-Trump effort by sore losers to overturn the election of 2016.  He has to admit by default that Trump is exonerated, but implies vaguely there may be something there that Congress can use against him.  Former Assistant AG and current radio talk host Mark LeVin insists that Mueller should never have been appointed Special Counsel, that the Mueller probe was unconstitutional, and all that came from that "poisonous tree" is invalid.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-says-he-didnt-agree-with-the-legal-analysis-in-mueller-report-says-it-did-not-reflect-the-views-of-doj

______

Full Transcript of Barr interview with Jan Crawford

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 APRIL 22, 2019

Those who genuinely want to eliminate poverty, suffering, pollution, and war around the world -- if they are intellectually honest and do their homework -- must eventually come to realize that the way to achieve all that is through market capitalism and right-wing constitutionalism, and by promoting traditional moral values, respect for peoples' lives and private property, free markets, freedom to save and invest, entrepreneurship, respect for local police in support of law a nd order, freedom of speech for all on college campuses, and low taxes on both rich and poor. The limitation of government to combating and punishing crime instead of trying to redistribute wealth or bureaucratically plan the economy is the road to lifting many more people out of poverty, suffering, war, and reducing pollution.

Those who really wish to control and enslave other people, who oppose freedom of speech on campus by freedom's advocates, who instigate violence, and who support socialism and communism -- those leftists are just using and manipulating their front offensives of anti-poverty, anti-war, and allegedly pro-environment posturing to advance their real agenda of tyranny. They do nothing to alleviate poverty, suffering, war, or even pollution.

*   *   *

In re:  Foreign/Military Policy

The Fallacy of the "Right of National Self Determination"

by Sam Wells

The pernicious fallacy of the "Right of National Self Determination" and the false notion of "Moral Equivalence" between national governments or cultures -- these ideas serve as the shallow basis for much of the foreign policy positions advocated by neo-isolationists and Marxist-Leninists who demonstrate against any efforts by the U.S. to come to the righteous defense of people who are long oppressed under statist regimes.  Some of the most brutal dictators on Earth hide behind these high-sounding phrases to claim "legitimacy" for their reign of terror, mass murders, and pillaging of their own citizens.  From the war to liberate Western Europe from German Naziism and Russian Communism to the socialist hell hole of North Vietnam and the communist war against the South to Saddam's "rape rooms" in Iraq, and the torture chambers and widespread poverty of communist-controlled Cuba under Castro, there were always those who invoked "the right of national self determination" to object to getting involved in "other peoples' affairs."

  Note well:  I am NOT here focusing on those who argue against intervening in any of the above situations for reasons that it would be sacrificial for us to do so or because it would be a waste of limited resources or would be inconsistent with our geopolitical concerns.   I am challenging only the alleged "moral" argument based on the belief that any and all despotic regimes are off limits because they are just as "legitimate" on the basis of a misguided moral equivalence or the "right" of national self determination.

Based on the principle of individual rights, many Americans believe that peaceful people should be free from violent interference to run their own affairs and manage their own lives, wealth, and properties as they see fit so long as they do not violently infringe on the same right of others to do the same.  This principle, as well as well-defined and defended property boundaries, is the basis for a free, prosperous and peaceful society.

But the attempt to expand that prinicple beyond individuals to relations between such collective abstractions as nations or national governments leads to error.  In reality, a nation consists of a large number of people with various desires, values, and personal goals.  Ultimately, it is only the peaceful individual who has rights, not the political state.

Government has only the powers that people can delegate to it, namely to defend the rights of peaceful people against those who would use violence, in other words, to defend against and retaliate against crime in the pursuit of justice.

There is no such thing as the right to violate the rights of others.  Governments have no right to act criminally and use their power to violently prey on peaceful citizens.  If a regime nevertheless goes beyond its proper role and initiates violence against its own citizens arbitrarily, engaging in tyranny by massive violations of their rights, it loses any legitimacy and it becomes the right of the people to alter it or replace it with a new government with such legal and institutional restraints, checks, and counterbalances as may keep it more within its legitimate scope.

The mere existence of a political regime does not make it legitimate or off limits to outside interference or overthrow.

Typically, the idea of "national self determination" is connected with national elections of political parties or leaders by democratic majority vote, and this process is held up to represent "the will of the people."  In fact, it represents only some of the people.

A majority vote is not a legitimate mandate for the government to violate individual rights.  A democratic election in a country that is predominantly Moslem is likely to result in the imposition of Sharia on all who live there.  Democracy is a false ideal and is certainly no guarantee of a free society in which individual rights are respected.  A democratic majority may choose, and often has chosen historically, a regime that enslaves, slaughters, and robs the losing minority.  Yet, those who favor "national self-determination" would claim such a regime had a "right" to do those acts of tyranny and should be left alone.

The only rights of a group or nation are those of the peaceful individuals who make it up, and if true individual rights are denied or sacrificed to majority vote, on what basis can the group or nation claim any rights?

The American founders were for maximizing freedom for ordinary peaceful citizens.  They recognized basic individual rights of peaceful citizens to be secure from violent interference with their lives, liberties, properties, and pursuits of happiness.  They opposed majority-rule democracy.  That's why they favored the rule of law and a constitutional republic of limited scope instead of democracy.

An allied idea of the pro-tyranny Left is that of assuming "moral equivalence" among all national governments, no matter how despotic some may be.  They say we must treat Cuba and Venezuela with the same recognition and respect as we afford Canada or the UK.  No distinction is made for Marxist tyrannies like North Korea or despotic national-socialist regimes such as Saddam's was in Iraq.

The motives of the avowed socialists who protest against U.S. military liberation of people oppressed under communist dictatorships are obvious:  They are in solidarity with their Marxist-Leninist brothers who are in power over the people and who would lose that ruthless power if they were overthrown by American assistance to the freedom fighters.  The leftist protestors have no sympathy for the people being oppressed by the Far Left.

Similarly, the claim of "national self-determination" is used by Marxist-Leninists and allied leftists who are waging or supporting "wars of national liberation" (i.e., the violent overthrow of governments deemed not socialist enough or not sufficiently in solidarity with Marxist-Leninist establishment policies).  Any outside government like the U.S. which aids the existing government against those communists who would overthrow it is denounced as interfering with national self determination and progressivism.

It is nonsense for a government or a violent "revolutionary" group to claim immunity from outside interference on the basis of the alleged "right of natinoal self-determination" while at the same time violating the individual rights of their fellow citizens.   It is understandable why communists and leftists in general would use this propaganda pseudo-justification for their activities.  But some "right wing" neo-isolationists occasionally get caught invoking this alleged moral right of a nation to determine what kind of ruthless tyranny it will have, and unwittingly advance the interests of statist regimes when they join the Left in such protests.

A government that is guilty of massively violating the rights of its own citizens has no legitimacy and no right to be left alone by outside forces.  Theoretically, ANYONE has a right to try to topple it by aiding the people rebelling against it.  Of course, few national governments would be able to act on that right in most instances.  The U.S. military was one of the few powers that actually had the capability of coming to the rescue of the Iraqi people by dragging Saddam Hussein off their backs and ending the Baathist regime.

Again, one can argue whether or not the war against Saddam Hussein (for example) was prudent or not on the grounds of the best use of limited resources or geopolitical considerations or the probability it would commit the U.S. to a long-term role there or perhaps even involvement in the headache of "nation building" to maintain the military victory and keep the peace long term.  But there should be no question of the correctness of the moral right to help liberate Iraq from the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein.

It is important to understand that it was not that the U.S. or anyone else had some special right to intervene militarily in Iraq. That is not the issue.  The issue is that Saddam's statist regime had lost any claim to legitimacy long time ago by his massive violations of individual rights not only of his own citizens, but also of people in adjacent countries (including Kuwait, with which the U.S. had a treaty).  It is not the right or moral status of the outside intervener or liberating force that is the issue.  The issue and point is that Saddam's regime had long ago lost its legitimate right to exist, and was morally vulnerable to being attacked by anyone who would take it down.  It is not necessary for the external liberating power to be itself morally pristine, only that the ultra-statist regime has lost its legitimacy and therefore lacked any right to be left alone.

Many political regimes lack legitimacy and have no right to exist, but it is not in the practical interest of the U.S., having limited resources and valuable warriors, to intervene in all those oppressive situations or support every active front of freedom fighters around the world.  That would deplete our resources and be an altruistic act of sacrificing our valuable men and women in our armed forces.

The U.S. cannot afford to fight other people's wars or independence movements forever.  Any military deployment must be chosen carefully.  We should try to support the cause of freedom (not democracy) when and where we can afford to do so.  Our leaders should not "telegraph their punches" by announcing when we will deploy or withdraw troops from an area.  In general, we must avoid wars if possible, but if war is inevitable and unavoidable, our goal should be complete military victory over the enemy, for there is no substitute.  There should be no more dishonorable acts like the betrayal of the Cuban freedom fighters at the Bay of Pigs when the promised air support was curtailed at the last minute.  If promises are made to freedom fighters, we should honor those promises if at all possible, but promises should not be made unless we are prepared to keep them.

Overall, the United States has a great history and legacy in promoting individual freedom.  The U.S. alone or coalitions under U.S. leadership defeated the pirates and kidnappers of Tripoli, ended the pernicious practice of slavery, liberated Western Europe from Naziism and Communism, ended Japanese military aggression, resisted communist aggression in Vietnam, thwarting for a time the North's military invasion of the South, defeated the evil Soviet empire and halted the march of communist imperialism, dragged tyrants such as Saddam Hussein off the backs of oppressed populations, and expanded freedoms and opportunities for more people around the world.  As far as freedom, private enterprise, and true peace are concerned, the hope of the world is in market capitalism and U.S. military capability in defense of individual freedom.  The flaws and inconsistencies in America's history and present are nearly negligible compared to its pro-freedom legacy and its potential to pave the way toward an even more advanced culture of individual freedom, private property, and market capitalism into the future.  If humankind is to have any future it will be one of capitalism and freedom.

In conclusion, the alleged "right" of national self-determination and the assumption of "moral equivalence" among semi-free nations and bloody regimes are improper standards to guide foreign policy thinking and should be dismissed as such.  Perhaps the best way in the long run to aid people living under tyranny is by spreading the ideas and principles of individual freedom, private property rights, and market capitalism in as many different languages as possible.

  WHERE DO TRADE DEFICITS COME FROM?
by
    Sam Wells

    What does the so-called "trade deficit" consist of? How come we never hear talk about "trade deficits" on the everyday "micro" level -- only on the "macro" level of supposedly complete national trade statistics?

    If I go into a store and buy a chair imported from Canada, I do so because I value the chair at that time MORE than the moeny I paid as the price to the merchant, and the merchant likewise values the money I have paid to him MORE than the chair he gives up for it. Both sides are satisfied and the transaction is complete. When the Canadian exporter receives the money for the chair from the American merchant, their transactoin is complete. There is no deficit or surplus on either side. There is no logical reason why the chair must be purchased with another chair or some other manufactured good, as protectionists seem to think. The MONEY represents anything the seller wants to do with it, including buying a good or service or saving it for futrure use.

    The notion of "trade deficit" is a fallacy (or "hoax" if you will) popularized by those fronting for special-interest exporters to justify demands for protective tariffs imposed by government against those who might buy imported goods similar to that produced and exported by that domestic special-interest business.

    Economic analysis shows us that the tariff imposed to protect the special-interest industry or business does more harm in terms of higher costs to the domestic economy as a whole than the benefit conferred on that protected industry.

Tthe benefit to the special interest industry is concentrated while the losses to the economy as a whole are diffuse. This leads some observers to ignore the losses and focus only on the special interest benefit. Overall, a protective tariff reduces the competitiveness of an economy as a whole as it increases the price of the tariffed import (and its domestic counterpart) and all products that use that kind of good.

    Keep in mind that a protective tariff is a targeted sales tax imposed on the people living in the country whose government imposes it. The intention for imposing it and its secondary effect is to discourage people from buying a good imported from a special interest industry in another country, thereby reducing access to that market by the foreign special interest industry. So, we speak of a "tariff on Chinese imports" or a "tariff against Canadian imports" etc.

    If Americans are taxed (punished) by their government if they choose to buy steel from Belgium or Japan, a SECONDARY consequence is that steel makers in Belgium or Japan will not likely sell as much steel to Americans, ceteris paribus. A protective tariff is a tax targeted primarily at Americans who might otherwise choose to buy a foreign product. The foreign manufacturer of that product will likely lose sales in the American market as a RESULT. The tariff tax is not imposed directly on any foreigner or foreign government. The effect on the foreign manufacturer is indirect, not direct. Yet, some politicians try to make it seem as if their tariff is "imposed on" a foreign country. It is directed at us, peaceful Americans. (Some Americans long ago protested against tariffs with their Boston Tea Party.)

    Again, as with any government intervention, the protective tariff only benefits the government-favored industry at the forced expense of the rest of the economy and actually results in a net loss to the economy as a whole.

    But the government-privileged industry has a more powerful lobby than real economists advocating for the general interest of the economy as a whole.  It is too bad Americans don't have a powerful lobby for liberty, or at least one supporting the economic interest of the nation as a whole as distinct from special interests.

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Does the Nolan Chart Help or Hinder the Cause of Liberty?
Sam Wells

One of my criticisms of how the libertarian movement has gone astray is the use of the famous (or infamous) Nolan chart often trotted out with a little opinion quiz as a recrutiing gimmick by many Libertarian Party activists.  Whenever I voice some of my objections to the misleading graph among libertarians, they generally make me feel like I am raining on their parade.  The depiction of the left-right spectrum portrayed in the Nolan chart and its underlying assumptions is mistaken on multiple levels.  I will only mention a couple here -- but I have long disagreed with the assumptions behind the axes and the freedoms they are supposed to represent.

Is libertarianism just a collection of positions on a dozen or so issues, some arbitrarily called "economic" and others considered "social" or "civil"?  Contrary to the public image often conveyed, libertarianism is not an illogical mish-mash of supposed "left-wing" and "right-wing" attitudes.  That approach is not merely superficial but wrong headed.  Liberty is indivivisible -- it is like one solid ball, with adult self ownership and private property as its core.

Notice that "economic liberty" is never defined as distinct from "social" or "civil" liberty.  The difference is just assumed.  Why would, for example, legalizing  prostitution be more of a "social liberty" than an "economic liberty"?  Does it not involve the transfer of money?  So this portrayal amounts to soft squishy goo rather than a reflection of hard reality and clear definitons.  If a model is supposed to reflect the real world, the two-dimensional "libertarian" chart and its questionaire fail in that regard.

It is also assumed that "conservatives" -- those on the right of the spectrum -- are opposed to "social" freedoms as much as or more than those on the left are opposed to "social" freedoms and "economic" liberties.  This strongly implies that the right is at least as statist as the left.   There is no attempt to weight the importance of the freedoms or positions of left and right.   Drawing a false equality between left and right in this way the chart distorts the truth that in the real world those on the left are far more statist than those on the right.  If we empirically look at the voting records of conservative Republicans versus Democrats, there is a jarring contrast in difference between those voting patterns in both "economic" liberties and "social" freedoms.

The Nolan chart ignores the fact that those on the left are fundamentally opposed to liberty down to their basic premises while most of those on the right just need to be more consistent to their own claimed values.  While conservatives typically would try to persuade people to do what they consider to be the right thing on social issues in their personal lives, they do not typically press for legislation to impose their views on others -- even though many on the Left would have us think so.  It is, for example, highly unlikely that elective abortions could ever be outlawed in this country; that is a false fear.   But it has been those on the far left that have in fact succeeded in imposing their views and schemes by the force of legislation and court decrees on the rest of us.

The Far Left is fundamentally opposed to private property and maintains that all resources and all goods must come under social control which means government control which means control by a monopolistic few who control the government; no competing alternatives allowed.  Without private property rights no other genuine rights are possible.

Those on the American Right do not have to be persuaded on basic premises as far as politics is concerned.  They already give at least lip service and support to the principles of private property and constitutional limits on the scope of government, or claim they do.   They usually apply those principles sensibly if they perceive real dangers to the security of our liberties.

The rightists recognize what the founders knew, that freedom is not for everybody.  It is not for those criminals who initiate violence on the person or property of others.  Liberty under law is for peaceful adult citizens, not illegal aliens, criminal tresspassers, murderers, thieves, or irrational terrorists who wage war against liberty and progress.  The prime purpose of government is to protect peaceful adult citizens from criminals and foreign threats.  The purpose of government is not so much to govern peaceful people (who can govern themselves) as it is to govern those who would disturb the peace by violating rights by initiatng violence or fraud.

What is needed for a more free society is for the American Right to better organize for total victory in the White House and Senate as well as in the House of Representatives so that there will be no need to compromise with the statist Left.  If we are going to begin to roll back the decades-long accumulations of creeping collectivism that have been imposed on our society we are unlikely to succeed as long as the Left controls any branch of government.

*   *   *

ESPECIALLY BOGUS BOGEYMAN

The bogeyman is a fearsome creatrure used by some mothers to make little kids behave themselves. The bogeyman of the "trade deficit" has tricked many people into the peculiar belief that protective tariffs are necessary as a corrective. But this alleged phenomenon is claimed to be found only at the aggregate or "macro" level of national sales and purchases even though no evidence for it exists on the level of individual transactions.

When you go into Walmart and buy something made in Japan or Canada, you get what you want and the foreign exporter (when he receives payment) gets what he wants more than what he gave up in exchange; otherwise, the trade would not have taken place. There is no "trade deficit" -- unless you mean a temporary lag between purchase and payment in credit transactions, but that is not what mercantilists mean by their bogeyman.

A nation's total sales and purchases are the sum total of all the individual sales and purchases that take place; nothing more. If no "trade deficit" occurs on each individual transactionm which it doesn't, then there is no basis for it on the aggregate level either. The numberkrats have created it on the basis of false assumptions. They have forgotten that both exports and imports are paid for with money, and money can be used to buy products or services or saved for future use. Money payments have every right to be considered exports and imports as anything else. This does not create a deficit at all. But the notion that it does is used by some special interest exporters to justify calling for self-serving protective tariffs as an alleged remedy.

Such a policy weakens the nation's economy by unnecessarily hiking prices for all industries that use the protected good. It is nonsense on stilts.

*   *   *

THE MIDTERMS ARE COMING!
September 5, 2018

Amid the noise of news media propaganda, truth can still be found and America's choice is clear. Democrats are running on promises of open borders and to disband the border patrol and ICE, defend MS-13 gang members, hike taxes and impose more anti-industrial regulations and controls in the name of protecting the environment, empowering BLM and "Antifa" fascists, and impeaching President Trump. This is a battle for the souls of Americans. Listen to these clowns Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, and ask yourself who is really crazy -- Donald Trump or the lunatic Left of the Democrat Party? Democrats may run as "moderates" but when they get into power they always revert to supporting the most left-wing schemes to kill economic opportunity and endanger national security.

We cannot afford to be complacent and overconfident.  George Soros and other fat cat leftists are spending several times as much on Dem candidates as Republican candidates are able to spend.  Don't kid yourself.  Big money and the ads they buy can influence voters, even if the ads are deceptive.  Early polls had indicated a huge Democrat advantage.  Even Ted Cruz is in trouble in Texas!  The entire liberal-left establishment has focused their resources against Ted.  But, in general, predictions of a Democrat "blue wave" have declined and Dem hopes are even beginning to dim that they will take over the House.

The key to victory is getting the Republican voters out to the polls.  In politics, there is no subsitute for votes.

*   *   *
The Delusion of the Realness of Collectives

In reality, there is no such thing as a collective beyond the individuals it is made up of.  It is individual human beings that exist in the real world -- as thinking and acting entities in themselves.  A corporation or a government or a football team is not a real entity. These are convenient short-hand concepts which refer to a collection of individuals and their relationships, and they do not exist as real entities outside of the individuals that make them up.  There is no such thing as a collective stomach, or a collective mind, or a collective decision apart from the decisions made by the individuals that the collective consists of.  In reality, the ONLY thinking, choosing, and acting entities are individual human beings.

There is no such thing as "trade" in general between something called "Canada" and something else called "the U.S."  There are numerous exchanges or transactions between individual Canadians and individual Americans.  Americans go into Walmart all the time and buy products made in Canada. All trades exist as individual, particular transactions.  There is no collective trade separate from or apart from all the individual exchanges that take place.  And, each and every trade transaction "balances" in that the product or service from the seller is paid for by the price paid by the prurchaser.  (And no government action at all is required to force some kind of abstract "balance"; no import restrictions or taxes and no political export subsidies are needed in the least.)

When the seller receives the price for the product he gave up, the transaction is complete and that is the end of it.  He may take the money and buy something with it, save it, invest it, or burn it.  It doesn't matter what the seller does with the money and it doesn't matter what the purchaser does with the product.  They may each die the next day.  It is irrelevant to the transaction.  The transaction is over and complete.  Both sides got what they wanted in exchange, and in terrms of each side's personal preferences, both sides gained.  There is mutual gain.  Otherwise the exchange would not have taken place.  There is no need for stupid politicians and bureaucrats to barge in and forcibly involve themselves in the transaction or do something to "make" the exchange "balance" according to their opinions of what "should" happen.

*   *   *
WHY THE U.S. SHOULD GET RID OF ALL TARIFFS
Veronique  de Rugy

*   *   *
FAKE NUMBERS?

Many people are overly impressed by large numbers and statistics because when something is quantified and allegedly measurable, it has the halo of having "scientific" truth. Trade figures on the so-called "trade deficit" and "trade surplus" give people the impression that the U.S. as a nation is being "taken advantage of" by other countries. Trump and other competitive patriotic Americans hear this reported and are incensed that the U.S. is "losing" in the game of trade. We want to be winners, don't we?

But who calculates these numbers, where do they come from, and what are the methodology and underlying assumptions?

The numbers concerning trade relations with Canada are a case in point. Canadian officials challenge the numbers used by U.S. trade representatives.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been including goods that pass through Canada but don't originate here as Canadian exports in his export calculations, artificially inflating the United States' trade deficit in goods with Canada.

That explains why the trade deficit figure cited last week by Lighthizer is so out of line with reality, Canadian government sources say.

Basically, the USTR is counting the same goods twice. For example, a Chinese washing machine that passes through the port of Vancouver on its way to the United States is being counted in both the U.S. trade deficit with China and in the U.S. goods deficit with Canada.

Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland was quick to correct Lighthizer.

"Canada does not consider trade deficits and surpluses to be the ultimate arbiter of whether trade is good or bad," she said. "But it is worth noting than in overall trade in goods and services, Canada had a trade deficit with the United States of nearly US$8 billion. And let me say, these aren't Canadian numbers. They are from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis in the Dept of Commerce."

That is just one example. Many of the assumptions behind what to count and what not to count in calculating trade figures are nearly arbitrary.

Of course, I go much further than observing the non-objective nature of the "trade deficit" numbers. I say there is something very wrong with the notions of "trade deficits" and holistic "imbalances" of trade.

If you go into Walmart and buy a Chinese-made DVD player for $30, Walmart has already paid the Chinese company for the DVD player and you are paying Walmart for the DVD player. Money has already changed hands. The transactions are complete. There is no "imbalance of trade" tinvolved. End of story.

Trying to take a statistical snapshot of the value of goods imported into U.S. and the value of goods exported from the U.S. and coming up with some artificial numbers has no significance to the economic health of our economy. There is no reason that at any given time the value of GOODS exported from and the value of GOODS imported to a country have to balance at all. They have all already been paid for. All sides are satisfied; otherwise, the transactions would not have taken place in the first place. MONEY pays for goods, both exports and imports. GOODS are bought with MONEY.

Questionable figures on national exports and imports have nothing to do with what happens at the point of sale.

*   *   *

The Democrat Party is the party of neo-fascism, of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and a clique of leftists under the influence of Marxist propagandists Michael Moore and Howard Zinn. But radical conservative capitalist Donald Trump is working to dismantle parts of the leftist Establishment and enact free market reforms to foster more freedom, more economic opportunities, more jobs, more investments in the future, and more real progress for more people. Former CEO of CKE, Inc. (Carl's Junior restaurants) has written an excellent new book arguing for freedom and free enterprise against the malignant ideology of the power-lusting Left and their desperate attempts to obstruct and undermine President Trump and his agenda to make America great again.

The Capitalist Copmeback: The Trump Boom and the Left's Plot to Stop it

*   *   *

*   *   *
THE BEST SECURITY AGAINST DEPENDENCY ON FOREIGN SOURCES OF STRATEGIC MATERIALS

On "cheating" from foreign "dumping": If foreign governments want to subsidize the American economy by giving U.S. consumers lower prices, I say let them do so. American consumers benefit from foreign dumping. It is true this is at the forced expense of the foreign governments' taxpayers and thus harms their own economy by reducing effective demand and/or aggregate savings, but it is the U.S. economy I am most concerned about after all, and Americans have no power at all over foreign governments' internal taxation policies. Such foreign governments engaged in "dumping" cannot afford to subsidize their below-cost pricing forever and eventually will have to stop offering us those bargain prices.

Some call such practices "cheating" and object to them because they are seen as threats to those U.S.-based businesses which produce similar products. But no matter how deserving these firms are of sympathy they are only special interests and do not represent the economy as a whole. Policies should be judged on how they affect the whole U.S. economy, not just a small part of it.

Some industries, such as steel, are important for military preparedness. Should we be concerned about foreign "dumping" intended to make us dependent on foreign sources of such materials as steel? As long as those special industries are not hampered by excessive regulations and taxation, and our economy is kept strong, flexible, and resilient so it can respond quickly to market changes (such as the eventual termination of foreign bargain prices from "dumping"), such markets -- in the absence of politically imposed rigidities -- will be most robust and provide the best national security in terms of avoidance of foreign dependence on strategic military materials. In the meantime, the U.S. government itself could buy up the inexpensive foreign steel at bargain prices and store it until needed or until the foreign government ceases to offer it at below-cost prices. Such stockpiling of strategic materials would likely be less disruptive to the economy than high tariffs.

*   *   *

AN AMERICAN BACKLASH!
November 8, 2016

For many years I have been hoping and dreaming of a true American Backlash ( http://www.americanbacklash.com/) against the Liberal-Left miasma into which the U.S. has been sinking for so long. Enough is enough! November 8 was at least a partial realization of that hope and I am extremely happy about it. It was certainly a repudiation of Hillary Clinton, Obamacare, the past eight years of liberal-left policies, the mess that Obama and Clinton made in the Middle East and in foreign policy generally, and the bigotry of the pro-Democrat news media -- as well as the legacy of scandal and criminal activity of the Clintons.

My concern now is: how lasting is this revolution? Can it be reversed? How stable are the victories in Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida? Will further immigration/invasion by New Yorkers into North Carolina and Florida threaten to turn those states to "blue" forever? What about the political education of the millennials?

How durable is this American backlash?

And, of course, the exact nature of the alternative response to the past several decades of the Liberal Establishment ruling class will depend on President Trump and what his administration does. I would be much more comfortable and hopeful if this were a President Ted Cruz, whose ideological inclinations are known and much closer to mine. What can we expect from President Trump? Will President Trump be able to keep his campaign promises? Will the border be secured? Will the in-place machinery of statism be dismantled, at least in part? With a Republican majority in the House and a very slim majority in the Senate, this new president has more opportunity than any in a long time to actually get his reforms passed. Will the Republicans be able to keep those majorities in future elections? Will the new president wimp out and negotiate away the victory and mandate of November 8?

Given the anti-Trump/anti-reform negativity of the media, academia, and the Democrat Party leadership, which will seek every opportunity to sabotage Trump's reforms, a lot of positive, encouraging pressures from the grass-roots public will be needed to keep the new administration on track and to counteract the beltway propaganda.

The propaganda war will become more intense than ever before. Ain't no hate like liberal-left hate. It is pure emotion undiluted by logic or reason. The media will give communists like Van Jones and professionally engineered demonstrations free coverage while putting pro-Trump news on back pages or ignored completely. New conservative, constitutionalist TV and Internet networks must be developed to answer the lies and half truths of the Establishment Media.

We do not know the future, but our chances of achieving less statism are far better with a President Trump than a President Clinton. The hope is great.

POST-ELECTION ANALYSIS

Analysis of the 2016 voting in terms of demographics shows that Trump generally improved on Romney's showing from 2012. Before November 8, the media told us that women would generally hate Trump and not vote his way, and this seemed logical because of his remarks on an open microphone from eleven years ago (when he was still a Democrat). It turns out that he still got at least 42 percent of women. We were also told that Latinos would not vote for him, but he did better than Romney with Latinos in 2012. We were told that if he did get elected that the stock market would crash. Not only has this not happened, but just the reverse -- it jumped up. The expectations and lies of the liberal establishment media did not pan out and many Democrats toeay arte still in cognitive dissonance because of the jarring contrast between their ideological template and the real world. Too many on the Left believe their own propaganda. The media has so demonized Trump during the general election campaign that some naive college students think he has horns and a forked tail. As usual, since they do not have substantive arguments on policy, the Democrats resort to claims of "racism" and bigotry or smear tactics. The depth of denial among out-of-touch Democrats about their stunning defeat is breathtaking.

What about Obama's "job approval rating"?  What does it really mean?  The election results seem to contradict it.  Obamacare (the so-called Affordable Care Act) and Obama regime policies in general were clearly repudiated on November 8.  The job approval rating is the result of polling, the same type of polling that proved so wrong about the presiential election.  The concern about being considered "racist" may have caused poll respondents to mislead the poll takers by giving a more positive response.  When specific individual policies afre asked about, the results were very different.

The smackdown of the liberal establishment on November 8 has revealed many assumptions to be a phony "Potemkin village" of false ideological expectatons. Outside of their echo-chamber bubbles in areas like San Francisco, New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon, the U.S. of A. is pretty solidly against Obamaism, liberalism, leftism, and anti-Americanism in general. The liberal-left matrix has been exposed to all as a web of lies and fallacies which are increasingly rejected by the American People. Probably if the GOP had run a decent positively conservative candidate in 2008, Obama would never have been President.

*   *   *

INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM VS BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM

Leftists in general want to impose their own whims as a central plan on everyone else by the force of big government . This is the essence of socialism. They think that government bureaucrats somehow know so much better how to run our lives and so they  should run everybody's lives and spend everybody's earnings for them.  It is called tyranny. By contrast, constitutionalists and conservatives want the government for the most part to get out of the way of peaceful people and allow them to pursue their own plans, spend their own earnings, and run their own lives as long as they don't use violence or fraud. This is the clear distinction politically that must be made to the American people and between which they must ultimately choose.

 THE CAUSE AND CURE OF MONOPOLISTIC CONSPIRACIES
by Sam Wells

Special-interest groups and power elites are inevitable as long as the political state can use its power to take from peaceful citizens and give to others for any reason. As long as people continue to sanction interventionism/socialism as a legitimate means to obtain any goal for any reason (noble or evil), there always will be vested-interest groups and lobbies clustering around Congress and the regulatory agencies competing for favors from the public trough at the expense of everybody else. Only when the machinery of interventionism and socialism (the ultimate in political interventionism) has been dismantled, and the false ideas, myths, fallacies, and lies behind interventionism/socialism are discredited and abandoned, can the final cure for all monopolistic conspiracies be realized.

The ultimate solution is not more controls and regulations from government, but to impose on government a policy of "hands off" the private property, money, and all voluntary activities of production and exchange among peaceful citizens. Controls and regulations belong on government, not on peaceful citizens. With the government thus constitutionally limited to dealing with violence and the threat of violence (broadly, crime and external threats), while leaving peaceful adult citizens alone as much as possible, America could be assured a bright future of freedom and progress through market capitalism.

How to "bell the cat" of government to its legit functions? The U.S. founders were on the right track. Constitutional limits on the SCOPE of government, backed up by a strong desire by a sufficient number of people to keep government in its proper place -- that's the ultimate solution in the long run. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance on the part of enough people and their leaders to keep government in its proper place. Not to blindly trust government officials but to bind them down from mischief and tyranny with the chains of the Constitution.

TRADE DEALS VERSUS FREEDOM OF TRADE

During some of the debates Mr. Trump, Sen. Rubio, and others used such terms as "trade deficit" or "trade surplus" as if those terms meant something relevant to the economy.  There is no such thing as a "trade deficit" or "trade surplus" outside of highly artificial and arbitrary assumptions.  The terms deficit and surplus are legitimate accounting terms which refer to budgets and reflect the balance one way or another.  They do not refer to exchange, either national or personal.  One does not incur a "deficit" when goes to a grocery store and buys a loaf of bread.  Yes, the bread can be said to be "imported" to the buyer, but aftrer all the supermarket imported the dollar as the price for it.  The exchange automatically "balances"; otherwise it would not take place.  The terms "trade deficit" and "trade surplus" are just warmed-over mercantilist fallacies refuted in the 18th century by Adam Smith and others and by Frederic Bastiat in the 19th century.  Yet, the fallacies still hang on even into the 21st century.

If foreign governments want to subsidize the American economy by giving U.S. consumers lower prices, I say let them do so.  It is true this is at the forced expense of the foreign governments' taxpayers and thus harms their own economy by reducing effective demand and/or aggregate savings, but it is the U.S. economy I am most concerned about after all, and I have no power at all over foreign governments' taxation policies. Some call such practices "cheating" and object to them because they are seen as threats to those U.S.-based businesses which produce similar products, but no matter how deserving these are of sympathy they are only small special interests and do not represent the economy as a whole.  Policies should be judged on how they affect the whole U.S. economy, not just a part of it.   Of course I realize that in Washington, D.C. just because a legislative package is labeled "free trade" does not necessarily mean it has anything to do with true freedom of trade, especially if its contents are kept secret. I don't trust politicians in general and especially don't trust Obama and the Obamacrats to negotiate political trade deals for special-interest corporations.  Unless there is some real national security issue involved, governments should not block or impede trade -- nor should the government artificially stimulate U.S. exports with subsidies from the taxpayers. Such federal government entities as the Export-Import Bank and the Commodity Credit Corporation should be abolished.

WHY THE OPEC OLIGOPOLY IS DEAD
Sam Wells
2015

Does predatory price cutting work to lead to monopoly and monopoly profits in a market free of government intervention?  No.  Here's why, and why I don't believe we will see $100 per barel oil again.

In a free market of voluntary relations a person serves himself only by serving the wants of others.  He cannot receive what he wants from others unless he produces (or already has from inheritance or gift) something they want and are willing to exchange for.  Under such circumstances, how would a businesman acquire an exploitative monopoly in the absence of government favoritism or interventikon??

What if a large, rich company kept out its competitors by undercutting prices -- selling at a loss -- to such an extent that its competitors could no longer stay in business?  Would it not then be a monopoly in its field, and then begin to charge high monopoly prices in order to recupe its loses?  Could a company lower the price of its product below cost to drive out its competitors, and then later raise its price well above the old competitive market price to make up for its losses?

By cutting the price orf its product below what it costs to produce it, that company is taking a loss, not making a profit, at least in the meantime.  Furthermore, the larger the share of the market that the company gains by this tactic, the deeper are its losses.  Not only is it not making any profit, which is the whole purpose of getting a monopoly in the first place, it is sustaining losses.  Not very exploitative so far. From the consumer's point of view, this is a bargain.  The consumer doesn't have to pay as much as he did before.  He has money left over.

It is true the company may now be a "monopoly" since it has driven out its competitors (or more accurately, the consumers have driven out his competitors by buying from the price-cutting company and not the others), but so what?  It may be the only seller in  its market but consider what it had to do to get that way, namely sustain large losses.  It may have the satisfaction of seeing its competitors driven out of business by its "predatory" price-cutting tactic, but it does not gain any monopoly profits as a result.  It is sustaining losses and in the process giving the customers an excellent sale on that product which they will take advantage of by possibly stocking up on that product at its cheap price.

What about the firms that went our of business?  They can go into another field of production or temporarily shut down to re-open later when the monopoly company raises its prices to try to recupe its losses.  Or they might buy up the cheap product of the dominant firm for their own inventories to sell later when the monopoly company has had its fill of losses and tries to raise its price above a competitive level.  The mere possibility of companies re-entering that field of production to make money would often be enough to keep the price down below exploitative levels.  The freer the capital markets, the more likelihood of companies, either new or former producers, going back into competition with the monopoly company when it tries to raise its price too high.  As soon as it tried to raise its price above the market level -- which it would have to do if it wanted to recupe the losses it sustained from its below-cost pricing -- it would inevitably invite competition from many other firms who could product the same product at a lowr price and still make money.  The competition for market share would tend to bring the prevailing price down to market levels and thwart high monopoly pricing.

Also, the firms temporarily driven out by the price cutting could go to the dominant firm's customers -- who are presumably now facing the possibility of being overcharged later on -- and obtain a contract to supply their needs at a more competitive price, thus undercutting and thwarting any threat of monopoly pricing.  These companies have the advantage that they don't have the losses to recupe that the would-be monopoly firm has sustained.

No firm can continue a policy of selling at a loss indefinitely.  Its investors will pull out.  Even if it is a very wealthy company, if it doesn't concern itself with recuping those losses it will be defeating its original prupose in getting a monopoly in the first place:  which is to get even richer.  On a free market a monopoly is an expensive rarity.  It is very difficult if not impossible to achieve and has a very short life if it exists at all.

Leftists and monopolists generally denounce "destructive competition" in the market.  Destructive competition is just a label that a firm uses when another firm is selling the product at a lower price and thus giving the customers a better deal.  Price "wars" are always to the benefit of the consumers.  Price wars are not really wars at all.  A "price war" is just companies trying to outdo one another in offering products at lower prices or better quality.  No one is killed or wounded.   The companies are not competing to destroy.  They are competing to produce and offer a better deal to consumers.  There is no coercion or violence involved.  People are free to accept an offer or not.

But some anti-freedom mentalities complain that "cut-throat competition" (in which no ones throat is cut) can be excessive and they call for government intervention on behalf of a company through so-called "fair trade" laws or government-mandated price floors.  At the same time government uses the alleged lack of sufficient competition to justify anti-trust legislation.  If they don't get you for "too much" competiton (price too low) or "too little" competion (price too high or not low enough), they can get you for "collusion" if your prices are the same as the other firms.   You can't win.  Once government is permitted to interfere in the voluntary relations of peaceful people. there is no end to the pernicious consequences that will result.

Newly applied methods of oil and gas extraction in the United States have now made the U.S.A. one of the main oil producing countries in the world.  Oil's price has plummeted from over $100 a barel to less than $50.  The Saudis have kept their production up at previous levels in the hope of driving the U.S. firms out of business by keeping prices too low for them to stay in business.  The Saudis have little choice.  If they try to raise oil prices back to $100 a barel, the U.S. fracking firms will go back into production and keep supply up and undercut any attempt by the Saudis to hike oil prices up high.  If the Saudis reduce their output, other major oil-producing countries will supply the difference and the world price of oil will be kept low.  OPEC is impotent.  Unless government intervenes, I doubt we will see $100 per barel oil again, at least not for any length of time, as it would invite the U.S. companies back into production.  OPEC  cannot keep competition out permanently.

 *   *   *

Hope and Tragedy
by Sam Wells
March 2009 revisited

In the past, the hope of the world has been based on two things: Market capitalism and U.S. military strength. It was capitalism (to the extent it was allowed to exist) that rescued hundreds of millions of children from short miserable lives and death by starvation. It was capitalism that brought England and America out of pre-industrial squalor to advanced economic status with improvements in life for the majority of people. It was U.S. military strength that liberated the world from Hitler's national socialism and Tojo's imperialist Japan, rescued millions from slave labor and death camps, helped South Korea to remain free from communist invasion from the north, and it was U.S. strength (especially when Reagan was President) that at least pushed back the advance of communist imperialism and helped to quicken the fall of the Berlin Wall and the independence of countries once under Soviet control. It was U.S. military capability that dragged the brutal dictator Saddam Hussein off the backs of the people of Iraq.  People around the world at least began to hope that more freedom and economic opportunities would be possible.

        Unfortunately, what is left of true market capitalism in America has been undercut by many decades of government regulations, controls, monetary manipulations, taxation, and various socialistic programs. America has been coasting on the momentum from its past more-free days when it was closer to being a pure capitalist economy. The heavy burden of socialism is catching up to us now. The new president, Barack Obama, is doing his best to destroy what is left of market capitalism in America and will likely destroy the U.S. dollar completely in the next few years. This will mean economic disaster for the people of the world as well as Americans here at home.

        Meanwhile, President Obama is reducing spending on military defense and is pursuing a foreign policy that kisses up to tyrants and in effect tells oppressed people to go to Hell -- that he will do nothing to help them while he pals around with socialist thugs and bows to fascist dictators. If America's strength is allowed to wane significantly, this will certainly encourage a resurgence of both communist imperialism and jihadist terrorism around the world. I predict terrible times ahead for the people of the world as a result of these policies. And Americans will be increasingly targeted by their envious enemies. I wish I could be more optimistic. The world will be a much less safe place now that the U.S. has a socialist cult leader as President.

        Despite all the socialistic programs and interventions that have been piled on top of the U.S. economy over the past several decades, it is surprising that it is still within the top ten most economically free countries. Sadly, with the Obamacrats now in full control of the economy, I predict that the United States will fall below the top ten most free countries in the next year or two.

        I do not think it is a coincidence that at least 7 out of the top 10 most economically free nations were British colonies at one time or another: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, United States, Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom itself. (See the current Index of Economic Freedom). Where there is capitalism there is hope and progress.

        It is also no coincidence that the main troublemaker regimes in the world today are among those countries with the least amount of economic freedoms (see near bottom of list), including mainland China, Russia, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea.

        It is a shame that instead of the U.S. and U.K. becoming more free and less socialistic, we seem to be following the failed policies of the loser countries now under full socialism. At least that is what the election of Obama and the Democrats portends here in the United States.

        Increasing the top marginal tax rates on income (the rich folks) does not really hurt the wealthy people, but makes less capital available for funding business starts and economic growth and results in fewer jobs and fewer economic opportunities for regular people like myself who are just struggling to pay bills. Yet, the Obamacrats continue to use the "soak-the-rich" mantra to fool their gullible followers. As an American, I apologize to the people of the world for the election of Barack Obama and for the current backward regime.  It's high time for a pro-capitalist, pro-American backlash but no one knows when that will come.

DECEMBER 5, 2013

KEEPING THE IDEAL IN MIND
AS AN ACHIEVABLE GOAL FOR THE FUTURE

Markets require the existence of government for them to operate, but let's not blur the distinction between proper government functions and improper government activities as there is a clear line of demarcation.  Markets presuppose private ownership and well-defined and government-protected private property boundaries, not just in land but in all ownable things.  To own something is to have exclusive right of control over it.  A proper function of government is to protect peoples' property rights from violation.  There are laws against theft, murder (theft of life), trespass, burglary, shoplifting, embezzlement, etc. which make it a crime to use violence or fraud to violate the exclusive right of control over person and property.

It is a very different (and indeed opposite) thing for government to contradict that proper function of protecting private property rights by itself violating them which it does when it seeks to redistribute wealth or "organize" society or meddle in the private affairs or market (i.e., voluntary) relationships of peaceful citizens.

The Laissez-Faire Republic would limit the scope of government to its legitimate functions while socialism (the opposite of laissez faire) seeks to institutionalize the annihilation of private property always and everywhere.  In real-world practice socialism amounts to a monopoly clique acting through positive government intervention to control all major industries and resources.  As Gary Allen said, socialism is the royal road to monopoly power for the super wealthy.

NOVEMBER 25, 2013

CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC VERSUS WHIMARCHY
The Principle of Individual Rights Versus Arbitrary Whim

 Left-wing activists are now in control of the government and these arrogant control freaks pretend that they know so much better than everyone else how to run our lives for us and spend our earnings for us. But if we are not smart enough or competent enough to run our own lives and spend our own earnings, how can we be smart enough or competent enough to choose the politicians and bureaucrats who will do all those things for us? And why would somebody else's vote to do so bind the rest of us who do not choose to delegate those freedoms?

The statists hastily pushed through their so-called Affordable Health Care Act without even reading it. Have they thought their scheme through very well? Apparently not, judging from the on-going failures of implementation. Not being content to try to persuade us to part with our liberties, Obama and his gang are simply imposing their momentary whims on the rest of us through the full force of political government.

Government by whim is tyranny. Our founders knew this. That is why they opposed whimarchy by binding government officials down with the chains of the Constitution, which sets forth the basic rules and limitations on the scope of the federal government.

 Government is NOT instituted to do anything anybody's whim happens to dictate. The legitimate functions of government are limited to the proper uses of violence force -- national military defense against foreign threats, law courts for the ultimate settlement of disputes, and the police power to defend against and justly retaliate against crime. The role of government does not extend to those activities and areas of human life which by their nature do not and should not involve the use of violent force. It is not the proper function of government to provide health insurance, medical care, dentistry, public education, electric power, retirement income, school lunches, housing, community development, day care, etc.

 Ignoring the limits placed on the scope of government spelled out in the Constitution has brought America to its current sorry state under the present corrupt regime. The Ninth and Tenth amendments -- which forbid fedgov from getting involved in areas not specified in the body of the Constitution itself -- are routinely ignored as if they had been repealed. And the more the political schemes fail, the more the schemers scheme up more schemes to impose.

 The Constitution is just words after all. The ultimate price of liberty is eternal vigilance on the part of enough people to keep government in its proper place. I for one would like to believe we still have enough people who understand that the scope of government must be limited to prevent tyranny and to preserve liberty. Isn't it time for a new American Revolution to take back our country?

NOVEMBER 22, 2013

FALSE CONSPIRACY THEORIES
FOR POPULAR AND INDIVIDUAL MANIPULATION
The climate of left-wing hate speech is hotter than ever.

There are political conspiracies of course, but for every genuine instance of conspiracy there are scores if not hundreds or false conspiracy conjectures which circulate among the populace and are accepted by some people as absolute fact.  Unraveling all the phony plots and setting history straight would be a full-time job and would take years of research and publication of books and articles by an organization of professional historians who did not have an ideological ax to grind.

Just taking the murder of JFK in 1963 as one historic example, there are several conspiracy theories which purport to explain what "really" happened.  There is the one that claims that President Kennedy was going to tell the public about what our government knows about extraterrestrial aliens, and that he had to be killed to prevent that horrible scenario to avoid public panic, according to that claim.  There is no real substance to that theory.  There is also the claim that JFK wanted to stop the War in Vietnam and withdraw some or all troops and bring them home, and that he wrote a memo indicating that.  But in the real world no such memo ever existed outside of the Olive Stone propaganda movie JFK.  There was never any real indication that President Kennedy was just about to end the war in support of South Vietnam against the invading communists, despite what many now believe as a result of Stone's fictional movie.  Then there is the conspiracy theory which claims that JFK wanted to stop borrowing from the Federal Reserve System and instead have the U.S. Treasury print its own paper currency.  Again, there is no real evidence that JFK wanted to do anything like that on any large enough scale -- or that "the powers that be" would have him taken out for doing so.  But those who believe in one of the above conspiratorial tales are not likely to change their minds by the lack of evidence.

I would further point out that the same claim has long been made about Abraham Lincoln's assassination -- the notion that President Lincoln was killed at the behest of powerful banking interests because Lincoln had signed the greenback legislation instead of borrowing from the bankers to pay for the war against the Confederacy.  Not only is there no evidence at all for this belief, but the greenback legislation itself was largely written by a banker from Albany (then a major banking center) and one could much more easily argue that bankers had more of a vested interest in the greenbacks as they would serve as additional reserves against which the banks could inflate in their fractional-reserve demand deposit system.  They could make much more money that way than they had done under the partial gold standard which had limited the extent of their inflation.

Lincoln was not "money martyred" at all.  He was assassinated by a fervent supporter of state sovereignty and secession, someone who perceived Lincoln as a traitor to American freedom and true federalism.

Left-wing ideologues and professional prevaricators from Mark Lane and Fletcher Prouty to Oliver Stone and Michael Moore have always put out whatever spin they consider helpful in distracting people from the truth or in muddying the waters enough to confuse the public about who really did what to whom.  Most of the widespread JFK murder stories have one thing at least in common:  they all seek to distract the public away from the history, personality, and motivations of Lee Harvey Oswald -- either to claim he was not acting alone or to exonerate him altogether as merely a patsy who had nothing to do with anything.  The latest line from the left-wing establishment is that LBJ was behind the assassination.  Again, anything to distract the public from understanding that a U.S. President was murdered by a Far Left zealot.

The point is that some of these conspiracy theories or political spins -- as wrong-headed as they may be --  are nonetheless taken as Gospel by some people -- propaganda being as effective as it is -- and that includes individuals who are mentally or psychologically unhinged or unbalanced.  And sometimes some of these persons act on their false beliefs.  A key aspect of paranoia and schizophrenia involves losing perspective by taking facts totally out of context, disengaging from reality, or perceiving "facts" or relationships that are not true or do not exist at all.

Based on his reading of various left-leaning internet sites, self-styled "liberal" Steve Kangas believed that businessman Richard Mellon Scaife was the center of a great "right-wing conspiracy" and that he was evil.  This belief motivated him to try unsuccessfully to murder Richard Mellon Scaife.

Jared Loughner, a troubled individual who believed in various left-wing conspiracy theories, hated Congresswoman Giffords because it became increasingly clear she was not left wing enough for him.  She had greatly disappointed him when she sided with the conservative Republicans and stayed and even participated in the reading of the U.S. Constitution when almost all other Democrats had rudely walked out.  There ain't no hate like left-wing hate.

This photograph taken by Oswald's wife in their back yard shows Oswald holding up the gun that was later used in shooting President Kennedy.  Along with the gun, the photograph shows Oswald proudly holding up two Marxist newspapers, The Militant and The Worker.  The picture was taken after he tried to assassinate Gen. Edwin Walker, an outspoken anticommunist.

Lee Harvey Oswald's supposed fondness for President John Kennedy turned to anger and hate when he was convinced by the Marxist literature he read avidly that Kennedy had tried to unseat and even assassinate his communist idol Fidel Castro in Cuba.  In his attempted assassination of General Walker and his murder of JFK, Oswald saw himself as a Marxist hero.  He had motive as well as opportunity in Dallas in November of 1963.   Of course I am under no illusion that people will not continue to believe what they already believe about the Kennedy assassination, and that many Americans will always be confused and uncertain about communist Lee Oswald's role in that event.

The programming of individuals by propaganda sets them up to do things they would not do otherwise.  Considering the barrage of inflammatory left-wing hate speech and slanderous rhetoric against such outspoken patriots as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, and others, might yet another militant leftist emerge to try to do harm to peaceful American citizens?  How many potential Loughners or Oswalds are out there waiting to be triggered into acts of evil?

One should always ask, "Who benefits?"   Will the result be less government interference with the freedoms of peaceful adult citizens -- or more government control over us all?  Will it advance a freedom/constitutionalist agenda or a socialist/tyrannical world view?

Also, another question to ask is:  who will be next?  Will some left-wing kook try to murder Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Ted Cruz, or some other pro-freedom advocate?  I only hope people will be on their guard against a new wave of left-wing violence.

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

SOAKING THE RICH?

Outside of direct confiscation of existing wealth, there is not much the government can do to really hurt the rich. Hiking the income tax a few points on high earners won't make much difference to their lifestyle. They are already rich. The people hurt by "soaking the rich" are the rest of us whose jobs and living standards depend on private savings and investment and more capital accumulation to pay for new and expanded businesses. With less money saved or invested in new tools and machines and wages, fewer job opportunities are the consequence. Targeting the rich on the basis of "fairness" does little or nothing to improve the lives of low-income or middle-income families. What it does tend to do is to make it more difficult for low-income or middle-income people to rise to the high-income level, as income taxes are on current incomes and do not affect already-acquired wealth of those already on top.

Behind the socialistic idea of "soaking the rich" is the false notion that rich people got that way by somehow taking advantage of the poor. The neurotic urge to "redistribute the wealth" comes from false ideas of where wealth comes from and the notion that all wealth is static, so that if someone has more than others then it must have come from those others. The exploitation theories of Marx and Rodbertus and others have been thoroughly refuted by von Boehm-Bawerk, von Mises, Thomas Sowell, George Reisman, and other competent economists. What remains today is the moribund, dishonest religion of the Left still being pushed by the momentum of the emotions generated by those past fallacies. The Left's stale, counterproductive nostrums are dying a slow death. The control freaks will no longer be able to hide their lust for power behind the pretense of helping the common man. In the meantime, will they take the rest of us down with them?

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Bill of Rights for the United States Constitutional Republic

     I.    Fundamental Individual Rights in Person, Liberty, and Property

    II.    Freedom of Production and Voluntary Exchange

   III.    Freedom in Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition

  IV.    Freedom in the Keeping and Bearing of Firearms

   V.    Personal Freedom and Responsibility in the Ingestion of Chemical Substances

  VI.    Freedom in Education

 VII.    Freedom in Money and Banking

VIII.    Freedom in Personal Associations

  IX.    Limitations on the Means of Financing the Government

   X.    Prohibition Against Unwarranted Searches and Seizures

  XI.    Standards and Procedures to Protect the Criminally Accused

 XII.    Retained Rights and Reserved Powers
__________

        THE FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS WHICH THIS GOVERNMENT IS ESTABLISHED TO PROTECT, AND OF AREAS IN WHICH THE CONGRESS IS PROHIBITED FROM PASSING ANY LAWS, AND IN WHICH THE COURTS ARE PROHIBITED FROM MAKING ANY INTERPRETIVE RULINGS, AND IN WHICH NO GOVERNMENT AGENT OR OFFICIAL, EITHER ELECTED OR APPOINTED, SHALL MAKE ANY ENFORCEABLE DECREE.

    I.    Fundamental Individual Rights in Person, Liberty, and Property

    Each peaceful adult individual, who is neither a threat nor a danger to any other peaceful citizen or the properties of others, shall be recognized as being the owner of himself or herself and not the property of other people. The right of every citizen to be secure in his own person, liberty and property shall be protected against the initiation of violence, force, or fraud by other persons. No law, ruling, or decree shall be made which might infringe upon the freedom of any citizen in his person, liberty, or legitimately-acquired property (legitimately-acquired property being that property obtained by production or voluntary exchange or acceptance of gifts and not obtained through violence, force, or fraud upon the person, liberty, or property of any other citizen or citizens). The right of every citizen to own, control, and dispose of the products and earnings of his life in any manner he may want to try (as long as his activities do not involve the violation by violence, force, or fraud of the equal right of any other citizens to own, control, and dispose of their legitimately-acquired properties in any manner they wish to try) shall be protected by the government, and no law, ruling, or decree shall be made which would violate this right.

   II.    Freedom of Production and Voluntary Exchange

    No law, ruling, or decree shall be made with respect to any business enterprise, or interfering with the voluntary production and exchange among individuals or business organizations.  No subsidy or any other special privilege or encouragement from government shall be given to any business enterprise.  The voluntary organization of citizens for the purpose of production shall not be interfered with by the government, and ownership of the means of production in any noncoercive enterprise shall not come under the authority or jurisdiction of the government. The freedom of trade and commerce shall not be abridged. There shall be no government controls on prices, wages, profits, rents, or interest rates. There is to be no tariff, import quota, or any other governmentally-imposed restriction on voluntary exchange.  Exports shall not be subsidized or underwritten by any agency of the government.

  III.    Freedom in Religion, Speech, Press, Assembly, and Petition

    No law, ruling, or decree shall be made with respect to any establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. No tax of any kind shall be levied against any church, temple, or any other religious house of worship or its properties, and no subsidy or any other special privilege or encouragement from government shall be provided to any church, religion, or religious denomination. No law, ruling, or executive order shall be made for the support of any church, religion. or religious denomination.

    No law, ruling, or decree shall be made abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble peaceably, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

 IV.    Freedom in the Keeping and Bearing of Firearms

    The right of an adult individual to keep and bear firearms for sport or the defense of self, family, or property shall not be abridged.

  V.    Personal Freedom and Responsibility in the Ingestion of Chemical Substances

    Adult citizens shall be free to consume any chemical substance, natural or artificial, no matter how controversial its use may be or how dangerous or poisonous or otherwise detrimental it may be to their own health, physical or mental; however, they shall be held fully responsible for their actions, including any criminal acts, which they may commit, either deliberately or accidentally, under the influence of alcohol or any other substance. There shall be no special government bureau or agency to oversee, regulate, or police the use of alcohol, tobacco, food, nutritional supplements, or drugs.

 VI.    Freedom in Education

    No law, ruling, or decree shall be made with respect to any educational enterprise, or interfering with the freedom of any private person or persons to engage in private, voluntary educational enterprises. No tax of any kind shall be levied for the support of any educational institution or enterprise, and no subsidy or any other special privilege or encouragement from government shall be given to any educational institution, enterprise, methodology, approach, curriculum, or teacher.  No tax of any kind shall be levied against any school, college, university, or any other educational enterprise.

 VII.   Freedom in Money and Banking

    No law, ruling, or decree shall be made establishing any privileged monopoly (either private or governmental) or favored enterprise engaged in banking or the issuing of money or money substitutes. No law, ruling, or decree shall be made abridging the freedom of any person to own, use, trade, or dispose of gold and silver in any noncoercive manner. No law, ruling, or decree shall be made interfering with the freedom of any private person or business organization to engage in the enterprises of banking, lending money at interest, and the non-fraudulent issuance of money or money substitutes.

VIII.   Freedom in Personal Associations

    No law, ruling, or decree shall be made abridging a person's freedom to associate or not to associate with any other person, regardless of race, nationality, or religion.  No law, ruling, or decree shall be made which would require any citizen, who is not under police arrest or who has not been convicted of a crime, to be forcibly transported for the purpose of a forced association with any other person, regardless of race, nationality, or religion.  No law, ruling, or decree shall be made abridging the freedom of any citizen, regardless of race, nationality, or religion to trade with or not to trade with any other person or persons.

 IX.    Limitations on the Means of Financing the Government

    Private property shall not be taken for the government's use without the consent of the owner or owners and on terms and on payment voluntarily agreed to by the owner or owners. No tax shall be levied on incomes, wages, salaries, profits, interests, dividends, or inheritance; and, during peacetime at least, the legitimate functions of the government shall be financed by non-coercive revenue devices. During genuine national emergencies or war, any tax levied by the national government must be passed with two-thirds or more votes of the full membership of both houses of Congress. The repeal of any tax shall require only a simple majority vote by either house of Congress.

  X.    Prohibition Against Unwarranted Searches and Seizures

    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, including demand deposits and time deposits, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue except on probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and specifying the persons or things to be seized.

    No solider shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any private house or on private property without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war except in a manner set forth in advance by law.

XI.     Standards and Procedures to Protect the Criminally Accused

    The purpose of the government is to defend against and combat the use of coercion (violence and fraud) in human relations, but not to try to direct those relations which are voluntary. The only activity in which the government is permitted to engage itself is its proper function of the maintenance of justice through the equal protection of every citizen's rights in his person, liberty, and property from criminal violation and foreign aggression, and to help make restitution to the victims of crime when feasible.

    Coercion (or "violence") is defined as the violation by one or more persons of another person's will with respect to that which is his own (his person or his property), and thus includes physical aggression and commercial fraud.  In contrast, voluntary relations are relations among or between adults in which the wills of all the participants involved are in accord with respect to the terms of the relationship.

    A crime is an act of coercion which is initiated by a person or persons against the life, liberty, or property of any citizen. A victim of a crime is a citizen whose will has been violated through the initiation of the use or threat of coercion by someone else. A criminal is a person convicted of having committed a crime. The rights and immunities accorded to peaceful (non-criminal) citizens in the foregoing articles may be forfeited by persons convicted of crimes.

    The arrest, detention, or custody of a person accused of committing a crime shall follow a specified procedure of due process respecting the constitutional right of the accused to be informed promptly of the reason for his arrest, detention, or custody; the right to retain and instruct counsel without delay; and the constitutional right of <i>habeas corpus</i> for the determination of the validity of the detention or custody, and for his release if the detention or custody is not legally valid.

    Every citizen accused of a crime of importance shall be entitled to a fair and speedy trial involving standard procedures of due process. A citizen is presumed innocent of charges until proved guilty, and his guilt must constitute the violation of another person's rights through the initiation of the use of coercion or through unjust retaliation. Proof of guilt shall involve evidence or testimony sufficient to convince an impartial jury of his peers beyond reasonable doubt that the person under consideration did commit the crime of which he is accused.

    No person shall be held to answer for a capital or other infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life and limb; nor shall any person be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

    In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall be entitled to a speedy and open trial by an impartial petit jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law. In the course of the trial the criminally accused is entitled to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him, to be confronted with and question the witnesses against him, to bring forth witnesses in his behalf by compulsory process, and to retain and instruct counsel for his defense.

    In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the Untied States, than according to the rules of the common law.

    The penalties and/or punishments imposed by the sentences declared by the courts shall be reasonably consistent for cases involving similar offenses, and shall not depend on the race, skin color, or other irrelevant biological features of those convicted of crimes, and such penalties and punishments shall be reasonably proportional to the severity of the criminal offenses committed.

    Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. A convicted criminal may be segregated from the citizens by incarceration or exile. The death penalty for murder or other heinous crimes shall not be considered cruel or unusual punishment.

XII.    Retained Rights and Reserved Powers

    The enumeration of certain rights and freedoms herein shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

    The powers not delegated to the national government of the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

    If this government becomes destructive of the basic ends defined herein, and popular attempts to use the peaceful measures of petition and the election process are not permitted by those who have usurped excessive power over the peaceful people, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government, by force of revolution if need be, as a last resort, and even to start over with a revised system of government, adding new guards against tyranny and incorporating such improved checks and balances which they may deem necessary or useful to help prevent tyranny or usurpation from occuring again in the future.

SEPTEMBER 29, 2013

Guy Fawkes Masks and Occupay Wall Street

It is interesting that a mask representing the face of Guy Fawkes, the most notorious of the infamous would-be bombers of Parliament and the British government of 1605, is seized upon by some of the Occupy Wall Street leftists as some kind of badge of protest.  If Fawkes and his zealous cronies had been successful and had had their way and did manage to blow up the legislative, judicial, and executive officials of government (since they were all there on that day), the result would have been far more statism, far more tyranny, not less, as these radical Catholics planned to have the King of Spain over and impose the Spanish Inquisitin and his own religious faith on all, as Bloody Mary Tudor had tried to do.  By contrast, the relatively moderate policies of James I helped set the stage for the development of libertarian thought during that century and ultimately helped to make possible the Glorious Revolution of 1688.   If one is a  genuine libertarian one would assiduously eschew the gunpowder plot of 1605 and celebrate its foiling by burning Fawkes's image on November 5.

SEPTEMBER 21, 2013

THE "BIG BANG THEORY" AND TIME

I am sometimes asked, "When did the Universe begin?" Or, did the Universe begin with a big bang as some scientists claim?  I am not an astrophysicist and make no claim as to the truth or falsity of the Big Bang Theory.  Newspaper and other media aaccounts of it cannot be trusted to be accurate as "journalists" are notoriously inaccurate in the area of science news (or economics or philosophy or almost any specialized field for that matter).  I can only report that some journalists claim that scientists believe that the Universe (everything and every existent) "began" as a tightly dense atomic egg that exploded outward.  I do not know if scientists believe that or not, but IF (hypothetically) that is a correct reporting of the theory, then the rendition is philosphically sloppy at best.  It might be true that the Universe or part of the Universe "existed" as a small atomic egg, but then that egg would be the universe.  It could not exist before itself.  One could say that the universe existed "before" the Big Bang in the form of the "nuclear egg" before it exploded (according to the theory), but even that statement is problematic since any and all temporal terms such as before and after have no meaning in this context.  In philosophy, which is more fundamental than science, the term "universe" does not mean merely a collecxtion of some galaxies or planets.  It means all that exists -- not only every thing but every condition, every relationshipo, every aspect, every energy, every matter, and every anything else.  There is no such thing as "before the universe" or "after the universe."  There is no such thing as stepping "outside of" the universe.  The universe is eternal -- outside of time.  Put another way, the concept of time has meaning and is made possible only in the context of existence and motion within existence.  The universe did not "begin" or "start" on some sumemr day at 2:00 in the afternoon.  It may change its form, but it will "never" "end" on a September evening at 8:00 PM.  The planet Earth could conceivably end, but not the whole Universe.  All notions of time presuppose things that exist and move relative to other things.  Time has meaning only within the Universe, not the other way around.

AUGUST 10, 2013

ANARCHIST CRED, RIP

What the Rockwelites, Raymondoites, and the handlers around Ron Paul favor is a strange non-American, non-constitutionalist vision they call black-flag "anarchism" -- just more statism under a different, deceptive label.  Instead of calling political government and coercion what it is, they will call it "private" or "corporate" and it will have no limits. There is a reason why there is no such thing as a constitutional anarchy.  They side with the Left which is consistently ultrastatist when in power and which has always cynically used anarcho-statist nudniks in their strategic drive for more and more power over others.  Like jailed Trotskyite communist Lyndon Larouche, the black flaggers and NeoRoths want their own version of big-government tyranny, but they will call it something else, perhaps something like "Murray's Anarcho-Fascist Insurgency Association."  They are an enemy of freedom, not an ally.

MAY 9, 2013

POWER ABHORS A VACUUM

Internationally, the reactionary "liberal" Democrats in the Obama regime who want to reduce American influence in the world today are paving the way for an international power vacuum that will be filled by far less benign forces -- Chinese communism, Russian fascism, Islamic jihad and its oppressiveness. Instead of caving in to anti-American propaganda and anti-western hate from ultra-statist slime, the U.S. and its Dept of State should be supporting its allies and using what strength we have to stand up to those enemies of freedom and U.S. security.

MARCH 7, 2013

TRUE ATTITUDE IS REVEALED BY ACTION AND INACTION

RUSH EXPLAINS WHY THE LEFT PRAISES THUG HUGO CHAVEZ
WHILE SMEARING CAPITALIST ROMNEY

Rush on Why Left Praises Chavez

FEBRUARY 27, 2013

I was disappointed by Sen. Rand Paul who yesterday voted to approve Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense.  Apparently he caved to the Obama regime just as a regular RINO such as John McCain would.  Chucklehead Hagel as Secretary of Defense is a dangerous condition for the U.S. to be in.

Our jihadist enemies are cowards.  They hide behind women and children and run into mosques and other places of worship because they know our troops have a policy of not attacking civilians or religious shrines.  They on the other hand do not hesitate to murder innocent women and children and desecrate Christian, Buddhist, and other religious places.  Approving Obama's appointment of Hagel as Secretary of Defense sends a "green light" to America's enemies.

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

COMBATING THE ARROGANCE OF IGNORANCE

In the wake of the 2012 elections, Republicans must try to stay united while continuing to uphold sound principles against the folly of the Democrat agenda.  Much more grass-roots education is needed.  We must combat and refute the propaganda and lies of the Democrats.  That should have been done long ago.  Democrat politicians like Kerry, Gore, Biden, Pelosi, Reid, and Obama should be laughed off the stage.  People should see through their rhetoric easily as not having any credibility.  But they apparently do not.  Too many fools want to be on the Federal reservation.  What can be done about the arrogance of ignorance, i.e., the Democrat Party?  Too often the Republican leadership has tacitly accepted the basic premises of their political enemies instead of challenging them at their roots.  American Conservatives, constitutionalists, and true patriots must become more aggressive in the war of ideas, take over media outlets when and where they can for maximum advantage, and demand choice and reform of the educational system.  As long as the teachers unions control education and the Left controls the colleges, the long-term political future looks bleak for individual freedom for peaceful citizens and American national sovereign independence.  The current pragmatist leadership of the GOP must be supplanted by pro-constitution personalities who will not be swayed by beltway smears.  The Republican Party must continue to advocate less government meddling, more private responsibility, real cuts in spending and taxes, a strong and flexible national defense, free markets, and control of our national borders.

*   *   *
Clichés of socialism & "liberalism"

*   *   *

JANUARY 24, 2013

*   *   *

Mitt Romney was certainly not my favorite presidential candidate. I liked Bachmann early on but her campaign never got much traction for some reason. Some say Romney is too liberal, that he is a RINO. Probably. He is after all from Massachusetts. His father was certainly an even more liberal Republican. But, having said and acknowledged that, considering his choice of running mate and the influence of the tea party groups on the Republican Party now, if Romney had been President instead of Obama, do you think he would have nominated left-wing extremists like Kagan and Sotomayor for the Supreme Court? No way. Forced Republicans to raise FICA taxes on the middle class? Not hardly. Caved to the Moslem Brotherhood? Nope. Release terror master blind sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman (which Obama has not yet done but is considering to appease the Bro'hood)? Unthinkable. Obstruct the building of the Keystone Pipeline and the many jobs that would create? Again, no way. Stand in the way of drilling in ANWR? Nope.

It is not that Romney was so good but that the alternative is so bad. People who obsess about Romney's imperfections forget the great damage someone like Obama (or almost any Democrat nowadays) can do to the U.S. Until enough more Americans share our views, there is unlikely going to be a viable alternative candidate to welfare-state "liberalism" domestically and appeasement in international relations. Until more people can be persuaded to our side, we need to buy all the time we can get for that educational process to take hold. Passively waiting for a perfect candidate while the worst power lusters are given free reign only hastens statism; it doesn't slow it down. Constitutionalists need to be more active in the primaries if they want to take the leadership of the GOP away from the non-ideological prags.

JANUARY 23, 2013

Evolution of a coverup of lies about Benghazi:

http://townhall.com/video/the-white-house-disinformation-campaign-on-libya
The White House Disinformation Campaign on Libya - townhall.com

RAND PAUL BRINGS IT!... Tells Hillary Clinton: YOU Are to Blame for Benghazi!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fG6XNIwBaY&feature=youtu.be

JANUARY 22, 2013

To elect somebody like Barack Obama president would not only be a huge mistake, it would send a signal to the world that most Americans no longer want freedom and independence but prefer to be dependent, regulated, and controlled by a government that has its tentacles in virtually every aspect of human life.. To prevent such a tragedy, a great educational program must be directed toward the low information voters, those who are naive enough to believe in Barack Obama and his rhetoric. and the extremist left-wing agenda of the Democrat Party. They must learn the lessons of history, of politics, and perhaps most of all economics.

*   *   *

I am not sure why Oprah is the appropriate venue for airing Lance Armstrong's admissions of his misdeeds and prevarications but how about that reprobate Bill Clinton confess his crimes and sins on Oprah next time -- yes he did have sex with that woman, yes he did rape Juanita Broderick, yes he did let terrorists out of prison, yes he did cripple SDI, yes he did perjure himself, etc. And Albert Gore could go on Oprah to fess up about his lies about global warming and his carbon credits scam.

JANUARY 19, 2013

Eric Holder's Hit Squad versus John Galt

by Sam Wells

A tall man with short blond hair walked nonchalantly through the door of the little shoe store and entered a closet in the back. After closing the door for privacy, he sat down and switched on a small audio cassette player concealed within a particular shoe box.

    "Good morning, Mr. Phelps," came the voice from the tape machine.

    "In the folder at your right you will find a picture of one John Galt, a former physicist and inventor who disappeared some time ago without paying his fair share of income taxes. Worse still, Galt has managed to convince some of the foremost businessmen, industrialists, scientists, engineers and other men and women of intellectual ability to go with him to a secret mountain compound and no longer produce for the good of our society any more. If enough men of such ability dropped out of society in this manner, it would put our whole system in great peril. With no one producing or inventing new machines and industrial processes, our government would not have enough taxes to support the many progressive and altruistic programs in which it now engages. The hungry Third World countries could no longer receive our government's generous foreign aid and development funding. In addition, the United Nations -- that wonderful monument to global peace, world order and universal brotherhood -- would soon have to fold its operations for lack of sufficient funding.

    "Indeed, our domestic bureaucracy would suffer as well -- and many loyal government employees would have to find jobs in the private sector! Without sufficient private investment and capital formation, however, there would probably be mass unemployment. Why, our Federal Government might have to abandon its welfare and foreign aid programs altogether! This would be a terrible blow to social progressivism. People would be left to fend for themselves without Uncle Sam's generous aid!

    "Jim, I think you can already see that Galt and his cronies are selfish, anti-social, and potentially dangerous right-wing extremists. If Galt's plan to get the key men of ability to go on strike should succeed, we would have virtually no more to tax in order to support our federal establishment and our sister states overseas. This could greatly jeopardize America's crucial role in the emerging New World Order. The world as we now know it could fall apart!

    "And, Jim, you and I would be without a job. I think you realize that we both depend on these men of ability for our survival in the long run. Unfortunately, many of them have become tired of being taxed and regulated for the public interest and the common good. These selfish producers think they have a right to what they produce and that neither the National State nor the World Community has a right to any of it! Clearly, they are shrugging their obligation to Society. And, Jim, that means us -- you and me. WE are society! Those selfish bastards are shrugging at US!

    "This may be the most important assignment your team has ever undertaken. The continuance of our entire progressive system and of the other progressive peoples' states around the world depends on the success of your efforts in this matter. You may use any means whatsoever. You have a license to kill with or without provocation. We can even provide military equipment and BATF boys to assist your team if you need them!  We could even send in the Waco killers if necessary.

    "Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is to find Galt's Gulch and stop Galt and his men of ability from destroying our world by withdrawing their moral sanction and financial support. As always, should you or any of your agents be caught or killed in the pursuance of this mission, Secretary Clinton and Attorney General Holder will disavow any knowledge of your activities and this proposed covert action. Good luck, Jim."

    After a momentary pause, the tape recorder spoke again:

    "This tape will self-destruct in five seconds."

    As Jim Phelps walked out of the shoe store, he wondered about the moral implications of a society which maintained itself by exploiting its most productive members, the men of ability, ingenuity, reason, and intelligence. It was a society that was set to self-destruct -- like the tape.

Copyright © 1997 by Sam Wells
1972 by Sam Wells in The Tech Talk, Louisiana Tech University

JANUARY 16, 2013

From the World Health Organization,
the latest murder statistics for the world
(Murders per 100,000 citizens)

Honduras 91.6
El Salvador 69.2
Cote d'lvoire 56.9
Jamaica 52.2
Venezuela 45.1
Belize 41.4
US Virgin Islands 39.2
Guatemala 38.5
Saint Kits and Nevis 38.2
Zambia 38.0
Uganda 36.3
Malawi 36.0
Lesotho 35.2
Trinidad and Tobago 35.2
Colombia 33.4
South Africa 31.8
Congo 30.8
Central African Republic 29.3
Bahamas 27.4
Puerto Rico 26.2
Saint Lucia 25.2
Dominican Republic 25.0
Tanzania 24.5
Sudan 24.2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 22.9
Ethiopia 22.5
Guinea 22.5
Dominica 22.1
Burundi 21.7
Democratic Republic of the Congo 21.7
Panama 21.6
Brazil 21.0
Equatorial Guinea 20.7
Guinea-Bissau 20.2
Kenya 20.1
Kyrgyzstan 20.1
Cameroon 19.7
Montserrat 19.7
Greenland 19.2
Angola 19.0
Guyana 18.6
Burkina Faso 18.0
Eritrea 17.8
Namibia 17.2
Rwanda 17.1
Mexico 16.9
Chad 15.8
Ghana 15.7
Ecuador 15.2
North Korea 15.2
Benin 15.1
Sierra Leone 14.9
Mauritania 14.7
Botswana 14.5
Zimbabwe 14.3
Gabon 13.8
Nicaragua 13.6
French Guiana 13.3
Papua New Guinea 13.0
Swaziland 12.9
Bermuda 12.3
Comoros 12.2
Nigeria 12.2
Cape Verde 11.6
Grenada 11.5
Paraguay 11.5
Barbados 11.3
Togo 10.9
Gambia 10.8
Peru 10.8
Myanmar 10.2
Russia 10.2
Liberia 10.1
Costa Rica 10.0
Nauru 9.8
Bolivia 8.9
Mozambique 8.8
Kazakhstan 8.8
Senegal 8.7
Turks and Caicos Islands 8.7
Mongolia 8.7
British Virgin Islands 8.6
Cayman Islands 8.4
Seychelles 8.3
Madagascar 8.1
Indonesia 8.1
Mali 8.0
Pakistan 7.8
Moldova 7.5
Kiribati 7.3
Guadeloupe 7.0
Haiti 6.9
Timor-Leste 6.9
Anguilla 6.8
Antigua and Barbuda 6.8
Lithuania 6.6
Uruguay 5.9
Philippines 5.4
Ukraine 5.2
Estonia 5.2
Cuba 5.0
Belarus 4.9
Thailand 4.8
Suriname 4.6
Laos 4.6
Georgia 4.3
Martinique 4.2
And
The United States 4.2

ALL the countries above the U.S. have 100% gun bans.

*   *   *

NOVEMBER 19, 2012

OMINOUS PARALLELS

http://socialismsucks.net/

NOVEMBER 14, 2012

"Who is running our country? We've got a CIA Director sharing security info with his mistress using an unsecure gmail account. We've got the delusional Susan Rice blaming the death of an ambassador on a Youtube video. We've got Iran firing on one of our drones a week before the election. We've got the White House either ignorant of or covering up all of this. Who is minding the store? Everywhere we look we see the rank incompetence or corruption of the people who are supposedly running our country and our major institutions. Let's hope that responsible reporters at Obama's press conference today ask the right questions Americans deserve answers to.

"Here's my question for the president: As our nation's chief executive you claim to be unaware of one of the most important and tragic situations we're facing; so, as a former chief executive, I'd like to know how long it takes for your staff to tell you things like: 'Sir, your CIA Director is under inve

-Sarah Palin

*   *   *

The Obama gang has known about the Patraeus indiscretions for months and have been keeping it quiet until after the election to use against him if he got out of line or changed his story.  He was being blackmailed.  He was told by the White House to go along with the story (which is a lie) that the murderous attacks in Benghazi were the result of a protest that got out of hand that originally was caused by anger at an anti-Mohammedan video on YouTube.  Both he and Obama know it was a planned and equipped Al Qaeda attack on the anniversary of 9/11.  The protests against the video came later.  And the Obama administration did nothing to try to rescue the Americans who were first seized and subsequently murdered.

NOVEMBER 8-9, 2012

Petraeus Resigns

What Happened to ORCA on election day?

Programmer Testifies about Rigging Vote Counting Machines

Obama Regime Shuts down More Oil Extraction in the West

More than 85% of American Muslims Picked Obama

Rush Limbaugh and the Santa Claus Factor

Five Ways the Media Bias Tipped the Election to Obama

*   *   *

The Dems Won by Getting Out The Vote In Five States

"The Democrats -- here's the lesson -- the Democrats won this election in five states.  They got their vote out better than we did in Ohio, Virginia, Florida, it looks like, close enough. And some of the other states that we thought were in the bag or close were not anywhere near close.  Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, nowhere near close.  Colorado, Nevada, nowhere near close.  But the Democrats won this election in five states.  That's where they got the electoral votes they knew they needed.  That's where they got their turnout, and we didn't.  And the polls called this right on the money.  So it doesn't matter that Romney's enthusiasm at his rallies was through the roof and Obama's was nowhere near.  The votes didn't happen at those rallies.  It's why I kept rejecting all that stuff, I kept begging people, "Look, it's anecdotal, it looks good, but please don't make any value judgments based on it."  Anyway, it's hard not to, I know." ~Rush Limbaugh

NOVEMBER 7, 2012

Paul Ryan tried to tell the truth to the American people about the looming fiscal crisis and the problems of MediCare and SS running out of money. I guess more people believed the lies of Obama and the Democrats rather than one of the few people who actually read the ObamaCare legislation.

The immense fiscal crisis that Paul Ryan tried to warn people about won't go away. He was demonized by the Demokrat Left as a "right-wing crazy" but that's nonsense. When truth is called crazy then reality is turned upside down. The system is unsustainable and the fiscal crisis won't go away.

Some are asking what the Republican Party can do, but the problem is long term. No quick fix or policy change will make Repubs winners against the Democrat Smear Machine. Of course, the GOP needs to be more consistently conservative constitutionalist and less compromising with the corrupt Democrat leadership. But the real problem is that education in this country has been run by the "liberal" Dems for a long time and they have produced the kind of voters they want. The younger voters overwhelmingly voted for Obummer because they were raised in liberal schools and taught by liberal teachers. That won't change overnight.

It was almost inconceivable to me that people could be stupid enough to re-elect a corrupt lying crook like B.H. Obummer for another four years, but I obviously over-estimated the intelligence of the voters (or under-estimated the vote fraud). And the Senate is still in Reid's control! I can't believe it!  If Obama has actually won the election when all the votes are counted, November 6, 2012 will go down in history as a day of infamy in American politics.

Obviously America is divided into two groups of very different people with very different views of what is going on.  The looters are obviously winning at this point.  But ultimately their system will come tumbling down; it is unsustainable.  Reality will ultimately have the last word.

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

STILL UNDECIDED?

For the yet undecideds -- those mugwomps still sitting on the fence with their mugs on one side and their womps on the other -- it is pretty late but there is still time to see a difference between the two presidential candidates and to either vote for one or against one. Gary Johnson has as much chance getting elected President as a gnat getting off hot tar paper, and voting for him or writing in Mickey Mouse or Ron Paul does nothing to advance the cause of liberty; it does not "send them a message" at all. If you did not like the two main party candidates, it means not enough people who think like you organized well enough in the primaries to get your preferred candidate in the race.

In politics there is no substitute for votes.

*   *   *
NOVEMBER 2, 2012

JARRETT'S THREAT

Jarrett, probably Barack Obama's closest advisor, is as ruthless
as Rahm Emanuel was.  If the above statement had been made by Karl Rove or
any Republican, the news media would never let you hear the end of it.
But this quote is virtually buried.

*   *   *

*   *   *
VOTING IN THE DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE;
PACIFISM IN THE FACE OF AGGRESSION IS NO VIRTUE!

Concerning the morality of voting as self defense by Sam Wells

Voting in the defense of liberty is no vice, but a form of legitimate self-defense of one's rights to person and property from those who would violate them. I believe in voting in self defense. Political pacifism just gives the other side an easy victory. If and when I vote, I am not trying to impose my will on ohters, but am trying to keep others from imposing their wills on me. I have found that if you ignore politics, it will not ignore you. If you were trapped in a locked room with a known homicidal maniac and there is a pistol on the floor between you and him, would you not be a fool not to try to get to that pistol first so that the maniac could not use it to shoot or threaten you with it? To hang back and let the maniac get the gun so he can shoot you with it or threaten to shoot you does not make things better for you or anyone else -- but only helps to empower the evil. You may dislike guns and bullets, and you may hate violence -- but does that mean you should give up your right of self-defense and meekly let yourself be killed? Of course not!

*   *   *
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE

There is a difference. Now maybe it is true that there was a time when there has not been ENOUGH difference between the two parties, that too many Republicans seemed to be just Democrat Lite. But if that was true in the past, it is not the case now. No difference between a Paul Ryan and a Maxine Waters? No difference between Michele Bachmann and Nancy Pelosi? No difference betwen Rand Paul and crooks like Harry Reid? No difference between almost any Republican's voting pattern and that of virtually all Democrats? In the year 2012 those pushing the notion that there is absolutely "no difference" between Republicans and Democrats are setting the public up to help Obama get re-elected by dividing the pro-American vote with one or more third parties or "independent" candidates. That is the false alternative, the real false flag operation that is going on.

Voting Ron Paul? Gary Johnson? Neither will ever be president. And "standing on principle" (mistaken principle) does not mean slitting ones own throat. I perceive a certain strain of nihilism among some of the Ron Paulites which just plays into the hands of the left-wing megastatists. The so-called "anarchism" that some claim to want is never going to be. It is a false alternative, a false flag operation which is just statism under a different label. There IS a difference between the two presidential and vice presidential candidates. To deny that is to evade reality and become an ostrich.

I used to think that a strong Libertarian Party as a third party would help push the GOP further to the pro-freedom right. but I have seen very little if any evidence of that. For one things the libertarian message to the public has been distorted by neoRoth and neoTrot influences and propaganda so that the public received a very confused message. In most cases at least in tight races an LP candidate would usually take more from the conservative Republican than his leftist Dem adversary to the extent his candidacy had any effect at all. Barring a constitutional amendment, the U.S. does not have a proportional representation system like Europe and unlike Europe will never be more than a predominantly two-party system. The influence of the tea parties gives me more hope for change. American conservatives, whatever their drawbacks, tend to be much closer to libertarianism and constitutional liberty than any modern Democrat today. (Even Ron Paul, said to be libertarian, runs as a Republican.)

The tea party constitutionalists must take over leadership of the GOP. That is more possible to achieve, I believe, than trying to influence the GOP with third=party efforts.  It is better than diluting our strength with third-party candidates or write-in votes.

*   *   *
SEPTEMBER 15, 2012

SEPTEMBER 8, 2012

NOTORIOUS SERIAL LIAR
DNC CHAIRPERSON
Debbie Wassermann Schultz

Debbie Wassermann Schultz Caught in Embarrassing Series of Lies

---

AUGUST 12, 2012

ROMNEY PICKS PAUL RYAN AS RUNNING MATE

Empirically, the ideologies of political liberalism and socialism have proved to be utter failures. The Obama administration and its policies are the best illustration of this failure to produce real results compared to glittering campaign promises. The Obamacrats have apparently sought to "stimulate" the economy back to health by more federal spending and unprecedented, colossal indebtedness. That is kind of like trying to gain nourishment by drinking your own blood. Government can only put back into the economy what first it has siphoned out of the economy. There is no new wealth created. And with the bureaucratic overhead involved in these political programs what is put back in (to the vested interests like international banks such as Goldman Sachs who supported Obama and Biden in the campaign) is often much less overall than what was taken by force from the voluntary price-oriented economy. More tax theft is not the answer. As Paul Ryan points out, it is time to face up to the problem of government overspending instead of using smoke and mirrors to try to hide it from the American people as is done in the monstrous legislation called ObamaCare.

The spin doctors of the Obama clique and their media shills accuse Republicans of trying to destroy medicare -- but it is precisely ObamaCare that we discover plans to take $716 billion away from Medicare and not give it back. It is time we called liars what they are.

Ryan is smarter than 0bama and knows the details of the budget debate and the ObamaCare monstrosity -- and of course Ryan runs rings around that fool Biden.  If there is a debate between Paul Ryan and Biden, the Dems won't be able to get away with trying to confuse the American people about who is doing what to whom. I believe Obama will be defeated in a landslide.

AUGUST 4. 2012

Clint Eastwood Endorses Mitt Romney for President
Made my day.

"Gay Kiss-In" Lays Gigantic Egg at Chick-Fil-A Restaurants

---

LEST WE FORGET

Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini

Jimmy Carter and Kim Il-Sung
of North Korea 1994

H enry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho shake hands after initialing
the Vietnam Peace Agreement - Paris, 1/22/1973.
The next day President Nixon would announce the end of the war.
Less than two years later, the communist regime of North Vietnam
violated the peace by invading South Vietnam.

Kim Jong-Il and Meddling Albright

 How many Americans today understand the significance of the Munich agreement made in 1938 with Hitler by England's Neville Chamberlain and France's Daladier? This agreement was made without the presence or consent of Czechoslovakia and was an attempt to appease Hitler and a cowardly betrayal of Czechoslovakia. It is possible that Nazi Germany's forced annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland would have taken place anyway, but it was wrong for England and France to recognize it as legitimate when it was obviously a prelude to further military expansion by Nazi Germany. Hitler's promise that he would not make any further territorial demands was clearly an empty one.  Today, the leaders of the U.S. Democrat Party are much worse than Neville Chamberlain.

Munich Conference and the Annexation of Sudetenland

JULY 20. 2012

LEFT-WING STUDENT GOES ON MURDER RAMPAGE IN AURORA, COLORADO
TWELVE KILLED; FIFTY-NINE WOUNDED.

Like killers Amy Bishop and Jared Lee Loughner and would-be killers Casey Brezik and Steve Kangas,  James Holmes is a pro-Obama leftist who was ideologically motivated to commit his irrational acts of extreme violence against innocence people based on his distorted view of the world based on crackpot left-wing hate speech.

Occupy mob sympathizer caught for mass murder in Aurora, Colorado

JULY 19. 2012

JULY 17. 2012

REPEATING THE SAME OLD ERRORS

Ideally, the proper function of government, essentially, is NOT to govern peaceful people in their private lives or voluntary exchanges or how they use their properties. It ought to be limited to governing criminals -- broadly, those convicted of violating the rights of peaceful people. Government's function is not to set prices, regulate what vitamins we may take, establish racial quotas, manage healthcare, or redistribute wealth among non-criminals. If Obama's goal was to help the economy recover, his policies of massive federal spending and indebtedness have failed. This administration has spent more than all previous administrations combined. Yet, they have destroyed far more jobs than they have created. Trying to "stimulate" the economy back to health through government spending is like trying to gain nourishment by drinking your own blood! The government cannot put back into the economy more than what it takes out of it -- and given the huge overhead and waste involved in government programs -- on net it puts back in less than it takes away while artificially stimulating some sectors at the forced expense of others. When FDR tried this, it kept the country in depression for many years unnecessarily and causing widespread economic anguish. What must be done is to slash federal spending to the bone, cut taxes generally, abolish the capital gains tax, repeal Dodd-Frank and many other laws, and replace the Federal Reserve legal counterfeiting monopoly with a sound (golden) monetary system.

OBAMA OPERATING ON FALSE MARXIST ASSUMPTIONS

What Obama doesn't seem to understand is that the plant and equipment, the tools and machines, the money for wages and salaries all must be paid for before a business even begins to make any money (if it does). These are all paid for by capital funding made available by private savings and investment. Taxing the rich only siphons off money that could go to such business starts -- to finance new businesses for their first few years of operation BEFORE they even start making money (again, if they do). The risks can be high. Reducing capital formation only makes it harder for businesses to find the funding to start up or grow. Obama seems to have no appreciation of the role played by savers, investors, capitalists and entrepreneurs in creating job opportunities. He is operating on false marxist assumptions.

JULY 14. 2012

I believe in voting in self defense. Political pacifism just gives the other side an easy victory.  When I vote I am not trying to impose my will on others, but am trying to keep others from imposing their wills on me, which is certainly legitimate.

JULY 12. 2012

Foundations of American Constitutionalism

American culture has been fed by many traditions from around the world, but early on the two main traditions which influenced North American culture in general were the Greco-Roman heritage and the Judeo-Christian tradition (with some degree of overlap). Cicero, Polybius, Tacitus, Aristotle, Plutarch, Aesop, Titus Livius and other rediscovered ancient writers were at one time required reading for any true scholar. The ideas of constitution, mixed republic, and rule of law derive from the classics which at least some of the American founders could read in the original Greek and Latin. In one of his last letters before his death, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the "principles of the Declaration were found in the � elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke & Sidney." Aristotle had examined different types of governments, their strengths and weaknesses, and the possibility of combining stability and justice.

The Bible was a staple in colonial America and throughout U.S. history. It has shaped our view of right and wrong and puts it in proper perspective. The divine injunctions against theft and murder in the Decalogue provide the basis for the principles of private property rights and individual self ownership -- ideas without which liberty for peaceful people would not be possible.  When designing a great seal for the United States Ben Franklin had suggested a proposal (not adopted) depicting the Hebrew people fleeing from Pharaoh's Egypt as the Red Sea swallows up the pursuing troops -- as an analogy with the American colonists' struggle for political independence from mercantilist Britain.

John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government was almost as widely read by the American colonists as the Bible.  The ideas of natural individual rights, private property, self ownership, and limited constitutional government (in the tradition of 1688-89) were well established among the populace.  Any king or parliament that violated those established principles was looking for a fight.

JULY 5. 2012

Roberts's Decision in Upholding ObamaCare as Constitutional

It seems to me quite a "stretch" to cite the interstate commerce clause as the excuse to put medical care under the federal government's growing jurisdiction -- not that it hasn't been used that way before, going back at least to Wickerd versus Filburn. But that reasoning seems to ignore the ninth and tenth amendments. Roberts seems to be saying that if ObamaCare is re-read (i.e., re-written) as a tax, it is OK. Somehow his judicial legislation makes it constitutional. I do not follow that argument. Before a level of government may tax something it must first have purview or jurisdiction. I do not find either "health care" or "medical insurance" mentioned in the Constitution at all let alone Section 8 of Article I. The founders intended for the Constitution to limit the scope of government. As best I can understand, Roberts's argument means that fedgov may tax any area of human life, that its scope of power is unlimited. If this was not clear before his ruling, it seems clear now. Maybe Roberts intends to force Congress to take a more active role in explicitly circumscribing fedgov's power and passing legislation to restrict the Court's purview. Or maybe he hoped it would fire up the GOP base and the tea parties to ensure a Romney victory over Obummer this fall.  I really don't know.

This puts the pressure on Congress to repeal ObamaCare when presumably it will be able to do so after the November elections and President Romney can sign the repeal.

JUNE 6, 2012

THE RECALL HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

The Republican election triumph in Wisconsin is a major victory for Gov. Walker, honesty, conservative policies and rationality versus Tom Barrett, Barack Obama, Jesse Jackson, and the irrational greed of left-wing unions. Obummer will be a one-termer. A time to savor and celebrate and prepare!

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/06/06/ann-coulter-the-recall-heard-round-the-world/

    Ann Coulter: The recall heard round the world

---

The Real False Alternative

Now maybe it is true that there was a time when there has not been ENOUGH difference between the two parties, that too many Republicans seemed to be just Democrat Lite. But if that was true in the past, it is not the case now. No difference between a Paul Ryan and a Maxine Waters? No difference between Michele Bachmann and Nancy Pelosi? No difference betwen Rand Paul and crooks like Harry Reid? No difference between almost any Republican's voting pattern and that of virtually all Democrats?

In the year 2012 those pushing the notion that there is absolutely "no difference" between Republicans and Democrats are setting the public up to help Obama get re-elected by dividing the pro-American vote with one or more third parties or "independent" candidates. That is the false alternative, the real false flag operation that is going on.

DECEMBER 19, 2011

TEA PARTY PATRIOTS POLLING RESULTS

Newt Gingrich 31%
Michele Bachmann 28%
Mitt Romney 20%
Rick Santorum 16%
Ron Paul 3%
... Rick Perry 2%
Jon Huntsman 0% (.34%)
(Results are rounded to nearest percentage point. Margin of error +/-1.59%)

I would prefer someone like Michelle Bachmann, but she has much less traction than Gingrich has right now.  Gingrich is far from perfect, but he would be better than Romney in my opinion.

THE DEATH OF A COMMUNIST DICTATOR

December is the special month in which people celebrate different things -- Hannukah, Christmas, Isaac Newton's birthday, and now the long-awaited death of mass murderer and communist dictator Kim Jong Il of North Korea. Kim Jong Il is now Kim Jong Dead.

The Demise of a Dictator

SEPTEMBER  21, 2011

Ron Paul wins "California Straw Poll":  No One Cares

I have not heard of this California straw poll.  Something tells me its purpose is to promote Ron Paul for President.  Congressman Paul has been led to believe that the source of evil in the world is not militant socialism, the communists, the hateful jihadists, or the militant environmental fascists -- but the United States of America and its military capability. He thinks that if the U.S. would embrace his isolationist policy and remove all of its influence from all other countries, the world would be a much better place. Never mind that the vacuum created by such a head-in-the-sand policy would be filled by either totalitarian communist regimes or corrupt Islamic dictatorships.

The hope of the world is still market capitalism (to the extent it is allowed to exist) and the strength and flexibility of the U.S. military.

Ron does waffle on some issues. For example, he used to favor abolishing the Federal Reserve System -- which I agree with. (If we're going to have a monetary crisis anyway, why not use the opportunity to get rid of the Federal Reserve and start over with a sound money system? Otherwise the Federal Reserve's legal counterfeiting to pay for the government's debts will eventually ruin the dollar as a viable currency. Enough with legal counterfeiting by anybody! Money should be independent of political manipulaiton.) But Ron Paul now seems to be advocating that the Federal Reserve just be audited.  Audited?  I say abolish theFed; don't try to "audit" it! What does that mean? Who would do the "auditing"? What would prevent them from cooking the books? Will "auditing" the Fed really accomplish anything substantial?  Sounds like a copout.

AUGUST 17, 2011

REPUBLICANS WIN 4 OUT OF 6 STATE ELECTIONS IN WISCONSIN

Unions Spent $35 Million to Defeat Wisconsin Gov. Walker � and Lost

AUGUST 2, 2011

KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD AGAIN

The deal to raise the borrowing limit does not make serious cuts and there are no provisions for any real structural reforms in the budget process, such as Zero-Based Budgeting.  At most, in 2012 only $7 billion will be cut, and in 2013 a measly $3 billion.  This is nothing compared to the huge trillion-dollar spending Obama and the Dems are now allowed to get away with.  We will likely not see any real structural reform, such as the House's Cut, Cap, and Balance Act, until there is a majority of constitutional conservatives in the Senate and a new President who is serious about cutting the budget and not just making small cuts in the projected increase in spending. they probably will need to repeal the 1974 Budget Act and institute Zero-Based Budgeting instead. As long as Harry Reid and the Dems are in charge of the Senate and Obama is in the WH, nothing significant will get passed.

Committed patriots and constitutionalists must be prepared to get involved in a serious way in the GOP primaries of 2012 to defeat the RINOs as well as taking out as many Dems in the general election as possible.

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OBAMA'S GRAND SLAM

Republican Leadership folds as U.S. continues on path toward economic disaster -- Emily Miller

JULY 30, 2011

TWENTY-TWO PATRIOTS WHO VOTED AGAINST THE BOEHNER/REID TRAP

JULY 22, 2011

GOP LEADERSHIP, STAND FIRM
AGAINST OBAMA WH AND BELTWAY MEDIA

We have all heard the old populist propaganda line from George Wallace that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the two major parties.  If that was ever true in the past, it is certainly not true these days.  With the activism of the various tea party groups, constitutional conservatives are taking the Republican Party back from the RINOs.  The difference between the balanced proposals for real budget reform from the House Republicans on the one hand and the non proposal from the current golfer-in-chief and his Democrat buddies in the Senate is very telling.  At most the Dems propose pseudocuts that are way off in the future (and likely never to occur) with more job-killing taxes on the U.S. economy.  The House Republicans, particularly Paul Ryan, are at least trying to put some kind of control on what is a runaway federal spending spree.  The Ryan plan does not go far enough in my opinion, but it is a large step in the right direction and is very good as far as it goes, especially compared to the irresponsible Democrat alternative of politics as usual.

What would really be needed in the longer run in my judgment is Willis Stone's Liberty Amendment -- but that is not on the table and is not supported by enough Americans to be politically viable at the present time.  In the meantime, the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act passed by the House is the only plan that seeks to make the federal government live within its means.  Pressure must be put on corrupt Senate leader Harry Reid to pass a Senate version of the bill and on President Obama to sign it into law.  If he does not, people will recognize where the blame lies for the financial debacle, even despite the best attempts by the news media to cover up for this worst president since at least Jimmy Carter.

If the public remains too complacent and does not show support for the good guys in the House, then it will deserve what it will get.  This should have been done decades ago.  Better late than never.

JULY 13, 2011

OBAMA CONTINUES TO OBSTRUCT BUDGET REFORM
WALKS OUT OF MEETING IN A SNIT
OBAMA DEMANDS MORE JOB-KILLING TAX HIKES
AND REFUSES TO MAKE SERIOUS SPENDING CUTS

Acting more like a spoiled brat than a President, Barrack Obama, after having played golf and going on numerous vacations and doing no work on the budget, tries to blame others for his fiscal irresponsibility.  Obama threatens to withhold SS checks if he doesn't get his way.  Meanwhile more lawmakers are signing onto the Cut, Cap, and Balance Pledge.

JUNE 20, 2011

Fast and Furious Gun Running by BATF to Major Criminals in Mexico
This incredible sounding story continues to unfold as one of the major scandals of this century.

JUNE 13, 2011

Bill Cunningham interview of Peter Barnes of WSJ

Is the U.S. Government Already in Default?

JUNE 5, 2011

FROM WHOM CAN THE DEMOCRATS BORROW NOW?

China Has Divested 97 Percent of Its Holdings in U.S. Treasury Bills

JUNE 4, 2011

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

Top jihadist leader killed
The terrorist described by counterterrorism officials as al Qaeda's "military brain," Ilyas Kashmiri, was killed in a drone strike Friday night in Pakistan

JUNE 1, 2011

OBAMA -- ONE-TERM PRESIDENT

Despite that the takedown of Osama bin Laden by the Navy SEALS happened while Obama was president -- based on information obtained by interrogations and Bush policies which Obama and the Democrats opposed -- he is still considered the worst president since Jimmy Carter. He is a job killer who has extended and deepened the recession. He apologizes for America to foreign deadbeat dictators. He has alienated our allies.  Even his kept media are getting tired of propping him up.

SARAH PALIN RISING

One of the worst fears of the Left/Liberal Establishment is a Palin run for the President. they are desperate to find out what she will do.   She is playing them like a violin.  She realizes they are not her allies, that they are out to protect Obama at all costs.

MAY 31, 2011

HOUSE DEFEATS DEBT CEILING HIKE

Republicans racked up a victory in the House of Representatives by soundly defeating the attempt by the Obama regime to increase the debt ceiling to accommodate further borrowing for its colossal deficit spending sprees and bailouts of political buddies.

Democrats are desperate to smear Paul Ryan & his proposals. Their tactic is to hold children hostage and scare senior citizens against any change in the current moribund system. Even though Ryan's plan does not affect current Medicare recipients, the Democrats will claim otherwise. Obstructionist Democrats in the Senate have, for the time being, halted budget reform. But that will not make the problem go away.

Paul Ryan's plan does not go far enough, but it is a step in the right direction. I support it as far as it goes. What is really needed is the old Liberty Amendment written by Willis Stone -- but that is probably "too radical" for most Americans at this point.  Too many people are living in ignorance and in denial about our government's debt problems.

*   *   *

DNC Chair: Republicans Believe Illegal Immigration 'Should be a Crime' Well, duh!  How stupid can this woman be?

*   *   *
MAY 13, 2011

Ron Paul's Foreign Policy Redux

On the grammar school playground there is this big kid who is a bully. He beats up the little kids and takes their lunch money (for those not on the state's Free Lunch Program). You are one of the bigger kids; in fact, you are bigger than all the others and more than a match for the bully. As he attacks your little sister, you stand by and do nothing because he has never initiated force against you personally. It is not any of your business if he breaks your sister's nose. Instead of dragging him off of her, you just stand by and watch in silence.

There is a lot of jumping to the wrong conclusion by some "anti-war" types on when force is justified. They seem to believe that the Non-Aggression Axiom says that retaliation is justified ONLY when the force initiated was against the retaliator and no one else. That is not the case. The Non-Aggression Axiom does not say that.  It is morally justifiable to use retaliatory force against someone who has initiated force period, no matter whom it was used against.

Saddam Hussein had initiated brute force many times and on a massive scale against his own people and against his neighbors. He had lost all legitimate sovereignty long ago.  He was fair game for anybody to overthrow. The U.S. and its allies had the right and the might to drag that bully off the backs of the Iraqi people.  As his regime was developing weapons of mass death and destruction, Saddam was an active menace to his neighbors and to world peace. There is far less coercion and more freedom now that he is gone. I for one will not mourn his death. It is not a "perfect" situation but I salute the U.S. military who did a difficult job and (so far) have achieved a fragile peace there and have made it possible for an elected government (and a badly needed U. S. ally) to emerge and for more freedom in the marketplace to be enjoyed by the people.  If the U. S. abandons Iraq prematurely, there is a risk that the terror state of Iran would take advantage of the situation by making Iraq its satellite, further destabilizing the region and advancing the terrorist agenda.

MAY 2, 2011

OBL FINALLY EXECUTED!
Shot in the head by a Navy SEAL
Cutting off the Head of the Serpent
Was Pakistan Harboring him?

APRIL 18, 2011

Obama targets the middle class while pretending to tax only the rich.

APRIL 15, 2011

DON'T SPLIT UP THE ANTI-OBAMA VOTE

The Republican Party is not a thing.  It is not a monolithic entity.  It is a label that represents a collection of individuals.  What do they have in common?  They are ideologically heterogeneous.  They do not all think the same way.  Whatever some Republicans may have done in the past, this is the present.  They must do the right thing now.  There is no one else who can.  It is a lie that there is no difference between the two major parties.

"A Third Party is NOT the Answer: We must reclaim the GOP from the RINOs."

APRIL 9, 2011

GOVERNMENT "SHUTDOWN" TEMPORARILY POSTPONED

Congress Strikes a Budget Deal for Now

APRIL 8, 2011

UNION SHILL DEFEATED IN WISCONSIN

Americans celebrate the defeat of union stooge Kloppenburg in the recent Wisconsin special election.  The Left is fulminating with rage as it believed it had stolen enough votes to cinch the election.  Poor losers that they are, leftists are braying at the moon more loudly than usual in protest against losing the Wisconsin election.  this is a dramatic show of support for Gov. |Scott Walker in his attempt to rein in the budget of the Stae of Wisconsin.

APRIL 4, 2011

Obama's Illegal War

Well, well. If George Bush were still President, there would be thousands of "anti-war" activists in the streets with already made-up signs denouncing the kinetic action against "revolutionary socialist" dictator Qaddaffi of Libya. You would not hear an end to it in the media.  But Obama is President and he is a Democrat. Where is Cindy Sheehan? Where are the Hollywood Left? Where is Alec Baldwin?  Where is Michael Moore? Where do we hear about them in the media? Hmmm?

The "anti-war" movement, which has sucked in so many unwary "libertarians," is only active when a Republican is in the White House. It is purely partisan.  It is a fraud.

President Bush consulted Congress and got a go ahead for the liberation of Iraq.  Obama did not consult with Congress at all.

I confess that IF the U.S. had the resources, which it does not, I would use military force to disarm and overturn the regimes of Castro, Ortega, Kim Jong Il, Qaddaffi, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Putin, and others. I'd take 'em all out. Help make the world a better place. But, hey, that's just me.

APRIL 3, 2011

IF THEY DON'T GET THEIR WAY ON THE BUDGET,
DEMOCRATS THREATEN TO SHUT DOWN THE GOVERNMENT -- AND HOLD THEIR BREATHS UNTIL THEY TURN BLUE IN THE FACE!
Republicans Fear Public Reaction

APRIL 2, 2011

EVEN MORE LOOT TO PAY OFF GREEDY UNIONS
AND CORPORATE SOCIALIST ELITISTS
Democrat Money Laundering Again

Uncovered: New $2 billion bailout in Obamacar e
Washington Examiner

MARCH 31, 2011

Outrage: Freddie and Fannie Execs Pocketed $35 Million In Taxpayer Money
Mega Payout to those who are responsible
for the housing debacle!  Only the tip of the iceberg!

MARCH 10, 2011

AMERICANS QUIETLY CELEBRATE WISCONSIN'S VICTORY OVER GREEDY SPECIAL INTERESTS AND OBSTRUCTIONIST DEMOCRATS
WHILE UNION THUGS DEFACE CAPITOL BUILDING

"By eliminating collective bargaining over benefits, Obama�s bloated public employee unions no longer have absolute power to hold taxpayers hostage.  No longer will Wisconsin�s liberal politicians award lavish pension and health benefit packages to their union cronies in exchange for a mother-load of campaign cash and votes." reports NewsMax.com

Despite biased media reporting, union violence, and death threats, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is prevailing (so far) in his plan to save his state from financial catastrophe.  He is demonstrating great leadership for the country as a whole.  It may seem to be a relatively small victory in the overall scheme of things, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with a few small steps.  Hooray for Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans!

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4577226/wisconsin-state-senate-passes-union-bill-without-democrats

The Pro-American Backlash is gaining momentum.

MARCH 1, 2011

SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS FREEDOM OF ANTI-AMERICAN FAMILY TO PROTEST AT U.S. MILITARY FUNERALS

The controversial Fred Phelps who calls himself a reverend of a small left-wing church group (consisting mostly of his family members and relatives) spends over $200,000 in travel expenses a year picketing U.S. military funerals all over the country.  I do not contest their freedom of speech, as hateful as it is, but one wonders where all the funding comes from for the Phelps family church.  Lawsuits? Soros?

FEBRUARY 21, 2011

DEMOCRATS ON THE RUN
Tea Partiers versus Flee Partiers
The Dems can run, but they can't hide forever from the people!

Wisconsin Dems Flee State and Hide, Flushed Out by Tea Party in Illinois Resort

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*   *   *

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

R ush Supports Congressman Steve King on defunding ObamaCare. Very good summary of the controversey over the issue of House rules.  Rush warns that the Democrats and their media shills will try to replay their successful intimidation of congressional Republicans in 1995  with the threat of government shutdown, and he reminds us exactly what Clinton and the Democrats did in 1995 to make Republicans back down.  Rush advises Congress:  this time do not fear this threat.  He is right, of course.  Click on this link to hear the full third hour of today's broadcast.

FEBRUARY 13, 2011

Ann Coulter's Speech at CPAC -- YouTube

Atlas Shrugged Part I Movie Trailer

FEBRUARY 6, 2011

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION ACTS
IN CONTEMPT OF COURT

A contemptuous administration
-- Washington Times

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

Could This Be The Year?
by Sam Wells

The huge debt crisis that Gary Allen and I predicted in the early 1980s is now being taken seriously more and more by some of today's financial analysts.  We had demonstrated with debt-versus-GNP trend charts that there would come a time when the United States would no longer be able to pay even the interest on the federal government's enormous national debt.  That debt is unimaginably higher now than it was back in the 1980s.  The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have been paying off debt more and more by inflation -- "printing up" more fiat money.  That process has escalated over the last couple years to incredible levels.  At the risk of sounding like the boy who called wolf, if what Gary and I predicted in 1981-1983 was premature then, it may be finally coming to a head in the next two or three years -- or less.

How far can inflation of the Yankee Dollar continue before the world finally rejects the dollar as its reserve currency?  I reckon we'll find out.  When that happens, the feathers will really hit the fan.   Actually, it is already beginning to happen; it has just not been very well reported in the mainstream "liberal" establishment media.  The Chicoms are spearheading an effort to replace the U.S. dollar with an alternative currency.  When this will actually be implemented is uncertain.  China holds a large amount of dollar-denominated debt.  So, it won't abandon the dollar precipitously.  It has a vested interest in a strong dollar.  But China's rulers in Beijing will pull the plug when they think the time is right. In the meantime, they are no longer going to continue to bet on the dollar as they have in the past.  They are reducing their purchases of U.S. Treasury debt.

So, unlike in the 1980s when Gary and I were writing, we are no longer able to begin to think we can possibly "produce our way out" or even "borrow our way out" of the looming currency megacrisis.  As we pointed out two decades ago, the situation is unsustainable.  The U.S. economy has become so burdened and distorted from government intervention -- regulations, "environmentalist" controls, taxes, and inflation -- that its problems are chronic and its ability to grow has indeed become limited.

The U.S. has not had anything approaching a true free-market economy in many, many decades.  For example, the U.S. has the second-highest corporate tax rate in the world among developed countries.  And mountains of political regulations and environmentalist controls also act as a ball and chain around America's producers.  Is it any wonder so many American companies outsource their businesses overseas?  Those are just some of the reasons why the feds are not able to collect enough real wealth from taxes to cover their outrageous spending.

Many younger folks today, especially in states like California, are living a fool's paradise of sorts.  Very few of them have any inkling about what is coming their way in the next few years.  Times will be hard for all of us, of course, but at least some of us will not be shocked or surprised and will be better prepared to deal with the rough times when they come.  Probably the most fortunate (or least unfortunate) people will be those not living in or near urban areas, those who have stashed away emergency food supplies and drinkable water, and those who have already bought gold and silver.  Those who bet everything on paper assets like the stock market may be big losers.

Now more than ever the struggle between those who favor constitutional liberty and the decadent "liberal"-Left establishment must be waged carefully, intelligently, and forcefully.  The smear campaigns by the "liberal" left against constitutional conservatives will become even more hysterical.

Looking ahead, my fervent hope is that Americans will turn away from the California/New York model of unlimited government and instead make sure that Congress enacts the massive spending cuts and other unpleasant measures that are necessary to return the United States to its constitutional foundations.  An American backlash is coming and it is long overdue.

*   *   *

"ObamaCare" Ruled Unconstitutional

JANUARY 27, 2011

THE INCREASING IRRELEVANCE OF BARACK OBAMA AS HIS FAILING POLICIES ARE REJECTED BY CONGRESS AND THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

The worst President since Jimmy Carter
-- some say even worse.

JANUARY 26, 2011

REPUBLICAN RESPONSES TO THE SOTU
Obama's proposed "freeze" is an insult to our intelligence

Paul Ryan Responds

Michele Bachmann Responds

Rand Paul Responds

Sarah Palin on the SOTU: "a lot of WTF moments"
The increasing irrelevance of Obama as he continues to promote counter-productive policies.

*   *   *

Obama said, "We are the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook."

And then the government outlawed Edison's great invention, made the Wright brothers' air travel insufferable, filed anti-trust charges against Microsoft and made cars too expensive to drive by prohibiting oil exploration, and right now -- at this very minute -- is desperately trying to regulate the Internet.

On the bright side, President Al Gore would have actually outlawed the cars in those driveways.
                                                                            ~Ann Coulter

PRESIDENT OBAMA'S SOTU TRIES TO REPACKAGE HIS AGENDA WITH "CENTRIST" RHETORIC

State of the Union Jan. 25, 2011

JANUARY 20, 2011

NEW HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PASSES BILL TO REPEAL "OBAMACARE"
The repeal got more votes than the original Obamacare bill!

The Left's Push to Assassinate Sarah Palin
Dr. Jack Wheeler

Ann Coulter on the Slanders against Sarah Palin

JANUARY 18, 2011

Democrat Congressman Cohen Commits Blood Slander against Constitutional Republicans, Likens Them to Nazis
The irony is that the policies and programs advocated and voted for by Cohen are a lot closer to being similar to Hitler's platform.

Free China Cartoon Mocking Hu's Visit with Obama.

Attempted Democrat Coverup of Fraudulent Science:  Dems seek to stop investigation into "climate change" manipulated temperature data.

JANUARY 17, 2011

LIBERALS DENOUNCE THE CONSTITUTION AS A CONSERVATIVE "FETISH"

Decades ago liberal Democrat U.S. Senator J. William Fulbright described the Constitution of the United States as "outmoded" as it "hobbles" the President in doing what only he knows is best as the "moral leader" of the people.  More recently, those who support a return to the Constitution have been ridiculed on MSNBC and other pro-Democrat media as "fetishists" for wanting to have the relatively short document read aloud in Congress (during which reading most congressional Democrats left the chamber to show their lack of respect and uncivility.)

Why do "liberal" Democrats hate the Constitution and the constitutionalists in the tea party movement? They abhor constitutionalism as such. They oppose any fixed rules of the game over their use of power. They want always to be able to change the rules at any time in the middle of the game to benefit themselves and their political allies (e.g., Goldman Sachs) at the forced expense of everybody else.

The so-called "liberals" of either party dislike the Constitution because it is an obstacle to their use of power by arbitrary whim. Though they sometimes cite the Constitution and its Bill of Rights if they think it is to their tactical advantage to do so, they more often either claim the Constitution is a "living" document whose basic meaning is malleable according to their tastes -- or that it is "outmoded" and obsolete and should be abandoned altogether.

Government by whim is tyranny. The founders knew this. That's why they devised a constitutional republic of limited scope. Fixed rules of the game that cannot easily be changed by anybody's whim.

Those who would retain or gain back our liberties would do well by rebuilding respect for laws based on and consistent with the proper functions of the organized force of government, that being essentially to protect the rights of person, liberty, and property of peaceful adult citizens from criminal violence and fraud, to secure the national perimeter from invasion, and to leave alone as much as possible the private affairs and voluntary (market) enterprises of the people. Let government neither help nor hinder any business interest as long as its activities are nonviolent and nonfraudulent. Let the scope of government ideally be restricted to and focused on dealing with criminal violence and fraud, military defense, and the pursuit of justice for the maintenance of domestic peace and order. Keep government from engaging in such enterprises as banking, education, housing, health, medicine, and other activities best left to the market.

The near-Augean struggle of restoring constitutional control will not be an easy one or be achieved overnight, but the tea party movements seem to be heading in the right direction. There is hope in the land.

JANUARY 12, 2011

In the future, after our constitutional republic has been restored, January 12 will be celebrated as Rush Limbaugh Day.  There is no doubt that our nation would be much further down the tubes today if there had been no Rush Limbaugh on the airwaves.

JANUARY 11, 2011

DEMOCRATS MOVE TO CRACK DOWN ON FREEDOM

How the Democrats are Using the Tucson Massacre to Advance Their Political Agenda.

President Obama Considers imposing Internet IDs on Americans
The name of the game is always control by the "liberal" control freaks.

Liberals Seek Ban On Metaphors

"Liberals" Call for Even More Gun Control Laws
Rahm says "Never let a crisis go to waste!'

Handgun Sales Surge

Death threats against Sarah Palin at all-time high amid Liberal hate speech and left-wing blood libel

JANUARY 9, 2011

LEFT-WING KOOK SHOOTS CONGRESSWOMAN
AND A FEDERAL JUDGE
IN PREMEDITATED ATTACK IN TUCSON
MURDERS FIVE OTHERS
INCLUDING A LITTLE GIRL

Shooter possibly linked to a Daily Kos hit piece that had put a target on Congresswoman Giffords for Turning Conservative

The Democrat media and politicians are desperately trying to link the shooting to Sarah Palin -- but there is no evidence that Loughner was inspired by Sarah Palin or ever even looked at her web site. -- but he evidently may have read articles and been influenced by anti-Giffords posts on the Daily Kos, a far-left pro-Democrat Internet site.  Yet, the Democrat hate speech against Palin, the tea party patriots, and the Republicans continues unabated.

JANUARY 7, 2011

Investigate This! -- Ann Coulter

How to Reduce Unemployment to 4% -- Diana Furchtgott-Roth

DECEMBER 31, 2010

2010:  The Year of the Tea Parties

I think that 2010 should go down as the Year of the Tea Parties.  This spontaneous emergence of patriotic, pro-Constitution Americans had an enormous impact on the 2010 elections. This should give us all hope for the future that we may be able to take our country back and restore some measure of control over the scope of big government and eventually rein it in to its proper constitutional role.  The forthcoming year will see this struggle continue against the Establishment Left.

*   *   *

PRESIDENT OBAMA VERSUS JOBS
by Sam Wells

Obama says that he wants to see more jobs and an improved economy -- and he says soaking the rich with higher taxes will somehow create more jobs.  You can bet that Obama and the Democrats will take credit for any "new jobs" that the Bureau of Labor Statistics may report, and the President will claim that the "stimulus" spending is working.

Where does he think jobs come from?

Contrary to what Obama and his Democrat partisans would have you believe, jobs do not come from government spending, not on net.  The government can only put back into the economy what first it has stolen out of it by taxation.  It is like trying to gain nourishment by drinking your own blood!  Federal spending cannot help the economy as a whole.  It can only benefit some sectors temporarily by hurting all the rest of the economy even more.  The massive government "stimulus" programs divert money away from where it would otherwise go in accordance with the free voluntary choices of people in the marketplace.  These humongous government spendathons have been used, among other things, to pay off or bail out the Democrat Party's political allies such as left-wing banksters like Goldman Sachs who have been among the largest contributors to the Democrat Party and the Obama-Biden campaign.  While this has provided lush "golden parachutes" for some special interests, there is little evidence that, on net, new jobs have been created in the private (nonviolent) sector of the economy as a result.  Any real jobs that have arisen in what is left of the so-called "private sector" are in spite of and not because of the political "stimulus" spending.  Meanwhile the government bureaucracy continues to expand and average salaries of federal employees are now several times as high as those in the private sector.  This is an enormous burden on the back of the U.S. economy which hinders productivity, growth, and the creation of new jobs.

The truth is that in order for each and every real job in industry to exist there must FIRST exist an accumulation of hundreds of thousands of dollars in capital to pay for the tools, machinery, plant, equipment, salaries, and wages to make that job possible and be a reality.  Where does that funding come from?  It generally comes from people who have a lot of money.  It comes from private savings and investment -- mostly from wealthy people who have enough income beyond what they need to live to put it to productive use in the hope of a future return.  It is this wealth that creates jobs which can then create more wealth.  This system -- called "capitalism" -- tends to benefit all sides; no one is forced to contribute (unlike government programs).  Market capitalism is a voluntary system in which the self interests of some tend to mesh with the self interests of others to mutual benefit, and it tends to increase the standard of living generally as capital formation increases production through the process of private saving and investment.  This is how Americans gained a higher standard of living in the past than people living in China or Africa or Russia.  There were fewer political barriers to voluntary (market) activities such as saving and investment in pursuit of profit, interest, and rent.   Capital grew by this process and productivity expanded accordingly.  There was no income tax, no tax on capital gains.  People were allowed to get rich if they could manage to do so by purely market (nonviolent) means.  And businesses were allowed to fail as well as to succeed; there were no government bailouts from the taxpayers.  There were exceptions, of course, to this overall policy of laissez faire and the general freedom that prevailed -- but good economists must help people distinguish which factors were responsible for which results.  It was economic freedom from heavy taxes and bureaucratic regulations -- not socialism or redistributionism -- that made the U.S. economy the great success that it once was.

But greedy Democrats want to grab more money from "the rich" -- more of what other people have earned -- so they can spend it on their pet political schemes and buy votes with this stolen loot.  They know the rich folks will hardly feel the loss.  After all, paying more in taxes is not likely to affect the lifestyle of someone as wealthy as Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.  They will still have plenty.  Who gets hurt from taxing the rich more?  Everybody else, at least in the long run.

To the extent that government siphons away money that could have been saved and invested by the wealthy, to that extent it means less capital is available to finance business starts, economic growth, more jobs, or better salaries.  Taxing the rich is a job-killing activity that reduces economic opportunities for all of us, especially those of us who are not anywhere close to being as financially well off as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

If Obama, Pelosi, and Reid were sincere about wanting to see more jobs created, they would do well to push for an end to capital gains taxes and to freeze "environmentalist" obstacles that are stifling our economy.  That would be a good start.  But don't hold your breath.  That is not part of their agenda.

DECEMBER 30, 2010

Global Warming Fraud -- a Pretext for Imposing Draconian Taxes on Americans to Further Enrich Al Gore and the Corporate Socialist Elite (youtube video)

Global Warming Grinch -- John Fund
Democrat Senator Menendez (New Jersey) perpetuates the discredited anthropogenic global warming scam.  Fewer and fewer people are buying it.

*   *   *

SOME EXCELLENT SAMPLES FROM RUSH LIMBAUGH'S RADIO PROGRAM

Rush Debunks the "No Labels" CryptoLeftists (Dec. 14, 2010) MP3

Rush discusses the "No Labels" Baloney WMP

*   *   *


Political Labels and Ideological Warfare
Neither Left nor Right, just Stupid
by Sam Wells

Having given their previous label "liberal" a bad name (after they stole it some decades ago), establishment leftists began using other labels such as "progressive" or "Democrat" -- but they have given these labels a foul smell as well as shown by their rejection at the polls a few weeks ago.  So, some of the sneakier leftists want to pose as "middle roaders" or "independents" or "centrists" or "moderates"!  Unable to continue hiding behind even these innocuous sounding labels, some "liberal" Democrats are now desperately trying to gain credibility by repositioning themselves behind a new front group calling for "No Labels" in politics.  The outfit is headed up by Mark McKinnon, a former political adviser to George W. Bush, and Kiki McLean, a former senior adviser to Hillary Clinton, and they are being lauded by such well-known "liberals" as NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and notorious RINO David Gergen.  Naturally, the TV networks are giving these new "centrists" free publicity. Democrat Judy Woodruff interviewed Mark and Kiki for PBS "News" Hour.

It figures.  When the Fabian Left gets shellacked, as they did last month in the elections, new labels are trotted out for the public to consider -- while the same old stale agenda continues to be advanced as much as possible behind the scenes.

Instead of a clear-cut choice in politics (rather than a bipartisan echo), there are calls for "less polarization" and pleas to avoid "extreme partisanship" so that we can all work together to "get things done" etc.

On his December 14th radio show, Rush Limbaugh aptly summed it up this way:  "The No-Labels liberals are just a bunch of anti-conservatives."

Why must the Left always try to trick people into supporting it by hiding its agenda of failed programs, anti-American bigotry, and big-government ideology?  It's very simple:  They do not want to clearly identify what they really are and what they really advocate because they know that most Americans reject that reactionary left-wing approach.

Ayn Rand noted one of the three basic principles of ideological warfare in this way:  "When opposite basic principles are clearly and openly defined, it works to the advantage of the rational side; when they are not clearly defined, but are hidden or evaded, it works to the advantage of the irrational side."

In the ideological war being waged today, it is in the interests of those who oppose individual liberty and limited constitutional government to obfuscate and blur as much as they can the distinction in peoples' minds between market capitalism and socialism, between constitutionalism and whimarchy, between freedom and tyranny.  It is in the interests of such statists -- the liberal Democrats -- to confuse and deceive people about the true nature of their political agenda.

Conversely, it is in the interests of those who favor constitutional liberty to define their terms and to make clear distinctions between what they advocate and how they differ from the liberal-left establishment elitists as well as the far-left kook fringites.

Let us fervently hope that American voters in 2012 won't get fooled again as they were in 2008, and that few will be taken in by the "no labels" gambit.

DECEMBER 15, 2010

ARROGANT LAME DUCK DEMOCRATS TRY TO PUSH THROUGH MORE UNPOPULAR BILLS

GOP Slams 6,000 Earmarks in Democrats' Trillion-Dollar Omnibus Spending Bill

*   *   *

Why I Support the Ryan Roadmap by Sarah Palin -- WSJ

Federal Judge Declares Key Elements of ObamaCare as Unconstitutional

The unusually chilly global-warming summit

DECEMBER 7, 2010

OBAMA AGREES TO CONTINUE BUSH TAX CUTS -- BUT ONLY FOR TWO YEARS
Lame duck Dems hold Bush tax rates hostage to more earmarks and more federal spending

Angry Far Left Democrats May Try to Scuttle the Compromise
Extending the current tax rates for only two years leaves a cloud of uncertainty over the econoy as far as business planning and longer-term investments are concerned.  But teh Far left doesn't want to even do that much.

DECEMBER 2, 2010

House Dems Vote To Saddle Small Businesses With Job-Killing Tax Hike

After having denounced the Bush tax cuts as only for the rich, Pelosi and the Dems are now trying to take credit for middle-income tax cuts by voting to selectively continue the Bush tax cuts!  But it won't pass the Senate -- and Pelosi knows that, but she pushed it through the House anyway for partisan propaganda purposes.  It is as if Nancy Pelosi's last gesture as Speaker is to give the middle finger to the Republicans and the tea partiers.

*   *   *

House votes to censure New York Rep. Rangel
Amounts to a slap on the wrist.

*   *   *

European Banks Get Huge Slice of Fed Bailout

*   *   *

HILLYER: Scooter Libby, on the record
The author Hillyer reminds us that Libby was falsely convicted by a crooked prosecutor and a confused jury -- and that Plame and Wilson conspired to set up the White House in an attempt to embarrass Bush and Cheney.  Plame and Wilson were the liars.

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

This day marks the 47th anniversary of the murder of an American President by a militant Marxist who hated JFK for trying to destabilize the Castro regime in Cuba.

Since that fateful day the U.S. Government has grown immensely in power over our lives with bloated, unsustainable social programs which have siphoned away America's precious capital resources while America's enemies have grown stronger and more dangerous.  And, incredibly, Communist dictator Fidel Castro still rules in Cuba.

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Corrupt machine politician is apparently re-elected to U.S. Senate

RINO Lisa Murkowski will apparently continue to front for Alaskan Mafia -- Washington Examiner

House Ethics Committee Recommends Censure for Democrat Congressman Charlie Rangel for Ethics Violations
He should be expelled as well as censured.  He is just one of many.

Visualizing Obama's budget "cuts"

NOVEMBER 5, 2010

BONFIRE NIGHT

For many in the English-speaking world, November 5 is time for those who remember to burn effigies of Guy Fawkes for his part in the infamous foiled conspiracy to blow up Parliament and to replace the reign of King James I with the much more tyrannical despotism of King Philip II of Spain.  Unfortunately, I have to work and will not be at any bonfires tonight.  I will just note the tradition in passing.

*   *   *
"Make Mine Freedom" - - a 9-minute video on freedom versus socialism (starring Barack Obama as the snake oil salesman?).

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

MASSIVE REBUKE TO OBAMA POLICIES\
MAJOR SETBACK FOR SOCIALIST NWO AGENDA
DEMOCRATS GET CRUSHED BY TEA PARTY TIDAL WAVE IN THE HOUSE
Repubs gain at least 5 Senate Seats

Yesterday's elections represent a significant potential setback for the Obama regime and its New World Order socialistic agenda. Republicans rode the historic tea party tidal wave into majority control of the House of Representatives gaining at least 63 seats there.  Repubs also gained 10 state governorships and will control the majority of state legislatures.  The new Congress will have a popular mandate for repealing or defunding "ObamaCare" and stopping the massive federal bailouts and will push in favor of keeping the Bush tax cuts from expiring.  Time to start trying to roll back Big Government.  The American backlash has begun!

NOVEMBER 1, 2010

Go Tea Party!
by Dave Wilcox

Democrats from the president down reject the patriotic voices of Tea Party activists---at their own peril. Incredibly, 70% of Americans support the key issues that Tea Party folks advocate: smaller, less-intrusive government, dramatically reduced spending and a rational approach to dealing with America�s enemies.

Given the democrat party�s proclivity for governing against the will of we the people, it is predictable. They never learned that extremism in defense of bad political ends is something we left to Europeans 234 years ago.

We are witnessing a major historical event as the November 2 Midterm Election nears. While California appears to be stuck in the �we can only elect moderate Republicans� syndrome, the rest of America has decided to pursue a political renaissance spearheaded by the Tea Party movement.

Several sitting US senators, for example, have been defeated in Republican primaries, and will likely be replaced by the strong constitutional conservatives who vanquished them.

There�s something in the air that I recognize from my 1960s college days. The ascendance of the conservative movement shifted into high gear with the emergence of Barry Goldwater. I recently reread Goldwater�s book, �Conscience of a Conservative.� I found that his three key issues were: government is too big and constantly infringes on state�s rights, government spending is much too high, and the US has a no-win policy with our enemies. Sound familiar?

While Goldwater lost the 1964 election in a landslide, the generation of young patriots he inspired persisted. In 1980 we elected President Ronald Reagan who validated the wisdom of keeping taxes low and brought down the Soviet Union. In 1994, Republicans gained control of the House and Senate and balanced the budget. In 2000, we elected a Republican President who had a Republican House and Senate.

Sadly, rejecting their conservative roots, these Republicans-in-Name-Only frittered it all away. Their failure helped elect the worst president in America�s history, which has energized a new generation of patriots. Thanks to the Tea Party movement, his regime will suffer a huge setback on November 2. Americans just might proclaim that �In your heart, you know they�re right!�

*   *   *

AuH2O in 2012

Barry Goldwater tried to alert the American people about what was happening in Vietnam and warned against following a no-win strategy there, that the consequence of such a policy would be a bloodbath in the wake of communist invasion and takeover from the north.  LBJ said little or nothing about Vietnam during the 1964 campaign.  People were given the impression that Goldwater if elected would get us into a war in Vietnam -- a war we were already in.  He was depicted by the Democrats as being "trigger happy" and wanting to start a nuclear war.  Goldwater also tried to alert people to the potential Social Security crisis, that the system was unsound.  He was portrayed as someone who would pull the rug out from under the elderly.  These and other propaganda scare tactics worked.  Goldwater lost to LBJ in that election.  But he was correct in what he tried to warn the American people about -- and many people see that now.  I believe the Goldwater of 1964 would win against Obama if the election were held today.

*   *   *
Marxism in America -- short video

OCTOBER 1, 2010

ObamaCare Will Worsen Doctor Shortage
Of course.

SEPTEMBER 30, 2010

AFTER THE ELECTIONS
Eternal Vigilance is the Price
by Sam Wells

Power abhors a vacuum.  If committed constitutionalists do not fill the seats of power in Congress, the ultra-statist (socialist) Democrats certainly will.

Many people distrust the Republicans.  After all, despite the Bush tax cuts, they did not restrain federal spending during the few years they had a majority in Congress.  But we have new faces now and they need to be given a chance.  It is not that I love the Republican Party, but that the alternative is so very evil for our country.  I don't see that we have any real choice.  No third party has any chance to win on the national level.

Also, it should always be kept in mind that the GOP is not an Entity.  It is a collection of ever-changing individuals.  Most of the Republican congresspeople who were responsible for the disastrous policies during the Bush years have been voted out in the elections of 2006, 2008, and this year.  They have been replaced by others who so far have been very good at consistently  voting against the ultra-statist Democrat agenda.  It is not reasonable to hold today's Republicans responsible for the sellout votes of previous Congresses.  New people must help make the new Republican Party more consistently a party of Goldwater and Reagan instead of Lincoln and Grant.

Still, the American people will need to watch them very closely and "keep their feet to the fire" if they should flag or falter in their mandate to reverse Big Government.  It is no good just sitting back and assuming that the new officeholders will do the right thing once they are in.  Eternal vigilance by enough people is the key.

THE GROWING REVOLUTION AGAINST
OBAMA'S SCREW WORLD ORDER

While President Obama gives programmed speeches at that council of criminal regimes and deadbeat socialist dictatorships known as the United Nations, here in the real United States local tea party activists, constitutional conservative Republicans, and other true American patriots are working to try to save the economy from further wreckage (if that can be done at this late date).

The tea party groups, which arose as a grass-roots movement in reaction to the obvious excesses and ruinous policies of the current Pelosi / Obama / Reid regime, seek to take back the nation and restore some measure of constitutional restraint on the federal Leviathan.  The American people have been waking up to what the Democrat Party agenda really is and the formidable financial debacle that looms ahead of us.  There is Obama's almost ONE TRILLION DOLLAR "stimulus" bill that has failed to lower unemployment, but has put plenty of pork in the hands of his political allies and campaign contributors.  Goldman Sachs is making out like a bandit.  Then there is the health care "reform" legislation which is designed to gradually go into effect as the taxes needed to fund the socialistic scheme will fall on Americans later on.  And another bill pushed through is the so-called "financial reform" bill which even its Democrat Party sponsors in Congress have not read and admit that its outcome is unknown.  During the past two years alone, Obama and the Democrats in Congress have created a mind-boggling indebtedness that is unprecedented by many orders of magnitude in all of human history.  The American people are angry as they find out how the Democrats and the Obama administration have put our country on the road to national disaster.

November 2 will be the day to get these bastards out of office and replace them with sincere constitutionalists who will cut spending, cut taxes, cut regulations, and abolish agencies and departments and at least begin to rebuild the restraints on the scope of federal authority and involvement in peoples' lives, the checks and balances which the national central government had broken loose from decades ago and now, under the Obamacrats, has grown like the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb.  The fallout will be felt in various degrees over the next few months and years -- even if the Republicans manage to get a majority in both houses of Congress,  The badness that is to come is already in the pipeline thanks to Obama. Pelosi, and Reid..

A popular backlash is building against the Obama/Pelosi/Red regime.  The upcoming November elections are just the beginning.  Let us hope the constitutionalist revolt against Obama will go far enough not only to stop further disastrous spending policies of the Obama regime, but also to reverse and undo in significant measure existing unconstitutional agencies and programs that the power-mad control freaks who call themselves "progressives" have put in place.  The watch word must be:  "Repeal!"  The hope is great.  Vote for freedom come November 2!  Down with the Obamacrat Screw World Order!

 *  *   *
University of Illinois Denies Obama Mentor William Ayers Emeritus Status

SEPTEMBER 25, 2010

HOW MANY DEAD PEOPLE WILL VOTE ON NOVEMBER 2?

States warned of possible 'resurrection day' on Nov. 2
Campaign trying to crack down on 'dead' voters, other fraud
Are Loreta Sanchez and other Democrats counting on help from dead voters?  Will crooks get away with vote fraud?

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

JUST THE TIP OF THE CORRUPTION ICEBERG

Politicians like Maxine Waters and Charles Rangel are among the worst (but certainly not the only) examples of political corruption in the District of Corruption.  They were emboldened to get away with so much for so long (and continue to do so) because they knew the news media would cover up for them because they are Democrats and because they are black.  And of course there will be no hearings on any part of their corruption before the elections in November.  The Democrats who have been in charge of Congress since 2006 don't want the public to get a glimpse of their culture of corruption which might cause some people to vote against them.  They thought the media would help cover up for them in the usual conspiracy of silence. It is only because these leftist Democrats have been so brazen that they have got as much notoriety as they have.

Power always tends to corrupt.  And some people are more easily corrupted than others.

Ethics Trials Postponed for Waters and Rangel
Too close to elections.

ObamaCare Causes Insurance Premium Hikes
As was predicted by any decent economist.

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Tea Parties, Stay the Constitutional Course!
by Sam Wells

The American tradition of limiting the scope of government by law and constitution, resting on the 17th century British heritage of the idea of individual rights to self and property, has been increasingly abandoned since the War Between the States and especially since the 1930s when FDR threatened to pack the Supreme Court if it did not go along with his massive new interventionist programs.  Since that time the scope of federal power has mushroomed well beyond any true constitutional justification.

The tea party groups, which arose as a grass-roots movement in reaction to the obvious excesses of the current Pelosi/Obama/Reid regime, seek to take back the nation and restore some measure of constitutional restraint on the federal Leviathan.

I fervently hope the tea party movement will maintain its pro-Constitution stance and not be influenced or distracted by various outside factions -- populists, Ron Paul fanatics, neoconservatives, or anarcho-statists.  The populists are "well intentioned" (patriotic) but wrong-headed nuts.  The neoconservatives are not popular because, rightly or wrongly, they are perceived as shilling for a foreign country instead of pushing for an independent foreign policy for a fully sovereign United States.  The Ron Paul zealots would have Ron Paul forfeit his House seat and instead help Obama get re-elected to the Oval Office.  And gawd help us if the anarcho-whimarchists (neoRothbots, Rockwelites) ever get any political power; that would really be a reign of tyranny and terror.

In short,  I hope the tea parties stay on the constitutionalist conservative ( American conservative) course and emphasis as much as possible.

Of course, I would like as many people as possible, in and out of the tea parties, to read books like Atlas Shrugged, Textbook of Americanism, Capitalism the Unknown Ideal, Bastiat's The Law, Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson, George Reisman's Capitalism, as well as articles and books by Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Milton Friedman, and other champions of market capitalism -- but with the understanding that in the long run a durable revolution toward the Laissez-Faire Republic politically will require a more fundamental philosophic sea change.  That will not occur any time soon, unfortunately.  In the meantime, a political holding action may sustain sufficient freedom and provide sufficient time for those more basic changes to set in and take hold.  That will not happen over night.  The key war of ideas is a long-term struggle.

SEPTEMBER 1, 2010

IN ALASKA, IT'S MILLER TIME!

Miller Calls for 'Unified Front' for the General Election

*   *   *
CONCERNING GARY ALLEN AND NONE DARE CALL IT CONSPIRACY
by Sam Wells

As we approach the fortieth anniversary of the publication of Gary Allen's phenomenal book None Dare Call It Conspiracy. it is perhaps an appropriate time to deal with certain myths, fallacies, and rumors that have been linked to his life and works.

Frederick Gary Allen was a genuine American patriot and foe of the statist clique and its agenda of subordinating U.S. sovereignty to a global socialist tyranny.  Although he was generally a genial and courteous gentleman, It is a fact that Gary could also sometimes be a bit cantankerous, especially in his last few years when he was suffering from diabetic neuropathy and neurovascular disorder.  To some he seemed somewhat brusk and he made a few enemies -- though his friends and admirers far outnumbered those few who were his detractors in the pro-freedom cause.

A few individuals, some perhaps with an ax to grind against Gary for one reason or another, have alleged that I was Gary's "ghost writer" and that he did not write his articles or books.  Of course, this is a huge exaggeration at best.  I served as Gary's research assistant and helped with article development, in some cases going so far as to suggest phraseology and approach to certain aspects of a subject -- but Gary always had control over every single word of content and always had the last word on article format and wording.  (I say "last word" but the person who really had "the last word" of course was editor Scott Stanley, Jr., the terrific editor of American Opinion magazine, the premier monthly of American conservatism and the most under-rated magazine of its time.)

During the last several months of his life -- when his health was failing from severe diabetes, diabetic neuropathy, neurovascular breakdown, and related disorders -- my role in assisting Gary prepare some AO articles certainly increased but, again, exact wording and content were always his in the final drafts.

Another misconception that I have encountered is that Gary was allegedly inspired to write None Dare Call It Conspiracy by one single book or one single author.  That was not the case.  Although I do believe that the 1969 "Proofs of a Conspiracy" presentation in Los Angeles by Dr. Stuart Crane made an impression on him, he had already been familiar with many other influences and sources relating to power elite theory and socialist conspiracies including the works of Robert Welch, John Stormer, Dan Smoot, Carroll Quigley, Rose Walker, Rene Wormser, John Robison, Ludwig von Mises, Garet Garrett, Cleon Skousen, Major George Racey Jordan, Rose Martin, Antony Sutton, John T. Flynn, J. Edgar Hoover, and many others.

What caused Gary Allen to embark on his quest for the truth about corporate socialist elites and power politics and their relationship to communist agendas?  Who was the prime mover that pointed him in the right direction?  Gary in his article entitled "The Press:  How the Left Turned Me Right" (originally published in American Opinion magazine and later made available as an article reprint) explains how a neighbor friend, John O. Miller, challenged him to read several books about communist subversion.   Miller, who was a veteran anticommunist and conservative patriot who had monitored communist activity in southern California for many years, challenged Gary to read and evaluate several books on communist subversion including Major Jordan's Diaries by George Racey Jordan, I Saw Poland Betrayed by Arthur Bliss Lane, While You Slept by John T. Flynn, and Seeds of Treason by Ralph de Toledano.  Gary read the books with the goal of trying to disprove them, which he thought would be easy to demonstrate to be "extremist" right-wing exaggeration.  Failing to find anything except left-wing rhetorical smears or plain silence by the establishment press and finding instead a body of evidence to support the points made by these various authors, Gary had the intellectual honesty to concede that the case for communist subversion in the U.S. Government and "liberal" complicity was sound. He began to discover the truth that the limited constitutional system of government that the U.S. founders had established and the freedoms taken for granted by most Americans were being threatened by a left-wing mindset and propaganda war funded from the top by extremely wealthy power-hungry individuals.

Later Gary's own books exposed the game of how government interventionism and socialism (the ultimate in political control freakdom) were used by power elites to obtain and maintain special privileges and monopolistic advantages they could not have achieved in a free market economy.  He showed how socialism is "the royal road to power for the super-rich."  (And people wonder why multibillionaires like George Soros support Big Government socialist causes!)  He knew that the remedy was not more government meddling in the economy, but less.  Gary brought a non-populist, individualist/pro-free market perspective to power elites analysis and made it palatable to a mass readership.

Although he actually made little or no money from it, his book None Dare Call It Conspiracy sold in the millions and became the best single recruiting tool that the John Birch Society ever had.  It should be pointed out that NDCC was not Gary's first book.  He had already written and published three others:

Communist Revolution in the Streets, Western Islands, 1967
Nixon's Palace Guard, Western Islands, Western Islands, 1971
Richard Nixon: The Man Behind the Mask, Western Islands, 1971

He had also been writing articles on similar and related topics for American Opinion magazine for several years-- long before NDCC.  And it should also be pointed out that after None Dare Gary also wrote and had published several other books:

Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter, '76 Press, 1976
Kissinger: The Secret Side of the Secretary of State, 76 Press, 1976
The Rockefeller File, '76 Press, 1976
Tax Target, Washington, '76 Press, 1978
Ted Kennedy: In Over His Head, '76 Press, 1981
Say "No!" to the New World Order, Concord Press, 1987 (published posthumously)

I did not come to work with Gary until February of 1980.  I feel honored to have worked with one of the champions of justice and liberty against statist "liberalism" and socialism.  There is no doubt in my mind that Gary Allen was responsible for waking up millions of American to the threat to their traditions and liberties from left-wing elitists and power freaks who desperately want to play god with other peoples' lives.  Although his near-prophetic warnings against what is now occurring to our country have gone unheeded by too many Americans -- as evidenced by the Obama regime now in power -- if understood and taken seriously by a sufficient number of good people, even this calamity can be stopped and turned around eventually so that the United States can once again move in the direction of a constitutional republic and away from the stifling trap of socialism.

AUGUST  31, 2010

OVER HALF A MILLION PATRIOTIC AMERICANS
GATHER AT RESTORING-HONOR RALLY IN D.C
ON AUGUST 28, 2010

Rally Led by Glenn Beck Brings Half a Million
An American backlash is growing!  And unlike Woodstock or any other large mass of people in one area, not only were these folks the best-behaved gathering Washington has ever seen, they were also the neatest. The grounds were actually cleaner when they left than when they arrived.

AUGUST 20, 2010

Bush T-shirts outselling Obama T-shirts on Martha's Vineyard!
�Last year, Obama gave you goose bumps, but I don�t think you�re going to see that this year,�� said Alex McCluskey, co-owner of the Locker Room, who sold more than 4,000 �I vacationed with Obama�� T-shirts last year. But so far this year, he said, his hot item is T-shirts of former President Bush asking, �Miss me yet?��

AUGUST 12, 2010

The stunning decline of Barack Obama
10 key reasons why the Obama presidency is in meltdown
Telegraph.co.uk

AUGUST 11, 2010

The Real Hidden Unemployment Not Reported by the Media by Henry Olsen
How Obama and the Democrats are trying to cover up what's really happening.

AUGUST 10, 2010

*******
What's Holding Back The Hiring? Start With Obama's 10 Job Killers.
JIM POWELL Investors' Business Daily, Op-Ed, 8/9/2010

President Obama claims that he's concerned about "jobs, jobs, jobs," but he has signed laws, issued executive orders and approved regulations that create incentives for private-sector employers to lay off people or delay hiring people. It's no wonder high unemployment persists.

Obama's top 10 job killers include:

� Executive orders and regulations promoting compulsory unionism.

By gaining a bargaining monopoly in workplaces, labor unions have negotiated above-market compensation and benefits for their members, which has driven governments toward bankruptcy, priced unionized businesses out of markets and destroyed jobs.

Although Obama's card-check legislative initiative (to eliminate the secret ballot in union certification elections) stalled in Congress, he has pushed compulsory unionism by other means.

For example, in January 2009, Obama issued executive order 13496 promoting compulsory unionism among government contractors.  The next month, he issued executive order 13502 requiring compulsory unionism for federal construction projects.

In March, Obama named Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. Becker, formerly an attorney for the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union, is pushing the NLRB to rewrite union certification rules, making it easier for unions to gain a bargaining monopoly in workplaces � which would destroy more jobs .

� Obama's forced restructuring of GM.

The administration trashed established principles of bankruptcy law to give the United Auto Workers a sweetheart deal and subvert the rights of bondholders. The union had $20 billion of claims and was awarded a 39% stake in the company plus a $10 billion payment into the UAW health care trust fund. The bondholders had $27 billion of claims and ended up with only 10% of the company.

The administration's abuse of power discourages investors from making capital available to companies that might be targeted for government intervention. Investors could demand a substantial risk premium when considering bonds issued by unionized companies that Obama favors.

� Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 (ObamaCare).

According to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, ObamaCare will hike taxes an estimated $15.2 billion, and the middle class will get whacked. We've already seen health insurance premiums go up because of costly ObamaCare mandates, which means less money available for spending on other things.

Moreover, employer mandates, taxes and penalties will reduce funds available for private-sector hiring. The mandates, taxes and penalties kick in when an employer has more than 50 employees, and they apply to all employees, so one effect of the law is to discourage small businesses � which create most American jobs � from hiring more than 50 people.

If a business has 45 employees and it needs to hire eight more people for a total of 53 employees, but it doesn't offer health insurance or its insurance plan doesn't satisfy the latest ObamaCare regulations, hiring those eight additional people would entail a $2,000 penalty for each of the 53 employees � a total of $106,000!

Many other provisions are likely to have unintended consequences, as well. The 2.5% excise tax on high-tech companies that produce pacemakers, heart valves, stents, defibrillators and other medical devices that help improve the quality of life or save lives is an estimated $20 billion hit. Anything that increases the cost of doing business is bad for jobs.

� Extension of unemployment benefits to 99 weeks � almost two years!

By reducing the cost of not working, unemployment benefits undermine incentives to find work. Often, when people lose their jobs in a declining industry, they really need to make some kind of career switch rather than delay adapting to new circumstances. Many studies show that extending unemployment benefits tends to prolong high unemployment.

Also, since unemployment benefits are substantially paid for by taxing employers, the more generous the benefits, the higher the unemployment taxes and the fewer people employers can afford to hire.

One might ask: If it's a good idea to offer unemployment benefits for 99 weeks, why wouldn't five, 10 or 20 years be better? Or suppose unemployment benefits were more generous, perhaps $100,000 per year: How eager would unemployed people be to find jobs then?

� American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009.

By spending some $787 billion on government jobs � mainly in sectors and states with low unemployment rates � the law did virtually nothing to stimulate private-sector employment. On the contrary, the enormous cost of the act put upward pressure on taxes.

Unnecessarily high taxes meant that individuals had less money for spending and private-sector employers had less money for hiring. The act also included an extension of unemployment benefits, reducing incentives for people to find a job quickly.

� Minimum wage laws.

By requiring employers to pay people more than they're worth in terms of marketable skills and experience, minimum wage laws discourage hiring. The federal minimum wage has been increased three times in four years, including the July 2009 hike to $7.25 per hour. Obama could have asked Congress to lower or abolish the minimum wage.

Such laws are devastating for individuals with few marketable skills and limited experience � especially teenagers and minorities. But union bosses love minimum wage laws because they eliminate price competition on the low end of labor markets.

People who favor minimum wage laws tend to confuse a wage rate with income: People take home more money when they're employed at a market rate than when they're unemployed at an above-market rate. Imagine how much more unemployment there would be if minimum wage laws made it illegal for employers to pay people less than $100,000. Everyone whose services were worth less than that would be out of work.

� Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010.

This 1,408-page financial "reform" act is likely to backfire in many ways. It authorizes 11 different federal regulatory agencies to issue 243 bureaucratic regulations that could run to thousands of pages in the Federal Register, creating tremendous uncertainty for investors and employers.

Decisions about investment and hiring will be delayed for quite a while � with millions of Americans out of work � until all the regulations are issued, and it becomes apparent what their impact will be.

For example, the law will probably increase the cost of buying derivatives to hedge the risks of exchanging a foreign currency for U.S. dollars, as when a product is made in the U.S., sold overseas and paid for in a foreign currency (like euros or yen). If the hedging cost is too high, more companies are likely to lay off American workers and transfer manufacturing offshore where products will be sold, so costs and revenues will be in the same currency.

� Moratorium on offshore oil drilling.

If it is in effect for six months, it's estimated to throw some 12,000 people out of work nationwide and cost upward of $3 billion. The longer the moratorium on offshore drilling, the greater the job losses. A permanent stoppage of offshore oil drilling could destroy as many as 400,000 jobs.

� Expiration of the Bush tax cuts.

Obama and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have favored letting these tax cuts expire for private-sector job creators � investors and entrepreneurs. Many families will be shocked to have to pay thousands of dollars more because of big hikes in personal income taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes and death taxes (on assets already subject to personal income taxes, corporate taxes and capital gains taxes).

Perhaps hardest hit will be small business owners filing tax returns for subchapter S corporations, partnerships and proprietorships. By reducing the profitability of future investments, the decision to let the Bush tax cuts expire discourages investors from investing and employers from hiring.

� Obama's runaway spending.

Investors know that ultimately higher spending must be paid for with higher taxes that will reduce the after-tax return on investment. Consequently, rather than making capital available now, many investors remain on the sidelines, and many businesses are sitting on cash, waiting to see how high the taxes are going to be. The prospect of higher taxes is a major factor depressing private-sector job creation.

By increasing the cost of hiring people, increasing the cost of doing business, reducing after-tax returns from investment, and subsidizing unemployment, Obama is repeating FDR's misguided policies that prolonged high unemployment during the Great Depression.

� Powell, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is the author of FDR's Folly.

AUGUST 7, 2010

No Shady Banking Buddy Left Behind -- Michelle Malkin

AUGUST 3, 2010

The Truth about ObamaCare by Sally Pipes
A former Canadian citizen and economist explains what we can expect from this Democrat Party scheme.

The Left's Rewriting of the History of Fannie Mae -- WSJ
The Barney Frank/Chris Dodd housing scam continues to push for more bad loans in the mortgage industry to people who cannot afford to buy houses.  (Although President Bush was certainly guilty of contributing to the housing crash by using the existing programs of government intervention to artificially promote minority home ownership among blacks and Hispanics, congressional Republicans and factions within the Bush Administration, to their credit, at least tried to put some brakes on those disastrous policies 17 times, but got no cooperation from the Democrats in Congress.  The real escallation of the bad housing loans began during the Clinton administration.)  See the full background here.

The Prospect of an Atomic Iran with Obama as U.S. Presidnet
Deterring the threat of violence from nuclear annihilation

ATOMIC JIHAD; Ahmadinejad�s Coming War For Islamic Revival And Obama�s Politics of Defeat

After the Fall: Saving Capitalism from Wall Street and Washington

JULY 28, 2010

Clinton-appointed judge orders injunction on parts of Arizona immigration law

JULY 26, 2010

OBAMA'S RACIST REGIME DESPERATE TO COVER UP BLUNDER

The Democrat-controlled media is helping the Obama Administration obfuscate the details of what is going on.  Meanwhile, multiple calls for Sherrod to apologize to Breitbart for her slanderous statements .

JULY 21, 2010

Barack Obama's Endless Crises -- Claude Sandroff

America's Fast Track to the Third World -- Dan Gorski
The environmentalist left's attack on American defense.

America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution -- Angelo M. Codevilla
Mr. Codevilla discovers the Left-"Liberal" Establishment power structure that Garet Garrett, John T. Flynn, Robert Welch, Gary Allen, Dan Smoot, Stanton Evans, and others of the anti-establishment Constitutional right have been warning people against for many decades.

Tea Party Patriots Demand Apology from NAACP for its Racist Smear Campaign

JULY 17, 2010

Senate Passes Huge Regulatory Power Grab over Financial Industry.
None of it has anything to do with the financial crisis, warns Sen. Corker.  It benefits pro-Dem unions and other special interests.  All Senate Republicans voted against it except three RINOs, but their three quizzling votes put it over.  Two important culprits behind the financial crisis, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, had their pictures taken at the signing of the bill by the President.  They are now trying to take credit for "fixing" a mess which their policies created in the first place.

SCOTT BROWN, OTHERS HELP PASS OBAMA'S FINANCE BILL -- Sarah E. Foster
All but three Republicans stand firm against this evil legislation.  It is a Democrat act.

Three Million Imaginary Jobs -- WSJ
The Obama White House is lying about the "stimulus" (porkulus) bills producing new jobs.  Wasteful government spending is no substitute for private savings and investment on a free market (which we have not had for a very long time).

NEW BLACK PANTHERS, YOU'RE FREE TO GO -- NOT SO FAST, ARIZONA! -- Ann Coulter

Control Freaks Attack Our Freedom -- John Stossel
Coercive busybodies micromanaging our lives.

JULY 2, 2010

A Poem on Politics (written in 1964)

Diversity Sucks! -- Just say NO to racial preference programs.
And the "Fair Housing Act" is an unfair attack on private property rights.  It was freedom that made America a great place, not diversity.

JUNE 30, 2010

800 Rabbis Say Elena Kagan's Not Kosher!:  Jewish Clergy Group Observes that Kagan Isn't �Kosher� to Serve on Supreme Court
Not all those of the Jewish persuasion are knee-jerk Democrats.   According to exit polls, Barack Obama received 77 percent of the votes of those who identified themselves as Jewish in the 2008 presidential elections -- an even higher percentage than in the 2004 election, when Democratic candidate John Kerry received 74 percent of the Jewish vote. Al Gore received the highest percentage of Jewish votes in 2000, with 79 percent.  Despite their past pro-Democrat voting records, an increasing number of Jews are becoming more sophisticated in politics and public policy issues and are defecting to a more pro-freedom/constitutionalist independent point of view.  I believe that disillusionment with the Obama regime is only one factor in this recent shift in sentiment.   The Jewish opposition to Kagan is just one manifestation of this growing estrangement from the increasingly fascistic/socialistic Democrat Party.

JUNE 22, 2010

Degeneration of Democracy and Useful Idiots -- Thomas Sowell

*   *   *

It�s The Greens That Sowed The Seeds Of The Gulf Oil Disaster
June 9, 2010 by John Myers

To the Greens I have six words regarding the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico: Your President, your policies, your fault.

T he Greens Made Us Drill So Deep
Last January I wrote about the problems and costs of drilling for oil at such extraordinary depths as those being worked off the coast of Louisiana. It was called The Deep Truth About Oil and the Gulf of Mexico.

In that column I said: �Chevron has spent 10 years and a whopping $2.7 billion for this project. This is the cost of running a drill and casing more than 30,000 feet through earth and ocean, the same distance that an airliner flies above the earth. Chevron will spend billions more and in the end, even with all the high-tech in the world, there are no guarantees that its deep-water experiment will hit pay-dirt. In fact there is less than a 50/50 chance that Chevron�s latest deep-sea adventure will yield anything. Still Chevron and their brethren don�t have a choice.

�The Wall Street Journal sums up the situation: �Big easily tapped oil fields close to shore have become off-limits.��

Fast forward a few months and we saw the real danger in not drilling in shallow waters and places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). We see what happens when Big Oil is forced to drill in 5,000 feet or more of seawater; depths at which accidents can�t be easily repaired.

I�ve been talking to my friends in the Alberta oil patch about this for weeks. But the problem didn�t see the light of day until the May 29 episode of Meet the Press. There Host David Gregory asked White House Energy Adviser Carol Browner if in response to the Gulf Coast oil spill, America should start drilling in ANWR.

Gregory asked: "Is the problem that we�re drilling in water that�s just too deep?"

Gregory continued: "Should you (the White House) even rethink your own approach to the environment to say� maybe in the Arctic Wildlife Reserve; we ought to be drilling there� we ought to be going into shallower waters so that this can be done more safely?"

Incredibly Gregory wasn�t given an answer. But even I know this simple truth�that we need to be drilling in shallow water and places like ANWR. Places where accidents can be corrected.

Don�t expect any leadership on this from the President even though his decision to suspend deepwater drilling off the U.S. coast will have consequences.

�An extended moratorium on safely producing our oil and natural gas resources from the Gulf of Mexico would create a moratorium on economic growth and job creation,� said Jack Gerard, chief executive of the American petroleum Institute.

It�s worth noting that the Gulf of Mexico currently produces about 1.6 million barrels of oil per day�an amount larger than the output of Canada�s oil sands. It was expected to grow to 1.9 million barrels by 2025. But the jury is out on this until Obama�"The Chosen One"�chooses leadership over politics and stops this catastrophe.

Yours for real wealth and good health,

John Myers
Myers� Energy and Gold Report

JUNE 11, 2010

 A FASCINATING BUT MISLEADING MOVIE
Much Balance Needed Against Partisan Bias

The article below is over two years old, but I missed it at the time.  I think it is appropriate to post it to remind us what can be done with the right leadership (in contrast to what the U.S. has now in the White House).  The following short article is a brief rebuttal to the misleading idea conveyed by the Hollywood movie "Charlie Wilson's War" that Congressman Charlie Wilson was practically single-handedly responsible for helping the Afghan mujahidin win the war against Soviet occupation.  The IBD article below helps to set the record straight about who were the major players responsible for sending Stinger missiles to the Afghan resistance, an act which turned the tide against the communists -- a move that was opposed by the U.S. State Dept, the CIA bureaucracy, White House advisors, and the vast majority of Democrats in Congress, but who were all overruled by President Reagan.

The movie is skillfully produced with the interviews of Joanne Herring and former Congresman Wilson carefully edited so that President Reagan and his historic decision are barely mentioned.  Certainly Charlie Wilson did play an important role because of his influence on a key congressional subcommittee and his personal commitment that he shared with Reagan to aid the Afghans against the Soviets, but it was President Reagan who pushed for real anti-Soviet policies and made the daring decision to send the advanced weapon that made it possible for the Afghans to rout the powerful Soviet army from their country.

Reagan�s War, Not Charlie Wilson�s
By INVESTOR�S BUSINESS DAILY | December 24, 2007

Media Bias: Hollywood would have us believe that Democrats defeated the evil empire in Afghanistan, and that President Reagan played only a minor role and even helped pave the way to 9/11.

If you think Hollywood�s idea of a Christmas movie being one about the Soviet defeat in Afghanistan is strange, even stranger is the plot line. �Charlie Wilson�s War,� which opened Friday, manages to reduce the president who won the Cold War to a background footnote.

Charlie Wilson was a pro-abortion, Equal Rights Amendment-supporting congressman widely known as �the liberal from Lufkin.� To his credit, he did play a role in facilitating support to the Afghan mujahadeen. But it is he who should be the historical footnote.

In his book, �Ronald Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime,� Lou Cannon notes how Reagan �expressed revulsion of the brutal destruction of Afghan villages and such Soviet policies as the scattering of mines disguised as toys that killed and maimed Afghan children.� He did not need much convincing to aid the Afghan resistance.

Cannon credits Undersecretary of Defense Fred Ikle and CIA Director William Casey with allaying any concern that providing Stinger missiles to the mujahadeen might lead to the missiles� capture and copying by the Soviets. Also involved, says Cannon, was a bipartisan coalition �led by Texas Democrat Charlie Wilson in the House and New Hampshire Republican Gordon Humphrey in the Senate.�

So you have at least five players, including Reagan, involved � four of them Republican conservatives. Ikle notes: �Senior people in the Reagan administration, the president, Bill Casey, (Defense Secretary Caspar) Weinberger and their aides deserve credit for the successful Afghan covert action program, not just Charlie Wilson.� So guess which one Hollywood makes a movie about?

The movie is based on the book by former �60 Minutes� staffer George Crile. Crile�s credits include the infamous 1982 CBS documentary alleging that Gen. William Westmoreland led a conspiracy to mislead America about the Vietnam War. The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin of �West Wing� fame.

Wilson�s chief ally in the film is CIA agent Gust Avrakotos who, like Wilson, is portrayed as a enthusiastic supporter of providing the Stingers. But Ikle says, the CIA bureaucracy initially fought against the idea and that Wilson was lukewarm on the matter. Ikle says both came around only after the rebels actually started bringing down the Soviet helicopter gunships.

The movie also perpetuates the left-wing myth that the covert operation funded Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and ultimately led to the 9/11 attacks. Reagan-era officials such as Ikle say Osama never got funding or weapons from the U.S. and that he didn�t launch his terror war until after U.S. involvement and the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

It was Ronald Reagan, not Charlie Wilson, who gave the order to provide the mujahadeen with the Stinger missiles that denied the Soviet air supremacy and turned the tide of battle after 1986. Yet in the movie, the likes of Dan Rather and Diane Sawyer (director Mike Nichol�s wife) are more prominently mentioned.

To be fair, the movie doesn�t mention Jimmy Carter either. It was his naivete about Communist expansion that led the Soviets to invade Afghanistan in the first place. Had Reagan not beaten Carter in 1980 there would have been no Stingers and no victory in the Cold War.

But don�t expect a movie about Reagan�s victory over communism or Carter�s surrender to it.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=441207&Ntt=charlie+wilson�s+war

Based on a book written by a highly partisan Democrat, the Hollywood movie "Charlie Wilson's War" dramatically depicts important parts of what went on behind the scenes, obviously playing up Representative Wilson's role, but almost completely ignoring President Reagan's.  An alcoholic playboy otherwise, helping the Afghan mujahideen fight Soviet occupation was Charlie Wilson's only significant positive accomplishment while in Congress, and he would not even have achieved that if he had not met and been influenced by Texas socialite and fervant anticommunist Joanne Herring.  Still, Wilson (now deceased) certainly deserves enormous credit for his work with anticommunist CIA operative Gust Avrakotos, and in getting cooperation from Pakistani officials and the support of important Democrat congressional committee chairman Doc Long.  Also, as a rare Democrat working with a few conservative Republicans (and especially in the case of his romance with and brief marriage to Joanne Herring), Charlie Wilson's story illustrates the old adage that politics sometimes makes strange bedfellows.  In this case, it was for the good. ~sw

PRIMARY ELECTIONS ANALYSIS

Primary School for the Tea Parties
by Robert Tracinski

JUNE 9, 2010

MAKING MATTERS WORSE

Off-shore oil industry is one of the most highly regulated activities in America; yet, despite all the government regulations, accidents can and do happen on occasion.  There is no guarantee that adding more costly regulations to the mix will prevent such accidents.  The British Petroleum oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is a disaster of incalculable damages, certainly one of the worst industrial accidents in U.S. history  For his part, President Obama has, by executive order, shut down ALL off-shore oil drilling, throwing thousands out of work and cutting oil production.  Isn't that sort of like outlawing the manufacture of all cars because traffic accidents sometimes occur?  Never let a crisis go to waste, says Rahm.  The Democrats will find a way to cynically use this BP disaster to grab more powre and control over the U.S. economy.

JUNE 8, 2010

Gold Price Hits Record HIgh of $1244 an ounce

JUNE 1, 2010

Iran said to have enough U235 to make two bombs
Nuclear weapons in the hands of a regime of anti-Western religious fanatics which includes a leading cleric who insists that earthquakes are caused by women wearing insufficient clothing.   This is the group of superstitious crackpots who will soon have nuclear bombs and missiles to carry them.

MAY 31, 2010

MEMORIAL DAY

Troops in Afghanistan, Iraq mark Memorial Day -- Army Times

MAY 30, 2010

BILL CLINTON CENTER OF OBAMA'S BRIBERY SCANDAL

White House Asked Bill Clinton to Urge Sestak to Drop Out of Senate Race

MAY 28, 2010

TIME FOR A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR?

What did Rahm and Barack know and when did they know it, and what did they tell Sestak?  Is this the "tip of the iceberg" of Obama White House corruption?  In my opnion this is likely the least of the Obama White House corruption yet to be uncovered.

MAY 26, 2010

*   *   *

The U.S. space program, a legacy of a better time in our history when American culture was not so decadent and our leaders not so weak and corrupt.

The 25-year-old U.S.S. Atlantis Space Shuttle landing from its final space mission.

MAY 25, 2010

WALTER WILLIAMS GUEST HOSTS FOR RUSH
(Includes Interview with Senate candidate Rand Paul)

For those who may have missed it.

Hour 1  Hour 2  Hour 3

MAY 24, 2010

Is Calderon just another racist antiAngloite?

On President Calderon's hypocrisy -- Washington Times
As Mexico exports its poverty and unemployment northward, it uses draconian measures to control its own southern border.

Textbook of Americanism by Rand

The Shady ShoreBank Bailout -- Michelle Malkin

Another Judicial Power Grab by the Left -- Thomas Sowell
Kagan has no business as a judge on any bench.

Prof. Walter E. Williams to Once Again Guest Host for Rush on Tuesday
Don't forget!

MAY 22, 2010

Rep. Tom McClintock's Response to President Calderon
While all the Democrats in Congress stood up and applauded Calderon, Congressman McClintock took exception to his arrogance and hypocrisy in criticizing Arizona's enforcement of U.S. immigration law.

Hispanics to Speak Out in Support of Arizona at Tea Party Gathering
"As a Hispanic, as a Mexican-American and as an immigrant, I am not alone in saying that I support Arizona," says Bert Hernandez. "I think Arizona did the right thing."  Hernandez, general manager of a Ford dealership in Waco, said his family entered the country legally when he was young. "I can understand why the citizens of Arizona want to take the law into their hands and do those things that the federal government won't do," Hernandez said. "They don't want the culture of corruption that's in Mexico to infect our states."

Rand Paul and the bogus "racism" charge against him -- Washington Times editorial
Bogus charge is a sign of the Democrats' desperation.  We hope Dr. Paul will learn his lesson not to trust leftists like Rachel Maddow.

Republican Wins Congressional Election in Obama's Home Town
The seat had long been held by Dems.  We hope this good news will be repeated many times later this year.  The Democrat stranglehold must be broken!

MAY 19, 2010

Rand Paul Wins Kentucky Primary
"We have come to take our government back!"

Good Riddance to Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania
The old RINO-turned-Democrat is leaving for good!

Obama Endorsement Not Helping Fellow Dems

MAY 17, 2010

Senate Candidate Marc Rubio Warns Against Relying on Big Government to Deal with All Problems

"You know what the fastest growing religion in America is? Statism. The growing reliance on government," Rubio said. "Every time a problem emerges, increasingly the reaction in American society is 'Well what can government do about it?'"

"America became the greatest country because of its strong society where people did not sit back and wait for government to act," he said. "They did it themselves," Rubio said.

Iran Targeting Dissidents Through Global Police
One of this evil regime's leading clerics claims that earthquakes are caused by women not wearing enough clothing over their bodies.  He is serious.  This is the group of superstitious fanatics who will soon have nuclear bombs and missiles to carry them.

MAY 11, 2010

WHAT "FREE MARKET"?  WHAT "DEREGULATION"?

The U.S. has not had anything close to a free market economy for many, many decades.  That's the problem.  Typically, problems caused by already-existing government interventions are blamed by the left-"liberal" propagandists on a non-existent "free market" economy -- and demands for regulation and controls (on top of what already exists) then lead to more legislation or court orders which impose another layer of political distortions on industry.  The new political interventions produce their own set of undesirable side effects which are then seized upon by the "liberals" and socialists as excuses for still more regulations and controls.  In this manner controls beget more controls and positive government intervention tends to spread, metastasizing throughout the economy.  This has been the pattern of increasing positive interventionism in the United States.  Contrary to Democrat Party propaganda, the failure is not from non-existent free markets, but rather a failure of highly politically regulated markets.  Randall Hoven drives the point home in the following article from The American Thinker.

~Sam Wells, editor

The Failure of the Unfree Market
Government Regulations and Programs are the Problem,
Not the Solution

By Randall Hoven

What we have here is the failure of the unfree market. That means the failure of Greece. And the other PIGS (Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain). And Europe. And it means the U.S., too. It even includes the Great Recession. The modern welfare state is collapsing around us.

If you had believed in the 72-Year Rule, you would have seen this coming. The 72-Year Rule says the lifetime of any social order or governing paradigm is about 72 years. For example, how long was it from the adoption of our original Constitution (1789), which sanctioned slavery, to the Civil War (1861)? Call it 72 years. And from then until the New Deal in 1933? Another 72 years. How about from the Bolshevik Revolution (1917) to the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989)? That would be 72 years again.

Do you know when the first Social Security check was issued? January 31, 1940.  If my guess is right, Social Security has maybe two more years left.

Generally, the modern welfare states were born in the 1930s. So the 72-Year Rule says the modern welfare states will collapse and/or turn into something else in the 2002-2012 time frame.

Kinda makes you believe in the 72-Year Rule, doesn't it?

Of course, there are more immediate explanations than this rather mystical pattern recognition. The problem is government debts. Huge debts. Unsustainable debts and structural deficits, not just temporary ones to get through recession or war. And what is behind all these debts? The very programs we started setting up in the 1930s, our "social safety nets." Feeling safe?

Blame it on Bush and Iraq or whatever you want. But Bush was not President of Greece.  And Greece was not one of the thirty nations willing to admit to being part of the U.S.-led Coalition in Iraq. In fact, Greece was one of the more socialistic of the modern welfare states. The problem was debt. Debt caused by things like government retirement programs, government health programs, and government unemployment payments.

No one has a free market. I encourage you to look at the U.S. Statistical Abstract, Table 1324. That table tells us how much various governments spent as fractions of their economies. The U.S., the supposedly "free market" cowboy of the bunch, had a government that spent 38.6% of its country's GDP in 2008. The lowest of the bunch was South Korea, at 30.9%, and the highest was France, at 52.5%. Five countries, of 28 listed, spent less than the U.S. did, including Australia and Switzerland. Greece was merely in the middle of the pack at 43.2%.

And that was the U.S. of 2008 -- before the Wall Street Bailout, before Government Motors, before Porkulus, before ObamaCare, even before Obama. Now, in 2010, the U.S. is not even considered one of the "Free" countries in the latest Heritage Freedom Index.

We are all forty-percenters now, essentially spending forty-something percent of our GDPs on government. And we're all going broke together. A bunch of broke blokes cannot save themselves from bankruptcy by lending money to each other that they borrowed from each other in the first place. At least not for long.

"But," you say, "it was the free market that led to all this -- you know, unregulated credit default swaps and derivatives and such." No it wasn't. You have no idea what caused the financial meltdown. While government regulators are quick to say that lack of regulation was the culprit, too much regulation was likely the real culprit.

You want specifics?  OK, take the Recourse Rule, adopted by the U.S. and Europe in only the last few years before the Great Recession. It forced banks to invest more than they otherwise would have in mortgage-backed assets. Or how about "mark to market," which came with Sarbanes-Oxley in 2002 and froze credit because banks had to valuate their assets based on temporary and unrealistic current market prices? Or maybe it was the way Andrew Cuomo, Bill Clinton's HUD Secretary, forced Fannie Mae into the subprime mortgage market in the first place.

I just gave three specifics of over-regulation or government interference that might have caused or contributed to the financial mess. Can any late-night economists who blame it all on Bush's deregulation tell me one thing that was deregulated by Bush?

In any case, the market was not free in the first place. The Federal Register of regulations was 2,620 pages (about two Bibles) in the middle of the New Deal. By 1992, it had 62,928 pages (about fifty Bibles). By 2002, it had 80,332 pages, or another fourteen Bibles added in one decade. Federal spending on finance and banking regulation approximately doubled (in inflation-adjusted dollars) over the last twenty years.

...Not to mention that the financial crunch was merely the last straw on the camel's back, not the cause of all our problems. The GAO saw the unsustainable debt problem clearly in 2007, before anyone even thought the Great Recession was coming. I encourage you to look at this GAO presentation from April 2007. Even then it said, "The status quo is not an option: We face large and growing structural deficits largely due to known demographic trends and rising health care costs."

We all knew this was coming. Republicans would try to do something about it every so often. Reagan had a bipartisan commission headed by Alan Greenspan to fix Social Security for a while. He did what the commission recommended and got blamed for the largest tax increase in history. The new Republican Congress tried to fix Medicare in 1995, but Clinton vetoed it. George W. Bush mentioned cuts to Medicare and "privatizing" a fraction of Social Security. He was accused of trying to kill Grandma.

Every time a Republican would try to talk responsible entitlement reform, Democrats said he was stealing Grandma's Social Security and pushing her into the streets. The Democrats' solution? Half a trillion dollars in new taxes and fees and half a trillion in Medicare cuts to pay for an expansion of Medicare of about another one trillion. Oh, and we're probably going to need a VAT -- the one thing Europe has that we don't yet.

So here we are, with our government spending the largest fraction of our economy in our history, and the party in charge of the presidency, the House, and the Senate is calling those who complain about that anti-government nuts.

Well have at it. Raise tax rates on the rich. Start a VAT. Do whatever you want. You will not get the money. You've run out of other people's money. There is no more piggy bank to rob.

The American voters completed the transition of the U.S. from an entrepreneurial and freedom-loving state to a full-fledged sclerotic European welfare state, just in time to join the Europeans in their collective collapse. Congratulations.

And for your next task, make sure our downfall is blamed on "the free market," just like you did about 72 years ago.

from the American Thinker, May 11, 2010

MAY 8, 2010

Inflation in Venezuela Hits 30% (at least)
Socialism is wrecking the Venezuelan economy.  Do U.S. Democrats really think it will be different here?  Do they care?

Hugo Chavez giving communist salute

*   *   *

THE LEFT'S ANTI-AMERICAN PROFILING BIGOTRY

I have always thought one of the reasons the U.S. "intelligence" community (largely "liberal" bumblers) dropped the ball on 9/11/01 was that their left/liberal ideological template was much more comfortable looking for disgruntled middle-aged white guys who were "right wing" (i.e. who want to return to the traditional constitutional limits on government and who oppose the new order of "liberal" fascism being imposed incrementally in America).  After all, why should our CIA and military intelligence profilers be concerned about venomous threats from Iran or Al Qaeda when they are much more interested in profiling the perps as conservative white guys in constitutional militias (or at least some isolated nut case as long as he is a Caucasian American male like Timothy McVeigh).  The desperate attempt by Democrat politicians and their media allies to pin any violence or act of terrorism on a conservative white guy was recently illustrated in the case of the Times Square bomber.

Leftist New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, with only a little coaxing by a media interviewer, voiced his prediction that the Times Square bomber would be a home-grown, middle-aged white guy who disagrees with Obamacare.  It turns out to be just the opposite:  a left-leaning jihadist of Pakistani descent.

Notice that profiling is considered EVIL and against civil liberties according to the Liberal/Left Thought Police of "political correctness" -- unless it is directed against Caucasian male U.S. citizens, especially conservative patriots who are critical of the agenda of the current regime.  Using that template, it is no wonder that the 911 plotters went undetected and unthwarted.

The intelligence community cannot legitimately take any credit for stopping the Times Square bomb plot.  It was just lucky that the bomb did not go off because of its poor design.

Again, this scenario can be seen as further evidence that the left-"liberals" don't have a clue what's going on and are not taking the jihad threat very seriously. You don't want these people in control of the government while we are at war. As screwup follows screwup (assuming they are mistakes and not deliberate agenda), Obama's ineptitude in foreign policy nevertheless is surpassed only by his incredible arrogance.

The true source of terrorist violence and the threats to our liberties and peace come not from the right, but from the political left and Islamic extremism -- both anti-capitalist/anti-freedom causes which are allied against the United States as their common enemy.

*   *   *
LEAKED VIDEO OF "MASSACRE" IN IRAQ TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT, USED BY THE ENEMY IN ITS ANTI-U.S. PROPAGANDA

I was skeptical from the start as killing civilians is not typical behavior of U.S. troops and because the websites which posted the video were notoriously unreliable and biased against U.S. forces.  I even thought the video could have been partly faked, or that audio had been dubbed in.

It turns out the video, or that part that is shown of the incident, does not provide the full context of what was actually happening.

The individuals killed in the attack appeared to the soldiers to be carrying an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) launcher and were thus identified as the enemy.  Enemy fire had come from that area only minutes before.  It is understandable that our troops would want to return that fire.  Tragically, it turned out these were journalists carrying camera equipment and were in the wrong place at the wrong time despite warnings to evacuate the area prior to the onset of the military operation.  As tragic as these deaths are, this was no act of wanton murder as implied by the left-wing websites that leaked the video, but an accidental shooting based on mistaken identity.

As I have observed before on this web log, I believe the war with Saddam Hussein's regime was inevitable and ultimately unavoidable, and it was better to get it over with under President W. Bush than wait until the enemy had full WMDs and when the U.S. forces would be under less capable leadership such as a President Albert Gore, a President John Kerry, a President Hillary Clinton, or a President Barack Obama.  (As imperfect as W. Bush was, the alternatives were rfar worse, and  I feel like America narrowly "dodged a bullet" in 2000 and in 2004; then we got hit in 2008.)  Most American military personnel know that the Democrats have long been antagonistic to the U.S. military services.  This was certainly true of the Clintons who, when they were in the White House, were clearly contemptuous of our armed forces people.

I had long predicted that war between the U.S. and either Iraq or Iran would eventually take place when I learned of the signing of the peace between Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein, as the U.S. would be drawn in to come to the rescue of its allies and interests in the region as either or both Iraq and Iran turned their imperialistic aggression outward against neighboring countries instead of against each other.  That came to pass.

I believe that President George W. Bush was inspired by the book The Case for Democracy:  The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror by Natan Sharansky (a former Israeli government official).  His hope was that once Saddam was deposed that a stable ally there would emerge and that a relatively free Iraq would shine as an example to other countries.  He believed that the people of Iraq would welcome liberation from the Nazi-like regime of Saddam Hussein and the chance to forge their own destiny as a free people.  He may have misunderestimated the difficulties in keeping the regime in Tehran from taking advantage of the situation by trying to destabilize the new post-Saddam government and to make Iraq a satellite state of Iran.  Those who demand immediate withdrawal of American troops either do not understand or do not care that if this is done prematurely before the Iraqis are able to handle their own protection against Iran and the Iranian-backed insurgents that the terrorist minority will take over Iraq and install a puppet regime of Iran.  If the "anti-war" surrendercrats have their way, the relative freedom and tenuous stability now in Iraq would be destroyed and a blood bath would ensue followed by dictatorship.

MAY 7, 2010

We can't appease Islamists by Ralph Peters
The price of appeasement will be more unavoidable wars

Demonizing DDT � How the Scare Campaign Against �the Excellent Powder� Has Cost Millions of Lives -- Reason TV
New book confirms Prof. George Reisman's article on the Left's malaria holocaust

THIRD NAVY SEAL ACQUITTED IN CASE OF ABUSING CAPTURED TERRORIST.
Three trials. Three acquittals. SEALS WIN! Terrorists lose. Obama Administration sided with the terrorists. They expected the Seals to roll over and take a plea. They clearly don't know much about the Seals . CLICK HERE.

APRIL 30, 2010

The Dems and Their Wall Street Buddies -- Ann Coulter

The Politics Behind the Left's Opposition to Arizona's Immigration Law -- Lowell Ponte

http://www.andrewklavan.com/

Big Hollywood

America Rising
Let's hope so.

Support Arizona

Boycott San Fransicko

Jews Turn Against Obama -- Ronald Kessler
It's about time!

APRIL 15, 2010

There will be many Tea Party gatherings all over the country today.  I wish them all well and hope the Dems and SEIU thugs do not get away with disrupting them (as they are planning to do).  I hope the tea party patriots will keep their cool in the face of expected provocations by the ultrastatist Left.

There will be an organizational meeting in Palmdale.  I wish I could make it, but -- like many Americans who would otherwise be at Tea Party and constitutional conservative meetings -- I have to work today and cannot get off my work duties for this day. But I will be with the tea party patriots in spirit!

http://nguyenkinhdoanh.com/Essays%20on%20Liberty.html

http://Laissez-FaireRepublic.com

APRIL 14, 2010

THE DEMS WANT TO TAKE OVER
THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY TOO --
TO ASSURE PERMANENT POLITICAL POWER

OBAMA�S TERRIBLE POWERS
By Dick Morris
04.14.2010

If the financial regulation bill that passed the House last year becomes law, President Obama and his Treasury Secretary will acquire the right to take over any financial institution they wish to, provided that, in their sole opinion, it is both �too big to fail� and on the brink of insolvency. The House bill provides for no judicial review and does not require any objective evidence of imminent failure to trigger the takeover provisions.

Once the government takes over such a company, it will acquire the right to replace the entire board of directors, fire the management of the company, wipe out stockholder equity and even sell off divisions of the company.

Essentially, this bill permits the government to launch an unfriendly takeover of any financial institution it wishes without risk and with no poison pill or other counter-measures possible.

This legislation, essentially, confers on the federal government police powers that, under our system, are the exclusive preserve of state and local government. The blank check the bill gives the feds to take over any financial institution is really more of an exercise of eminent domain than it is an extension of traditional federal regulatory power.

This grant of power to the executive branch is unprecedented and potentially totalitarian. Consider:

� Will Obama, or any future president, target companies that are particularly vocal in their opposition to his policies or generous in funding his political opponents? Will the fact that Obama would have this power force companies, investors, CEOs and managers to self-censor their opinions and political involvement because they fear the wrath of a vengeful president?

� Will this grant of authority force companies to hesitate before they grow and expand? Will it function the same way the antitrust powers of the Justice Department do in making companies re-examine mergers and acquisitions with a view toward what Justice will think of their resulting market share? In antitrust situations, where a specific action brings companies under scrutiny � like a merger � such concern is not unreasonable. But when the simple act of making money, showing a profit and expanding in size puts a company in federal crosshairs, does this not have the potential to attenuate the capitalist focus on growth?

� In an environment where the feds are looking over the shoulder of every financial institution to see if they should take it over and shut it down, will this not force financial companies to follow the most risk-averse lending policies possible? Doesn�t this mean that it only makes sense to buy government paper, since consumer loans, mortgages and business lending could be considered risky and lead to a federal takeover? Isn�t this policy precisely the opposite of what we need to catalyze economic growth?

� In a political world where contributions from financial institutions are sought and widely given, doesn�t this power give the president and his party unlimited fundraising ability, simply by baring its teeth and showing the power it has to take anybody over and fire anybody? Given the fact that Goldman-Sachs was the second-largest donor to Obama�s campaign, giving $954,795, doesn�t this new power raise the specter that the federal government could take over financial institutions so as to make the competition lighter for its donors? Already, there is considerable evidence (cited in our new book, 2010: Take Back America � A Battle Plan) that Goldman profited handsomely from the decision of its former CEO � Bush�s Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson � to allow Lehman Brothers to fail. Now that the Treasury secretary will have the takeover power, might it not be used as irresponsibly and with as many bad consequences as Paulson used his power in the Lehman crisis?

While the focus on the regulatory bill has been on the consumer protection provisions, which I tend to support, there has been far less scrutiny on these horrific expansions of federal power.

Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez could only dream of this power.

*   *   *

OBAMA'S RACE TO MEDIOCRITY
FOR AMERICAN AEROSPACE

APRIL  13, 2010

FAR LEFT GROUP PLANS TO CRASH APRIL 15 TEA PARTIES WITH FAKE RACIST SIGNS
This is the kind of gutter politics we expect from the Left.

Liz Cheney: Obama Putting America on Path to Decline
My only question is whether it is deliberate or utter stupidity.  How can someone be so consistently wrong on so many fronts?  Maybe only the false assumptions of a warped Far Left ideology can explain it.

APRIL  12, 2010

What Policies Prolongued the Great Depression -- and What Finally Revived the U.S. Economy? -- Wall Street Journal
These wrong-headed policies didn't work for FDR either.

APRIL  6, 2010
LEFT-WING HATE INTENSIFIES AGAINST TEA PARTIERS AND OTHER AMERICAN PATRIOTS

Democrat talking head Chris Matthews openly fantasizes about shooting Rush Limbaugh in the head.  The White House urges Obama supporters to "punch" Tea Party activists -- following which several SEIU thugs savagely beat a black tea party patriot while calling him "nigger" and other names.  Other Obama disciples pelt Tea Party bus with rotten eggs.  Republican Congressman Eric Cantor has shots fired into his home, threatening his family. Although one shot was reported to be a "random" bullet supposedly fired aimlessly in the air, Philadelphia police have finally caught and arrested the man who was threatening Rep. Cantor and his family.  The man arrested, Norman Leboon, even refers to bullets in Cantor's office: "You received my bullets in your office."  It turns out that Norman Leboon is a long-time Democrat activist and financial contributor to the Obama presidential campaign.  The guy was even broadcasting his threats on You Tube.  Also, bricks have been thrown through other Republican representatives' offices.  Left-wing propaganda is stoking this violence.

The reactionary Left's hate speech is being intensified in an attempt to silence growing dissent against the policies and actions of the current Obama/Pelosi/Reid regime. Meanwhile, the Democrat shills in the "news" media carry lies about the tea partiers and conservative talk show personalities -- untruths originating from left-wing propaganda outlets being carried as legitimate news.  I have heard the claim that tea partiers screamed the "n" word at Obama supporters; however, this event never occurred.  No factual verification exists.  It is a lie churned out by the DNC propaganda machine.

Obama network media supporters are now peddling the lie that all those who oppose the current regime's policies are "racists" who dislike the President because he is black or half black.  No real evidence against the Tea Party patriots for this charge has been brought forth to justify the claims; the charges are just made and are intended to be accepted on their face.  We are all supposed to look the other way and ignore what is going on while the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress ruin the economy and undermine national security.  The truly racist Democrats hide behind the false charge of racism against those who dare dissent -- to help those now in power get away with more and more.  Anyone who criticizes them is branded a racist and a bigot.  The smear campaign continues.

But the lame use of the "racism" card has been played so many times by the left-"liberal" establishment that it is wearing pretty thin with an increasing number of Americans of all racial and ethnic identities.  Many, perhaps even most, of those who voted for Obama in 2008 are now beginning to see that as a big mistake. Voter remorse may be setting in for a lot of Democrats.  With each new outrage, the President's approval ratings continue to fall.  If the election were held today, Obama would lose.

MARCH 26, 2010

ARE DEMS KILLING U.S. DOLLAR?
(Does a bear go in the woods?)

Rapidly Eroding Confidence in U.S. Treasury Bonds

MARCH 23, 2010

27th ANNIVERSARY OF SDI PROPOSAL

SDI:  A Better Approach to Peace from the Threat of Nuclear Missiles Than Deterrence Alone

Ending the MADness paradigm of the McNamara/Kissinger doctrine of mutual vulnerability to nuclear holocaust, President Reagan boldly proposed using American technological prowess to prevent a nuclear exchange from occurring in the first place.  Inspired by proposals by Army Gen. Daniel Graham, Dr. Edward Teller, Lowell Wood, Michael J. Dunn, and Henry F. Cooper, the technology for such a space-based missile defense system has been available for well over 20 years.  That technology is even better today.  The threat from nuclear-warhead-tipped missiles is greater today than ever before. The United States must quickly restore and implement the space-based High Frontier system as soon as possible. Such a system would save countless lives even if it were not 100% "perfect" in intercepting all missiles -- and would in any case introduce a huge element of uncertainty in the minds of any enemy generals as to the degree of "success" that any contemplated first launch would have, thereby making nuclear missile warfare increasingly obsolete. The fledgling ground-based anti-missile stations deployed by the Bush Administration, while better than nothing, are not enough.  The Obama Administration is obviously not planning to pursue missile defense at all.  The next President must make High Frontier, or a similar space-based defense system, a top priority for the security of Americans and of the peoples of the world.

"Wouldn't it be better to save lives than to avenge them?" -- President Reagan

Full Text of Speech by President Reagan March 23, 1983

Latest Successful SDI Laser Test

*   *   *

Freedom to Rip off Others:  Pelosi and Marx on 'Freedom'
By Ed Kaitz

MARCH 22, 2010

DEMOCRAT TAKEOVER BILL PASSES HOUSE NARROWLY AFTER PRESSURES AND BRIBES
Buying Votes with Money They Don't Even Have

Cuban Dictator Applauds ObamaCare

219 Democrats against America
No (Zero) House Republicans voted for this.
All (100%) of House Republicans stood firm against it.

CONSTITUTIONALIST CONSERVATIVES VOW REPEAL

Republicans Quickly Call for Repeal

http://senateconservatives.com/repeal

Gingrich: "This will not stand."

Democrats suffer lowest approval ratings
Pelosi 11%.  Reid 8%

An American Backlash is Coming!

MARCH 10, 2010

Some people are suggesting that the White House be renamed the "White Westinghouse" as it has a black agitator inside stuck on spin cycle.  The Democrats in the White House and Congress are desperate to pass some kind of plunderous bill they can label "healthcare reform" and Obama is putting pressure and making deals to make sure there are enough votes.  There is a lot of hoopla in the TV media to get people to accept it.  How many "undecideds" or even allegedly "No" blue-dog Dems will switch at the last minute?  How much of the taxpayers' money will be used to bribe them for their votes?

MARCH 1, 2010

CONSERVATIVES WARN
THEY WILL PUSH FOR REPEAL
IF DEMS USE "RECONCILIATION"
TO FORCE  THROUGH
NATIONAL HEALTH CARE

"If they get it done,  the objective and the [Republican] campaign theme has to be: 'Roll it back.  Roll it back.'  Do you remember all the people on Social Security, getting Social Security benefits of one kind or another, in all those years where the Democrats said, 'The Republicans want to take away your Social Security. The Republicans want to kick you out of your house.'? It worked for a whole lot of election cycles.  It was only in the early to mid-nineties when it started bombing out because after so many years of these predictions it never happened.  Nobody ever took their house away. Nobody ever tried to cut Social Security.  It was all a lie -- and when the New Media was born (led, of course, by me), this option and reality was presented to people.

"But if they get health care done, everybody's going to be on government health care under their plan at some point.  If it's ten years down the road or five, whatever it is, that's the objective. Everybody's going to be on government health care.  If we don't roll it back, then we're stuck with it, and any attempt to roll it back after it gets settled in -- any attempt to roll it back after more and more Americans are being insured by the government -- will lead to charges of:  'Those Republicans fought giving you health care! They want to take your health care benefits away! They want to take away your health care, and it will work.  This cannot be allowed to stand even if they get it done.

"So it's not enough just to take comfort and even enjoyment in what will no doubt be a disastrous election for them.  If they get this done before November, then a serious plot to undo it has got to become the focus, and they are banking on the fact that the Republicans don't have the guts to do that.  We'll see." --Rush Limbaugh March 1, 2010

FEBRUARY 28, 2010

THE PARTY OF ULTRA CONTROL FREAKS
SEEKS MORE PERMANENT POWER

It is all about control.  Lord Acton said that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absotuely.  Some people are considerably more amenable to being corrupted by power and power lust.  Anyone who has been paying attention knows that individuals like Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton,Charles Rangel, Henry Waxman, Charles Schumer, Barney Frank, et al are among the most corrupt and afflicted with advanced Acton's Disease.  T hey are extreme control freaks who desperately want to run other peoples' lives and spend other peoples' earnings.  They wish to play God with other folks' lives.  They view other people as mere clay to be molded according to their whims.  They will do almost anything to gain power over others.  They can do that best through getting control of Big Government, in the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, and most especially in the permanent governmental bureaucracies which have been established in layer on top of layer over several decades.  Their proposed answer to any and every problem, real or bogus, is still more government, still another layer of political bureaucracy, regulation, and taxation to compound already existing problems created or aggravated by previous statist interventions.  Whatever their current agenda or cause happens to be -- and currently it appears to be national health care -- for them it trumps virtually all other considerations -- especially the rights of peaceful American citizens -- and if the "liberals" cannot get others to accept their psychoceramic (crackpot) notions through relentless propaganda, then they will use government force to shove them down our throats.

Most Americans oppose more government involvement in our already partially politicized and bureaucratized medical and health system.  There is no system that is so screwed up that another layer of government intervention won't make it even worse. Despite its unpopularity, it appears that the Democrat leadership will try to ram through some form of socialistic national health care scheme for President Obama to sign -- even though this will likely mean that many Democrat politicians will lose their attempt at re-election in November.  Why then would Pelosi and Obama want Democrats to commit what appears to be political suicide?

Political observer Andy McCarthy makes the following point about the Far Left's long-term strategy and why it may be seen as trumping even retaining Democrat control of Congress in the short term:

Transformation by Andy McCarty

FEBRUARY 26, 2010

"HEALTH CARE SUMMIT" REVEALS DEM INTOLERANCE

It looks like BO's Health Care Summit sort of backfired on the Dems,  President Obama came off as arrogant, condescending, petulent, and superficial compared to any of the Repubs.  Especially impressive were Canter and Ryan, both of whom obviously knew much more about the content of the Democrats' proposal than did the President.  Obama cut off Republicans when they were making points and Democrats enjoyed more than two minutes for every one that Republicans were granted in terms of time to speak.

Bottom line:  BO and the Dems showed their intolerance for any other point of view  and appeared to be stubbornly deaf to the American people -- and I think that will redound to the benefit of the Repubs politically as they can run against BO and the Dems as trying to Rahm this scheme down peoples' throats.

Rush Limbaugh reported:  "The Democrats hoped Republicans would look like stuffed-shirt, mean-spirited, hateful, uncompromising extremists who don't care if people are dying for lack of health coverage. Instead what's happened is that Obama has been shown to be petulant, whiny -- out-of-control, almost -- unprepared, ill-informed, and basically arrogant and cocky."

SO FAR SO GOOD

I am very encouraged by the grass-roots tea party movements which have sprung up in backlash against the Democrats' agenda of massively increasing fedgov involvement in the lives of the American people and increasing spending and taxes on a scale never before seen in history. These policies could lead to a worthless U.S. dollar and an economy ruined by hyperinflation.  But trying to head that off at the pass are patriotic conservative Americans who are coming to retake America.  Let's hope they keep their eye on the prize, the oveerall goal.

The ultimate political choice is between a constitutional government limited in scope by the rule of law (with the Laissez-Faire Republic being the ideal toward which to strive) versus any variant of Whimarchy (democracy, oligarchy, monarchy, anarchy).  The U.S. Constituton and Bill of Rights were the greatest step in the direction of the ideal.  Time to return to our roots!

 *   *   *

FOR ANY FOOL WHO STILL BELIEVES THERE IS "NO DIFFERENCE" BETWEEN THE TWO POLITICAL PARTIES ...

While it is certainly true that there are too many left-leaning "liberals" in the Republican Party -- Arnold Schwarzeneggar, Alan Greenslime, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, David Gergen, just to name a few -- but most of the House and Senate Republican politicians and the party's grassroot base are conservative to right-libertarian in orientation.  They are in the tradition of Jefferson, Madison, Mason, Paine, and Adams whereas the Democrat Party is more in the tradition of Marx, Lenin, Hitler, and Stalin.

The National Journal recently did a study of Congress and one of the observations that was inescapable was that the top ten most "liberal" (statist) in both the House and the Senate are all Democrats and the top ten most "conservative" (anti-statist, pro-constitutionalist) in both legislative houses are all Republicans.  Whether you use the National Journal's congressional ratings or that of the American Conservative Union or the Birch Society's Conservative Index , the same pattern emerges very clearly.  Those who are sincere about taking the country back from the socialist Democrat regime now in control would do well not to fall for the third-party trap (which the Dems would love conservatives and libertarians to get diverted into since that tends to divide the anti-Dem vote) and work within the GOP and make it more of a Party of Goldwater and Reagan (instead of a Party of Lincoln and Grant).

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

OBAMA DISCIPLE MAY HAVE PLANTED A "HERPES BOMB"

After her arrest for shooting six of her colleagues at the University of Alabama, left-wing biology instructor Amy Bishop is now suspected of also planting a "herpes bomb" or attempting to contaminate school equipment with the herpes virus.  According to a New York Times story, those who worked with Bishop in the Biology Department warn that she "might have booby-trapped the science building with some sort of 'herpes bomb,' police officials said, designed to spread the dangerous virus."  If she indeed did do that, we have to wonder what kind of sick evil mentality must this reactionary leftist have to do this sort of thing as well as witnessed multiple premeditated murders.

Also new evidence suggests that Bishop may also have murdered her brother more than 20 years ago.

FEBRUARY 13, 2010

OBAMAITE LEFTIST MURDERS THREE TEACHERS
WOUNDS OTHERS AT UNIVERSITY

Obama-Obsessed 'Liberal' Professor Kills Three In Rampage

Amy Bishop Arrested after Murder Spree

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

CORPORATE SOCIALISM IS NOT MARKET CAPITALISM

Barack and Rahm bail out Goldman Sachs, AIG, and their other Wall Strreet buddies. As usual, socialism and liberal Big Government bailouts are the road to special privilege and monopoly power for the super wealthy financial cliques.  When the taxpayers are forced to underwrite or subsidize the bad loans and bad financial decisions of the Wall Street banksters or mortgage lenders, the result is more bad loans and bad financial decisions.  Is anyone really "too big to fail"?  Stop the bailouts to the mega-wealthy corporate socialist elite.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Obama is Owned - You Can Bank On It
by Ann Coulter

The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal are bristling with the news that Republicans have decided now is the time to suck up to Wall Street. As the saying goes, there is no truer friend than a Wall Street arbitrageur -- they are the salt-of-the-earth, the most loyal men who ever drew a breath!

What are Republicans thinking? While not every money-manipulator on Wall Street deserves to be treated like a heroin dealer, lots do. Could the Republicans be a little more discriminating in picking up the Democrats' old friends?

The Democrats are acting as if they want to punish everyone in the financial services industry, including the innocent, while the Republicans seem to want to protect everyone on Wall Street, including the guilty.

How about just punishing the guilty? The Democrats can't do that because the list of Wall Street's biggest offenders may turn out to be eerily similar to the list of Obama's biggest campaign contributors.

Employees from Goldman Sachs gave more to the Obama campaign than any other organization except the University of California -- with Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase quickly following in sixth and seventh place.

Whatever Obama has in mind for punishing the financial industry, I promise you, he won't punish his friends. After JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon took a $17 million bonus this week, and Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein got a $9 million bonus, Obama said he didn't begrudge them their bonuses, saying, "I know both those guys."

Obama seems to be hoping that his vague bluster about "obscene profits" will lure Republicans into embracing Wall Street welfare recipients -- thereby losing Americans forever.

Never bet against Republicans being outwitted.

Risk-taking and speculation are good. But the Democrats' crony capitalism is the worst of both worlds: risk-taking without any real risk for the risk-takers. It's like gambling with your rich daddy's money, except we're the rich daddy.

Obama, like the rest of his party, is an ideologue who doesn't understand or particularly like the free market. He fundamentally believes in the efficacy of the welfare state, whether the beneficiary is a layabout single mother or a rich Wall Street banker.

As Peter Schweizer describes in his magnificent book "Architects of Ruin," the Democrats have been bailing out investment houses from their bad bets since the Clinton administration. The bankers got all the profits when their risky bonds were paying -- and then gave massive donations to their Democratic benefactors. But once the bets went bad, it was the taxpayers' problem.

Heavily leveraged securities packages put together by Goldman Sachs and others were the HIV virus that killed the American economy. And the reason investment firms piled leverage on leverage on leverage was that they knew the government would bail them out if their house of cards collapsed.

On one hand, Goldman put together toxic securities packages for their clients, but on the other hand, Goldman knew the mortgage securities being sold on the market were crap, so they also took out lots of insurance with AIG on crappy products being traded on the market.

It would be as if, anticipating a major earthquake, Goldman bought massive insurance policies on every house on the San Andreas fault line.

There's nothing wrong with taking risks and making bets, provided that if you bet wrong or if you bankrupt your betting partner with wild gambles: You lose.

The problem was that Goldman and AIG, among many others, knew they wouldn't lose. Twenty years of Democratic bailouts have led them to understand that when their bets go bad, the taxpayer will save them.

Which is exactly what happened.

When the earthquake hit toxic securities, the insurer, AIG, couldn't pay up. Normally, that would result in the insurer going bankrupt, an orderly proceeding in bankruptcy court to distribute AIG's assets, and Goldman recovering only a portion of the insurance payout on the crappy products.

But instead of AIG going bankrupt and Goldman taking a hit, the U.S. taxpayer made good on AIG's securities insurance. In a deal arranged by former Goldman CEO and current Obama BFF, Hank Paulson, Goldman ended up being paid -- by you -- an astonishing 100 cents on the dollar.

So Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein's boast that his firm didn't want TARP money and has paid it all back is completely irrelevant. Goldman took billions of dollars -- that's millions with a "b" -- of the AIG bailout money. How about paying that back?

It took The New York Times a year and a half to figure out Goldman's jackpot winnings from the AIG bailout -- $12.9 billion, according to the Times -- so the first thing Republicans ought to do is hold hearings to determine who benefited from the Democrats' crony capitalism, and not take their bluster as fact.

The next step should be to get all the bailout money back.

When the government steps in to save the very financial institutions that poisoned the nation's financial system with contaminated securities and derivatives -- all while the bankers get to keep the fees and bonuses on their bad bets -- we are not talking about a free market.

We're talking about regular Americans being forced to foot the bill for the gambling habits of left-wing multimillionaires by buying the malefactors more chips every time they lose.

Republicans should defend any investment houses that never benefited from a government bailout. But anyone who took huge gambles, lost and got bailed out with taxpayer money should be tortured and then shot, miraculously brought back to life, tortured some more, then shot a few more times.

FEBRUARY 8, 2010

BO's bogus 'fight' with Wall Street
Even Obama's populist posturing is phony!  Coulter cuts through the left-wing propaganda to expose the relationship between Democrats and fat cat banksters.  This is a theme that the late Gary Allen and Antony Sutton wrote about over 20 and 30 years ago, and it is still true.  Socialism is not for the "little guy":  socialism and "Big Government "liberalism" are the royal road to monopoly power and privilege for the super-rich Wall Streeters.

Iran moves closer to nuke warhead capacity

FEBRUARY 6, 2010

TEA PARTY CONVENTION A ROARING SUCCESS

Memphis Tea Party Chairman Mark Skoda outlined five "first principles" that candidates must follow in order to get support from his newly formed Ensuring Liberty Corporation and PAC: fiscal responsibility, lower taxes, less government, states' rights and national security.

FORMER GOVERNOR SARAH PALIN
DELIVERS KEYNOTE SPEECH

"The tea party movement is the future of politics."

*   *   *

IS THE CULT FAD OF MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING HYSTERIA
FINALLY STARTING TO WANE?

An increasing number of real scientists are backing away from the hoax that deceived millions.

*   *   *

New Video Exposes Al Gore Getting Rich off of Global Warming Scam

Al Gore won a Nobel Prize and an Oscar warning us about the catastrophe we will cause if we don't reduce our carbon footprints - but he travels the world in his private jet and racks up $30,000 in energy bills every year at his Nashville mansion.  Al Gore parades around the globe condemning humans for causing global warming and destroying the earth. He chastises us for our way of life and demands that we reduce our "carbon footprint". All the while, he has amassed a fortune and been the beneficiary of his doom and gloom scare tactics.

Al Gore refuses to do public interviews because he is unable to defend his positions and claims. Do As I Say exposes Al Gore as the fraud that he is and proves that the liberal environmental movement is a scam.

Do As I Say uncovers not only Al Gore's hypocrisy, but also the hypocrisy of other liberals like Michael Moore, Hillary Clinton, Noam Chomsky, The Kennedys and George Soros.

The Great Global Warming Collapse -- Margaret Wente

I thought of killing myself, says climate scandal professor Phil Jones

Monster Snowstorm Hits Mid-Atlantic States
While foolish Gorites prepare for global warming....

RFK, Jr. 15 months ago: Global warming means no snow or cold in DC
Well, what about the record cold and snow in D.C. right now?

Coulter has corrupt climategate scientists for lunch

*   *   *

Highly Recommended MP3 Audio:

Rush Limbaugh second hour 12/09

Rush Limbaugh third hour 12/09

*   *   *

LECH WALESA WARNS U.S.
OF WANING LEADERSHIP ROLE

WALESA (via translator): The United States is only one superpower. Today they lead the world. Nobody has doubts about it. Militarily.  They also lead economically but they're getting weak. But they don't lead morally and politically anymore.  The world has no leadership.  The United States was always the last resort and hope for all other nations.  There was the hope, whenever something was going wrong, one could count on the United States

Lech Walesa stumps for conservative IL candidate for governor -- AmericanThinker.com

 FEBRUARY 1, 2010

"PROGRESSIVES" -- OR TRUE REACTIONARIES?
by Sam Wells

Whether they call themselves "liberals" or "progressives" or "socialists" or "fascists" or "Democrats" or "welfarists" or "populists" or whatever, they all have one thing in common:  they are extreme control freaks who desperately want to run other peoples' lives and spend other peoples' earnings.  They wish to play God with other folks' lives.  They view other people as mere clay to be molded according to their whims.  They will do almost anything to gain power over others.  Their proposed answer to any and every problem, real or bogus, is still more government, still another layer of political bureaucracy, regulation, and taxation to compound already existing problems created or aggravated by previous statist interventions.  Whatever their current agenda cause happens to be, for them it trumps virtually all other considerations -- especially the rights of peaceful people -- and if the "liberals" cannot get others to accept their psychoceramic notions through relentless propaganda, then they will use government force to shove them down our throats.  They would like to call themselves "progressives" in order to imply they are for progress, but in fact leftists are enemies of freedom and progress.  An American backlash is growing.  High time we took back our country.

MORE LIES FROM THE ARROGANT DEMOCRATS
President Obama Lies About His Record Deficits
and Massive Tax Increases

He says the deficits will save the economy, then blames them on George Bush. So will he credit Bush for the recovery? Besides, he voted for Bush's deficits and has surpassed them fourfold.

There are so many lies and so much disinformation coming out of the White House and the DNC that it is hard to keep up with it all.  Fortunately, Obama is not nearly as good a liar as Bill Clinton was.  Although there will likely always be the Kool-Ade-drinking blind followers of BHO, an increasing number of Americans are seeing through his arrogant posturing and bogus partisan claims.

An Unusually Bad Prevaricator -- David Limgaugh
.

JANUARY 25, 2010

DESPERATE DEMOCRAT MEDIA SPIN

Oh, the "progressive" reactionaries are really trying to spin the election results of Massachusetts.  I saw one piece that tries to claim that the reason Brown won over Coakley is because Coakley is a woman and the people up there don't like women!  The DNC and its Far Left backers are desperately trying to spin the election results with their own interpretation.  The reality is that Brown ran as a conservative Republican on conservative Republican issues -- and he won in a state that is registered 3-to-1 Democrat over Republican.

My concern is that Glenn Beck continues to call these people "progressives" when they are welfare-state fascists and reactionary socialists.

They hearken back to the New Deal as if it was not corporatism, but the NRA was written by General Electric's Gerard Swope.  FDR was bought and paid for by Wall Street.  The New Deal kept the ocuntry in depression for many years unnecessarily with the deepest trough in 1938 -- five years into the Roosevelt regime.  The "Great Society" of LBJ was a failure in terms of results.  The only way the "war on poverty" could be seen as a success was in buying votes for Democrat politicians from people made more dependent on government.  Those programs are becoming more obviously unsustainable.

Bernanke and Geitner and their use of taxpayer money to bail out their buddies on Wall Street and elsewhere certainly does not represent market capitalism.  They represent corporate socialism.  What is needed is less government, not more. But it looks like the arrogant Obamacrats are so ideologically committed to leftism that they will ignore the obvious signs of impending economic catastrophe and go on with their mammoth, unprecedented spending spree.  Obama's collosal arrogance makes even Bill Clinton's pale by comparison -- and that's saying something.   These people are out of touch with reality, but they continue with their ultra-statist agenda.  Barney
Frank's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac socialism set the mortgage market up for collapse when those bad loans could not be paid.  Yet, the Democrats demand even more socialistic government intervention on top of what has already created the existing problems.

Those reactionary "liberal" propagandists who want to call themselves "progressives" still continue to control the bulk of the electronic media,and they can fool many people, but that will not always be effective.  Too many Americans are beginning to see leftism for what it is.  The old Demokrat Party coalition is starting to crack up especially as more and more people realize the politicians cannot guarantee goodies from the public tough any more; that well is drying up.

Does President Obama Hate White Folks? -- Steve Gill
Even though Obama is himself at least half Caucasian, this is a very legitimate question.

JANUARY 22, 2010
McCain/Feingold finally overturned!

It should have been ruled as unconstitutional a long time ago.  It should never have been signed into law by Dubya (which was one of his worst mistakes as President; he acted as if he did not know about the Veto Power).

http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/01/21/supreme-court-drop-kicks-mccainfeingold-scores-victory-for-1st-amendment/

 JANUARY 21, 2010

Hong Kong Still Freest Economy While U.S. Slips Further Under Obama/Pelosi/Frank

JANUARY 20, 2010

REPUBLICAN WINS U.S. SENATE SEAT VACATED BY TED KENNEDY'S DEATH
Democrats to Lose Super Majority

Brown Scores Upset Victory In Traditionally Far Leftist State
No, he is not a real conservative or a libertarian,
but he has got to be better than Ted Kennedy was
-- and he campaigned on conservative Republican themes!

This country just got a little safer -- Ann Coulter

JANUARY 19, 2010

WILL DEMS USE DEAD VOTERS IN MASSACHUSETTS
TO STEAL SENATE SEAT?

Watchdog Group Raises Concern About Dead Voters on Massachusetts Rolls
Republicans and independents must learn to be good poll watchers.
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Inveighing Against Coercive Busybodyism, Socialism, Greenism, and Big Government Tyranny & Injustice Generally

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