Natural Rights and the War on Terror

This information comes from an email I recently received. It was written by someone named General Chong. I enjoyed reading it, but I found some of it a little misleading. I have cut out certain parts of it and put my responses in blue font.

This WAR is for REAL!

To get out of a difficulty, one usually must go through it. Our country
is now facing the most serious threat to its existence, as we know it,
that we have faced in your lifetime and mine (which includes WWII).

The deadly seriousness is greatly compounded by the fact that there are
very few of us who think we can possibly lose this war and even fewer who
realize what losing really means.

First, let's examine a few basics:

1. When did the threat to us start?
Many will say September 11, 2001. The answer as far as the United
States is concerned is 1979, 22 years prior to September 2001, with the following attacks…

This is incorrect. The General skipped a few minor details that go back a bit further. I would argue that the threat to us started when the U.S government got involved in the quarrels and eternal wars of Europe during the Barbary Wars of the 1800's. As historian Richard Maybury has explained in his book The Thousand Year War in the Mideast, America entered the thousand year war between the Europeans and the Moslems in the Mideast during the Barbary Wars. The following is an excerpt from the book of exactly how America really got involved in this mess.

“In those days Moslems living in the Barbary States of North Africa were refugees from the European Inquisition, or descendants of persons killed by the Crusaders. They were levying a tax on European vessels sailing along the African coast.

European merchants somehow convinced their governments to pay this tax for them, so the Moslems knew they could make the tax quite heavy.

Resentful of the crusades and Inquisition, the Moslems raised the tax frequently. Finally in 1801 the tiny American government could no longer afford to pay.
U.S. merchantmen continued sailing through the area anyhow, and the Pasha of Tripoli captured and imprisoned the tax evaders.

European rulers saw a golden opportunity. They called the Moslems pirates and said someone should teach the pirates a lesson.

Americans knew little of Europe’s continual war with the Moslems and they apparently believed this propaganda, never suspecting that in the minds of the Moslems this conflict was just the latest chapter in the Crusades."

So you can see that over the last thousand years western governments have had a constant stream of troops on the ground bearing arms in the Mideast. Western states have had troops over there ruling and propping up puppet governments causing all kinds of chaos and instability in that region for centuries. The countries over there today were not created and drawn up by the people living there.

The Mideast started off as a region of many different Arab tribes that have never been able to get along with each other. Over time European governments carved out the Mideast into different countries so that they could more easily rule over the territory. Until the American people see it from the other side they will not understand why the “terrorists” truly hate us.
This next part about giving up our liberties especially disturbed me.

Does that sound like we are taking this thing seriously? This is war! For the
duration, we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have
become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to! lose some of our civil
rights temporarily or we will most certainly lose all of them permanently.

This is a very dangerous precedent to set. It is precisely a time like this that we should be as vigilant as possible in preventing our government from taking our liberties. This War on Terror is exactly the kind of thing that those in government who have wished for more power over us all along will use to grab up all they can get. Ben Franklin warned that those who are willing to give up some of their liberties in exchange for security deserve neither liberty nor security. Americans need not forget his advice or we will continue to slide into our own form of tyranny. Not the kind of tyranny like Hussein imposed on the people of Iraq, but the kind that actually convinces a man he is free while it takes almost half of the fruits of his labor each year.

For how long does the General believe that we had better give up some of our rights? Does he think we should hand over our God given rights until the last “terrorist” is killed? Who will decide when the world is safe enough for us to have our natural born rights back?

Well I have some news for all who subscribe to the General's theory. It really doesn’t matter that the General thinks we should hand over our right to privacy, which is backed up by the fourth amendment. The fourth amendment prohibits the federal government from performing searches of our person or property without probable cause. It doesn't matter because the right of law abiding citizens to privacy is a right we are born with. It is not something that is granted by the government. Once the principle of natural rights is understood then everything else falls into place logically. If the government did not give us our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then it can not take those things away from us without due process of law of-course.

Too many Americans forgot, or never learned in the first place, why the government was instituted in the first place. It was to protect those fundamental rights.

But even if the fourth amendment did not exist, the government would still not have the right to perform “sneak and peak” searches of our homes. A “sneak and peak” search is an action congress gave to the federal government vis-à-vis the U.S.A. Patriot Act, whereby the government enters your home, rummages through your things, and copies your computer hard drive without your consent or knowledge. If the government chooses not to prosecute you they do not even have to tell you they were there.

Even if the fourth amendment did not exist government agents working in airports would still not have the right to molest our bodies and rummage through our carry on bags every time we choose to board a commercial airplane.

The reason is simple really. We as individuals do not have the right to search the homes or personal belongings of others without their voluntary consent. Since we as individuals do not have that right, we can not give that right to others, or government agents in this case, to perform for us. Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

And don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII, and immediately restored them after the victory and in fact added many more since then.

That point is asinine. What is this, we gave up plenty of civil rights, business. I don't recall reading in the history books about people lining up to sign away their civil rights. These rights were taken at the point of a gun, and by virtue of natural law, the government has no authority to take the rights of any person not encroaching on some other persons natural rights. I don't remember the part about the estimated 112,000 people of Japanese decent, most of which were U.S. citizens, agreeing to pack up and move their families into concentration camps. I can't seem to find it written anywhere on the agreement of the some 6,000 people, a majority of which were Jehova's Witnesses, to be imprisoned because they morally objected on religious grounds to being dragged off to war.

The government does not have the authority to simply remove and restore the natural rights of the people when it sees fit. The fact that most Americans do not see this as tyranical and outragous is beyond my comprehension.


My Beliefs

It is my belief that the only way to be safe from the “terrorists” is to do like the Swiss. An immediate withdrawal of our troops from foreign lands and a declaration of neutrality by our government would send a strong message to the rest of the world that we will no longer meddle in the affairs of others. I do not believe this plan will solve all our problems. But I do believe we will be safer and freer as a result. If we cut our entangling political alliances with other countries and encourage trade with all, we will be much better off. History proves that quite well. Political alliances are good for one thing and that is making enemies.

We should deploy our troops to action only when there is a clear and present danger to this country, and only this country. It is not our responsibility to fight for the freedom of other sovereign nations. I’m sorry to break this news, but Iraq has not ever posed a clear and present danger to the U.S. President Bush believed that Iraq posed a danger back in March of 2003. He was wrong! As soon as the army discovered that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq the President should have pulled them out. It is not the job of United States troops to build sewer systems and schools in Iraq. It is not the responsibility of U.S. troops to secure Iraq from any danger it might be in as a result of the President’s invasion and current occupation. If Iraq can not defend itself by now then it does not deserve freedom. Anyone who is not at least slightly suspicious of the fact that Iraq does not have a ready and able army by now should read I Have a Question for You by Charley Reese.

But as far as our great country is concerned, we should follow Thomas Jefferson’s advice and engage in trade with all nations and entangling political alliances with none. Nations that trade with each other typically do not fight each other.

City Permits

What an asinine joke!

I get this tiny two page newsletter with my monthly water bill that communicates information to me from my wonderful public servants, aka the mayor and the city council. There was a particularly interesting feature in last months issue entitled "Test Your City I.Q...."

It reads as follows:

"If you’re going to be 'dressing up' your back yard with a deck, storage building, concrete patio or a swimming pool, do you need to get a City permit first? Yes, Yes, No and Yes! You can add a concrete patio without a permit, but any of the other three require a permit first. Don't start building a feature that's going to have to be removed! And it’s easy. Contact the City's One Stop Center at 25*-**** for information on how the process works."

I could not believe my eyes, but at the same time I was not the least bit surprised. I had been recently contemplating two of the four things listed there, and was not at all thinking about going before the local magistrate and begging for permission to build a deck. I was especially taken by the part about not starting to build a feature that is going to have to be removed. I can just imagine agents of the city demanding that someone remove a small backyard deck, which is visible to no one but the property owner from his back yard. Where is the outrage?

Where is the anger at this insane behavior of our local law makers all across the United States?

Private property rights are one of the key ingredients for a free society to prosper. The ability for one to buy property and do with it as he sees fit was one of the main points of the vision of our Founding Fathers in 1776. It gives people something to work for. Private property can be used to either build a store on to earn a living or to build a home on in order raise a family. The vision of our current public leaders is to give you the illusion that you actually own the property, but to control every aspect of that property you supposedly "own."

So I ask you my fellow Americans, where is the outrage? When are we going to say to our power hungry politicians that enough is enough, they have taken too many of our rights and they will not take any more! How much longer will we let this nonsense go on?

Katrina

"Katrina came and went with far less damage than anyone expected. It was the failure of the public infrastructure and the response to it that brought down civilization," wrote Lew Rockwell yesterday on his great website.

My heart goes out to the people of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama who need our support during this time of hardship. Especially to those who were herded into the Superdome like cattle and stripped of their right to self defense, thereby resulting in murders, rapes, and the mass devastation that inevitably ensues on a defensless population. For those who do not follow, I'm talking about gun grabbing. Some of the murders were committed directly by the very government personnel sent to help out.

The government's ineptness in this situation should not have suprised anyone. Of-course the usual finger pointing partisan hackery has begun. It amazes me that most people do not see this for what it is, a full scale government failure to successfully perform its number one job, protect the citizenry from large scale threats.

Katrina should be viewed as a learning experience. Government is not only the worst possible option to handle crisis management, it is the worst choice for crisis prevention. The faulty levees that could not hold the flood waters back were maintained by none other than the Army Corps of Engineers. Now I can not say with 100% certainty that the levees would have held up against the waters had they been in private hands, but we do know that the government failed us. The government does not have to be accountable for massive breakdowns such as this. Private companies must answer and be accountable for this kind of scenario. If they do not follow through with the services that their customers are demanding, they will lose that economic incentive and be replaced with some other entity that will. For a much more intelligent and in depth article on this topic I suggest reading Walter Block's most recent article about hurricane Katrina on Lewrockwell.com.

I pray that the American people wise up in the years to come and realize that government in general is to blame for the bulk of the devastion that is still occuring down there in New Orleans. Both the Bush administration and the democrats are to blame for the devastation going on down there. Our only hope is in private enterprise, which is ironically our method of choice when it comes to handling almost every other aspect of our lives. The areas of our life that are in the worst condition have the most government involvment, i.e. government schooling and health care. That is no coincidence.

Let us learn from this tragedy that government, no matter who is running it, is not competent enough to handle this kind of situation.

"The Traveler" by John Twelve Hawkes

I bought this book in an airport on my vacation not quite knowing what to expect. Having heard nothing about it, and not being in to science fiction, I almost passed it up.

I'm certainly glad I did not. I thoroughly enjoyed just about every page of this book, which I consider to be a quasi-science fiction, quasi-realistic fiction story.

Even though the heroine, Maya, can have a rather cold personality at times, I found myself smitten with her. There is probably a character in this book that almost every reader will be able to identify or connect with.

The sci-fi element falls more in line with the ways of the travelers, while the realistic parts encompass the actual changes that have taken place in our post-911 world vis-à-vis the Patriot Act and the Total / "Terrorist" Information Awareness program.

The author writes with a clear understanding of the evils that accompany power and corruption that always fall hand in hand with the state or organizations which have a connection with the state. The underlying tone, that those who crave freedom will always triumph over those who wish to dominate, intimidate, and control, is one of hope for a world which desperately needs it.

I anxiously look forward to the next part in this trilogy.

Good News

I listen to some form of talk radio or news program everyday and I never seem to hear good news. Until today. I was listening to the new local guy on the drive home and was informed that a few of our Republican state senators are attempting to introduce a bill that would stop my state's local municipalities from abusing eminent domain. This comes after the Supreme Court's recent assault on private property rights which rendered most private property in this country vulnerable to seizure by city government's to be handed over someone else.

Only eight other states have a law that says city government can't use eminent domain to steal private property from someone and turn it over to a private developer. I was happy to hear that some members of an otherwise destructive Republican party are actually acting to put some limits on state power.

I can't remember the last time the republicans attempted to do something consistent with the vision our founding fathers had in mind when they drafted the Constitution. That is to do something that actually puts limits and constraints on the state and not on the private affairs of the people. We shall see if this bill gets anywhere after it has been tossed to the wolves in the state senate.

Fire Cracker City Shenanigans

I have recenlty written commentary on my home town's recent decision to allow the public the legal use of fire crackers this Independence Day so long as they obtain the proper city issued permit. I thought that they just wanted the extra cash since they knew that individuals all over the city would have engaged in the fire works tradition anyways. I hoped that this would go down on the books as yet another unenforced piece of useless code like so many other laws. I was wrong.

In the last several days I have spotted more police patrol units traveling down my quiet little neighborhood street than I have seen in the last ten months. Oh how I feel so much safer. The boys in blue will keep those sparkler wielding criminals at bay.

On the radio tonight I heard something new to me about the fireworks permit. Apparantly the permit expires at 11:00 pm, after which point violaters will be fined 300 dollars.

Have fun this year friends and make sure you have your permits on hand to present to the patrol officer when he commands, "citizen, your papers!"

Happy Independence Day to all those out there in the land of the free.

The End of Private Property Rights in America

The Supreme Court delt a lethal blow to private property rights in this country today. In a 5 to 4 decision they have come down on the side of local city governments to have the right to kick property owners off of their property in order for private developers to come in and take it. Many have fought imminent domain abuse in this country for years, but this decision delivers the knockout blow to the individual in this fight. No matter where you live in this country now your property is not safe. This is truly a sad day for liberty.

Typical Government

As Independence Day comes closer, a day most Americans have forgotten the true meaning of, people begin to think about fireworks. My home town government has done something I find extremeley laughable, yet holding true to typical government logic. Setting off fireworks within the city limits has been illegal up to this point. My local city government has decided that from now on, setting off fireworks will be legal. Of-course there is a catch to this change in the law. Whoever would like to participate in the American pastime of lighting black cats and roman candles must first go to the city and obtain a permit for a token fee of twenty dollars. That's right, a $20 permit makes an act which was previously deemed too dangerous to be legal now acceptable. I literally laughed out loud when I read this. A hand full of city council members and bureaucrats somewhere decided that if people are going to set off fireworks regardless of the law, they might as well legalize the acitivity and just make people pay them to do it. Visions of police officers patrolling the neighborhood demanding to see little Timmy's permit for his lit sparkler come to mind. It's disgusting. This is just another example of the abuse of power that comes with the state. They say jump and we say how high.

Christians. You love the state more than God, admit it.

I am constantly wondering how so many of my Christian conservative friends and family are so blindly loyal to the GOP. I don't understand how they can give so much support to a party that supports the welfare-warfare state. They have no objection to the omnipotent state that crushes Christian values to no end. It is that persuasion that has prompted many libertarian Christians to ask of their fellow Christians whether they have more love for the State or for God. I have been thinking about the concept of being saved by God's salvation and how it relates to who we vote for in political elections. Any devout christian will tell you that if you have had the chance to accept Christ in your heart and have not done so that you will not go to heaven. I contend that if my Christian friends have been exposed to the principles that would bring about a libertarian society and still insist on supporting Republicans, then they deserve exactly the type of anti-Christian society that they will get.

The GOP supports an overbloated government that believes stealing the wealth of one class and giving it to another is the proper way to help the needy. Now I'm no Bible scholar, but I think I would remember a passage in which Jesus proclaimes that theft is the way to help those in need.

My fellow Christians are often worried, and with good reason, about the anti-Christian values being espoused in the government schools. Libertarians and Christian libertarians have argued for years that the solution is to take the education of your child out of the hands of the government. As long as we keep sending our children off to the government for education, they will be subjected to the values and indoctrination of the anti-Christian, politically correct crowd. Of-course the best alternatives are either home-schooling or private schools where parents have ultimate control over the situation. Many have cited the expense of private schools and fear they could not afford to send their kids to one. The solution would be for the government to completely get out of the education business and hand it back to the free market. In such a society parents would not be forced to pay for a "one size fits all" type of education whether they chose to send their children their or not, as is the case today. If schooling were completely privatized there would be all kinds of choices with many price ranges of pruducts to choose from just as there are in a supermarket. Parents as customers could really hold schools accountable to the kind of teachings they aim for their children to have. If the school failed to deliver the kind of product the parent wanted, there would always be a competing school to switch to.

The state will never be accountable for the lousy education it delivers. When any government agency begins failing the government usually rewards it with more money. What kind of incentive is that? The free market would deliver much better results and would be much more accountable to the values and demands of parents.

The Rockwell Rule

When it comes to taxes, the Rockwell rule is the right approach: Does it reduce or eliminate an existing tax? That is the issue. Changing to a flat tax, a national sales tax, a value added tax, a consumed income tax, or, as was recently proposed in Chronicles magazine by David Hartman, the chairman of the board of directors of The Rockford Institute, a business transfer tax, is useless if it doesn't reduce or eliminate the taxes that feed the federal leviathan's multi-trillion dollar spending orgy.

(from misis.org)

The Fair Tax

I have been do much thinking on the fair tax lately. As someone who comes from an anti-statist point of view, naturally I am skeptical of anything called a "fair tax." I just don't see how this idea proposed by Rep. John Linder, R-Ga, would actually help to increase personal liberty. This idea merely changes the way in which the government is funded. If passed, the fair tax would still extract just as much money from the American people as the current progressive income tax does, albeit in a much different way.

The only good thing I can ascertain from this proposed idea of a national retail sales tax is that it would seem to reward savers and punish spendors. As I consider myself more of a saver than a spendor, I get a little bit excited about that idea. Those of us who don't spend as much may realize more personal prosperity. I like the idea of being able to have more control over the taxes that I pay to the imperial federal government of the United States.

So what is not to like about this grand plan that probably has a snow ball's chance of passing through congress? It does nothing to address the size and scope of the federal government. It will do nothing to shrink the overbloated, spending machine that enslaves us all.

In short, lobbying for this so-called "fair tax" is a waist of time and energy. Those who care about liberty in our lifetime should concentrate their efforts on fighting statism, not cozying up to it and making friends.

We should fight any form of tax that will take the property of the productive class to fund the federal government. If the federal government were operating on a truly constitutional basis, it would only require the funds provided by small tariffs and excise taxes. It would not need to seize monies from wages, sales transactions, or estates of recently deceased Americans.

As Walter Williams has said, "taxation is a slightly less offensive form of slavery." We need to abolish the federal income tax and the IRS, and replace them with NOTHING if we are to achieve true liberty.

The Constitution Draws Breath?

Many law professors, and others who hold contempt for our Constitution, preach that the Constitution is a living document. Saying that the Constitution is a living document is the same as saying we don't have a Constitution. For rules to mean anything, they must be fixed. How many people would like to play me poker and have the rules be "living"? Depending on "evolving standards," maybe my two pair could beat your flush.

Walter Williams

(from Townhall)

Err on the Side of Life?

Let me begin by saying that I feel for the Schindler and Schiavo families for the loss that they have suffered and I pay them my full respects.

During these past two weeks I have heard President Bush say that since there are so many disputed facts of the Schiavo case, that if we are going to err, that we should err on the side of life. Every time I hear that speech replayed in the news, or when someone of the media quotes that statement, I can't help but think back to the President's decision to take us to war with Iraq based on U.S. intelligence reports that Iraq had stock piles of WMDs. The reason I am thinking of this is because the second biggest news item of today, ironically happens to be a new report claiming that U.S. intelligence information about Iraq's WMDs were DEAD WRONG. I wonder if Mr. Bush is lying in bed tonight wondering why he did not err on the side of life, and give the weapons inspectors more time to search for Iraq's alleged WMDs before he took our nation to war resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians?

Time to Draw the Line

I think it is time for libertarians to draw the line between what we stand for and what the conservative movement in this country now stands for. As far as I am concerned the GOP has lost all credibility with any ties to limited government and individual liberty. They are now completely and devotedly attached in a romantic love affair with the welfare-warfare state. They have made their peace with big government central planning, whether through faith based initiatives at home or central planning abroad via the military industrial complex. This generation of conservatives a.k.a. the Bushites see government as tantamount to God, incapable of any feat, no rock immovable, and no mission too impossible. The limited government conservatives of the nineties have checked out, not in the physical, but in the mental. They are suffering from Bushitis. Our great leader, Saint George who is capable of doing no wrong, has cast some sort of spell that has blanketed the red states of the country. Well probably not a spell, but more of a satisfaction of carpe diem. Many conservatives were so elated to see Clinton leave the Whitehouse and one of "their guys" enter that they would have cheered no matter what policies he set forth. Bush has seized both the post 9-11 attitudes of the public at large, and the conservative, it's our turn now, mob in order to whip the masses into warfare fervor. As Lew Rockwell has put it:

Behind the rhetoric you find the iron fist of the state, forcing conformism and regimentation. Bush-style fascism has created a kind of cult of personality too, in which the public is led to believe through hints and nudges that the president has a direct line to God. More than any president in my living memory, he peppers his speeches with personal pronouns: "I will defend America."

It is time for libertarians to declare our differences with the conservative movement. We oppose the massive central state, and more importantly we oppose the welfare-warfare state. We favor personal liberty, private property, unrestricted commercial trade, and peace. Do not forget that last element. To be for peace is to be opposed to war. The GOP is the war party when war is the means to their desired ends. These days the conservative movement has myriad excuses to continue dragging this country though more wars. They speak of spreading democracy throughout the world and fighting Islamic-terrorism. They don't speak of the reality, which is spreading democracy at the point of a gun. No. Not just at the point of a gun, but at the firing of a gun towards other fellow human beings who have nothing to do with Islamic terrorism. The snuffing out of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian lives, none of whom had anything to do with 9-11 is the obvious example. They further instilled a dangerous precedent with preemptive war. The precedent which many would argue had already been set. The late, great Murray Rothbard often spoke of the concept of perpetual war for perpetual peace.

Libertarians are lately finding themselves in odd agreement with the most unlikely of adversaries when it comes to the issues of peace. We should not shy away from this, but cheer on those who will stand with us in opposition to Bush fascism. I for one never thought I would support Michael Moore on any issue he might bring up, but I found myself last year cheering his expose of congress's passage of the Patriot Act without even reading it in his documentary Fahrenheit 911. Conservative friends of mine were surprised that I even went to see one of his movies. I of-course told them that although I almost always disagree with Moore's positions, he was right to question the government's motives during this post 9-11 power grab of our rights and liberties.

This is a call to arms among my fellow libertarians to distinguish your positions from those of conservatives. Continue to speak out against government atrocities at home and abroad. Don't give in to statist schemes that sound like steps in the right direction, but in reality would do virtually nothing to increase liberty and decrease statism. The so-called "Fair Tax" is still exactly that, a tax. The mere shuffling around of how the property is seized does nothing to legitimize the high levels taxation in any way. And a tax, to paraphrase revered columnists and economist Walter Williams, is nothing more than legalized theft. To quote Lew Rockwell again:

Libertarians have traditionally provided the side dishes that call for petty deregulatory measures and tax cuts. This really must stop.

The goal of libertarians should be to fight statism on all levels and on all fronts with no compromises. The hard work and dedication will one day pay off.

What is Socialism?

Dadahead has posed a question to libertarians.

The GOP has made it clear: they stand against the right to privacy, to reproductive choice, to sexual autonomy. Is it really worth the tax cuts, libertarians? Is it really worth the rolling-back of regulations on big business? How long will libertarians continue to say to themselves, paraphrasing Krusty the Clown:

Well, the GOP is dedicated to eradicating civil liberties, destroying a 200+ year tradition of secular government, and imposing biblical law, but man ... I'm aching for that upper-class tax cut!

The dialogue has now shifted to a debate on socialism. My thoughts below are from my last comment on dada's blog and reflect my thoughts on socialism and who owns the means of production in this country:

I understand there are many different view points as to what is and is not socialism. But with the amount of government intervention taking place on the market today, I ask who does own the means of production. Who owns the water supply in most cities and towns? Who owned the steel mills in the U.S. during the Korean War? Answer: the U.S. government. Thankfully the Supreme Court rightfully put the brakes on that madness and returned them to private hands soon after. But that is neither here nor there. The time honored common law idea of ownership is defined by what an individual or entity can or can not do with his or her property. With that in mind, who issues you the deed to your home or business? If you stop paying your property taxes (read: rent) to the government (read: landlord) what happens? You will be asked to pay or to leave. If you choose neither, men with guns will come remove you from your property. Who owns the means of production in this country?

As for Social Security

As for Social Security, the crisis is not that the government can't continue to fix it, i.e. raise the age of eligibility, lower benefits, increase the social security tax, etc. The crisis is that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. A system that would be illegal if any private company attempted to set up and administer the way the government administers social security. Don't get me wrong. I am no Bush apologist, but something must be done to give people better returns on their investment. Something must be done to allow people to pass their wealth on to their own families when they die. Something must be done to relieve the burden on all the young black men who will pay into the scheme all their lives and then sadly not reach the age of eligibility, thus not being able to realize any return for their selves or their families, since statistically a majority of black males die before the age of elligibility. Social Security is nothing more than 15 cents out of every dollar you earn being stolen from you and given to someone else. Social Security does not need to be fixed it needs to be abolished if there is to be any hope for real liberty and prosperity in the future.

Terri Schiavo

protestors 

Everyone is talking about Terri Schiavo today so I suppose I will weigh in my two cents here. The most important thing I think we all can take from this situation is what we would want our significant other to do with us, should we find ourselves in a persistent vegetative state. I have told mine that I would want to pass on from this life and on to the next stage with as little stalling and unnecessary pain and suffering as possible. It is probably important that this decision be in writing so as to avoid the current predicament the Schiavo's find them selves in today. Michael Schiavo claims his wife told him that she would not want to be left in such a state.


Michael Schiavo 

IN RELATED NEWS

I happened to catch an MSNBC news story this morning which showcased a woman who had been taking care of her daughter in a similar condition for I think about 30 years now. When the reporter asked this woman if she thought it was okay for the government to intervene, as has been the case for Terry Schiavo, she said of-course not. She proclaimed something about freedom and a free country and that no one has the right to tell her what to do. She went on to say that this should be a family decision. Of-course she is right. It is a sad truth that the "family" as we know it has been little by little replaced by the state. As has we have seen in this case with the Republicans trying to politicize this issue in attempting to subpoena Terry Schiavo to testify befor congress in order to keep her alive.

Only In America

Only in America.....do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so
well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking
creatures'.

Caller roasts Sean Hannity

I was listening to the Sean Hannity show the other night on my way home from work and was quite pleased at the dialogue for once. I believe it was during the final hour that Sean was allowing only callers who wanted to criticize him on the air. One caller had just finished making his second point when Sean told the caller to give him the final blow. My ears perked up when the caller mentioned Abraham Lincoln. The man on the phone reminded Sean that he always speaks of the Republican party as being the party of Lincoln. He went on to say that he read Lincoln's presidential debate and pointed out that Lincoln was in no way concerned with freeing the slaves. That he only cared about putting economic strains on the South so as to stop them from seceding from the union. Sean mumbled a few things in response about some book that has information about Lincoln that may or may not be true. The caller reiterated to Sean that Lincoln himself proclaimed in his presidential debate that he cared not about freeing the slaves. Sean of-course dumped the call shortly after that last statement and took the next caller.

I wish that an ensuing dialoge over the great King Lincoln would have or even could have followed. But I was happy in the sense that at least for a few seconds Sean's 10 million listeners were exposed to some truth about honest Abe and his wreckless, destructive presidency. I was also happy that one of the biggest Republican party establishment apologists was made to look bad for statements about his party. It is nice to see that for the first time in history many of the misconceptions about Lincoln are being unraveled and that the public might know the truth.

As Charley Reese has put it, "Washington and Jefferson created the Republic; Lincoln destroyed it." Let us never forget that. Lincoln played a prominent role in crushing the capitalist experiment and we must not let a so-called great American such as Sean Hannity do any more damage.

The Sorters

...But, when all is said and done, the truth about race and IQ means a lot more to liberals and to neocons than it does to paleos. For the liberals and neocons, being statist to the core, are obliged to seize control of resources and to alloocate them somehow among the various groups of the population. Liberals-neocons are "sorters," they aim to sort people out, to subsidize here, to control and restrict there. So, to the neocon or liberal power elite, ethnic or racial science is a big thing because it tells these sorters who exactly they should control, who they should restrict and limit. Should they use taxpayer funds to subsidize the "disadvantaged" or geniuses? Which is more socially productive, which dysgenic?...

(from The Irrepressible Rothbard)

Until You Host Again

Jay Severan, I salute you! I don't have anything particularly important to comment on tonight, save for the end of Jay Severan's guest hosting of the Neal Boortz radio show this week. I will miss hearing what I have come to think of as a breath of fresh air on the radio. It simply does not happen enough that another libertarian voice has the attention of an audience of a few million strong. I was especially thrilled today when I heard him espousing his view of being opposed to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. I love it when the large population of mostly right wing talk radio listeners are made aware of rational arguments against the President's dangerous and destructive occupation of Iraq. It is especially nice when the opposition view comes from someone who they feel is on their side, and not someone coming from a pure leftist point of view. This way many right conservatives might actually think about thier own postions and analyze the merits of those postions. Rock on Jay. Until you host again.

The Nation and the State

While the State is a pernicious and coercive collectivist concept, the "nation" may be and generally is voluntary. The nation properly refers, not to the State, but to the entire web of culture, values, traditions, religion, and language in which the individuals of a society are raised. It is almost embarrassingly banal to emphasize that point, but apparently many libertarians aggressively overlook the obvious. let us never forget the great libertarian Randolph Bourne's analysis of the crucial distinction between "the nation" (the land, the culture, the terrain, the people) and "the State" (the coercive apparatus of bureaucrats and politicians), and of his important conclusion that one may be a true patriot of one's nation or country while- and even for that very reason- opposing the State that rules over it.

(from The Irrepressible Rothbard)

Freedom and Coercion

Freedom is the absence of government coercion

~ Dr. Ron Paul

Every time congress passes a new law no matter how seemingly noble or necessary liberty is restricted as a result. Everytime the federal government strikes down the consitution and violates the 4th Amendment freedom is eroded at its core. Do airport security screeners (read: federal agents) rummaging through your personal belongings in your bags come to mind anyone? That's why the founding fathers wrote the Bill of Rights. To limit the power of the government so that it won't be dangerous to the preexisting natural rights of the people. The word preexisting is important here. Natural rights are something we are born with. The government does not give me the right to free speech, or the right not to have my home searched against my will. Those rights were given to me by my Creator when I was born into this world. The government was instituted to protect those rights, nothing more. When I think of the U.S. government the way it exists today I am reminded of a quote from Thomas Jefferson stating, "government, big enough to give you everything you need, strong enough to take away everything you have."

Obviously most American's aren't ready for a third party just yet, or they would have voted for the libertarian party presidential candidate in much larger numbers in 2004. I happen to believe that the road to freedom is going to be won through the spread of ideas. So spread the good news of what freedom really has to offer. It offers a world of liberty and peace unknown to the current generation of Americans who have been living in a state of siege under the big government Bush administration.

Deadly Force

It occurred to me tonight that so many Americans still have absolutely no concept that government is backed up by deadly force. The government funds all of its activities through taxes. Taxes are not paid voluntarily by the people that fund the government. That money must be taken in the form of taxes. If the money that funds the government was paid voluntarily by the people then it would be called donations not taxes.

Now back to the deadly force part. This occurred to me when I was discussing the campaigning of politicians with a friend the other day. I told my friend that when a political candidate asks you for their vote, they are in fact asking you for the authority to use deadly force over the people to accomplish their goals. My friend laughed when I said the words deadly force. I asked my friend why they would laugh and explained that I was not joking. I don't know why most people just don't seem to understand the difference between the private sector, which is the voluntary sector and the public sector, which is the government sector, or the coercive sector.

I further explained to my friend that when a car dealership for example sells cars it must persuade people to come give it money in exchange for a car. By contrast when the government wants to build a new road or create some new program, you do not have the ability to say, "no thanks, I don't think I'm going to pay for that." See what happens when you stop paying your property taxes for a while. Eventually an agent from the IRS will contact you either by phone or in person giving you deadlines as to when you need to have your back taxes paid. If you do not pay by the deadline then the government will take your house from you. If you refuse to leave your property then the guns come out. Men with guns will come forcefully remove you from your property. If you attempt to resist the invaders you will be shot and killed. This is no joke and it does happen in America.

Hardball

Tonight I was watching Hardball with Chris Matthews who was discussing President Bush's so called privatization of social security plan. The guests were of-course two partisan political hacks, one from the right and the other from the left. The leftist fellow was of-course arguing that to allow workers to take a small portion of the burdensome 15 percent social security tax and to invest that privately in the stock market would be disastrous for our elderly people, but most of all dangerous for "society." My favorite point came when host Chris Matthews, and I must give him props for this question, asked the democrat to consider a hypothetical scenario. The question asked was whether or not the democrat would have, given the opportunity at the age of eighteen to twenty something, kept his social security tax in the current system only to receive a 3 percent return at best, or invest a portion in a stock market fund where over his working life he might average as much a 10 to 15 percent. His response started off by stating that if he only cared about himself, then of-course he would have invested privately. He then went on to scare the older generation again and mutter famous leftist mantras about the good of society.

The point here is this, leftists have zero respect for THE INDIVIDUAL. And when I speak of leftists I am speaking of 99.9 percent of politicians, republicans included. The new right is only right by name. They are very left according to historical standards. The politicians love to talk in terms of groups i.e.: blacks, women, minorities, upper class, lower class, white collar, blue collar, etc. The worst nightmare of the left would be for individuals to storm Washington demanding their lost individual rights back. The politicians have taken those rights and turned them over to the collective i.e.: social security, medicare, medicaid, welfare, corporate welfare, etc. The politicians need for those various groups to be dependent on the state for their every desire. That is how they can ensure their reelection year after year after year. The reason the politicians classify people into groups is because groups are easier to control and lead than individuals. What the left, and 98 percent of the new right for that matter, fail to realize is that the more freedom individuals have to look out for themselves, the more prosperous most people will become. One important aspect about the new right is that they pay lip service to individual rights and smaller government during election season, but they never walk the walk once elected. As the dominant party in Washington they hardly talk of shrinking the size of government any more. Which goes to prove one point. They will say what they need to say to get elected, but once in power they will use that power to pursue their hidden agendas.

When people are free to pursue their own free will and do something that they do best, the division of labor is most balanced and resources are allocated in the best manner possible. Free will creates prosperity. That is how the U.S. became the most prosperous nation in the world. The government was very weak and small in the beginning of our history and it allowed people to conduct their lives in a manner consistent with their own beliefs and values.

Is the president's plan for social security good for the advancement of liberty? It appears to be a step in the right direction, but if it passes it will probably end up causing more destruction than prosperity simply because the government will be administering it. In order for people to be able to retire with true 10 to 15 percent gains on their investment the government needs to get out of the retirement business and leave free will alone to run its course. I simply can't see how, given its track record, the government can fix this broken, fraudulant program called social security. The government can't elliminate poverty no matter how much money it dumps on that issue in its massive war on poverty that gets bigger every year. The government can't stop illegal drugs from coming into this country no matter how much money it dumps into that wortlhess war it has created costing more than just millions of dollars per year, but also the loss of thousands of innocent lives per year due to gang disputes over drug turf.

Will some people invest poorly and not have a nest egg to retire on. Yes, some will make foolish mistakes. However, if government did not take so much from the productive individuals, charities and non-profits would easily be able to fill the needs of the few who found themselves in dire straits. Americans are already the most generous people probably in the history of the planet. If the average American did not have almost half of his income seized by the government each year, he would be free to help out his family members, friends, or neighbors in a time of need, or donate to his church or favorite charity in a way he has never been able to do before. That is the kind of America I am optomistic I will see in my lifetime.

Who or What is he?

If he didn’t know that his plan to "liberate" people who hadn’t asked to be liberated, to bring democracy to people who hadn’t asked for democracy, would lead to the deaths of thousands of people, he is not only incompetent and unfit to hold office, he is surely psychopathic and needs to be incarcerated.

Only a psychopath would stand in the midst of thousands of security guards and speak of "the force of human freedom."

Only a man so insulated from the real world by palace sycophants, by little Napoleons filled with utopian fantasies, and by callous, ambitious schemers to whom the lives of others mean nothing – only a man so insulated could possibly speak of "the expansion of freedom in all the world."
Only a man with no link to reality could start a war that destroys lives and families and then say, "Every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth."

Only a snake oil salesman can rain missiles and bombs on other countries and then say that no "human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies."

Only a man divorced from human reason can imprison people – possibly for life – without due process of law and then say that "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

Only a liar can proclaim that he will decide which countries must be remade and then say, "No one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave."

Only a devious schemer can announce a goal of "ending tyranny in our world" while he is imposing a new tyranny in his own country – our country.
So you tell me: what kind of a President do we have?
And what has he given us other than wars, fear, and a state of siege?

-Harry Browne

Label for my beer coming this summer 2005! 

Beautiful Maui 

Deep sea fishing in Maui. 

NEO 

Government 

Is there a problem with freedom?

Should the fact that if I become injured by not wearing a seatbelt or sick from eating and smoking too much, and become a burden on taxpayers, determine whether I'm free to not wear a seatbelt or puff cigarettes and gorge myself? Is there a problem with freedom? I say no, it's a problem of socialism. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO MORAL CASE FOR GOVERNMENT'S TAKING ANOTHER AMERICAN'S EARNINGS, THROUGH TAXES, TO CARE FOR ME FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER. Dosing so is simply a slightly less ofensive form of slavery. Keep in mind that the essence of slavery is the forceful use of one person to serve the purposes or benefit of another.

-Walter Williams