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.