The power of III

Summum ius summa iniuria--More law, less justice
--Cicero.

19 August 2011

Goin' on vacation = Presidential hara kiri

Verbatim post; Nile Gardiner's Telegraph blog

President Obama begins his 10-day vacation in Martha’s Vineyard today, the third year in a row he has taken his summer holiday in one of America’s most expensive resorts. During his time there he will be experiencing the kind of luxury that the vast majority of ordinary Americans can only dream about: Barack Obama will be staying in a compound which costs more to rent for a single week than most American households earn in a year.

In previous years Obama’s expensive vacations have attracted relatively little attention from the US media, with the exception of Michelle Obama’s trip to southern Spain last August, which led to her being dubbed a “modern-day Marie Antoinette” by one columnist. This year, however, even some flagships of the liberal mainstream media have been raising eyebrows. The Washington Post’s coverage for example has been unusually critical, for a publication that usually shies away from making an issue out what it would traditionally view as the president’s private life:
With 14 million Americans out of work, a volatile stock market and a historic downgrade of the country’s credit rating, President Obama is set to begin a 10-day retreat Thursday at a 28-acre Martha’s Vineyard compound called Blue Heron Farm, which costs an estimated $50,000 per week to rent. That divide — and the presumed hypocrisy of a president who has pledged not to rest “until every American looking for a job can find one,” going golfing and biking on an island playground for wealthy celebrities — has been too much for political pundits to resist.
Obama’s decision to head to a popular playground for wealthy elites in the face of intense media scrutiny is a surprisingly reckless move. It is a particularlly foolish act just 14 months away from a presidential election where he will likely end up the underdog rather than the favourite. The contrast between an imperious, out-of-touch US president and the economic plight of tens of millions of Americans could not be starker. Obama’s holiday will no doubt come to haunt him in November next year, with the economy the number one issue for voters.

Which begs the question – why did the president go ahead with his vacation despite the worst approval ratings of his presidency, plunging stock markets, falling consumer confidence, and overwhelming public disillusion with his handling of the economy? I think the answer lies in Obama’s professorial-style arrogance, and a condescending approach towards ordinary Americans.

This is a US presidency with a distinctly Upstairs Downstairs approach towards running the country. At the end of the day, Barack Obama is in a serious state of denial if he believes the US electorate won’t care if their president acts with impunity at a time of tremendous economic turmoil and uncertainty. I suspect that when he returns to Washington in September, Mr Obama may get a rather nasty shock in the polls from angry voters who won’t take kindly to their president going AWOL in the lap of luxury during a major financial crisis.

Ron Paul, prescient for President, 2012



Knowledge of Austrian Economics is key for accurate predictions of the business cycle.  Austrian theory can tell you what will definitely happen in the macro-economy, but cannot tell you when.  This is primarily because the market is not "free" but is corporatist, being an unsavory marriage of government, central banks, brokerage houses, and specific businesses.

Here, Paul is quoted from a 2003 statement in the House Banking Committee, where he hits the nail on the head with how the housing bubble would burst.


Who do you want in public office, if not someone who REALLY understands how the economy works?

Every other GOP candidate is a Statist Keynesian dog. (Michelle Bachman is the closest to Paul, as she claims to have read and admires von Mises' work, but who needs another neocon in the White House?)

We, the people of the United States, constantly fleeced by the government and central bank, cannot afford another Keynesian neocon administration. It's time for radical change, and to begin to unwind the powers that be.

Money bomb on August 20th.

18 August 2011

Vigilantism, a concept whose time has come

Verbatim post of Wendy McElroy at mises.org:

What will you do if rioting sweeps US cities as it did British ones last week?

Vigilantism is defined as "Taking the law into one's own hands and attempting to effect justice according to one's own understanding of right and wrong." Typically, it occurs when traditional law enforcement is absent, ineffective, or corrupt. When exercised in defense of person and property, vigilantism is the direct expression of an individual's right to protect himself or innocent others against aggression. It is also defined as "action taken by a voluntary association of persons who organize themselves for the purpose of protecting a common interest."

If an individual has this right, then, so too does a group acting in tandem. When such a group acts over time, it not only protects people and property but also tends to stabilize an entire community. Indeed, in his thesis "Pax Vigilanticus: Vigilantism, Order, and Law in the Nineteenth Century American West," Jared Kelley wrote, "I believe that vigilantism represents more than simply a reaction to crime and corruption, but an instinctual, psychological push to restore the status quo of a society disrupted by some crisis or exigency."

Vigilantism has deep roots in American history and culture. From tales of the Wild West to the caped-crusading Batman, the act of standing up to thugs is part of the national ethos. And the assumption of personal responsibility for self-defense is what drives the uniquely American pro-gun movement. But will the increasingly despotic police force allow citizens to arm and organize in self-defense against a marauding horde?

The UK's response to last week's riots may offer insight.

The Precedent of Britain

When plundering mobs descended on several British neighborhoods, they were met by residents who had formed protective barriers around their businesses and homes. They were met by vigilantes.

Officials in the UK, as everywhere, pronounce the word vigilante with intonations of horror and disgust. To them, a vigilante represents "society gone askew" every bit as much as the looter who smashes open windows, because both men constitute a basic denial of the officials' authority. No wonder the police are eager to portray those who protect their own persons and property as "lynch mobs" or otherwise threats to civil society. If a trend toward self-defense were encouraged, after all, then the police might be out of a job; the authorities might be out of power. And so, vigilante is a good word that has "gone bad," largely because the authorities fear its virtues.

Both the antagonism and fear of authorities were evident in Britain last week. In the wake of riots, the police attacked not merely the rioters but also those who patrolled their own neighborhoods and averted violence. But they did so surreptitiously.

Clearly, the police were upset with the vigilantes. While their official impotence was displayed on TV screens around the world, average people banded together to perform the work the police could not. According to the UK Telegraph, "as many as 1,500 Sikhs, some in their eighties," patrolled West London neighborhoods and chased off rioters. In East London, "Turkish shopkeepers" armed with baseball bats and pool cues fended off looters; "Turkish and Kurdish men lined the key street of Kingsland High to seal off their community. As one shopkeeper stated, "There were no police so we came out to defend ourselves. I don't know if it's breaking the law but what can we do?"

"The police attacked not merely the rioters but also those who patrolled their own neighborhoods and averted violence."
But the police need to walk a fine line in criticizing vigilantes. Many of the scofflaws are heroes within their own communities — and even beyond. The Independent noted, "In the more affluent neighbourhood of Stoke Newington further north — an area filled with boutique shops and independent retailers — there was widespread praise for Turkish people who stopped rioters." Meanwhile, those same communities are united in disapproval of the police performance.

While decrying vigilantism in general, therefore, the authorities have focused their ire upon one group in particular: the English Defence League (EDL) with whom the public is less likely to have sympathy. The EDL is a far-right-wing group known for violent street protests against Sharia Law and Islamic extremism. Clive Efford, the MP for Eltham, where rioting was severe, stated, "A group of the English Defence League turned up in the high street and have been drinking all day, and although they say they're here to assist the police, they [the police] have now diverted all these resources here."

Accounts from those who patrolled the streets deny that the EDL were prevalent. Whichever account is true, however, the authorities and the press clearly wish to paint these unsympathetic drunkards as the vigilantes. For example, the Morning Star stated, "In Enfield a mob of white men, again believed to have included members of the EDL, swarmed through the streets chanting 'England.'"
Meanwhile, the authorities are treating the respectable vigilantes with kid gloves. On the one hand, the police are expressing concern about their safety. CNN reported, "the Metropolitan Police has warned against vigilantism, calling on members of the public not to put themselves in harm's way."

On the other hand, the police are diverting people from vigilantism into other tasks that make them feel valuable. A borough commander of an embattled neighborhood announced, "I urge the public to remain vigilant and report any information you have to police"; potential vigilantes have been asked to work instead on identifying the looters for future prosecution.

Authorities have flipped the "default" switch on self-defense: namely, leave it to the police. As the International Business Times stated, "Contrary to everyday people, the police have been trained to handle difficult situations, and the powers that have been given to them by the government should not be conferred to the rest of the population."

A Concept in Need of Redemption

This is an amazing statement: the right to defend against violence is a "power" that is given to the police "by government" and "should not be conferred to the rest of the population." The two main reasons for denying the right to self-defense seem to be
  1. without government training, people will get hurt; and
  2. people who rise in self-defense will turn into a lynch mob.
Regarding the first reason, when the police cannot or do not offer protection, people and property will be damaged. The best chance of preventing that damage is precisely for people to defend themselves. Moreover, denying the right of self-defense to a person because he might get hurt is like denying freedom of speech because he might misspeak or denying freedom of religion because he could join the wrong church. The denial is not an act of concern or protection; it is the imposition of social control.

"Vigilantism is the opposite of a lynch mob."
Regarding the second reason: by invoking the image of drunken racist throngs, the British authorities are trying to make vigilantism into a synonym for lynch mobs. After rousing public fear and disgust, the government can "come to the rescue" and declare a monopoly on the use of defensive force. Because of images like that of a lynch mob, people reflexively turn away from the possibility of a private police force and private defense.

Return to the definition of vigilantism: "Taking the law into one's own hands … " The very definition draws a clear line between vigilantes and a lynch mob; the former takes the law into their own hands while the latter has nothing to do with the law except for breaking it. Indeed, as the London riots show, vigilantes are usually a defense against mobs, whether the ongoing thugs are looters or lynchers. Things can go badly wrong whenever there is a need for self-defense, but mistakes and missteps are aberrations that do not negate the essential nature of vigilantism. It is the opposite of a lynch mob.

The American Roots of Vigilantism

The first American "vigilance committee" of note was organized in San Francisco in 1851 to control the hooliganism that accompanied the gold rush. The population of the city had exploded from 812 in 1848 to approximately 25,000 in 1849, with more than half of the newcomers being foreigners. Crime surged along ethnic lines; for example, organized outlaws named the "Hounds" raped and brutalized the Mexican residents with impunity. Approximately 230 citizens formed the original committee, but it quickly grew to 700 members. An executive provided oversight and subcommittees policed the city.
Jared Kelley described the outcome:
The vigilantes incarcerated seventeen of "The Hounds" in the brig of a ship anchored in San Francisco's harbor … and drove the rest from town before the captured bandits were delivered to a legitimate court and the Committee of 1851 dispersed.
The vigilantism with which I am most familiar occurred during the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. In the wake of the savage police beating of a black man named Rodney King, the city experienced the worst civil unrest in its history. Although I had relocated a few years before, I kept in close touch with a friend who lived in a "threatened" neighborhood. At one point she reported that her Korean neighbors were standing on rooftops with automatic rifles. The Koreatown area of Los Angeles was heavily targeted by looters and arsonists. By the second day, police and firemen did not even bother to show up. In a flash, the Koreans organized and armed themselves to protect their community both from physical attack and from the flames. After seeing news footage of a gunfight in Koreatown, I called my friend and urged her to leave the area. She convinced me it was safe by recounting how the Koreans had expanded their protective perimeter to include the public library.

A Concept Whose Time Has Come

The American police would probably react more quickly and violently against both rioters and vigilante groups in the United States. And yet if riots did occur in American streets, neighborhood committees would almost certainly be organized as they were in Koreatown. People will not stand passively by while their homes and businesses are looted. People will not wait for an absentee police force and fire department. They will shield their families from danger.

If riots come, it will not be the rich who suffer; they will be watching the violence on TV in their gated or high-rise communities. It will not be the media pundits who comment on "how terrible and senseless it is for them to destroy their own communities" while, at the same time, they excoriate anyone who picks up a gun to defend that community. It will be lower- and middle-class people who pick up a gun or a baseball bat, because, at its foundation, vigilantism is also a grassroots phenomenon.

A vigilante is an average person who refuses to surrender to violence or authority. It is little wonder the elite look upon him and see a lynch mob.

Its a good thing I can't pack a gun on the Senate floor

Sen. Tom Coburn, expressed frustration with his fellow lawmakers this week, describing them as "a class of career elitists" and "cowards,” and adding, "It's just a good thing I can't pack a gun on the Senate floor."

[That depends, of course, on how good a shot he is, I suppose]...just kidding, secret service--dont break out your tasers on me just yet...hey d'ja ever notice the initials of the secret service are "SS"?

Coburn, R-Okla., reportedly made the comment at a Chamber of Commerce event in Oklahoma on Tuesday in which he blamed the nation's financial troubles on Congress-- a critique that deflects Republican attacks on President Obama.


Hey Tom, we know you can't carry a gun, but how 'bout a gutta percha cane?

Stonewall Jackson on the coming conflict

We do not wish it:

People who are anxious to bring on war don't know what they are bargaining for; they don't see all the horrors that must accompany such an event.





But, should it come:

If we cannot be successful in defeating the enemy should he advance, a kind Providence may enable us to inflict a terrible wound and effect a safe retreat in the event of having to fall back. - To Joseph E. Johnston, 1862.

Shoot the brave officers, and the cowards will run away and take the men with them. - To Richard S. Ewell.

Si vis pacem, para bellum

17 August 2011

Why the US Constitution and Ron Paul should unite Right and Left

Note well:
Progressives of the National Socialist or Socialist ilk, that believe in Big Government, intervention of Big Government in the affairs of individuals, the right to confiscate wealth through taxation, inflation, and those that believe in the right to legislate moral issues for 330 million people in these "united" States, keep surfing, this post ain't for you.

However, if you are socially right or left, and believe that the federal government has no right to confiscate wealth, that government exists solely to protect people and their property from the encroachment of individual and organized criminals, read on.

The beauty of our founding philosophy is evident in the commentary below, written by a social liberal.  He is attracted to a conservative constitutionalist Republican, committed to original intent of the Constitution.

This original intent, advocated consistently by Ron Paul, is based on limitation of Federal powers in favor of local and State powers, where "representatives" are theoretically more in touch with the people, and are therefore more accountable to the people.

This system was crushed under the tyrannical heel of Abraham Lincoln and his Army of the Potomac. 

We are witnessing the endgame of that ugly experiment in Nationalism, Corporatism, and Empire right now.

Feel some hope as you read the commentary below.

Know, however, that Ron Paul will neither gain the nomination nor the Presidency.  He is merely the obstetrician of the New Republic.  Ron's son Rand Paul has much greater potential down the road...he is a much more effective communicator than his dad, and has inherited political savvy, a promising combination.

------------------------

A comment on a blogpost in The Telegraph,

Why the American Media Hates and Fears Ron Paul

"As a former Democrat turned Ron Paul supporter, I take issue with your assertion that "Democrats can’t understand his loyalty to the Republican label and, when they know about it, loathe his views on sex and sexuality". The fact is, Ron Paul's position is that we should respect the Constitution, get the federal government out of social issues, and that issues specifically related to sex and sexuality are best handled on as local a level as possible - thus allowing for more progressive communities to permit nude beaches, gay marriage, etc., while allowing more conservative communities to set their own standards. I wish that everyone was tolerant and accepting towards homosexuality, and "alternative" lifestyles, but I recognize that part of having a free society means that we have to allow points of view that we disagree with. In the American system, we don't have a 1st Amendment protecting free speech so that people can talk about the weather.

Ron Paul is also on the record in favor of overturning "Don't Ask Don't Tell", his campaign manager from 2008 was openly gay and he has strong support in the gay community because he does not want to force his views of sex and morality down the country's throat.

On a broader level, progressives should support Ron Paul if they care about ending the wars, stopping the continued bailouts for the rich bankers, stopping the civil liberties abuses (Patriot Act) and ending the federal drug war (hurts minorities). Ron Paul as president could have a unilateral impact on these issues, while he would not be able to enact his domestic economic/fiscal agenda without a super majority in the Senate (not likely any time soon). He's also on the record in saying that the money being spent overseas should be used to tide over those dependent on our entitlement programs; he's the only one talking to us like adults." --jobwaltz.com, 17 August 2011


-----------------------------

Christian conservatives should applaud this type of attitude; it is what united the proponents of disparate philosophies of politics and religion 230 years ago.  People that cannot abide the standards and laws of their locale (e.g. a social conservative in San Francisco, a gun control advocate living in Montana, a NAACP advocate who is offended by the battle flag, or a Christian who is offended by passage of a gay marriage law, etc.) can get up and move to a place they find more attractive. 

I advocate the return to our original confederation of united States, with universally guaranteed Rights, and understood limited powers of a servant government. 

Under such a republican system, you will no longer have the threat of a law passed in remote Washington DC affecting every single person in the country, forcing self righteous morality down our throats, or robbing our kids' future properity.

16 August 2011

UK Riots: Prime minister of Great Britain has learned nothing, will do nothing

Verbatim post:

London riots: Cameron has learned nothing, will do nothing


(Photo: Getty)
Add caption

Can it really have been that this time last week that our streets were being torn apart by some of the worst civil unrest in recent British memory? Obviously not. In my head I had these terrible visions of men trying to defend their property being mown down and killed by drivers, of innocents being burned out of their homes, of passers-by being beaten up by gangs, of diners in restaurants being robbed en masse, of millions upon millions of pounds worth of property being destroyed even in the midst of Britain’s gravest financial crisis since the 30s, of kids as young as 11 exulting in the impunity of the watching police and looting to their heart’s content, of rioters being dignified as “protestors” by our state broadcaster and then given every opportunity to justify their actions as the fault of government cuts and bankers’ greed. But clearly I must have been imagining it – because if it had happened, our Government would be doing something about it.

Wouldn’t it?

Here are a few depressing signs that David Cameron and his crew neither understand the nature of the crisis engulfing Britain nor that they have the balls, the political will or even the intellectual capacity to stop it getting worse. As far as Cameron is concerned, it is all just business as usual; no, worse, a Rahm-Emanuel-style crisis/opportunity in which he can wheel out once more his discredited, Liberal Fascistic scheme for his wretched Big Society.

1.Bill Bratton. If David Cameron had wanted to do one thing – just one thing – to show he meant business, he would have overruled his useless home secretary Theresa May and appointed Bill Bratton the head of the Metropolitan Police. The reason for this is quite simple: the Met – and not just the Met but all our police forces – is institutionally crap. Blame Macpherson; blame the police’s politicisation, emasculation and transformation into a branch of the diversity/social work industry under Tony Blair, but unfortunately, the higher echelons of the police are now dominated by the kind of people who demonstrated themselves most capable of pursuing New Labour’s PC agenda. You hear about how corrupt the police was in the Seventies; but the ideological corruption now rotting it from the top down is probably worse. Only an outsider, untainted by these associations, is capable of reforming the police. Bratton is the man and Cameron’s cowardly failure to take on the senior police officers’ trade union ACPO is, though entirely in character, utterly inexcusable.

2. Louise Bagshawe/Mensch. Though not, of course, representative of the entire Tory party, she does stand quite well for a certain type of Cameroon loyalist: the type prepared to damn whatever Conservative principles are necessary in order to get on with the new detoxified, ideology-lite Conservative party. As such her response to l’affaire Starkey is a matter that should concern us all. Instead of understanding – as an MP in touch with shifting popular sentiment really should – that the riots were a game changer which rendered the old mealy-mouthed, politically-correct, eggshell-treading approach to issues like race suddenly untenable, Mensch instead resorted to the usual politician’s chicanery. By – very unfairly, on the flimsiest of evidence – accusing Starkey of racism, she sought to burnish her image as the kind of caring centrist her boss Dave would so dearly like his MPs to be seen as being. This is the kind of behaviour which makes people (rightly) despair of the political class and shows how utterly out of touch Cameron’s Conservatives still are with the national mood.

3. “Bring back National Service; etc” Desperate, truly desperate: the kind of meaningless “I will do such things — what they are yet I know not — but they shall be the terrors of the earth talk-tough do-nothing rhetoric at which Cameron excels. Here, obviously, he’s trying to court Daily Mail readers. As the comments below demonstrate, they’re just not buying it. Does anyone seriously imagine that – short of being compelled by the kind military discipline imposed on 40s and 50s National Service conscripts; up to and including the possibility that they might be sent out to fight the Chinese in Korea (or its modern equivalent Helmand) – the lairy, mouthy, I-know-my-rights street kids of modern Britain will do anything more than stick their fingers up at such a ludicrous concept? And where exactly is the money coming from to pay for the hapless people who’d have to supervise these feckless youths? When David Cameron talks this way he is exposing perhaps his least attractive quality: his inner Liberal Fascist.

4. And talking of Liberal Fascism, what about Cameron’s outrageous threat to shut down social media during civil disturbances? (Endorsed, incidentally, by his Tweeting mini-Mensch). This is just the kind of boneheaded authoritarianism which toxifies the Conservative brand. It’s like when one bad kid has done something wrong and the whole class gets punished: the class doesn’t hate the one bad kid nearly as much as it hates the overbearing authority and unjust bullying of the teacher.

5. Excessive sentencing. (See also 3 and 4 above for further examples of Liberal Fascism in action). The law-abiding public are angry, of that there’s no doubt; and what’s clear is that they don’t want the thugs and agitators responsible for last week’s outrages let off the hook. But when they want tough sentencing, they want it for people like the thugs who steamed into the Ledbury restaurant and robbed the diners at knifepoint; the kind who burned down the Reeves store in Croydon; who mowed down those three young men in Birmingham. Not for people like the student who opportunistically helped himself for £3.50 of bottled water as he passed a looted store and ended up being sentenced to 18 months in prison. Not only is that sentence going to ruin a man’s life and cost the taxpayer at least £40,000 in valuable jail space but it creates the disconcerting impression that our justice system is arbitrary, cruel and out of touch. The same goes for the idiot idea of denying social housing to convicted rioters. Yeah, that’ll really help. It will just mean we’ll have more outcasts and career criminals ending up in those boroughs that don’t operate this draconian policy. Or more crime as the evicted seek to find other ways of “paying” for their accommodation.

UPDATE

The responses to this blog post have been fantastic. Thank you! I don’t think I’ve ever been so heartened by the reaction to something I’ve written. Two things become very clear:

1. Frontline police officers, whom I respect greatly, are sick to the teeth of having to go about their work with both arms tied behind their backs by pettifogging regulation and the constant fear that they’re going to be prosecuted for doing their job. I sense that they are desperate for a police chief who will actually enable them to police rather than act as glorified social workers.

2. Most of you seem to recognise that the riots were indeed a game changer. This is an opportunity for astute politicians to reject decades of ingrained, state-enforced political correctness and actual give the people what they want. What people want is very simple: a government which secures its citizens lives, livelihoods and property rights but otherwise leaves them well alone. Furthermore, a government which does not see it as part of its function to take money from the productive sector of the economy and squander it on the feckless and workshy. Our political class (and that includes its amen corner in places like the BBC) is utterly out of touch with the needs of the people who pay its salaries and expenses. No taxation without representation. Currently we are not represented in the slightest.

To which I’d add a third:

3. The BBC has outstayed its welcome. We need a greater plurality of opinion in our broadcast media which, thanks to bien-pensant regulation, we are currently denied. Scrap the licence fee, now!

(Emphasis added -- HM.)

Sounds familiar, eh?

Active duty military comments on Ron Paul's foreign policy

From today's dailypaul.com, an active duty serviceman comments on an article in The Hill.

Ron Paul was called a "kook" today, concerning his stance on Iran, in the comment section of an article at THE HILL entitled "Ron Paul shines in Iowa; major media cheats him", Follows Sargeant Lewis' response to said comment:


I am a Sergeant in the U.S. Army. I support Ron Paul and I support his foreign policy. I am sure you would not dare call me a Paultard to my face.


No, you would give me the same parroted line I hear 100 times a day, "Thank you for your service". When I hear some flabby couch potato like you say that to me it makes me sick. Yes, I serve our country, but our wars do not.


I do my best to keep my men alive while we carry out this sick policy of sticking our noses in other peoples business. When was the last time you had a friend die in your arms or look for the leg that was just blown off of the man next to you? When was the last time you walked past dead children that were killed by U.S. weapons? I'm glad you can sleep at night, because many times I cannot. I have children myself you self righteous SOB. If someone killed my children you can bet I would do everything in my power to seek revenge.


You dare call me rabid and blind? I know what I am talking about. Why don't you grab a gun and head to Iran if you want to fight them so much. Ron Paul is right. They are no threat to us. We need to mind our own business. They hate us not because we are rich and free, they hate us because we are in their countries.


It is people like you that are the biggest threat to this country, not Iran.


BY SgtLewis on 08/16/2011 at 11:06

Jon Stewart points out media hypocrisy on Ron Paul

The Daily Show With Jon StewartMon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2012 - Corn Polled Edition - Ron Paul & the Top Tier
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Cartoons of the Day, 8/16



Can Perry improve the image of Southern whites? The cards are stacked against him.


The title of the article below threw me off, and so I added the word "anti" in the title to make it clear.  The main subject of the article is no surprise. The MSM and Northern liberals, perhaps northerners in general hate white southerners and demean us all they are able. 

 

Now we've got Rick "Secession" Perry as a potential GOP frontrunner. Can he help our image "problem" caused by 150-year-old institutionalized anti-Southern bias? 

 

I doubt it.  In addition, Perry is no secessionist.  When he used the "S" word at the rally in Texas back when running for re-election, he was attempting to break Debra Medina's surging candidacy for GOP nomination.  Debra Medina is the real deal in Texas; Perry is a neocon Statist wolf in tea party sheep's clothing, and a political opportunist.  Ron Paul is the only person to support for the GOP nomination.


-------------------------------------------

 

Perry Should Have a Plan against [anti--HM]Southern Bigotry


by Jason Bradley  BigGovernment at Breitbart.com
I know that not all of our readers here are Southerners. However, I am not writing to pick a fight, nor will I go into some boring rehash on the Civil War. I simply want to address a phenomenon that permeates throughout our society. That is, the totally acceptable bigotry towards those who are from the South and sound like they are from the South.
I recall watching a debate between Karl Rove and James Carville. Rove made the statement that one Bush’s biggest obstacles was that he was a Texan, who spoke like a Texan. He said there was a real disdain in certain parts of our country for the kind of accent Bush had. Carville jumped quickly to point out that Clinton was from Arkansas and had his own accent. I don’t remember Rove’s rebuttal to that point but it was a weak one. What he should have said was that Clinton was forgiven of his curse because 1). He believed in late-term abortion, 2). He had an extra-marital affair(s), and 3). He was a liberal Democrat.
39baa62137909df3b816220f8b8a0e0e Rick Perrys Confederate past
But, those in the South who are conservative and Republican have no chance at recompense, especially those who actually seek the presidency of a nation their ancestors fought against. A Southern accent is all the smoke needed for the liberal establishment to light the fire. Because, from the windows of their limousines, where there is a Southern accent, there is racism, sexism, backwardness and Right-wing extremism. It means fire hoses and police dogs. Of course, the pinky-in-the-air northern liberals cannot directly attribute these negative images to any modern Southern Republican; though you can’t say the same thing about Democrats, Southern or otherwise. It only needs to be associated and the liberal press will do the rest. You’ll remember Joe Wilson’s outburst to Obama. The now infamous, “You Lie!” It didn’t matter that Obama was in fact lying. Joe Wilson is from South Carolina and a Republican to boot. He has no right to challenge President Obama: a self-proclaimed black American and a very liberal Democrat.
Surrounded by middle-aged white guys — a sepia snapshot of the days when such pols ran Washington like their own men’s club — Joe Wilson yelled “You lie!” at a president who didn’t.
But, fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air: You lie, boy!
The outburst was unexpected from a milquetoast Republican backbencher from South Carolina who had attracted little media attention. Now it has made him an overnight right-wing hero, inspiring “You lie!” bumper stickers and T-shirts.
The congressman, we learned, belonged to the Sons of Confederate Veterans, led a 2000 campaign to keep the Confederate flag waving above South Carolina’s state Capitol and denounced as a “smear” the true claim of a black woman that she was the daughter of Strom Thurmond, the ’48 segregationist candidate for president. Wilson clearly did not like being lectured and even rebuked by the brainy black president presiding over the majestic chamber.
It is true that the South is a chauvinist society with its own history – good and bad. There is a ready supply of Marlboro, Skoal, and Budweiser – don’t forget church. It is male-dominated, chivalrous, and the honor code still exists. Only instead of dueling – though that hasn’t entirely died out – there are fist fights and a high degree of male-on-male violence. It is a land where many men still build their own homes. It is a pride thing and generates respect. My dad built our home back in Louisiana. It’s still there. My best friend is currently building his, too; in fact, just a few miles away. It’s rural and traditional. It is culturally defined and guarded. It is Southern culture; therefore, the people there makeup the Southern race.
For those who do not live there often criticize these qualities. It seems alien and soo last century. They resent the fact that it has remained, to some degree, insular and its identity unaffected by increasing centralization, political correctness, and the cosmopolitan trends of late. However, these things make the South the nation’s warrior class. It is because of these defining attributes that allows the South to man our armies and be more productive despite making considerably less than its unionized counterparts.  It is a land of free labor, with right to work laws, and low taxes.
This scorn must be because we don’t contribute to the country’s greater good then. But35% of active-duty military come from the south. Of the US troop casualties in Afghanistan, 47% were from the south, and from Iraq, 38% (Deep prejudice about the deep south).
Ann Coulter put it this way about Southern heritage:
Liberals love to cluck their tongues at such admiration for the military — which they consider a redneck trait, almost as bad as slavery itself. The military ethic of the South does place a premium on fighting, fraternity-like rituals, respect for authority, chivalry and virulent patriotism. But whether that ethic is your cup of tea or not, it was disproportionately Southerners — some wearing Confederate battle flags under their uniforms — who formed the backbone of the military that threw back Adolf Hitler.
Pride in being good fighters is not an endorsement of slavery.
With all that being said, ridicule for Southern whites, especially poor Southern whites, “are the only ethnic group in the country that it is permissible to mock in polite company.” And it makes for great fun, too!
This “acceptable prejudice” is told from a Liberal’s perspective.
Liberal prejudices are against three related groups: evangelicals, whom we do not give the respect of other religious groups; Southerners, whom we hold guilty of uniquely wicked views and behavior, as well as stupidity, evangelicalism and talking funny; Texans, we say, combine the wickedness and corn pone dialect of Southerners with diabolical evils all their own. Since evangelicals in our own back yard tend to be invisible to us, let’s sum all of this up as a single bigotry, the prejudice of regionalism.
So instead of hearing and reading about Perry’s record as governor of Texas, and his appealingeconomic philosophy, voters will get a tour de force from the liberal establishment on Perry’s views of states’ rights, gay marriage, civil rights, welfare, religion and abortion. After all, aside from his accomplishments in Texas, his record is quintessentially conservative and rural. Smaller-government, less taxes and spending, personal responsibility, competition and “do more with what you have” are anathema to the liberal elite that run our bankrupt cities and dilapidated schools. There are no good answers that Perry can offer to any of those questions without sounding like a conservative regionalists and extremists. That will be the plan from the start. He can’t use “compassionate conservative” as Bush did to derail the attacks on Southern stereotypes. Perry will be contested at every turn as he works to spread his voting appeal outside of a region that so many powerful figures hate.
So remember that when the campaign against Perry and the South kicks off: These people are not interested in getting America back to work and making it strong and vibrant again. They are only interested in recreating it in their image. And people like Perry, and those who vote him are not a part of that image. This will not be an ordinary campaign for Perry as he will soon discover. He’ll have to promote his record while fending off a demented fifth-column of howling goons that is set aside specifically for candidates like him or Palin.
I have a feeling that the stench liberals plan to stir up in 2012 will reflect the health of our so-called “United” States.

15 August 2011

Armies of empire impoverish the people

Turning your country into an empire burns out the people, the wealth, the productive part that made your country great in the first place.  It happened to England, Rome, and now to US.

The old Conservatives like Robert Taft and Ron Paul support non-intervention.  The administration and MSM will scream that this approach is passivity and invites aggression.

Non-intervention means don't meddle in the affairs of others. It absolutely doesn't mean don't defend yourself. It's kind of like what you teach your son: Don't start fights, but if one is started with you, you kick the crap out of the other kid and end it.

Non-intervention doesn't mean go back to the time without a standing army. Shrink the army, make it efficient, improve the technology for the smaller army.

Non-intervention means that the neocon "Bush doctrine" of pre-emptive war, which I wholeheartedly supported at the time of the Iraq invasion, is stupid. Iraq and Afghanistan were touted as a way to make us safer, but what did it get us?

Blowback, "in country".
Fascist anticonstitutional crap at home, worst loss of Liberty since 1865.


1. A bunch of dead tangoes that might never have left their hometowns if we weren't in their country. How would you react to armed occupation of your land?


2. We now have a standing army on home soil. Posse commitatus has been chucked out the window. SWAT raids for raw milk dairies and manufacturers of gold and silver coins, no knock raids, militarized and federalized local police. FEMA camps, gun confiscations of Katrina, cutting off more and more pieces of the constitution.  No money, and yet they make bigger and bigger plans.


3. The TSA; nuff said.


4. Director of National Intelligence, supposedly the head of 16 intelligence agencies. Their lens pointed inward and outward, not limiting themselves to muslim militants. Defense department hits at patriot, tenther, threeper, and Southern nationalist websites.


All this in a more than bankrupt nation, with a terribly eroded manufacturing base, and a paralyzed entrepeneurial system.


And yet the Neocons and Tea Party neocons of the dead elephant society, even as they push their kids and grandkids deeper into poverty still crow:


Illustration via zerohedge.com, williambanzai7

Gun Control: Lessons from European Violence

Verbatim post, Mises.org daily

The recent outbreaks of indiscriminate violence in Europe highlight a disturbing trend of decivilization throughout Western society. Pundits and "experts" weave countless theories to try to explain what's happening. Some sound plausible enough, but only those of us who understand sound economic theory have the tools to decipher the meaning of these current events. Those who use these tools will discover that the state has not only caused this turmoil directly in various ways (via welfarism, militarism, inflation, state schooling, and more), but it is also preventing people from defending themselves and their property. I am referring, of course, to gun-control laws.

England

First we'll consider the riots that erupted across England last week. Vandals and looters were wantonly destroying property, committing arson, stealing goods from stores, and mugging passersby. Innocent people were rightfully scared for their well-being, especially since the police are evidently too inept to stop any of this. One reporter, after being mugged and beaten, called the authorities only to be told to "go home."

It should hardly be surprising people are so defenseless. As of 2007, England, Wales, and Scotland ranked below nearly every other developed country in terms of private firearm possession.Download PDF British gun-control laws can only be described as draconian. The 1997 Firearms Act all but banned handguns from private ownership. (Interestingly, this legislation was not applied to Northern Ireland, where gun ownership is far more widespread.) All "legal" firearms require a state-issued license to possess. License holders must report their firearms purchases to the police and renew their licenses every few years. Local police precincts can impose additional restrictions on gun ownership within their turf. Police have the power to revoke the license if they suspect the license holder has violated their rules.
"Those of us familiar with Misesian theory know that the state will always tend to respond to the disastrous consequences of intervention with even more intervention."
All of these hurdles and red tape significantly raise the cost of purchasing and possessing a firearm. On the margins, we should expect this to lead to less firearm ownership and fewer means for innocent people to defend themselves and their families.

In the wake of the recent violence, British property owners have had to resort to alternative means of self-defense. Amazon.co.uk reported that baton and aluminum baseball bat sales soared over 5,000 percent overnight on the third day of the riots. One customer wrote the following review:
This bat is perfectly weighted and will suit any UK shop-owner looking to protect their property. Thanks to the ergonomic handle, one easy swing should be enough to shatter patellas, skulls or any other bone on your targeted looter. Personally, I would recommend also investing in some fingerless gloves for extra grip.
Another point to be made about the debacle in England involves the murder that triggered all this. A 29-year-old man named Mark Duggan was shot and killed by agents of the state on August 4th, 2011, in Tottenham, where the riots began soon afterward. Police quickly accused the victim of firing at them, but the Independent Police Complaints Commission reported on August 10th that there exists no evidence that the victim's gun found at the scene had been fired at all.

Maybe police would be less inclined to murder citizens in cold blood if they were facing an armed populace.

Norway

Perhaps not surprisingly, Norway is also a bastion of gun-control fanaticism, although gun ownership is far more prevalent among Norwegians than among Brits. (Gun ownership in both countries is far lower than in the United States.) Norwegian laws ban all automatic weapons. Handguns are only allowed if they are a certain caliber, and there are restrictions on the types and quantities of ammunition one can buy. Concealed carry is illegal. As is sadly the norm in our world, all would-be gun owners must first apply for licenses, which are normally granted only to hunters and professional shooters. If you are lucky enough to be granted a license, police are allowed to inspect your home to check if your firearms are properly stored.
"If even a single camp counselor had a firearm, perhaps the tragedy would have ended differently."
 
As we all know, these laws did nothing to stop Anders Behring Breivik from massacring 69 people on the tiny island of Utøya. In fact, if even a single camp counselor had a firearm, perhaps the tragedy would have ended differently. It is mind-boggling to me that the organizers of a youth camp taking place in the wilderness had no means of defending the children. That is the height of irresponsibility. Is it any surprise the camp was organized by the country's left-wing Labor Party?

Once again, the agents of the state proved their own incompetence. Police didn't arrive on Utøya until an hour after the maniac started his slaughter. This is what happens when the police are given a de facto monopoly on gun ownership.

Those of us familiar with Misesian theory know that the state will always tend to respond to the disastrous consequences of intervention with even more intervention. As if trying to prove Mises right, Finnish politicians quickly announced following the Norway attacks that they will accelerate the imposition of stricter gun-control policies in Finland. These new rules will make handguns less accessible, raise age requirements, and force gun license applicants to undergo "testing for their suitability." The politicians are no doubt promising these laws will make people safer. Adherents of Rockwell's law, on the other hand, will know exactly what to expect.

Conclusion

The state of Western society is clearly worsening. As individuals and governments drown in debt, economic growth will remain stagnant at best. The dependent classes of society will see their standard of living rapidly deteriorate as the crisis unfolds. If history is any indicator, crime waves and social unrest won't be far behind. We're already seeing the start of this in places like England and Norway, where gun restrictions encourage violence, destruction, and looting. The primary lesson to take away from this is the importance of having a means of protecting yourself and your loved ones in these times of panic and uncertainty.