Are we still sovereign over our lives, or now subjects?

If the current United States cannot be politically reformed within the current system, as the Tea Party hopes, can the South, or the South and West (red states), separate and form a new Confederation of States, leaving the current forced National entity?  

Your school teachers, college professors, journalists, and "mainstream" politicians will tell you: "No! The Civil War ended all of that.  It is dead and buried.  Get over it..." or words to that effect.


Does that make sense when the reasons to nullify, and when necessary, secede, are compelling and even urgent?  Of course not.

If the winning side in a war said the Moon was made of cheese instead of rock and dust, it wouldn't alter the facts.  Eventually, the truth will cause someone to stand up and declare that the moon is made of rock and dust.   

Since 1865, our public schools have been teaching us that the moon is made of cheese. 

A government that was oppressive and heavy handed to white Southerners since 1865 has now become oppressive and heavy handed to all tax payers (and the left should be very pleased with how equal we all have become:  we are all being economically raped by the federal government regardless of race, sex, creed, religion, or sexual orientation).  Every year our salaries remain the same, our dollar purchases less, and the government obligates us to more collective debt.

My ancestors came here to be left alone and take care of themselves.  They came because there was no lord or master to limit their opportunities.

I want no different for myself and my family.  

If the government, by their laws, wants to confiscate property and give it to other people who didn't earn it, the government is unjust.  If they consciously or unconsciously destroy any chance I have to be prosperous, are they not as bad, or worse than George III and Lord North?

I want my Natural rights to life, liberty, and property protected by my government.  That is the only proper mandate that government has, if the government is truly "of the people, by the people, and for the people." (Lying bastard Lincoln) 

If the government doesn't protect those rights, of what purpose is government?

Are we free or aren't we? Do we rule, as per our Founders rhetoric, or have we become slaves of an oligarchy?
 

The cynical would contend that the people have always been subjects in this country, and that our so-called sovereignty has always been an illusion.  

This may be true, but in addressing the situation that confronts our generation, I hold that we have become slaves.  

We are slaves to those who tax us, 

We are slaves to those individuals in this country to whom the nanny state caters (Giving charity is voluntary individual choice vs. supporting welfare by confiscated wealth) 

We are slaves to those industries and private businesses subsidized by government funds and financial slight of hand.  

We are slaves to the whims of a nonrepresentative unconstitutional national legislature ("Are you serious? Are you serious?").

We are slaves to the Federal Reserve, that steals and counterfeits our wealth and our children's inheritance with impunity.

We are slaves to unimaginable unauthorized collective debt incurred by our National government.

So now must fall back on the words of Thomas Jefferson, for we have no other choice:

"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Quote of the Day 2/16

All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.

Ludwig von Mises

Your taxes will pay for TSA Union dues

...and every TSA worker, once in this union, will be dis-incentivized to improve performance on the job.

So let me get this straight...They dont improve security, they violate our 4th amendment rights, they touch our wives and children inappropriately, we pay their salary involuntarily, and now we will pay for their Unionization (so that they can be even more surly than before)?

WTF?

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

 

"On Feb. 4, the [Obama] administration gave TSA officials the right to unionize the agency’s work force, which previously had been waived “in light of their critical national security responsibilities.” This means that if TSA officers vote for it, up to 50,000 new union members will be paying hefty union dues - possibly $30 million annually, with the bill paid by taxpayers - for on-the-job conveniences and greater job security.

For travelers, that likely will lead to longer lines and even less responsive officials, who will feel secure in the knowledge that it’s ridiculously difficult to fire a unionized government employee. For taxpayers, it will mean paying more for the annoying status quo as the TSA employees become subject to union contracts that impose politicized, escalating pay scales that rely more on seniority and bureaucratic job-title classifications than on performance."

Commentary from the Washington Times

So, which is it, Israel? Get your story straight

Netanyahu and his new Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces quoted today:

AFP - The Israeli military is "ready for all eventualities" as the Arab and Muslim world undergoes "an earthquake," Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday just days after Egypt's regime collapsed.

"An earthquake is shaking the whole Arab world and a large part of the Muslim world and we don't yet know how these things will turn out," the premier said at a swearing-in ceremony for new army chief Major General Benny Gantz.

Tsk, Tsk...politicians...

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

Another Israeli website known for behind the scenes military analysis, debka.com:

"Friday night, Feb. 11, as Cairo's Tahrir Square rejoiced over Hosni Mubarak exit, Israel counted the cost of losing its most important strategic partner in the region.
Thirty-two years of peace with Egypt leave Israel militarily unprepared for the unknown and unexpected on their 270-kilometer long southern border: the current generation of Israeli combatants and commanders has no experience of desert combat, its armor is tailored for operation on its most hostile fronts: Iran, Lebanon's Hizballah and Syria; it is short of  intelligence on the Egyptian army and its commanders and, above all, no clue to the new rulers' intentions regarding Cairo's future relations with Israel and security on their Sinai border."

[But other than that, Israel's military is "ready for all eventualities"...-HM]

"The Israeli Defense Forces are trained and equipped to confront Iran and fight on the mountainous terrain of Lebanon and Syria. After signing peace with Egypt in 1979, Israel scrapped the combat brigades trained for desert warfare, whose last battle was fought in the 1973 war, and stopped treating the Egyptian army as a target of military intelligence. Israel's high command consequently knows little or nothing about any field commanders who might lead units if they were to be deployed in Sinai."

Si vis pacem para bellum, General Gantz...

Quote of the Day 2/15

"The people of Carolina believe that the Union is a union of States, and not of individuals; 


that it was formed by the States, and that the citizens of the several States were bound to it through the acts of their several States; 


that each State ratified the Constitution for itself, and that it was only by such ratification of a State that any obligation was imposed upon its citizens. 


Thus believing, it is the opinion of the people of Carolina that it belongs to the State which has imposed the obligation to declare, in the last resort, the extent of this obligation, as far as her citizens are concerned; and this upon the plain principles which exist in all analogous cases of compact between sovereign bodies."

  John C. Calhoun,
  "On Nullification and the Force Bill."
  U.S. Senate,
  15 February 1833

WMD in San Diego?

Real slip of the tongue or premeditated false flag to spread fear among the sheeple?  You decide.

This date in history: Virginia convened it's State Convention to consider secession

Gov. Henry A. Wise of Virginia, favored secession

"The hall of Mechanics’ Institute in Richmond, the largest available venue in the city, was jammed. Delegates from around a state that then included Appalachian counties to the west assembled. Public galleries, one for women, one for men. were packed.

There was a hum of excitement, but also an air of dread as, 150 years ago today, delegates to the Virginia State Convention gathered to consider whether or not to break away from the United States of America.

At first, there was every reason to believe they would not. 

... [Governor Wise] and the other radicals called for a vote and on April 4 were soundly whipped. The first secession attempt was defeated 90 to 45.

But that was to change only eight days later. On April 12, Confederate batteries in Charleston opened fire on Fort Sumter, forcing the evacuation of federal forces. Though no one was killed, the country was suddenly at war.

Still desperate for peace, the convention on April 15 sent a three-member delegation to meet with Lincoln. He was curt with them, and no wonder. He was about to call up 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion, including recruits from still-loyal border states.

That did it. White southerners against white southerners? The delegates to the convention – still in session – stampeded to the secessionist side."

http://hamptonroads.com/2011/02/first-virginians-had-been-reluctant-secede

Quote of the Day 2/14

"Until today nothing was ever thought of sacrificing to our country's wrongs. For six months we had worked to capture, but our cause being almost lost, something decisive and great must be done. But its failure was owing to others, who did not strike for their country with a heart. I struck boldly, and not as the papers say. I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. A colonel was at his side. I shouted Sic semper before I fired. In jumping broke my leg. I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night with the bone of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump. I can never repent it, though we hated to kill. Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment. The country is not what it was. This forced Union is not what I have loved. I care not what becomes of me. I have no desire to outlive my country. The night before the deed I wrote a long article and left it for one of the editors of the National Intelligencer, in which I fully set forth our reasons for our proceedings. He or the gov'r-

After being hunted like a dog through swamps, woods, and last night being chased by gunboats till I was forced to return wet, cold, and starving, with every man's hand against me, I am here in despair. And why? For doing what Brutus was honored for. What made Tell a hero? And yet I, for striking down a greater tyrant than they ever knew, am looked upon as a common cutthroat. My action was purer than either of theirs. One hoped to be great himself. The other had not only his country's but his own, wrongs to avenge. I hoped for no gain. I knew no private wrong. I struck for my country and that alone. A country that groaned beneath this tyranny, and prayed for this end, and yet now behold the cold hands they extend to me. God cannot pardon me if I have done wrong. Yet I cannot see my wrong, except in serving a degenerate people. The little, the very little, I left behind to clear my name, the Government will not allow to be printed. So ends all. For my country I have given up all that makes life sweet and holy, brought misery upon my family, and am sure there is no pardon in the Heaven for me, since man condemns me so. I have only heard of what has been done (except what I did myself), and it fills me with horror. God, try and forgive me, and bless my mother. Tonight I will once more try the river with the intent to cross. Though I have a greater desire and almost a mind to return to Washington, and in a measure clear my name - which I feel I can do. I do not repent the blow I struck. I may before my God, but not to man. I think I have done well. Though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me, when, if the world knew my heart, that one blow would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness. Tonight I try to escape these bloodhounds once more. Who, who can read his fate? God's will be done. I have too great a soul to die like a criminal. Oh, may He, may He spare me that, and let me die bravely. I bless the entire world. Have never hated or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so, and it's with Him to damn or bless me. As for this brave boy with me, who often prays (yes, before and since) with a true and sincere heart - was it crime in him? If so, why can he pray the same?

I do not wish to shed a drop of blood, but 'I must fight the course.' 'Tis all that's left to me."

Last diary entry of John Wilkes Booth, April 1865.

Constitutional Conservative on the National Stage

If there is to be any hope left by working within the current system, it will come from men like Rand Paul.  I pray he will not fall prey to the corrupting influences in the District of Confiscation.

Libertarianism burns at the core of most American souls--anyone who feels they deserve to keep what they earn, anyone who doesnt want a bunch of guys in black without a warrant breaking down their door at 4 am (getting the wrong house, of course), anyone who wants better for their kids than what they had.

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul at the CPAC conference:

Before you vote, pin down your state legislator -- where are they on the Tenth Amendment?

...and make sure they know your vote is awarded or denied based on their answer.

Recurring themes of this blog, just as relevant now as in the 1830's:

"At the core of the debate was the clash between two distinct theories of the Constitution:  the nationalists view of a single sovereign people, a modern unitary state were power comes from a central authority, or the compact theorists who believe the United States  had been formed when the thirteen original states each acting in its own sovereign capacity ratified the Constitution through STATE ratifying conventions rather than some single American people.

Senator Daniel Webster argued that upon entering the Union, states surrender certain powers to the general government and that the general government itself is the final arbiter of their power.  However, Senators Calhoun, Haynes and Rowan argued that the states never surrendered, but delegated power to the general government and one does not delegate to a greater authority, but to a lesser one.  And the general government is not the final arbiter of its own powers “since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers” and that “each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well as infractions, as of the make and measure of redress”. 

Tenth Amendment Center Blog

Do Egyptians want Democracy? No! They want Liberty!

"I keep hearing all the talking heads say that Egyptians want democracy. That is a load of crap. Egyptians want liberty. Big difference. But they want more than liberty. There are over 80 million people in Egypt. Over 50% of them are below 30 years of age. At least 75% of those people are unemployed, barely surviving. They want to move forward economically.


Unfortunately, prosperity is not in Egypt’s future any time soon. Egypt cannot feed its own population at this time, and has been the largest buyer of American wheat for decades. Although think about it. Is that because they do not have enough arable land, or because a corrupt government has mismanaged the Egyptian agriculture for 30-plus years? And with a weak manufacturing base, it’s going to be a long time before the economy begins to rise out of the pitiful Third-World status it presently holds. Tourism represents 8% of the Egyptian economy and tourism will be directly affected by ongoing political turmoil. And without free-market reforms, the Egyptian economy is slated for more of the same."

Read the rest at Secession University

Surgery yesterday, be back soon...

Nothing serious, but knocked for a loop yesterday and today.

Washington Post columnist smears Southerners, Ron Paul, Tom DiLorenzo

 ...You may be thinking "So what else is new?"

Dana Milbank is a columnist and author of the rabid progressive tribe that dwells in Washington DC. He known for bashing Glenn Beck and the Bush Administration, and formerly worked at the New Republic magazine. He is also a graduate of Yale and a member of the secretive Yale Skull and Bones society.  Skull and Bones members have traditionally been members of the oligarchy of the United States.  He was also a member of Trumbull College, the Yale Progressive Party.


So it's not surprising that Mr. Milbank has a certain agenda, every time he puts pen to paper or opens his mouth (as I do, on the opposite side of the Constitutional coin, ;-)).  

Thing is, Milbank is not fair and he is not interested in objective journalism.  I operate under the delusion that I am fair and rational.  He is a polemic of the Olbermann type.

Milbank posted a new column in yesterday evening's edition of the Washington Post.  He expended several hundred words ridiculing Rep. Ron Paul, Tom DiLorenzo of the Mises Institute, the League of the South, and by association, anyone who advances the cause of fiscal responsibility and sound money.


How did he smear Ron Paul and Tom DiLorenzo?  The title of his piece commemorating Paul's assumption of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy was:  "Ron Paul's economic Rx: a Southern secessionist."


Rep. Paul chose Tom DiLorenzo, a Lincoln historical revisionist, economic historian, and adherent to the Austrian School of economics, to be the first to testify about the current state of Domestic Monetary Policy.

Rep. Paul, who is known for his protection of civil liberties and adherence to the Constitution, is brushed off as a gadfly.  Milbank then spends several paragraphs attacking DiLorenzo.


Milbank is not interested in the substance Mr. DiLorenzo's testimony.  He focuses solely on DiLorenzo's association with the League of the South and his historical revisionism of Abraham Lincoln.  


Vilification of all things Southern predates Mr. Milbank for 150 years (at least). So Milbank only feels obligated to list DiLorenzo's associations with the League and DumpDC.org to imply to his readership DiLorenzo is inappropriate to be a witness before Congress. Milbank also implies that because DiLorenzo was chosen by Ron Paul as the lead off witness, Ron Paul is a weak-minded choice to head the important Subcommittee.


I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the WaPo, a known shill organ of Statism and federal expansion, would feature a writer like Mr. Milbank, Skull and Crossbones Yalie Progressive blowhard.


The article pushed too many of my buttons to be ignored.


Progressives like Milbank are maddening for many reasons.  They don't understand the economic effect of their ideas and policies.  In their youth, their goal is to do "good" for "society" or one's "fellow man".  Later, as they gain cynicism and experience in government, they consciously or unconsciously work to expand the size of the State. They are not conscious that their policies of "fairness", so adroitly explained in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged and Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, require a creep towards totalitarianism to accomplish their goals.  The large coercive State that they create in their quixotic quest for a fair and equal society only ends up in (our present) unjust society of legal plunder, redistribution of wealth, and diminished Liberty.


And now it is time for my Southern rant:


These people, these Yankees, will never ever stop vilifying the good people of the South.  If you look in the dictionary under "Yankee", there is a picture of Dana Milbank there.

It has been145 years since all slaves were freed. Anyone standing up for the South, anyone proud of their Southern heritage and culture is a "secessionist." Perhaps you've heard Progressive Yankees like Milbank lump Southerners as mad murderous racist Klansmen who cannot wait for slavery days to return, or lurk about ready to lynch any African American, or who spend their waking hours raising their stupid ignorant children on hatred.  

It does not enter the mind of the Yankee that Southerners are a kind generous people, infused with Christian charity, and the backbone of our military.  It does not enter their mind that slavery persists in their minds only to diminish the Southerner.  We have left slavery far behind us.  We seek only to preserve our culture that we treasure.  


The Yankee/Progressive cries tears over endangered species, endangered cultures, lost civilizations, and genocides the world over.  They forget that the destruction of the native American populations, language and culture was a systematic sustained effort by their ideological forebears.  

Are they conscious they have sustained a successful 150 year campaign at cultural/ethnic cleansing and political disenfranchisement against Southerners?  


Every time the Progressive laughs at the mainstream media portrayal of the Southern man as stupid and ignorant, every time the Progressive snickers smugly at the efforts of ridiculing Southerners trying to preserve what little of their culture remains, they become what they claim to despise: an oppressor.  


Mr. Milbank preaches to his choir in his article.  

In his dismissal of Austrian economic policy, he ignores a viable alternative economic theory as our entire economy is on the brink of catastrophe.  

In his dismissal of DiLorenzo and Paul, he ignores the substance of their argument or that they have anything to contribute.  

In his attempt to diminish and defame Mr. DiLorenzo because of his past association with Southern heritage organizations, he denigrates and alienates Southerners.  In so doing he also actively participates in ethnocide, a crime against humanity, and appears to do so intentionally.

Where can I get a stamp like this?  Mr. Milbank, you've inspired me!

Quote of the Day 2/10

Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things.

Russell Baker

The .gov sics their IRS dogs on TL Davis

"I just had an intimidation meeting with my local IRS agent. He is looking to put me in jail for failure to pay Social Security Taxes for the past two years totaling some $20,000 over the period of 2008-2010. I wondered why the Social Security Administration continued to hit the Guardians of Liberty website so long after all of the other Feds had left, now I know why.

...This is the thug way of doing business, I have seen it before, but when they take it to the next level by sending an Agent into my office over a two-to-three-year-old issue that has long since been resolved, it has escalated to a point where I want more people involved in understanding the issue than to be left out here in the cold of isolation where they can do whatever they want without so much as a peep. Those days, hopefully, are over."
http://tlinexile.blogspot.com/2011/02/was-it-something-i-said-wrote.html

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

From The State versus Liberty, by Murray Rothbard:

"For there is one crucially important power inherent in the nature of the State apparatus.

 

All other persons and groups in society (except for acknowledged and sporadic criminals such as thieves and bank robbers) obtain their income voluntarily: either by selling goods and services to the consuming public, or by voluntary gift (e.g., membership in a club or association, bequest, or inheritance).  

Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion, by threatening dire penalties should the income not be forthcoming. That coercion is known as "taxation," although in less regularized epochs it was often known as "tribute." Taxation is theft, purely and simply, even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State's inhabitants, or subjects."

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

Bastards.

Sherrif Mack on local supremacy over federal

Richard Mack says – “Ask your sheriff: Will you uphold and defend the Constitution and protect it from all enemies – foreign and domestic?”

http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/

Arizona nullification efforts, local news

From the Verde Independent

PHOENIX -- A new proposal at the Arizona Legislature will take the state's fight with the feds to a whole new level: It would let the state actually nullify federal laws that legislators believe are invalid.

The measure crafted by Sen. Lori Klein, R-Anthem, would set up a committee of 12 lawmakers to review federal laws and regulations to determine which are "outside the scope of the powers delegated by the people to the federal in the United States Constitution.'

A majority vote that Congress or a federal agency exceeded its authority would trigger an automatic referral to the Legislature which would have 60 days to make a final decision. Ratification of the panel's recommendation would mean the state and its residents "shall not recognize or be obligated to live under the statute, mandate or executive order.'

But Klein said SB 1433 is not challenging the fact that Arizona is part of the United States, at least not exactly.

"We're not seceding,' she said. "We're looking at nullifying laws coming from the federal government that are mandates that are not constitutional.'

Quote of the Day 2/9

Madison on why the Supreme Court cannot be the final arbiter of the limits of power of the Federal Government:

"No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity."

James Madison

Gonzalo Lira: Inflation picking up speed, heading for hyperinflation

"Therefore, I am confident in predicting the following sequence of events: 

• By March of 2011, once higher commodity prices reach the marketplace, monthly CPI [Consumer Price Index} will be at an annualized rate of not less than 5%. 

• By July of 2011, annualized CPI will be no less than 8% annualized. 

• By October of 2011, annualized CPI will have crossed 10%. 

• By March of 2012, annualized CPI will cross the hyperinflationary tipping point of 15%. 

After that, CPI will rapidly increase, much like it did in 1980. 

Fucking ballsy! or, Fucking crazy!—You decide. 

How do these predictions stack up so far?"

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

Read the rest

Stock up on essentials, convert as much savings as you can to physical metal or items needed for consumption or barter. You have just over a year, maybe 2 years.  Weimar coming to a street near you.

Just paper after all...value based on faith

Lew Rockwell essay on Egypt uprising picked up by English Al Jazeera.

"What has sparked the uprising? There are economic considerations, of course. A good rate of inflation in Egypt is considered to be 10%, and currency depreciation works as a massive punishment against savings and capital accumulation. Unemployment is high, about the same rate as the US, but is even higher for young people who are worried about the future.

Economic growth has been much better in the last decades thanks to economic reforms, but this tendency (as in the old Soviet bloc) has only worked to create rising expectations and more demands for freedom. It remains a fact that nearly half the population lives in terrifying poverty.

The core of the problem, it appears, relates to civil liberties and the very old-fashioned conviction that the country is ruled by a tyrant who must go. Mubarak tolerates no challenges to his martial-law rule. There are tens of thousands of political prisoners in the country, and it is easy to get arrested and tortured simply by calling the dictator names. The press is censored, opposition groups are suppressed, and corruption runs rampant. Mubarak's will to power has known no bounds: he chooses all the country's elites based solely on personal loyalty to himself."

Full article here

I agree with all of Mr. Rockwell's major points in the article.

I am deeply skeptical of the long term positives for the majority of people of Egypt.  

I believe, perhaps incorrectly, that Arab society tends toward autocracy and absolutism.  That is the history of the region;  that is the history of the religion and culture.  Odds are that a dictator of sorts will rise in a short period of time, backed by old or new oligarchs behind the scenes, and the common people will be right back where they started.

Any new regime is unlikely to adopt a low tax laissez faire economic stance that might maximize Egyptian prosperity.

The demographic threat of religious and radical Islamists to secularism in the Egypt parallels the demographic threat of muslims in Christian Europe.  

The rise of the Moslem Brotherhood is a threat to regional stability;  the group loves the Camp David accord not at all, the "Zionists" even less.  

The Brotherhood gave rise to Hamas in Gaza, and fostered Ayman al-Zawahiri of Al Qaida in his youth. The Coptic Christian minority in Egypt would be in a more tenuous position with the Brotherhood in control of the country.  The leadership of the Brotherhood stated that they would impose Sharia law in Egypt, "if the people will it".

We will have to wait and see how it all unfolds.  It inspires one to see a people rise to throw off a yoke of oppression.

Who will lead Egypt in the future?  

Who indeed:

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around me
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Pete Townshend, 1971, Won't get fooled again

Quote of the Day 2/8

History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. 

The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy... 

These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened.

Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, Circa 1774

Rand Paul in WSJ; Misesian one-two punch with Woods' Rollback

Rand Paul (the only candidate to whom I sent contributions in 2010, even though I am not a Kentuckian) proposes the beginnings of a Rollback of the Federal Leviathan.

From the Wall Street Journal, a new generation of Paul leadership has "arrived":

My proposal would first roll back almost all federal spending to 2008 levels, then initiate reductions at various levels nearly across the board. Cuts to the Departments of Agriculture and Transportation would create over $42 billion in savings each, while cuts to the Departments of Energy and Housing and Urban Development would save about $50 billion each. Removing education from the federal government's jurisdiction would create almost $80 billion in savings alone. Add to that my proposed reductions in international aid, the Departments of Health and Human Services, Homeland Security and other federal agencies, and we arrive at over $500 billion.

My proposal, not surprisingly, has been greeted skeptically in Washington, where serious spending cuts are a rarity. But it is a modest proposal when measured against the size of our mounting debt. It would keep 85% of our government funding in place and not touch Social Security or Medicare. But by reducing wasteful spending and shuttering departments that are beyond the constitutional role of the federal government, such as the Department of Education, we can cut nearly 40% of our projected deficit and at the same time remove thousands of big-government bureaucrats who stand in the way of efficiency."

Quote of the Day 2/7

But the indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the RIGHT, but in the HEART. 

If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it !) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, when the fraternal spirit shall give way to cold indifference, or collision of interests shall fester into hatred, the bonds of political association - will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies ; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. 

Then will be the time for reverting to the precedents which occurred at the formation and adoption of the Constitution, to form again a more perfect Union, by dissolving that which could no longer bind, and to leave the separated parts to be reunited by the law of political gravitation to the center.

John Quincy Adams

Tom Woods' new book "Rollback"

 Rollback: Repealing Big Government before the Coming Fiscal Collapse

Now released and in stock at Amazon.

“A systemic crisis is poised to strike an unprepared America, as the federal government is forced to renege on its impossible promises. It will no longer be the godlike dispenser of bounties. … Most of the people reading this book will live through one of the most significant periods of change in American history. The scale of the coming, inevitable spending cuts will be unlike anything Americans have ever experienced.

...“Americans in their twenties and thirties,” he writes, including himself in the latter group, “confront an especially grim future unless a radical change in direction occurs very soon. … Taxes are certain to be increased - especially if we include inflation as a tax - throughout our lives.” With the steadily increasing share of earnings appropriated by government, “the amount of money this age group will have left to save for the future will be pitifully small … we can safely say that most of us will never be able to retire. A world in which people’s productive lives ended around 60 or even earlier will seem like something out of science fiction."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/feb/4/fixing-tooth-fairy-economics/

Early Reviews:

“If Congress and the Administration really wanted to learn how to eliminate the deficit, limit government, and protect liberty they would stop wasting taxpayers’ money on ‘debt commissions’ and instead read Rollback.”
–Ron Paul (R-TX), Member of Congress

“In Rollback, Tom Woods provides a provocative assessment of President Obama’s first two years of economic policy-making, challenging virtually every aspect of the administration’s narrative.  While some readers may not be persuaded, all will find Woods’ analysis both interesting and worthy of serious debate.”
–Jeffrey Miron, economist, Harvard University, and senior fellow at the Cato Institute

“Tom Woods is one of my dearest allies in the struggle against wrongheaded and dangerous economic policy. Rollback takes an honest (and methodically cited) look at the record of big government: skyrocketing health-care costs, an out-of-control military, moral hazard in the markets, and a collapsing dollar.  Even better, he offers clever, turn-key solutions that could restore the United States to being the breeding ground of wealth and ingenuity that our immigrant ancestors sought and cherished….”
–Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and host of The Peter Schiff Show

“In Rollback, economic historian Tom Woods proves that the true culrpit for our financial woes is a government that thinks it can right any wrong, regulate any activity, and tax any event; and a public that continues to accept the assault on its natural liberties in the name of safety.  Woods demonstrates with brutal clarity the critical and immediate need to reject the myth that the government can protect us and to repeal the institutions it has created to do so.”
–Judge Andrew P. Napolitano, Senior Judicial Analyst, FOX News

Project Gunwalker: How high up does it go?

"A source who has been providing information that has consistently panned out in the ongoing “Project Gunwalker” investigation  is claiming that Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, Lanny Breuer, was party to the decision to overrule the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosive’s representative to Mexico.  Former attaché Darren Gil reportedly advocated informing the Mexican government of gun monitoring operations that resulted in “Project Gunwalker” allegations, and has since resigned his post, one sources say is now to be filled by current ATF Phoenix Field Division Special Agent in Charge William Newell.

Mike Vanderboegh at Sipsey Streeet Irregulars has posted a detailed background on Breuer along with his analysis of this latest allegation. Might this new allegation help explain why whistleblowers would want to avoid normal Department of Justice channels and seek Congressional protections?"

Who authorized the transportation of US weapons into Mexico? 

Who deliberately did not inform the Mexican authorities of the transfer of weapons?

Read the rest of David Codrea's article at National Gun Rights Examiner

For my part, I am grateful to Mike V. and David Codrea for all their hard work in getting the truth out about ATF abuses.

Quote of the Day 2/6

"There are many socialists who have never come to grips in any way with the problems of economics, and who have made no attempt at all to form for themselves any clear conception of the conditions which determine the character of human society."

– Ludwig von Mises

English Defense League.

The EDL is a cultural and religious reaction to the encroachment of aggressive Sharia Islamists within the UK.  There are satellite groups/supporters in Netherlands, Norway, and Israel.


This is video from today's Luton rally of the EDL, 2/5/2011



This is a 20 minute BBC report on the group aired 2/1/2011:





Also on 2/5/2011, the Prime Minister gives this speech (don't believe in coincidences.  The people lead the politicians...):

David Cameron has criticised "state multiculturalism" in his first speech as prime minister on radicalisation and the causes of terrorism.

At a security conference in Munich, he argued the UK needed a stronger national identity to prevent people turning to all kinds of extremism.

He also signalled a tougher stance on groups promoting Islamist extremism.

The speech angered some Muslim groups, while others queried its timing amid an English Defence League rally in the UK.

As Mr Cameron outlined his vision, he suggested there would be greater scrutiny of some Muslim groups which get public money but do little to tackle extremism.

Ministers should refuse to share platforms or engage with such groups, which should be denied access to public funds and barred from spreading their message in universities and prisons, he argued.

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and much more active, muscular liberalism," the prime minister said.

The rest here.