National Servitude - Mises Economics Blog

Jeffrey Tucker writes:

"Several people have sent a link to this post on the Time Magazine effort to push national service. In an addition to violating liberties on a massive scale, this program would be a colassal waste. It will rob young people of their most important years early in life, taking them out of productive work and making them less able to offer anything to the marketplace after: an extension of an already catastrophic system of publicly funded education, which already drains brain power and time. That both the left and right favor this scheme perfectly illustrates the intellectual bankruptcy and state-worshiping mentality of these people. Fear the future under their rule."

National Servitude - Mises Economics Blog

LewRockwell.com Blog: Mao Would Have Probably Loved Tasers

"Because by adding the taser to the state's arsenal of tools of political power, the government can generally more efficiently control its subjects..."

LewRockwell.com Blog: Mao Would Have Probably Loved Tasers

Why No Trial by Jury at Gitmo?

"Who is deciding the guilt or innocence of the accused in the trials being held at Gitmo? U.S. military officials! And who is bringing the charges against the accused? You got it — the U.S. military! In other words, the same organization that is accusing a person of a crime is also deciding whether the accused is guilty of the crime..."

"As the Gitmo proceedings unfold, Americans are going to have the opportunity to witness what America’s federal judicial system would look like in the absence of the Bill of Rights. Hopefully, the Gitmo spectacle will give the American people a renewed understanding and appreciation for why our ancestors were so determined to secure passage of the Bill of Rights."

Why No Trial by Jury at Gitmo?

Mariana Fights Inflation, 1605 - Bart Fuller - Mises Institute

"Whether inflation occurs by easing monetary policy or by removing precious metal from coinage, it is always and everywhere fraudulent and immoral, for it takes from people the fruits of their labor and destroys the value of their past labor that they have stored in their savings. But why don't more of us know this?"

Mariana Fights Inflation, 1605 - Bart Fuller - Mises Institute

Nuclear Waste: Not a Problem | The New American

Excellent analysis of nuclear energy plant waste disposal and dangers.

The low volume of nuclear waste as compared to wastes from coal-fired power production is what attracted the early conservationists...

A 1,000 Megawatt coal-fired power plant produces solid wastes at a rate of 1,800 pounds per minute, waste that includes 19 toxic metals...

A coal-fired plant also produces 50 times the radioactive emissions of an average nuclear power plant... going nuclear even reduces CO2 emissions by 600 pounds per second...

Note that unlike wastes from nuclear power plants, all products of coal combustion are either sent into the atmosphere or into landfills where they remain toxic forever.

Even with that extensive list of negatives, the danger from coal-fired power plants pales in comparison to a far more serious danger — a lack of access to electrical energy...

We see the toll from a lack of energy each time we have a natural disaster where people flee to the nearest place where the comfort, sanitation, and safety provided by electrical power is available. We also see this dramatically in countries where work is performed primarily by human labor and the combustion of wood is a primary source of energy — and the population lives in the squalor that we always see under such conditions. The surest way to a low standard of living is energy poverty.

So why doesn’t the United States, like other countries possessing nuclear power, reprocess its fuel, removing the high-level radionuclides and reusing the uranium and plutonium isotopes? It is owing to the perceived — rather misperceived — dangers of the plutonium in the “spent fuel.”...

High-level wastes give up their energy in a short period of time and then become stable and harmless, while the unused fuel (uranium and plutonium) are so weakly radioactive that their emanations are only dangerous in the minds of those who are dead set against nuclear power...

If we used the same philosophy about naturally occurring radioisotopes as we do nuclear power plant wastes, we would have to dig up, encase, and rebury the State of Virginia because of the large uranium deposits that have been found there...

Many states besides Virginia... have ore deposits that are sufficiently concentrated for commercial mining, without harm to the population or causing radioactive pollution of the groundwater. And, for the record, these naturally occurring ores aren’t vitrified, encased in stainless steel, or stored in a dry environment...

The underlying cause of the nuclear-waste “problem” is an exaggerated fear of radiation. We have been conditioned for many years to accept the premise that even the slightest bit of radiation is dangerous — a premise that is not borne out by any experimental evidence.

It is certainly true that high doses of radiation can sicken or kill, and lower but still very substantial exposures can increase one’s propensity for developing cancer. But contrary to “common knowledge,” examination of the data shows that low levels of ionizing radiation often have a beneficial effect on human health known as hormesis...

Radioactivity surrounds us. Human beings and all we come into contact with contain radioisotopes. Uranium in the soil will still be radioactive in 10 billion years when our sun runs out of hydrogen. It is a natural part in our universe. To fear it is like fearing the warmth of a fireplace just because fire can also burn down the house. Yet people are still paralyzed with fright because few in this country understand anything about the measurement of radiation or its effects. Until we do we are defenseless against the posturing of radical environmentalists and destined to eventually lose the most incredible source of clean, safe, and reliable energy that man has ever been fortunate enough to enjoy.

Nuclear Waste: Not a Problem | The New American

The vicious lie behind the global warming scare - Mises Economics Blog

"As should be clear by now, environmentalism is not actually opposed to global warming - ending the "threat" posed by global warming is the last thing on their agenda. Their real goal is to use the global warming scare to bully the developed world into reverting into the pre-industrial, pre-civilized age."

The vicious lie behind the global warming scare - Mises Economics Blog

The Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor

"Actually, it’s the exact opposite. The minimum wage can play a vital role in keeping hard-working families below the poverty line by preventing them from working..."

"Thus, if one wants to help the working poor the best thing he can do is to repeal minimum-wage laws to ensure that they all can work."

"How can workers be assured of being paid the highest possible rate? Through the virtues of competition. They look around and see what other businesses are paying workers, and if they are paying more, employees ask for a raise or leave for better pay. Therefore, it is in the interests of the working poor to have a marketplace where there are multitudes of businesses opening up, successfully serving consumers, and competing for workers."

The Minimum Wage Hurts the Poor

Sampson and the Philistines -- Mike S. Adams :: Townhall.com

Mike S. Adams wrote:

"A black female co-worker at IUPUI decided to charge Sampson with racial harassment. This matter should not have been hard to resolve since the book, which Sampson checked out from the IUPUI library, was objectively anti-Klan and anti-racist. The only difficult part of the case should have been deciding the fate of Sampson’s accuser. Had she intentionally leveled the false claim of racial harassment, she should have been fired. Had it been accidental, she should have been sent to sensitivity training to get over her obvious prejudice against white people."

"But, of course, this happened in a university setting, which means that common sense never had a fighting chance..."

"In case you didn’t understand it, here’s what she said: Sampson may have been a victim of intellectual rape but he was wearing too short of a skirt..."

Mike S. Adams :: Townhall.com :: Sampson and the Philistines

Power Line: Rethinking Climate Change

"Most people do not realize that the U.N.'s IPCC report was a political document, not a scientific one. As such, it explicitly refused to consider any of the recent scientific work on carbon dioxide and the earth's climate. That work seems to show rather definitively that human activity has little to do with climate change, which has occurred constantly for millions of years."

"This would be an appropriate occasion for John McCain to announce that, in view of the fact that the claim of a scientific "consensus" has now unraveled, he is rethinking his own position on the regulation of carbon emissions."

Power Line: Rethinking Climate Change

Hat tip to Barney Quick at Bent Notes.

Bent Notes » Blog Archive » Will McCain back off the cap-and-trade thing now? And happy birthday to a Bronx homeboy

GOP Asks Net For Advice, Paulites Answer the Call ... and Answer, and Answer | Threat Level from Wired.com

"When the Republican Party issued a clarion call last week for its grassroots supporters to submit ideas online to build the party's platform, Republican National Committee officials probably weren't expecting a concerted push for the dismantling of the Federal Reserve and a return to the gold standard."

"But Ron Paul supporters have made themselves at home on the the GOP platform site, sounding many of the themes that turned the Texas congressman's doomed run for the Republican presidential nod into an internet cause célèbre."

GOP Asks Net For Advice, Paulites Answer the Call ... and Answer, and Answer | Threat Level from Wired.com

Hat tip to The LRC Blog.

LewRockwell.com Blog: The GOP Platform Is Irrelevant

Americans die in Iraq from ‘electrocution,’ shocks reported by troops ‘almost daily’ | War On You

"Among the seemingly innumerable scandal-worthy stories which have so marked the war in Iraq is one growing tragedy which has been largely ignored: shoddy electrical work by U.S. contractors at military bases leading to numerous electrical fires, troops receiving painful shocks, and even death by electrocution."

Americans die in Iraq from ‘electrocution,’ shocks reported by troops ‘almost daily’ | War On You

Oppose H.C.R. 362 and S.R. 580: Bills to Blockade Iran from Importing Refined Petroleum.

"House Concurrent Resolution 362 and similar Senate Resolution 580 , express the sense of Congress concerning Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. In addition to economic, political, and diplomatic means to pressure Iran into suspending nuclear enrichment activities, both the House and Senate bills strongly urge the President to lead an international effort to blockade Iran’s importation of refined petroleum in order to crush its economy."

"Bear in mind that prior to America’s official entry into World War II, the U.S. blockaded Japan’s oil imports. Japan considered that an act of war, prompting retaliation at Pearl Harbor."

"Congress shirked its Constitutional duty to decide war on Iraq and is now moving toward allowing and urging the president to lead a program of sanctions against Iran that arguably includes an act of war."

Contact Congress

Rands In Repose: The Quirkbook

I identify with a few of these -- not saying which ones. :-)

Rands In Repose: The Quirkbook

One Million Terrorists? - by Paul Craig Roberts

Paul Craig Roberts writes:

The Bush Regime's "terrorist" protection schemes have reached the height of total incompetence and utter absurdity. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, a private organization that defends the US Constitution that inattentive Americans neglect, there are now one million names on the "terrorist" watch list...

What confidence can we have in a regime that is incapable of differentiating an Assistant US Attorney General from a terrorist? ...

"Hundreds of thousands of people" on a watch list that they have no business being on?

And this is America, not Nazi Germany?

How can Airport "Security" possibly protect anyone when the idiots cannot differentiate a high level American government official from a terrorist?

How can there possibly be 1,000,000 terrorists and America still be in one piece? If there were 1,000,000 terrorists, America would be in ruins...

One million terrorists could bring America to its knees, and they wouldn't need to fly on airplanes to accomplish this.

What we are witnessing with the one million person "watch list" is bureaucracy run amok. One Million Terrorists makes the danger seem overwhelming. Such overwhelming danger rationalizes the aggressive behavior of the bullies and thugs attracted by the power of confiscating your toothpaste and bottled water and riffling your belongings in your luggage...

Don't complain about being searched without a warrant or you will miss your flight. You might be arrested, handcuffed, kicked and otherwise abused – the fate of many American citizens...

The "watch list" has not apprehended a single terrorist, but thousands of American citizens have been inconvenienced and arrested...

What the "watch list" or "no-fly list" is doing is training Americans to submit to warrantless searches, to abandon their constitutional rights, and to submit to humiliation by thugs and bullies. A Gestapo is being trained to have no qualms about searching and intimidating fellow citizens, using any excuse to delay or arrest them. Americans are being taught to use arbitrary power and to submit to arbitrary power. In the false name of "safety from terrorists," Americans are being made the least safe people on earth.

One Million Terrorists? - by Paul Craig Roberts

Getting Out of Iraq - by Ron Paul

My favorite Congressman is Dr. Ron Paul. He makes some excellent points about the troops in Iraq.

What will it take to get our troops out of Iraq? The roughly 70 percent of Americans who are firmly against the war often ask this question. Those in power are reluctant to give conditions, but when they do and those conditions are met, the goal post is quietly moved...

Eventually our troops will leave Iraq. The overwhelming will of the people, in both countries, can't seem to get them out. Things going well can't get them out. Things going badly can't get them out. Iraqis telling us to leave can't get them out. Perhaps not even the UN can get them out. My hope is that it does not take the complete collapse of our financial system, but if we don't leave under any other circumstances, economic chaos is inevitable, and will make it impossible to fund the war, even through debt and inflation.

We have been financing this war through inflation, and attempting to paper over reality with misleading economic indicators. The government has changed the methodology of calculating things like CPI and GDP to hide the bad news. They won't even publish M3, the total money supply statistic anymore. But reality is hitting the American people at gas pumps and grocery stores, sending more Americans into foreclosure and unemployment lines. More are hurting while Washington keeps forgetting its promises. Eventually, this will all come to a head.

Perhaps an even greater fear is that even if our financial trouble doesn't get our troops out of Iraq, moving them over to fight a new war in Iran, will. Washington should be crystal clear on this very important point – just getting the troops out of Iraq means nothing. Bringing them HOME means everything, and that is what the people in both countries demand.

Getting Out of Iraq - by Ron Paul

The Hoosierpundit: JLT: Collective Bargaining Is "God-Given Right"

"For the record, union monopoly bargaining is not even a constitutional right, but rather just a controversial statutory privilege granted by certain legislatures."

The Hoosierpundit: JLT: Collective Bargaining Is "God-Given Right"

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Once in a While a Politician Says Something Sensible Archives

"But no, it turns out socialism is alive and well in America. The Treasury Secretary is asking for a blank check to buy as much Fannie and Freddie debt or equity as he wants. The Fed's purchase of Bear Stearns' assets was amateur socialism compared to this."

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Once in a While a Politician Says Something Sensible Archives

They Didn’t Attack Switzerland by Bill Walker

"Our Founding Fathers studied the Swiss when they designed our system of government. Maybe it would pay us to study the long Swiss peace again... before it's too late."

They Didn’t Attack Switzerland by Bill Walker

ice storm photo

Very cool ice storm photo. Also courtesy StumbleUpon.

geneve.jpg (JPEG Image, 1280x960 pixels) - Scaled (58%)

11 Things to Know When Arrested

Good advice. StumbleUpon link.

11 Things to Know When Arrested

Albert Jay Nock -- on Education

"The State preferred to train citizens rather than to educate individuals who might dissent."

Albert Jay Nock -- on Education

LewRockwell.com Blog: Stop Me Before I Print Again

"In other words, the Fed - the government agency created to inflate, and the only source of inflation - is keeping an eye on the wayward private sector, in case foolish people wake up to the Fed's schemes, and realize they have engineered very high inflation indeed, at the same time as they have engineered a global depression, and prices zoom as the economy falls of the edge. In that case, it will be essential - from DC's standpoint - to blame business people and consumers, so as to divert attention from their criminal selves. It is our job not to let them get away with it."

LewRockwell.com Blog: Stop Me Before I Print Again

The Myth of the Voluntary Military by Jeffrey A. Tucker

Can't remember if I made note of this before or not.

Jeffrey Tucker writes (March 2003):

The British defense secretary, Geoff Hoon, claims that the coalition armed forces are made up of "men and women who made a free choice to serve their country," whereas Iraqi forces "are motivated either by fear or by hatred." It's hard to say what motivates Iraqi forces (perhaps the desire to repel invasion?) but what he says about coalition troops is simply not true.

The men and women now fighting initially agreed to be in the employ of the military. The US is not yet conscripting people. And yet how many of these would leave Iraq if they could? What if Donald Rumsfeld announced that anyone now fighting in Iraq is free to leave without penalty? What would become of the US armed forces now attempting to bring about unconditional surrender in Iraq?

It's an interesting question, as a pure mental experiment, because it highlights the essentially forced nature of all modern military service. To leave once the war begins would amount to what the government calls desertion. This word sounds ominous but, in fact, it merely describes what everyone in a civilized society takes for granted: the right to quit...

Both North and South claimed they were fighting in order to abolish a form of captivity – the right to self government in one case, and the right to not be employed against one's will in the other – but the ability of the military to imprison and kill fleeing soldiers was never questioned. It is not often questioned today...

Both scenes underscore a reality hardly ever discussed: all modern armies are essentially totalitarian enterprises. Once you sign up for them, or are drafted, you are a slave. The penalty for becoming a fugitive is death. Even now, the enforcements against mutiny, desertion, going AWOL, or what have you, are never questioned.

This is remarkable, if you think about it. Imagine that you work for Wal-Mart but find the job too dangerous, and try to quit. You are told that you may not, so you run away. The management catches up to you, and jails you. You refuse to go and resist. Finally, you are shot. We would all recognize that this is exploitation, an atrocity, a crime, a clear example of the disregard that this company has for human life. The public outrage would be palpable. The management, not the fleeing employees, would be jailed or possibly executed.

Murray Rothbard frames the question nicely: "In what other occupation in the country are there severe penalties, including prison and in some cases execution, for 'desertion,' i.e., for quitting the particular employment? If someone quits General Motors, is he shot at sunrise?" ...

The slave-like nature of the military commitment has no expiration date. Yes, there are contracts, but the military can void them whenever it so desires. Predictably, it desires to void these contracts (through so-called stop-loss regulations) when the enlisted most want to leave: when they must kill and risk being killed. All branches of the military have implemented these stop-loss regulations because of the war on terror. This amounts to the nationalization of human beings.

Still, one wonders how much the ranks of the militarily employed would shrink in absence of anti-desertion enforcement. If modern presidents had to recruit the way barons and lords recruited, and if they constantly faced the prospect of mass desertions, they might be more careful about getting involved in unnecessary, unjust, unwinnable wars, or going to war at all. Peace would take on new value out of necessity. When going to war, they might be more careful to curb their war aims, and match war strategies with those more limited aims.

In the meantime, US officials would do well to stop complaining that Iraqi soldiers are being forced to serve and forced to kill. A press release from the Air Force announcing its new stop-loss rule says: "We understand the individual sacrifices that our airmen and their families will be making…. We appreciate their unwavering support and dedication to our nation."

One might even have a greater appreciation for their sacrifice (even if not their mission) if one knew that it were undertaken willingly.

The Myth of the Voluntary Military by Jeffrey A. Tucker

An Iranian Dissident's Experience Provides Lessons for Americans

Jacob Hornberger writes:

The Batebi experience provides a roadmap for the future direction of the United States:

(1) Send the message to the people of the world that the beacon in the Statue of Liberty has been relit, enabling anyone suffering tyranny, oppression, and starvation to freely come to the United States without fear of being repatriated.

(2) Rein in the federal government in overseas affairs by prohibiting it from meddling in the affairs of other countries, which by necessity would entail closing all U.S. military bases overseas and stopping the U.S. government’s policy of regime change in foreign countries.

(3) The American people should strive to restore our country to its rightful place in the world — a free and prosperous society. A good place to start would be a constitutional amendment stating, “U.S. officials are prohibited from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments … and this time we mean it.”

An Iranian Dissident's Experience Provides Lessons for Americans

Inflation Illustrated - Mises Economics Blog

Manuel Lora writes, "Seeing the dollar lose its value reminds me of growing up in Perú during the heavily inflationary 80s and early 90s."

Inflation Illustrated - Mises Economics Blog: "Seeing the dollar lose its value reminds me of growing up in Perú during the heavily inflationary 80s and early 90s"

Albert Jay Nock: A Gifted Pen for Radical Individualism| The Foundation for Economic Education: The Freeman, Ideas on Liberty

"Despite the onslaught of wars and the relentless expansion of government power, individualism endures as a living creed, and Albert Jay Nock deserves considerable credit. He expressed fundamental issues of liberty with blazing clarity. He withstood withering criticism. He defied censors. He helped revive glorious names like Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Herbert Spencer. His moral conviction, cosmopolitan scholarship, elegant prose, and steadfast devotion inspired others to join the epic struggle for liberty."

I am enjoying my first read of anything by Albert Jay Nock, "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man".

Wish I would have had the chance to meet him.

Albert Jay Nock: A Gifted Pen for Radical Individualism| The Foundation for Economic Education: The Freeman, Ideas on Liberty

The Old Right by Murray N. Rothbard

Interesting history.

By the 1960 GOP convention, Barry Goldwater had become the political leader of the transformed New Right. By 1960, too, the embarrassing extremists like the John Birch Society had been purged from the ranks, and the modern conservative movement was in place. It combined a traditionalist and theocratic approach to "moral values," occasional lip service to free-market economics, and an imperialist and global interventionist foreign policy dedicated to the glorification of the American state and the extirpation of world Communism. Classical liberalism remained only as rhetoric, useful in attracting business support, and most of all as a fig leaf for the grotesque realities of the New Right... In a few brief years the character of the right wing had been totally transformed: Once basically classical liberal, it had become a global theocratic crusade. Such is the lack of acumen and memory among the right-wing masses that few even noted that any shift had occurred.

The Old Right by Murray N. Rothbard

Times Change, Principles Don't - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

"Americans are coming to their senses, and the libertarian theory of society and government is pointing the way. The times change, but the enduring principles that help us to interpret and understand the world do not. It remains true now, as then, as in the future, saecula saeculorum, that government provides neither an effective nor a moral means for solving any human problem."

Times Change, Principles Don't - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

Jonah Goldberg and the Meaning of Rights

Jacob Hornberger wrote (June 2001):

Many decades ago, Republicans had a clear, well-defined vision of the nature of morality and rights and a strong commitment to liberty. Unfortunately, as public opinion started to move against them, they threw in the towel and accepted the premises of the socialistic welfare state and regulated society, primarily in the quest for "legitimacy" and political power. The only difference between conservatives and leftists today is that conservatives continue to cloak their approval of socialism in the garb of "free markets, private property, and limited government."

What vexes conservatives so much is that libertarians have maintained our commitment to the principles of morality and liberty above all else. The primary reason conservatives wish that libertarians would go away is that we remind them of what they once were and still should be.

Jonah Goldberg and the Meaning of Rights

Libertarianism, Conservatism, and All That - Jude Blanchette - Mises Institute

Good bibliography on conservatives versus libertarians.

Still trying to figure out exactly where I fall. Reared conservative, but leaning libertarian / paleoconservative I think.

Libertarianism, Conservatism, and All That - Jude Blanchette - Mises Institute

The War Prayer, by Mark Twain

Never heard of this short story before. Supposedly too radical to put into print while Mark Twain was still alive.

The silent, unspoken prayer.

"Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it --

For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!

We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

The War Prayer, by Mark Twain

The Anti-Imperialist League and the Battle Against Empire - Thomas E. Woods - Mises Institute

"States have successfully managed to persuade their subject populations that they themselves are the state, and therefore that any insult to the honor of the state is an insult to them as well, any questioning of its behavior or intentions a slap in their very own faces. It becomes second nature for many people to root for their state in a way that does violence to reason and fact. They will defend the most contorted, ludicrous claims — claims they themselves would have dismissed with scorn had they come from Saddam Hussein or the 1980s Soviet Union — if necessary to vindicate the honor of the men who rule them."

The Anti-Imperialist League and the Battle Against Empire - Thomas E. Woods - Mises Institute

No Place Like Home - Center for a Just Society - where faith, law and policy meet

Good article on home schooling.

While reading "Memoirs of a Superfluous Man" today, I wondered if Albert Jay Nock might not have put his finger on one objection some have to home education.

Mr. Nock wrote (1943):

"Coercive collectivism was on its way throughout the Western world, and logically the first thing for the coercive collectivist State to do... would be to shut down firmly on all instruction which did not bear intensively on conditioning its children and young people to an unquestioning _ex animo_ acceptance of the State's will; and this would of course do away with even the sleaziest sort of education." [as opposed to what Nock called "training"]

No Place Like Home - Center for a Just Society - where faith, law and policy meet

No More Blank Checks for War - HUMAN EVENTS

Patrick J. Buchanan writes:

President Bush must step up to the plate.

If he believes sanctions are not succeeding and Iran's nuclear program must be halted, he should go to Congress for authority to neutralize the facilities. If he has not so concluded, he should tell Israel it is not to start a war that U.S. airmen, sailors, soldiers and Marines will have to finish.

America needs to restore that absolute freedom of action in matters of war and peace she once had, before entering the skein of entangling alliances that now encumber the republic.

No ally, no client state, should ever be allowed to drag America into a war she has not chosen, constitutionally, to fight.

No more blank checks for any nation.

No More Blank Checks for War - HUMAN EVENTS

Problem of Ignorance

Walter Williams writes:

"Right now Congress tells each American how much should be set aside out of his weekly paycheck for retirement. How can they have the information to know what's the best use for the $70, or so, taken from you and put into Social Security? Might you benefit more by saving that money to start a business, purchase tutoring lessons for your children, or putting it in a private retirement plan? Unlike congressional control of traffic signals and supermarkets, the effects of Social Security aren't apparent because we don't have the information about what people would have been able to accomplish if they were able to keep more of their earnings."

"You might argue that saving for retirement is important, but so is saving for a home or your children's education. Would you want Congress to force us to put money aside for a home or our children's education?"

Problem of Ignorance

Hat tip to the Liberator Online.

Liberator Online - July 10, 2008

Matthew Henry on Numbers 22:22

"The sin of sinners is not to be thought the less provoking to God because he permits it. We must not think that, because God does not by his providence restrain men from sin, therefore he approves of it, or that it is therefore not hateful to him; he suffers [allows] sin, and yet is angry at it."

Numbers - Chapter 22 - Matthew Henry Complete Commentary on StudyLight.org

The Old Cause by Joseph Stromberg

Good stuff here from December 1999 I came across when following links about Felix Morley -- paleoconservative, born four years after my grandfather.

Makes me want to delve into my old copy of "Freedom and Federalism".

Already in World War I, Morley had noted the way in which modern war centralizes power in the state and promotes socialism, whatever the flag under which it sailed...

Morley... saw attempts to justify the atomic bombing of Japan – in our day ritually defended by "conservatives" every August like clockwork – as "the miserable farce put on by those who try to reconcile mass murder of 'enemy children' with lip service to the doctrine that God created all men in his image." The atomic bomb was appropriate to a totalitarian order with no fixed moral standards...

A year later, Morley stated that "the so-called isolationists were essentially right. They knew that American can run its own affairs reasonably well. They knew that in pontifically declaiming on the world stage we would be likely to prove ourselves blundering fools." Our system rested on "foregoing the path of empire, on developing those private ventures in which the American genius is brilliant…."

It was a bitter thing to realize that "during the past few years, [America] has led the world in smashing the fabric of civilization"; we had dismantled German factories but also "the whole structure of American ideals."

In a speech before the Conservative Society of Yale Law School in November 1954, Morley developed several themes. For the American constitution to function properly, we must shrink back from an activist foreign policy, which necessarily strengthened executive power...

My point is that the vanishing bourgeois elite justified its existence precisely by producing people like Felix Morley who understood the old republic, the constitution, peace, and free markets, as well as their opposites, empire, lawless rule, war, and generalized statism. Of course it was other members of that same elite who pursued the Open Door and set us on the path of empire. If Morley's analyses hold true, it was these clever fellows who began, however unintentionally, the unraveling or deconstruction of authentic American life. Their descendants pursue the good work intentionally. You can't have everything. Yet one shudders at the prospect of being ruled, even for a week, by the sort of "elite" which current US "education" might produce...

Through it all, Morley – an educated man who knew how to educate others – could see the centrality of real education. He once shocked the dean of a journalism school by recommending that the students study mathematics and the classics: "The Dean came hotfoot to Washington to see if I were crazy…. He talked a lot about… 'relevance' in education and didn't like it when I said that what he meant was vocational training, which will never maintain a threatened culture."...

Still writing in his eighties, he noted that "[t]here has been a direct and causal connection between the increasing exaltation of the state and the increasing demoralization of society."

The Old Cause by Joseph Stromberg

Workaround to Sudden Loss of Internet Access Problem

I experienced this issue with Microsoft KB9501748 and / or KB195748 on about 5 computers with XP Home and ZoneAlarm yesterday.

I slid the Internet Security setting from High to Medium until I get a chance to try the ZoneAlarm update.

ZoneAlarm SmartDefense Research Center

Corporate Taxes Suffocate Growth - Sterling T. Terrell - Mises Institute

"by definition, corporations do not pay taxes — people pay taxes. A corporate tax is either a tax on shareholders of the firm, customers of the firm, or employees of the firm. Less corporate tax means more innovation, capital savings, and spending by these groups — also known as economic growth."

"These are examples of what can be seen. As Frédéric Bastiat reminds us, however, it is imperative to also account for what cannot be seen. What would the wealth of our nation be today if the corporate tax rate had always been 10% or less? What creature comforts would have been innovated? What new technologies brought to market? What diseases cured?"

"Due to a history of high corporate taxes these answers are not known, and we are worse off because of it."

Corporate Taxes Suffocate Growth - Sterling T. Terrell - Mises Institute

Will power cycling my LCD screen burn it out? : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

"In other words, turning your TV or monitor on and off by pushing the power button 30 times a day is no problem, but 3,000 times a day might actually break the button clean off. The LCD itself would probably be just fine."

Will power cycling my LCD screen burn it out? : Christopher Null : Yahoo! Tech

GETLIBERTY.ORG | Are Americans Losing Faith in their Democracy

"There is today, simply and solely, the “Governing Party.” There are those with power, and then there is everyone else. Conservatives understand this as we have been sold out time and again on everything from tax cuts to illegal immigration to the size of the Federal budget. And the Hard Left is quickly finding this out as the presumptive Democrat nominee, Barack Obama, moves his politics to the center to curry the favor of moderates, waffling one key issue after another—like NAFTA, public campaign financing, and the death penalty."

GETLIBERTY.ORG | Are Americans Losing Faith in their Democracy

Time To Celebrate Business - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

"... the wine business is not exactly new. It dates to the ancient world, and survived and thrived for many centuries without a Tax and Trade Bureau. These people are not necessary for the world of wine, and their only contribution to wine production is to harm producers and raise the price for consumers. So it is in every sector of economic life."

Time To Celebrate Business - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote? -- MWC News - A Site Without Borders

H.L. Mencken understood, "Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."

MWC News - A Site Without Borders - - What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

War Powers Act needs fixing, bipartisan panel says - CNN.com

"The Constitution makes the president the commander in chief of the armed forces, but gives Congress the power to declare war and approve military budgets."

War Powers Act needs fixing, bipartisan panel says - CNN.com

Congressman Ron Paul - Real Change - Texas Straight Talk

Great advice from Dr. Paul.

"Working toward a less intrusive, less expensive federal government focused on defending against overt actions of force and fraud, is the means to bringing about real change. As we hear the repeated claims of those who wish to cast themselves as agents of change, we will do well to recall that more federal meddling is not a change in direction at all, but just “more of the same.” We should be repealing programs, not proposing costly new bureaucracies."

Congressman Ron Paul - Real Change - Texas Straight Talk

Welcome to My Tea Party: This is for the Record...Just in case

Pretty eye-opening claims here.

Welcome to My Tea Party: This is for the Record...Just in case

Music Review - Cherryholmes - Cherryholmes Offers Family Harmony in Madison Square Park - Review - NYTimes.com

Good review of one of my favorite family bluegrass bands. Just heard them live at Bean Blossom a couple of weeks ago.

Music Review - Cherryholmes - Cherryholmes Offers Family Harmony in Madison Square Park - Review - NYTimes.com

Hat tip to Bluegrass Blog.

The Bluegrass Blog » Cherryholmes in the NY Times: bluegrass music news

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Patriotism Defined Archives

How do you define patriotism?

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Patriotism Defined Archives

No evidence needed under terror profiling plan | War On You

Sounds like someone needs a refresher course on the Fourth Amendment here.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

FindLaw: U.S. Constitution: Fourth Amendment

No evidence needed under terror profiling plan | War On You

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Brits: We Want Government to Plan Our Childrens' Lives Archives

Question: if the federal government has been "addressing nutritional deficiencies and encouraging physical fitness since the 1930s," and we find that nutrition, obesity, and health "crises" have become more prevalent in those 75 years (according to the alarmists), how do the planner-bureaucrats justify a further increase in federal government intervention?

KarenDeCoster.com Web Log: Brits: We Want Government to Plan Our Childrens' Lives Archives

C. S. Lewis on Liberal Arts Education by Gregory Dunn

If those who possess the inclination and leisure for the life of the mind refuse to enter the arena of ideas--"not to be able to meet the enemies on their own ground"--then they will place those who have no such inclination and leisure at the mercy of proponents of bad ideas.

C. S. Lewis on Liberal Arts Education by Gregory Dunn

WALL-E: Economic Ignorance and the War on Modernity - Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute

Interesting movie review.

"WALL-E is an assault on modern civilization, borne of deep economic and historical ignorance. The film shamefully betrays the efforts of countless heroic individuals who have raised humanity out of the muck of barbarism. Its antitechnological, anticapitalist message needs to be exposed and countered by all thinking individuals."

WALL-E: Economic Ignorance and the War on Modernity - Gennady Stolyarov II - Mises Institute

The Free Market: The Ordeal of Hoppe

I just became aware of this man's story after following a series of thoughts launched by the story of Senator Jesse Helms death yesterday.

"At stake is more than the reputation of an individual scholar, or the standing of a university that has failed to live by its by-laws which promise to protect the freedom to teach "even when topics are politically, socially or scientifically controversial." What is at stake is the integrity of the university learning environment itself. The incident politicizes the classroom environment to the point that neither students nor teachers can pursue science and truth without fear of political reprisal."

The Free Market: The Ordeal of Hoppe

What Independence? --- A Call for a New (Stateless) Liberty via Secession - Vox

"When a businessman fails he then suffers a loss and perhaps disappears. He has the guide of profit-and-loss. This promotes correct allocations. However, when the government fails nothing directly happens. There is nothing that helps divert resources into productive uses. So allocations of the government, with no pricing signals, will always have to be arbitrary and wasteful."

"This makes the growth of government, which is a restrictor and parasite of liberty, and the growth of a free market enterprise, which is an expression of free man and groups of men voluntarily working together for mutual ends, inversely related. They are antithetical to each other."

What Independence? --- A Call for a New (Stateless) Liberty via Secession - Vox

The Income Tax: Root of all Evil, by Frank Chodorov

"This measure [repeal of the federal income tax] should be supported by the governors and legislators of all the states. Every state in the Union now contributes in income taxes to the federal government more than it gets back in grants-in-aid; this is inevitable, because the cost of maintaining the huge federal machinery must come out of the taxes before the citizen can get anything. With the abolition of income taxation the states will be better able to serve its citizens, and because the state governments are closer and more responsive to the will of the people, there is greater chance that the citizens will get their full dollar’s worth in services."

"However, the principal argument for the repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment is that only in that way can freedom from an interventionist government be restored to the American people."

J. Bracken Lee, Governor of Utah, 1954

The Income Tax: Root of all Evil, by Frank Chodorov

Lynching Jesse

Jesse Helms, RIP. I did not follow the senator's career very closely.

Daniel McCarthy wrote on 4 September 2001 (one week before "9/11"),

Jesse Helms has not been the best friend a constitutional conservative or a libertarian could have, but he's done better than most. He opposed forced integration, a federal MLK holiday, and countless socialist treaties and international accords. Best of all he's never apologized for any of it. In a collectivist America increasingly intolerant of dissent from "respectable opinion," that makes Helms a hero despite his faults – or perhaps because of them.

Lynching Jesse

Matthew Henry on the danger of "great men"

I like these words of wisdom from Matthew Henry, from his commentary on the 16th chapter of the book of Numbers in the Bible. They seem just as alive and relevant for our country and world today as when he penned them about 300 years ago.

"Note, The pride, ambition, and emulation, of great men, have always been the occasion of a great deal of mischief both in churches and states. God by his grace make great men humble, and so give peace in our time, O Lord! Famous men, and men of renown, as these are described to be, were the great sinners of the old world, Gen_6:4. The fame and renown which they had did not content them; they were high, but would be higher, and thus the famous men became infamous."

White House says ruling could free detainees in US - Yahoo! News

This claim by the White House is so bogus. If our government has convincing evidence that the detainee has committed a crime, then the courts will keep them detained. If not, they should never have been held this long to begin with.

White House says ruling could free detainees in US - Yahoo! News

Believe Me, It's Torture: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

"Good" first-person report on waterboarding.

Believe Me, It's Torture: Politics & Power: vanityfair.com

Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty » Blog Archive » Something Big is Going On | The Revolution Continues

"Restoring a free society doesn’t eliminate the need to get our house in order and to pay for the extravagant spending. But the pain would not be long-lasting if we did the right things, and best of all the empire would have to end for financial reasons. Our wars would stop, the attack on civil liberties would cease, and prosperity would return. The choices are clear: it shouldn’t be difficult, but the big event now unfolding gives us a great opportunity to reverse the tide and resume the truly great American Revolution started in 1776. Opportunity knocks in spite of the urgency and the dangers we face."

Ron Paul’s Campaign For Liberty » Blog Archive » Something Big is Going On | The Revolution Continues

Congressman Ron Paul - Personal Freedoms and the Internet - Texas Straight Talk

Dr. Paul writes:

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones. If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.

Socialist ideologies blur this line between self reliance and government control because the mistakes of the individual are spread to everyone else. Thus the government becomes very interested in your decisions and way of life, with the justification that you could make a mistake others will have to pay for. The end result is, of course, that everyone loses...

I can assure you of this – once the government gains a foothold into regulating the internet, even for benevolent reasons, the wonders of the free internet will soon be a thing of the past. Parents, with modern day technology, are quite capable of monitoring their children’s internet activity. The internet must remain a government-free zone to maintain its integrity and usefulness to modern society, and that is something for which I will continue to fight.

Congressman Ron Paul - Personal Freedoms and the Internet - Texas Straight Talk

Deroy Murdock on Big Oil & Alternative Energy on National Review Online

Excellent perspective from Deroy Murdock in today's issue of "The Republic" (Columbus, Indiana).

But before Congress tars and feathers Big Oil CEOs for this alleged inaction, a simple question occurs: So what?

Where is it written that any industry must spend money to subvert its business model? Since when must any company plow scarce resources into helping consumers avoid its products? If enterprises now must meet this standard, the interesting possibilities are endless:

Deroy Murdock on Big Oil & Alternative Energy on National Review Online

America Is the Rogue Nation | War On You

Excerpts.

One gets the impression that there are some people in Washington who believe that Israel or the U.S. can bomb Iran’s nuclear reactors, fly home, and it will be mission complete.

It makes you wonder if perhaps there is a virus going around that is gradually making people stupid. If we or Israel attack Iran, we will have a new war on our hands. The Iranians are not going to shrug off an attack and say, “You naughty boys, you.”

Consider how much trouble Iraq has given us. Some 4,000 dead and 29,000 wounded, a half a trillion dollars in cost and still climbing, and five years later, we cannot say that the country is pacified.

Iraq is a small country compared with Iran...

So, if you think we or Israel can attack Iran and not expect retaliation, I’d have to say with regret that you are a moron. If you think we could easily handle Iran in an all-out war, I’d have to promote you to idiot.

Attacking Iran would be folly, but we seem to be living in the Age of Folly...

For some years now, I’ve worried that we seem to be more and more like Colonial England – arrogant, racist, overestimating our own capacity and underestimating that of our enemies. As the fate of the British Empire demonstrates, that is a fatal flaw...

Exactly how the Iranians will respond to an attack, I don’t know, but they will respond. In keeping with our present policy, our attack on Iran would be illegal, since under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes.

Who would have thought that we would become the rogue nation committing acts of aggression around the globe?

America Is the Rogue Nation | War On You

Governments world wide claim citizens have no rights to film in public | Daily Newscaster

Interesting and disturbing footage.

Governments world wide claim citizens have no rights to film in public | Daily Newscaster

“Homeschoolers are only good for cleaning toilets”

"Is it any wonder that the judicial numbskulls in California and the new fascists in Germany are trying to wipe out homeschooling? They fear its superior product and how it makes public (government) education look so bad, especially when the cost of educating a student is factored in. While homeschooling has a great academic track record (also see here and here), enough so that some of the best colleges in the nation recruit homeschoolers, one of its greatest social benefits is its demonstration of true liberty. Liberals love to talk about freedom of choice as long as that freedom does not include the freedom to educate their own children. It would have been OK to kill the child while he was still in his mother’s womb, but once he’s born, he belongs to the State and its educational hacks."

“Homeschoolers are only good for cleaning toilets”

War and Inflation by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

"It comes down to this. If you hate war, oppose the Fed. If you hate violations of your liberties, oppose the Fed. If you want to restrain despotism, restrain the Fed. If you want to secure freedom for yourself and your descendants, abolish the Fed."

War and Inflation by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

It's Not Exactly a National Emergency by Don Bacon

These are the fourteen US "national emergencies" that George W. Bush has annually renewed with his signature within the past year, without a peep from Congress. Now obviously these are not truly national emergencies. They are fakes, dictated by a phony President, acceded to by a rubber-stamp Congress and abetted by a dictator-loving Supreme Court. The United States is in no way extraordinarily threatened by the Government of Sudan. But these Presidential decrees do have some purposes, don't they? First, they are ploys to give the US government some power it wouldn't ordinarily have. Secondly, they are meant to frighten US citizens about terrorism, among other things. (Terror means fright and the goal of terrorists is to frighten, so what does that tell you?) Thirdly, they might provide a President, a "Decider," some basis for military or other action against US citizens. Okay, not under a Balkans or Liberian "national emergency," but how about WMD or terrorism? Or Iran?

It's Not Exactly a National Emergency by Don Bacon

The Superfluous Man: Shut up and enjoy your freedom of speech!

"I've frequently noticed that free speech is often used as a legitimizing tool for the government, in much the same way that democracy is; as long as you have free speech, you are supposedly still “free” and have nothing to really object to. (The fact that this defends the right most valuable to academics, journalists, artists, etc. while denigrating every other right is almost certainly not a coincidence. If you start thinking about left-wing statism as an expression of the interests of the intellectual/opinion-shaping class, it starts making a lot more sense.) No matter how utterly oppressed you are, it’s not really oppression or injustice as long as you have the right to bitch about it- and you shouldn’t bitch about it, because the fact that you still have the right to do so proves that you have no cause for serious complaint. Thus, people can declare that freedom is precious- and something we ought to be grateful to our rulers for providing- while pushing a concept of “freedom” that is utterly empty. If people buy it, as many do, they’ll ignore the loss of meaningful freedom to actually govern their own lives, and instead babble endlessly about how precious the mess of pottage they’ve been given as a replacement is."

The Superfluous Man: Shut up and enjoy your freedom of speech!

SchansBlog: how Bush sold the war (an insider's view-- no, not McClellan's!)

"Before the war, administration officials said that success would mean an Iraq that no longer threatened important U.S. interests – that did not support terrorism, aspire to WMD, threaten its neighbors, or conduct mass murder. But from the fall of 2003 on, the president defined success as stable democracy in Iraq."

"This was a public affairs decision that has had enormous strategic consequences for American support for the war. The new formula fails to connect the Iraq war directly to U.S. interests. It causes many Americans to question why we should be investing so much blood and treasure for Iraqis. And many Americans doubt that the new aim is realistic – that stable democracy can be achieved in Iraq in the foreseeable future...."

SchansBlog: how Bush sold the war (an insider's view-- no, not McClellan's!)

SchansBlog: more on the GOP falling apart...

Senator Tom Coburn says of the GOP:

"Unfortunately, too many in our party are not yet ready to return to the path of limited government. Instead, we are being told our message must be deficient because, after all, we should be winning in certain areas just by being Republicans. Yet being a Republican isn't good enough anymore. Voters are tired of buying a GOP package and finding a big-government liberal agenda inside. What we need is not new advertising, but truth in advertising."

SchansBlog: more on the GOP falling apart...

SchansBlog: you go, girl!

"You're an adult," said Miss Bell. "You had that choice....Sometimes people need to think before they act."...

SchansBlog: you go, girl!

Online Books :: Mises Institute

Here is a treasury of great reading for the download.

Online Books :: Mises Institute

Founding Fathers

Another good link from StumbleUpon.com.

Founding Fathers

The Forbidden Library: Banned and Challenged Books

Good link from "StumbleUpon".

Welcome to StumbleUpon

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
-- Harry S. Truman, message to Congress, August 8, 1950

The Forbidden Library: Banned and Challenged Books

t r u t h o u t | A Victory for the Rule of the Law

"The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times," Kennedy wrote. Again, it's amazing that any president of the United States would need to have such a basic concept spelled out for him."

t r u t h o u t | A Victory for the Rule of the Law

The late Charleton Heston's Basement - PICS - - Police Forums & Law Enforcement Forums @ Officer.com

The late Charleton Heston's Basement - PICS - - Police Forums & Law Enforcement Forums @ Officer.com

Ted Nugent on the Second Amendment

Excellent comments on the recent Supreme Court decision in favor of armed self defense in Washington, D.C.

The Other Side of Kim du Toit

Justice and Fortitude » Blog Archive » Thoughts for your weekend

A few great quotations here.

Justice and Fortitude » Blog Archive » Thoughts for your weekend

Return of the ’70s Weirdos | Newsweek Technology | Newsweek.com

Microsoft founders: before and after. Fun.

Return of the ’70s Weirdos | Newsweek Technology | Newsweek.com

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

This gives me a new perspective on Bill Gates. He sounds like a pretty common-sense guy.

I've written a complaint or two a bit like this myself.

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

What Would Jesus Steal? by Gary North

Interesting critique and history of the "social gospel" movement.

What Would Jesus Steal? by Gary North

Not Tax-Funded Aid to Myanmar - Laurence M. Vance - Mises Institute

I agree with Laurence M. Vance's perspective that the U.S. government should get out of the foreign aid business. Mr. Vance writes:

The destruction and suffering in Myanmar from the recent killer cyclone is incalculable... The real question, however, is not how much aid the United States should give to Myanmar, but whether the United States should give aid to Myanmar in the first place...

The answer to the question depends on what is meant by the United States. If the United States refers to the government of the United States then the answer is no. If the United States refers to the people of the United States then the answer is perhaps...

But whether it is termed disaster relief or food relief, it is still foreign aid funded by the forced looting of American taxpayers and given to countries that most Americans can't locate on a map and in many cases have never even heard of.

According to the latest Congressional Research Office... the federal government provides some form of foreign assistance to over 150 countries... The United States is the largest international economic aid donor...

But regardless of the amount or the percentage, foreign-aid spending by the US government is only made possible because billions of dollars have been confiscated from American taxpayers. If the government sent all the households in America a list of all the countries in the world with a request to check off each country they wanted to help and the dollar amount they wanted to send to each, I suspect that very few Americans would comply — especially if they had to enclose a check to pay for it.

The US government has no business providing disaster relief to Myanmar, food relief to poor countries, or humanitarian aid of any kind. The purpose of government is supposed to be to protect the lives, liberties, and properties of the people who form it. The fact that all governments eventually deviate from their stated purpose is irrelevant...

There was a time in this country when it was recognized to be improper for the federal government to provide humanitarian relief even within the United States. President Grover Cleveland vetoed a bill in 1887 that would have provided seed for farmers in drought-stricken Texas. In his veto message, he wrote that aid from Washington only "encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character." The Texas farmers ended up getting ten times as much in private assistance as they would have received from Uncle Sam.

Although any American is certainly welcome to contribute to the relief effort in Myanmar, no one should be forced to do so via his taxes or otherwise. It is a myth that there would not be sufficient aid to Myanmar without the government being involved in some way... There is no doubt in my mind that Americans will give liberally to alleviate the suffering of the people of Myanmar. Many have done so already through donations to various relief agencies. But whether Americans give or don't give, it is still the case that it should be the decision of each individual American.

The case of Myanmar is a test of one's commitment to the freedom philosophy. A free society includes the freedom to be unconcerned, insensitive, or stingy. If the forced looting of the taxpayers for foreign-aid payments has always been wrong, then — cyclone or no cyclone — it is just as wrong now.

Not Tax-Funded Aid to Myanmar - Laurence M. Vance - Mises Institute

SchansBlog: Survey USA poll results on Hill, Sodrel and Schansberg

Interesting report on Indiana 9th district race.

SchansBlog: Survey USA poll results on Hill, Sodrel and me

Don’t Invade Zimbabwe

Excellent recommendations by Jacob Hornberger.

The situation in Zimbabwe provides an excellent example of how U.S. foreign policy should operate all over the world.

What should the U.S. government do in this horrific situation? Should it invade and occupy Zimbabwe? Should it attempt a regime-change operation? Should it assassinate Mugabe? Should it impose sanctions and embargos? Should it buy Mugabe off with foreign aid?

The answer is: None of the above. It is no more business of the U.S. government to intervene in the affairs of Zimbabwe, no matter how horrible conditions are there, then it is for, say, the Swiss government to do so.

Is there anything the United States can do to help people in Zimbabwe? Yes. Here are some ways:

1. Americans should be free to travel to Zimbabwe and do whatever they want to support Mugabe’s opposition, including armed revolution if it comes to that. What such Americans should not be permitted to do is enlist the U.S. government to come to their aid. They must take individual responsibility for their convictions and actions.

2. Americans should be free to send money and other aid to people in Zimbabwe on a purely voluntary basis. They should not be permitted to enlist the taxing power of the U.S. government to assist them with foreign aid.

3. Americans should be free to engage in economic activity with Zimbabweans. No sanctions or embargoes. Building up the economic base of the private sector is one of the most effective tools against tyranny.

4. In a larger context, Americans should be devoting their efforts to establishing a model free society here at home to serve as an example to the people of Zimbabwe and the rest of the world. This would include the end of such things as kidnapping, torture, militarism, rendition, and military tribunals at the hands of the U.S. government and the complete restoration of such principles as due process of law, right to counsel, habeas corpus, right to confront witnesses, and trial by jury. It would also include the complete restoration of economic liberty to the American people.

5. In a similarly larger context, Americans should restore their heritage of open borders, which would send a message to the world that the beacon in the Statue of Liberty has been relit, sending forth its light to people all over the world, especially those suffering tyranny, oppression, or starvation. The message would be: “We will not permit our government to come and save you with soldiers, bombs, missiles, and bullets, which would kill and maim hundreds of thousands of you. Instead, you should know that if you are able and willing to escape your plight, there is at least one nation to which you can come that will not force you to return.”

Given the interventionist debacle in Iraq, which has killed and maimed thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, fortunately there are few Americans who are calling on the U.S. government to invade and occupy Zimbabwe, despite the lack of democracy in that nation. The same holds true, of course, for such nations as Vietnam, North Korea, and China, where there is a lack of democracy and a willingness among Americans to live with that fact.

The same policy of nonintervention (i.e., no invasion, occupation, or assassination) that Americans embrace for Vietnam, North Korea, China, and Zimbabwe should be applied to every country on earth. The time has come for the American people to end the U.S. government’s role as the world’s international policeman and welfare provider, a role that inevitably only makes a bad situation worse.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

MWC News - A Site Without Borders - - Don’t Invade Zimbabwe

Supreme Court rules in favor of gun ownership rights - Yahoo! News

Great news for the right to self-defense in Washington, DC.

Supreme Court rules in favor of gun ownership rights - Yahoo! News

What the Government Knows About Cannabis and Cancer – and Isn't Telling You by Paul Armentano

"So what lesson can be learned from the two studies above (aside from the fact that our government has no interest in investigating the health of ordinary cannabis consumers)? It’s that pot, like alcohol, is best consumed in moderation, and that pot prohibition – even when compared to the excessive use of the drug itself – still poses the greatest threat to health."

What the Government Knows About Cannabis and Cancer – and Isn't Telling You by Paul Armentano

Do Threats Make You Nervous? by Don Bacon

My tax dollars at work again. Sigh.

So while there is no threat, the country is at war and the threat level is "elevated" even though there is no threat which means that your car can be "nearly stripped" and you can be "detained" if you have a "nervous demeanor." But you have no reason to be nervous if there is no threat, even though the threat level is "elevated."

You can't make this stuff up, and it bears repeating: "As war and government prove, insanity is the most contagious of diseases." ~ Edward Abbey

Do Threats Make You Nervous? by Don Bacon

GETLIBERTY.ORG | The Future of our Bureaucracy is at Stake

Hat tip to Kim du Toit.

The Other Side of Kim du Toit

"Across the nation, homeschoolers have demonstrated academic proficiency above that of their public-schooled peers — and that those results are independent of parental credentials. Thus it becomes clear that any opposition to allowing “uncredentialed” parents to homeschool is based purely on ideological motives, not with the child’s best interests in mind.

ALG Perspective: This case is a brilliant example of the utter stupidity of judicial activism. Homeschoolers have a solid track record of well-above average performance nationally, and are fitting into society just as well as their public schooled peers. For the state to attempt to deny parents the right to homeschool is laughable, if it were not such a threat to their rights.

The real motives of those who oppose homeschooling are to perpetuate the government education bureaucracy and support the teaching unions, not to promote the education of our children."

GETLIBERTY.ORG | The Future of our Bureaucracy is at Stake

How to Do What You Love

Some good food for thought here.

How to Do What You Love

Anti-Positivist: Leno on WMD

"According to a Pentagon report this week, more than 1,000 nuclear missile components in the U.S. arsenal are lost and cannot be located. We can't even find our own weapons of mass destruction! Anyway, the Air Force, in their defense ... said today, there's a big difference between something being missing and just not being able to find it. Which would be okay if you're talking about a pair of lost sunglasses.

— Jay Leno, The Tonight Show"

Anti-Positivist: Leno on WMD

Price Controls Create Man-Made Disasters - Art Carden - Mises Institute

"Economic critiques of price controls are well worn. Nonetheless, these simple points bear repeating over and over again because price controls after natural disasters are so popular. The economic critique is more than an academic exercise or an attempt to apologize for the unscrupulous, as some critics maintain. Price controls have very real human costs. Some of these costs are quite apparent and some are harder to see. To the extent that they are attributable to price controls, though, they are avoidable."

Price Controls Create Man-Made Disasters - Art Carden - Mises Institute

The Yellow Press by William S. Lind

"The fact of the matter is, the whole NATO/American effort in Afghanistan is circling the drain. The American papers should be full of in-depth, multi-sourced stories about the war there. A friend just back from Britain reports that the British press is full of just such stories. In one recent ten-day period, the Brits lost nine soldiers killed, including their first woman. Was that reported anywhere in the U.S. press?"

The Yellow Press by William S. Lind

Morality – Trotskyite vs. Christian by Patrick J. Buchanan

Good perspective on World War II war crimes and criminals.

Morality – Trotskyite vs. Christian by Patrick J. Buchanan

Statement on FISA by Ron Paul

Excellent statement on HR 6304, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments before the US House of Representatives, June 20, 2008

Unfortunately, my U.S. Representative, Mike Pence, voted for this violation of the Fourth Amendment rights of his constituents.

"Mr. Speaker, I regret that due to the unexpected last-minute appearance of this measure on the legislative calendar this week, a prior commitment has prevented me from voting on the FISA amendments. I have strongly opposed every previous FISA overhaul attempt and I certainly would have voted against this one as well.

The main reason I oppose this latest version is that it still clearly violates the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by allowing the federal government to engage in the bulk collection of American citizens’ communications without a search warrant. That US citizens can have their private communication intercepted by the government without a search warrant is anti-American, deeply disturbing, and completely unacceptable.

In addition to gutting the fourth amendment, this measure will deprive Americans who have had their rights violated by telecommunication companies involved in the Administration’s illegal wiretapping program the right to seek redress in the courts for the wrongs committed against them. Worse, this measure provides for retroactive immunity, whereby individuals or organizations that broke the law as it existed are granted immunity for prior illegal actions once the law has been changed. Ex post facto laws have long been considered anathema in free societies under rule of law. Our Founding Fathers recognized this, including in Article I section 9 of the Constitution that “No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.” How is this FISA bill not a variation of ex post facto? That alone should give pause to supporters of this measure.

Mr. Speaker, we should understand that decimating the protections that our Constitution provides us against the government is far more dangerous to the future of this country than whatever external threats may exist. We can protect this country without violating the Constitution and I urge my colleagues to reconsider their support for this measure."

Statement on FISA by Ron Paul

Lawyers versus Free Speech by Vaughn Treude

Good analysis.

"All things considered, the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. The ideals of free choice and individual responsibility are dead, as far as the media is concerned. Cycling, skiing, horseback-riding, skating – all these moderately risky activities Americans have enjoyed for generations – will come under the helmet mandate, first in the media and then in real life. For the time being, I can still, as a private individual, legally ride bike without a helmet – but I'd better not advertise that fact."

Lawyers versus Free Speech by Vaughn Treude

Get a bike helmet to get ahead - or maybe not - Telegraph

Good commentary from across the pond. I think my daughters will like it. They have a rebellious streak. Personally, no one wore helmets when I starting riding bikes in the 1960s, but I don't miss those days now that inexpensive helmets are available to help us cut our risk. Same thing with seat belts.

However, I don't think government should be telling us we must wear them.

Hat tip to Vaughn Treude at LewRockwell.com.

Lawyers versus Free Speech by Vaughn Treude

We need to be clear about the trade-off. The price of liberty is a small but appreciable loss of security; the price of security is a loss of liberty. In the case of the 42 days, the increase in security is obviously too small to justify the loss of a freedom such as habeas corpus.

As for cycle helmets, we should be allowed, in our muddled way, to make up our own minds. Sometimes we will go for hatless, sun-blessed, windswept liberty; sometimes for helmeted security.

The important thing is that we assess the risk, we make the decision, and be it on our own heads - or, in the case of my helmet, sometimes not.

Get a bike helmet to get ahead - or maybe not - Telegraph

Isaiah's Job - Albert Jay Nock - Mises Institute

Albert Jay Nock wrote:

Why, if all that were so — if the enterprise were to be a failure from the start — was there any sense in starting it? "Ah," the Lord said, "you do not get the point. There is a Remnant there that you know nothing about. They are obscure, unorganized, inarticulate, each one rubbing along as best he can. They need to be encouraged and braced up because when everything has gone completely to the dogs, they are the ones who will come back and build up a new society; and meanwhile, your preaching will reassure them and keep them hanging on. Your job is to take care of the Remnant, so be off now and set about it..."

The mass man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses...

The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either...

If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants...

The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. The prophet of the American masses must aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste, and character among 120,000,000 people; and this is a distressing task. The prophet of the Remnant, on the contrary, is in the enviable position of Papa Haydn in the household of Prince Esterhazy. All Haydn had to do was keep forking out the very best music he knew how to produce, knowing it would be understood and appreciated by those for whom he produced it, and caring not a button what anyone else thought of it — and that makes a good job...

... in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those — dead sure, as our phrase is — but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you.

[ Sounds like the writers of "The Matrix" have read some Nock. ]

if Elijah the Prophet could not make a closer guess on the number of the Remnant than he made when he missed it by 7,000, anyone else who tackled the problem would only waste his time...

The other certainty which the prophet of the Remnant may always have is that the Remnant will find him...

Isaiah's Job - Albert Jay Nock - Mises Institute

Why Be Libertarian? - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Institute

Murray Rothbard wrote:

In the field of justice, man's will is all; men can move mountains, if only men so decide. A passion for instantaneous justice — in short, a radical passion — is therefore not utopian, as would be a desire for the instant elimination of poverty or the instant transformation of everyone into a concert pianist. For instant justice could be achieved if enough people so willed...

The true test, then, of the radical spirit, is the button-pushing test: if we could push the button for instantaneous abolition of unjust invasions of liberty, would we do it? If we would not do it, we could scarcely call ourselves libertarians, and most of us would only do it if primarily guided by a passion for justice...

The genuine libertarian, then, is, in all senses of the word, an "abolitionist"; he would, if he could, abolish instantaneously all invasions of liberty, whether it be, in the original coining of the term, slavery, or whether it be the manifold other instances of State oppression. He would, in the words of another libertarian in a similar connection, "blister my thumb pushing that button!"...

The libertarian goals are "realistic" in the sense that they could be achieved if enough people agreed on their desirability, and that, if achieved, they would bring about a far better world. The "realism" of the goal can only be challenged by a critique of the goal itself, not in the problem of how to attain it. Then, after we have decided on the goal, we face the entirely separate strategic question of how to attain that goal as rapidly as possible, how to build a movement to attain it, etc...

Actually, in the realm of the strategic, raising the banner of pure and radical principle is generally the fastest way of arriving at radical goals. For if the pure goal is never brought to the fore, there will never be any momentum developed for driving toward it...

Upon being reproached for the habitual severity and heat of his language, Garrison retorted: "I have need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt." It is this spirit that must mark the man truly dedicated to the cause of liberty.

Why Be Libertarian? - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Institute

Should Age Discrimination Be Legal? - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

"Imagine if the state said that you may not quit your job on grounds that you dislike your boss's age, race, religion, or sex. If that is your reason, you must stay working there. We would all recognize that this is a case of involuntary servitude. It is an attack on freedom. So why do we not see that it is the same with the employer?

Under freedom, if an employer decides, for no good reason, that employees should not be older than 40, that is his judgment. If it is a bad decision, the competition will gain an edge by hiring the people who have been passed over.

A final point about the employee. Would you want to work for a company that doesn't really want you there, that is only maintaining your job for fear of the bureaucrat? That is not a prescription for a happy life. The happy life comes through permitting maximum freedom to associate and choose — a freedom that applies to everyone and under all circumstances, without exception."

Should Age Discrimination Be Legal? - Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. - Mises Institute

Who's to Say What's Right or Wrong?

Interesting propositions by Richard Sharvy. I agree with some of them that I thought I would not.

Richard Sharvy: Obituary

Hat tip to Mises Economic Blog.

Mises Economics Blog


Mr. Sharvy wrote:

Philosophers know many things about right and wrong that most other people do not know. Here are some examples of things that we know:

(F1) Women do not have the right to do whatever they choose with their own bodies.

(F2) There is no right to life.

(F9) The fact that something is illegal does not make it wrong.

(F10) Doing something wrong is not the same thing as wronging someone.

Jesus is not forbidding us to defend ourselves when attacked; he is urging us to ignore insults and to foreswear revenge. His command comes in the specific context of an injunction against revenge and retaliation...

A justified blow struck in self-defense is not wrong; it does not violate the attacker's rights...

People want to avoid making decisions; they want to avoid responsibility. People are afraid of being blamed for a bad decision; they do not expect to be given credit for a good decision. At work, they have a set of rules, and if they follow those rules, they feel that they are safe from being blamed, scolded, demoted, or fired. "I know it's stupid, but it's the policy" feels safe...

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Who's to Say What's Right or Wrong?v