Donald Miller, MD: What Kerouac, Kennedy, Lincoln, and Practicing Medicine Have Taught Me About Liberty

George Smith: Bad Monetary Policy Is Redundant

Glenn Greenwald compares NBC’s White House propagandist role to AP’s emphasis on accuracy

Thomas Woods on spreading the word of Nullification

Jason Ditz: US Mulls Afghan Bank Bailout

Justin Raimondo: Come Home, America

Sheldon Richman: Paying for Tax Cuts?

Dr. Sanity: Postmodernism and the Left: A Perfect Storm

Pat Buchanan: Can the Tea Party Deliver?

Hans-Hermann Hoppe: The Myth of National Defense

DailyTech: Steve Jobs Accuses Google of Lying about Android Activations

“Just as war is the natural consequence of monopoly, peace is the natural consequence of liberty.” -Gustave de Molinari

• Join Thomas DiLorenzo’s 10-week online class on “The Political Economy of War” starting September 21st (“Students will learn about the economics and politics of war from some of the giants of classical liberalism, such as Ludwig von Mises, Frederic Bastiat, Lionell Robbins, Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, Robert Higgs, and others. Among the topics to be discussed are Why capitalism is the very opposite of war…The role of free trade in deterring war…Why conservatives love war and the state…”)

September 3, 2010

–Regular blog posts are below the cartoon.

–Check out the “Noteworthy Articles” down the Left Sidebar.

(This cartoon from 2009):

It is just so sad to hear these radio talk hosts and their callers looking forward to this November’s elections, actually believing that ousting Democrats and putting in Republicans will improve America’s ongoing economic and psychological depression. Yesterday I was actually feeling sorry for Howie Carr on WRKO while they discussed how “vulnerable” some Massachusetts Democrat Congresspeople are, as though it really matters. As I mentioned in my November 2010: More Rearranging of Deck Chairs, those kinds of changing of the guard is just a matter of, as Gary North would say, “kicking the can,” because they won’t make any damn bit of difference (for the better, that is, but it could make a difference for the worse). As long as we keep extending the inherently flawed system of federal government and constitution that we have, it will never be fixed.

So, how many Republicans voted for the Wall Street Bailout in 2008? How many of them actually told the truth that a big reason the medical care system is so dysfunctional and why health care so expensive is all the bureaucratic red tape, the regulations and taxes, and that if you get rid of all those government intrusions, the prices will come down? Why don’t any Republicans introduce bills to impeach Obama, given all the unconstitutional crap he’s been forcing on America?

And what are the chances that Republican leaders McConnell and Boehner will be replaced this January? I think we know the answer to that question.

And I’ve pointed this out several times in the past, but the 1980 Reagan Revolution did nothing to reduce the size of the federal government. Reagan raised taxes, added more bureaucracies and continued to sign budgets with huge deficits. Reaganomics was a myth. After the 1994 Republican Revolution, the size and power — and intrusiveness — of the federal government grew and grew, and after Bush the warmonger-socialist was elected, and with 6 years of Republican majorities, the federal government continued to grow and its intrusiveness continued and now with no end in sight. So, you really think that this time is different? Well, if you think that, you’re living in a real fantasy world.

Hmmm. Let’s see who some of these new people are that are going to “change things” in Washington. Well, there’s Rand Paul, son of Ron Paul but not nearly as Libertarian, nor as straightforward about things, i.e. Rand seems to me to be quite the typical mealy-mouthed politician. Given his neocon-leaning positions on several issues, I don’t think Rand Paul has an understanding of the Founders’ principles upon which America was founded.

Oh, and in Connecticut, the Republican nominee is former World Wrestling executive and degenerate Linda McMahon. I’ve written about her a few times here. McMahon knows how to run a business: World Wrestling. Now there’s something. McMahon has real experience that will make her important work in the U.S. Senate quite useful, such as her steroids scandal. And as an actual participant in World Wrestling, she has experience in feigning a coma in a wheelchair and participating in simulated sex and rape scenes, hence “degenerate.” She can join in the other senators as they continue to rape the country and our freedom. McMahon is such a Republican and a “conservative” that before this year she has contributed to several Democrats’ campaigns including Rahm Emanuel and Mark Warner. So much for Linda McMahon.

And the reason that Republicans in Connecticut chose McMahon over Peter Schiff was because they didn’t know about him, because the local press sees Schiff’s views as very similar to the Founding Fathers, and that he has actual intellectual and economic proficiency so therefore he’s a “fringe” candidate, so why report on his campaign? There are actually two independents on the ballot, but will the local press mention them? (Nope.)

This is very similar to the Scott Brown fiasco here in the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. There were actually three candidates in the race, Brown, Martha Cuckoo and Joe Kennedy the libertarian independent. It was Joe Kennedy who was daring to mention the constitution and why foreign military expansionism is against America, etc. I was saying well before the election how the nutsos on local talk radio were swooning over Scott Brown and deluding themselves into believing he was “conservative” and a (choke, barf) “Tea Party” candidate, despite the fact that he supported RomneyCare (and still does), opposed cutting the state income tax and supports the kind of environmentalist wacko regulations Al Gore ignoramuses would love. But, noooooo, the local talk hosts had their man-crush with Scott Brown, and that was that. He may have voted against ObamaCare, but he did vote for the Dodd financial regulatory bill, to show how much of an understanding of economics and finance he really has.

And speaking of Massachusetts, the talk hosts just yesterday were talking about the two Republicans fighting for the nomination of who will oppose Barney Frank, like THAT actually matters! This district is so gerrymandered, there’s no WAY anyone can beat Barney Frank, regardless of what scandals he’s had (like having male prostitution rings operating out of his apartment, like his male lover who worked as an executive at Fannie Mae and benefiting financially from Frank’s legislation, and the list goes on and on) because the people of the People’s Republics of Newton and Brookline just love their fellow leftist nincompoop.

Speaking of Newton, Michael Graham was discussing on his show today the new “Taj Mahal” High School in Newton, Barney Frank’s home town, that cost $200 million, and $40 million of that came from Massachusetts state taxpayers, people who don’t even live in Newton! It is one of the most disgusting rip-offs at the public trough I’ve seen in a while. (The Big Dig comes to mind.) These richy rich rich rich people in Newton and Brookline (See all the multi-million dollar homes in Brookline, and in Newton) have no idea how they are going to lose much of their extreme wealth when the policies of the hacks they have been voting for all these years finally crash back in their faces.

Oh, well. So much for democracy.

Eric Margolis: China and India: A War of Giants

Chris Floyd: Innocent Executioners: An Illustration of the Principles of Western Civilization in the Modern World

When I saw in the Eric Margolis article (linked above) the line about the British drawing the India-Tibet border (which apparently was in 1914), I’m thinking, “Oh, no, not that ‘British Mandate’ stuff again!” Those damn British really have been responsible for so much crap over the last century, particularly throughout that entire hemisphere, and I’m still learning one new item of information after another that continually confirms that.

There’s the British Mandate (I guess “mandate” means they date men.) expropriating lands and fortunes from Arabs/Palestinians in Israel, displacing indigenous Middle-Easterners to make way for European (not Middle-Eastern) Jews (and later the UN doing the same thing), there’s the Brits enslaving Iranians and more or less stealing their natural oil resources, as Stephen Kinzer has noted, and now I learn this about this current tension between India and China has its roots in Britain’s meddling into the affairs of all these other countries. If it’s true that Fate engages in retribution, then I’m not surprised to hear of predicted Islamization of Europe, particularly the U.K., as Mark Steyn has noted.

Speaking of Britain, last night I only heard a few minutes of the out-of-control, overly emotional Michael Savage (a real friend to the British, these days), responding hysterically to the news of the two guys who allegedly engaged in a “dry run” terrorist attempt. Savage is typical of our generation of short-term thinking, immediate-gratification oriented Americans, who can’t see very far into the past to understand the true origins of our current troubles.

The terrorists themselves have constantly been telling us what motivates their terrorist intentions, and it’s not because they hate us for our freedom and values (see the above linked article by Chris Floyd on modern Western values), or to spread their Islamic religion. Their primary motivation has been political: they don’t like the U.S. occupying and trespassing on their territories, for many, many decades — really since World War II. They don’t like the U.S. government planting military bases and other governmental apparatus on their lands. It’s no wonder that the neocons who support such socialist land grabs don’t understand these basic points, given their Trotskyist roots.

Such expansionism was never intended by the Founders, and neoconservatives should stop claiming to be advocates of “original intent.” Unfortunately, like many others who worship our federal Leviathan government, Michael Savage is too self-centered to understand that the principled, moral and practical solution to the problem is to remove all U.S. military bases and government agency offices from all foreign lands — they don’t belong there — and get the hell out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other Middle-Eastern and Asian territories, and Europe as well! Their presence abroad has no benefit to the United States, only drawbacks.

And, regarding the British as well, it looks like the dysfunctional U.S.-British co-dependence really wasn’t ended with the American Revolution — or since then.

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More…

S.M. Oliva: Religion vs. Scientism

Glenn Greenwald: Lawsuit challenges Obama’s power to kill citizens without due process

Kelley Vlahos: Why Muqtada Haunts the White House

Gary North’s Translation of Bernanke’s Recent Speech: Part 1 and Part 2

Murray Rothbard: The Case Against the Fed

Rothbard: Origins of the Federal Reserve

Ludwig von Mises: Inflation Destroys Savings

Henry Hazlitt: What You Should Know About Inflation

Here’s how to get rid of inflation: Get rid of the Federal Reserve. Better yet, get rid of the federal government, and let the states have their sovereignty and independence, including monetarily.

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In doing some more research, I have learned that Operation Desert Storm commander Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf’s father, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Sr., was part of Operation Ajax, in which the CIA in 1953 overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mossasegh and replaced him with a 25-year brutal dictatorship of the Shah. Hmmm. What a small world.

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Wendy McElroy expresses concern about possible drug abuse of returning veterans

Justin Raimondo: In Defense of the Kochtopus

David Samel: What Lebanon can teach the U.S. about religious tolerance

John Taylor Gatto: The Underground History of American Public Education

Stephen Walt expresses pessimism about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations

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POLL:

David Kramer has this video on the LewRockwell.com blog, of a van that goes along streets to scan vehicles with x-ray technology to find evidence of terrorism. However, this constitutes a search, and is therefore unconstitutional. You just can’t do that, so they should stop doing that. You really must have specific reasons to suspect specific individuals and have some actual specific item that you’re looking for in a specific vehicle and you need to have that information written on a search warrant and get a judge’s signature. THAT’S the American way, not this Gestapo stuff.

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More…

Jon Watts: The Oath Keeper: Villain or Valiant?

Butler Shaffer: Lest We Forget

Murray Rothbard: Free Market

David Bromwich: Cordoba House and Religious Freedom

Sheldon Richman: Trading for Security

Jonathan Cook: Smuggling Palestinians

Chuck Baldwin: John McCain’s Attack on Liberty

Ron Paul: A Tea Party Foreign Policy

Joan Walsh: Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin’s unholy alliance

Jack Hunter: Amen to the Imam

Jacob Hornberger: The Market As a Redistributor of Wealth

MJ Rosenberg: Pro-Bombing Iran Is Anti-Israel

Tom Engelhardt and Andrew Bacevich: The Unmaking of a Company Man

Rad Geek on Chuck Schumer’s drones sent to the border to enforce immigration laws

Glenn Greenwald: Anti-mosque sentiment rages far from Ground Zero

Yesterday on his radio show Jason Lewis was talking about how the government is taking away our liberty and property, and discussing the 9th Circus Court’s approving of the government having the power to trespass onto private property and stuff GPS intrusions onto or underneath people’s cars, in order to unconstitutionally track their every move, and discussing the 2nd Amendment that protects (or was intended to protect) our right to bear arms and self-defense. And Robert Wenzel gave his analysis of Fed chairman Clueless Ben Burnbanker’s speech in Wyoming yesterday, describing Burnbanker as a “mad scientist.” Gary North has his own translation of the speech. And many local talk hosts here in the Boston area were talking about Sarah Palin’s dissing of Scott Brown (Ooooo, Sarah said nasty things — albeit true — about Scott Brown…Oooo…).

Like all central government bureaucrats and monopolists, Ben Burnbanker has a God Complex — delusions of grandeur. Meanwhile, their precise manipulating and tweaking of America’s money or monetary system, in the name of preventing recessions, depressions and crashes, has been the actual cause of the recessions, depressions and crashes. But if these high-and-mighties would just leave things alone, stop intruding and trespassing their grubby paws into private economic activities where they don’t belong, and let people be free to use competing currencies and engage in voluntary exchange without external intrusions, financial, banking and monetary irregularities will naturally adjust themselves. We know that as an historical fact, from the levels of freedom vs. levels of government intrusions and the effects more or less government intrusions had on American economic matters in the 19th Century and during the 1920s.

But these fat cats of Big Government have their selfish God Complex and they like to have the power to intrude and violate private financial matters and exchanges and private wealth and property, so they don’t like freedom. More freedom means less power for them — that’s the bottom line.

And these central bank manipulators and intruders actually are criminals, in my opinion. I calls it like I sees it. Like George W. Bush’s Chicken Little (and Chicken Hawk) hysteria to invade Iraq, in the central banksters’ Chicken Little hysteria of September 2008, they engaged in acts of terrorism and extortion: terrorizing the population by threatening economic collapse and civil unrest, as well as looting and martial law, if the Congress didn’t comply with their demands of extorting “public” wealth for their private interests in their dreaded and ghastly Wall Street Bailout redistribution scheme.

It is those Chicken Littles and Chicken Hawks who have been ruining America. The leftist Al Gore environmentalist wacko Chicken Littles are also extortionists and terrorists, with their warning us that if we exhale, we are destroying the planet. They want to outlaw exhaling.

I say we outlaw the Al Gore environmentalist wacko Chicken Littles as well as the central bank Chicken Littles.

The real answers to the problems that these totalitarians have been causing would have been to repeal congressional mandates that forced private lenders to lend irresponsibly, repeal each and every restrictive regulation, tax, mandate that prevents those at the bottom from climbing up the ladder of success and prosperity.

But nooooo, the Chicken Little terrorists and extortionists, in their selfish wallowing in the public trough out of greed to take other people’s stuff, had to do their bailouts and “reforms,” all of which will have only exacerbated the problems and contribute even more to any future possible economic collapse, looting and civil unrest, and martial law. I hope that the doom-and-gloomers such as Gerald Celente are wrong about the extremely negative future for America, because, quite frankly, I don’t know how I personally will be capable of getting through such a situation.

Throughout the course of this blog here, I have been critical of government, particularly the federal government, and some people think that’s “unpatriotic.” However, some people just have a misunderstanding of what “patriotism” means. It is supposed to mean “love for one’s country,” but some people seem to think that means “love for one’s government.” Those are two entirely separate beings: the country and the government. If you actually step back and observe the history of America, you will see how every action committed by the U.S. government has done nothing but destroy America, little by little, from economic policy to foreign policy. That is because the federal government had long ago abandoned the principles upon which America was founded: individual liberty, private property, freedom of association and voluntary exchange.

We have learned that Major Chicken Little – Chicken Hawk George W. Bush took the U.S. into war with Iraq based on lies and propaganda, and we are learning that the Wall Street Bailout and other gimmicks by Bush, Ben Burnbanker and Henry “Hank” (or is it Pat?) Paulsen were based on lies and propaganda. The sole purpose of both those actions was not to protect Americans from terrorism or from financial disaster, but to expand the size and power of the federal government — for special interests like Goldman Sachs and defense contractors (but mostly for Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street parasites, including the military actions). I am hopeful that Americans are starting to wake up to what these criminals have been doing, and will stop being the sheeple who allowed the criminals to have the power that they have had.

I think that we must insist that Ben Burnbanker, Hank (or is it Pat?) Paulson and Bush be charged with “high crimes and misdemeanors” and tried for extortion and terrorism, as mentioned above. And if Bush took the country to war in Iraq, totally unnecessarily, based on lies and propaganda and that resulted in the deaths of thousands of his own fellow Americans and thousands of Iraqis, he should be treated as a war criminal.

With all that said, and seeing how the federal government has done nothing good for America and has done nothing but destroy America, I will reiterate what I’ve already mentioned several times here and elsewhere, that this November’s elections will be another rearranging of deck chairs on the titanic, and what needs to be done is completely changing the system, and dismissing the federal government (As Col. Klink would say, “Dis….missed!”), allow the states to have the independence and sovereignty that they were originally intended to have by the great people who founded America.

Stephen Kinzer: Regime Change: Promise and Peril (Transcript of 2008 speech) (Watch the speech)

…Now why did we decide we couldn’t tolerate Ho Chi Minh as president of the united Vietnam? It’s because we thought if we allow this election to go forward you’re going to have a united Vietnam under a communist leadership. Instead of accepting that, we went to war, we lost 58,000 American lives, something like a million Vietnamese were killed, a country was ravaged, and our country was psychologically disoriented forever. And what was the end result? A united Vietnam under a communist leadership, the same result that we could have had in 1956 without any bloodshed…

Paul Bonneau: Why People Believe Government Is Here to Help Us

The tenacity of the meme, that government is here to help us and protect us, is hard to understand. All evidence throughout history points in the opposite direction–that government is here to prey on us, and that if there is anything we need protection from, it is our own governments. Why do people cling to this harmful meme?

A possible clue was provided last night, when I was watching an old Paul Newman movie, “Hombre.” (More…)

TIME: The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves

Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway — and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements. (More…)

“This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights…”? Excuse me? Yes, it does violate your Fourth Amendment rights. Someone’s driveway is still on his own private property. I can see maybe some rationale if the car is on the public street, but even then it’s still someone’s privately owned piece of private property — anyone who is placing something on or underneath it, especially as a means of violating the individual’s privacy, is trespassing, at the very least. And worse, all this is to do with the stupid, counter-productive, State power-enhancing War on Drugs! It’s all just disgusting!

Kelley Vlahos: Pincus v. Assange: Who Speaks for You?

What do online gaming entrepreneur Mark Pincus and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have in common? Other than being ambitious young geniuses at the forefront of two distinct Internet phenomena, absolutely nothing. But their vastly different goals and society’s reflexive response to them say much more about the losing battle for America’s soul than we are willing to admit. (More…)

Rachel Marcuse: After Birthright: Dangerous conversations and the stifling of dissent

…He estimates that about 30 per cent of the population of Israel has very practical problems with the country’s increasing religiosity as they’re not “sufficiently Jewish.” Many immigrants face this problem, especially newcomers from the former Soviet Union, as do the Ethiopian Jews who, the Chief Rabbinate has ruled, have to be converted formally, and then, of course, there is the 20 per cent of the population who are Arab….(Full article…)

Fred Branfman: Mass Assassinations Lie at the Heart of America’s Military Strategy in the Muslim World

The truth that many Americans find hard to take is that that mass U.S. assassination on a scale unequaled in world history lies at the heart of America’s military strategy in the Muslim world, a policy both illegal and never seriously debated by Congress or the American people. Conducting assassination operations throughout the 1.3 billon-strong Muslim world will inevitably increase the murder of civilians and thus create exponentially more “enemies,” as Gen. McChrystal suggests — posing a major long-term threat to U.S. national security. This mass assassination program, sold as defending Americans, is actually endangering us all. Those responsible for it, primarily General Petraeus, are recklessly seeking short-term tactical advantage while making an enormous long-term strategic error that could lead to countless American deaths in the years and decades to come. (More…)

Washington Post: WikiLeaks releases CIA paper on U.S. as ‘exporter of terrorism’

Glenn Greenwald: Debating America’s surveillance state

…Even at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. enacted the FISA statute, which criminalized government eavesdropping on American citizens without warrants. Every President until George W. Bush — including Ronald Reagan — was able to keep the country safe while adhering to that surveillance safeguard. But while even the most hawkish Americans in the 1980s — facing the Soviet threat — understood that domestic eavesdropping should be conducted only with judicial warrants, the war cheerleaders of the current decade insist that the far less formidable threat from Muslim extremists means we must vest the Government with the power of warrantless surveillance — even on American citizens, on U.S. soil. That’s how far we’ve descended into the pit of fear-mongering and submission, thanks to the toxic mix of fear-mongers and the authoritarian cowards they exploit…(Full article…)

Economist and historian Thomas Woods has this post on the LewRockwell.com blog, discussing how difficult it is to sell books, especially non-fiction. I wonder if it’s just worse now in these recent years because of what the government has done to the economy, and to the dollar. I know I can’t afford to buy things such as new books. But I wonder if in these more recent years — as far as non-fiction is concerned — that people are finding more information they need on the Internet, because sooooo much information is now available online, for free (thank God). As far as newspapers are concerned, I know I haven’t been buying the Boston Herald at the news stand nearly as much in the past year. (However, it’s just not worth $1 anyway. The Globe is $1.50 now, I think. I haven’t actually bought that in years! But the Globe’s online version is good.)

One way to get people to afford to buy plenty of new books, and many other things, is for Washington to eliminate the income tax and the capital gains tax. THAT will stimulate the economy, big time. But are the selfish, self-serving snorting pigs in Washington ever going to do that?

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In a recent post, I referred to the “Anti-Muslim Archie Bunker Bigots,” and I just wanted to clarify that I certainly didn’t mean all the people who are opposed to the proposed Islamic Center (aka “mosque”) two blocks away from “Ground Zero” in New York City. However, much of what I’m hearing, particularly on these radio talk shows, especially Michael Savage, is very emotion-filled, collectivist sentiment against Muslims, and not any honest discussion with reason and rational thought. I am hearing the talk of what sounds to me like gangs and mobs, and a clear abandonment of religious tolerance which is part of what America is all about.

No one has actually stated this explicitly, but this is what I am hearing: “All Muslims are responsible for 9/11.” That’s what much of this discussion sounds like to me, and, honestly, I really try to be as objective as possible. And it really isn’t as much to do with Ground Zero or that it’s some sort of “sacred” territory, because this anti-mosque hysteria is going on in cities all across America, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out the other day. It really is, deep down, anti-Muslim, anti-Islamism that is driving this. That should not be a surprise in a society as collectivistic as ours, with the mob group-think mentality that many people have.

There are too many people in our society who are just a bit self-centered, and do not seem to be able to see the “Ground Zeros” caused by U.S. government bombs, bullets and drones in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing innocents and destroying homes and schools. William Grigg tells of yet another “Ground Zero” in Pakistan.

And Jacob Hornberger today explains the denial of American interventionists of the immoral actions by the U.S. government in the Middle East.

But anyway, much of the anti-Muslim stuff I’m hearing has been on talk radio, although at least Jason Lewis is more open-minded and objective about this issue, as he is on most issues.

As someone who is constantly talking about “Judeo-Christian values” and morality on  his show, Michael Savage should try to be a little more open-minded, and not as overly emotional about the issue. Perhaps some xanax might help him, I don’t know, or an extra glass of wine maybe. Regarding what it’s like to be in a religious minority, don’t think that I forget being in the classroom in first or second grade being the only Jew in the class, even middle school, too, now that I think about it.

One phrase that Michael Savage uses many times is “useful idiot.” He refers to the naive, gullible Obama voters on the left who seem to be “useful idiots,” putting Obama in power actually thinking that he would do the things he promised, like ending the wars and bringing the troops home when he’s really been escalating tensions and conflicts abroad, and ending Wall Street-special interest greed in Washington, when, he’s actually further strengthening all that with the Dodd financial regulatory bill. And Savage was describing the supporters of the Gaza aid flotilla as “useful idiots” for Hamas, etc (which is a bunch of crap).

However, some people happen to think that Savage and other neocons have been “useful idiots” for the political bureaucrats and military socialist/fascists in Washington and their contributors in the private defense sector, in the neocons’ continual support for more war, bigger Big Government and greater expansion of the federal government at home and abroad. What the neocons have been supporting has nothing to do with national security, nothing to do with protecting Americans from terrorism, and everything to do with expanding government. Just keep being as naive as possible and keep believing the propaganda that the government tells us, and sweep the truth under the rug.

For some reason, many people just don’t want to recognize exactly what the terrorists themselves have been saying as far as what motivates them to want to commit terrorist acts against America. It is U.S. government foreign policy, which for a century have been policies of socialist central planning, government expansion, greater intrusions into foreign territories and intrusions into the matters of foreign countries. Socialist central planners believe in expanding the size and power of their monopolistic compulsory government over their own people and across foreign lands.

It should be of no surprise that the inhabitants of those foreign lands don’t like their territories being occupied by foreign governments such as the U.S. government. It should be of no surprise that those inhabitants don’t like their democratically elected governments being overthrown by foreign governments, such as the U.S. government and its agents such as the CIA, and replaced by dictators who brutalize them, and these inhabitants don’t like foreign governments such as the U.S. government setting up military satellite bases on their lands. And naturally, they will react against those intrusions.

Unfortunately, there are people — even in the year 2010, supposedly “modern times” — who continue to love the State, and will believe what their State leaders and agents tell them. They don’t mind seeing their government expanding and expanding and expanding, as long as it’s “for their own good.” And they see nothing wrong or immoral with their government expanding itself (i.e. trespassing) across foreign lands, destroying whole cities and murdering innocents.

“Small government” is a phrase many people like to say and hear, but it’s only for a rhetorical gratification. They don’t really mean it. Not really.

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More…

S.M. Oliva: Buy First, Think Second, Sue Third

Julian Sanchez on the Surveillance State

Wendy McElroy: Two Sides of the Tax Coin

Philip Giraldi: Boxed into a Corner on Iran

Economic Collapse Blog: Things to Get Worse for Housing Industry

Peter Schiff explains the realistic order of economic activity

Sheldon Richman: Persecuting a Conciliator

Jeffrey Tucker and Stephan Kinsella: Goods, Scarce and Nonscarce

Philip Giraldi has this article in American Conservative, on how the Israeli government is continually spying on America. It is particularly disturbing that Israeli intelligence officers are portraying themselves as American intelligence officers to members of the American Muslim community. The Israeli government must be a very paranoid one (as is inherent in the nature of monopolistic government bureaucrats), to feel it’s necessary to spy on the United States.

And as part of their paranoia, the Israeli government and its military probably will strike Iran, or pressure the U.S. government to do it for them. Even if the Israeli government starts a war against Iran, it will pull the U.S. military into it, and it will all be as unnecessary and counter-productive as were the U.S. government’s two wars against Iraq. Typical of State territorial monopolists. Those who initiate acts of aggression as a means of “defense” will find such acts of aggression backfire against them.

If Israel strikes Iran, that will make Israel the aggressor. Aggression is immoral, except in self-defense. And for those who will rationalize a strike on Iran as “self-defense,” no, that is not self-defense. Self-defense is when you use aggression in response to an actual act of aggression that has been initiated against you. If one is the aggressor, the initiator of the aggression, then that is not self-defense. Claiming that one’s initiation of aggression is justified because one predicts that the object of one’s aggression might aggress against you is not self-defense. For aggression to be morally justified, it needs to be in response to an actual initiation of actual aggression. Thus, the ones who start wars are the aggressors.

So why all this continuing Israeli spying on America? Who knows. But that’s okay — they’re Israel, they can do whatever they damn well please, and get away with it. If you criticize them, you’re an “anti-Semite.”

Speaking of spying, someone said she downloaded Google Chrome, and wasn’t sure if it was okay, so I said if it’s just there in your computer it can’t do anything, like tracking your browsing habits, as long as you’re not using it. But she uninstalled it anyway.

Google Chrome is a relatively new web browser to compete with Micro$oft’s Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc. Google’s Chrome browser does keep track of your browsing habits, but that’s not too bad a thing, except they do that by keeping track of your computer’s IP address. Now that’s not good. It is especially disturbing when you know that the people high up the Google chain of command are in cahoots with the Obama Administration, who wants to do even more spying on Americans than did the Bush Administration.

Besides former Google global public policy officer Andrew McLaughlin, who is now White House Internet Policy Director, according to the New York Times,

Mr. McLaughlin is the latest Google executive to take an official role in the Obama administration. Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, has been a close adviser to President Obama’s transition team and is now a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Katie Stanton, a former Google project manager, joined the White House as its director of citizen participation. And Sonal Shah, former head of global development at Google.org, now heads the White House Office of Social Innovation.

Some critics fear that the growing presence of former Google employees in the administration could lead to purchasing and policy decisions that improperly benefit the company at a time when the company’s power is likely to come under increasing scrutiny from regulators. Already the Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether the ties between the boards of Google and Apple amount to a violation of antitrust laws. The Justice Department is inquiring into the antitrust implications of Google’s settlement of a lawsuit with publishers and authors.

Do we really want Google to keep track of our browsing habits via our IP address to act as a specific identifier of our actual individual identity, which may some time down the road be used by government officials (like the SovietObamaCare medical takeover isn’t bad enough already in that regard!)?

And speaking of Apple — and SPYING — the company has applied for a patent for a new technology that will enable Apple to spy (and I mean really spy) on its own users. According to Julie Samuels of the Electronic Frontier Foundation,

More specifically, the technology would allow Apple to record the voice of the device’s user, take a photo of the device’s user’s current location or even detect and record the heartbeat of the device’s user.

Yikes!

One big reason why governments (and their private business helpers) spy on their own people is paranoia. Government bureaucrats don’t want their power checked or questioned. They insist on having access to every detail of what the people are up to, and they insist on total secrecy of what they themselves are up to.

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More…

Philip Weiss on how serious some people are in charging critics of Israel with “anti-Semitism”

Justin Raimondo: Dog Days (The lull before the storm)

Karen De Coster on the Freedom to be a parent — and a child

Chris Floyd: Release the Kagan: Neocon Nabob Hired by Team Obama

Robert Wenzel: The Obama Administration from Nudge to Grope

Glenn Greenwald: An exciting new Muslim country to drone attack

Kelly Holt: Murder Out of Control in Venezuela

Nat Hentoff: Who’ll dare fight King George now?

Tom Engelhardt and Tony Karon: The Bomb-Iran Debate from Hell

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In the Boston area, one of our talk radio stations is WRKO. This morning, Tom “The Felon” Finneran and his guest co-host Jennifer Something-or-Other were discussing the NY proposed Islamic Center issue. I’m getting so sick of this, and hearing these ignoramuses really makes me depressed about what kind of future our world will be. When Hans-Hermann Hoppe speaks of the process of decivilization, thanks to democracy, he ain’t kidding.

Both The Felon and Jennifer Whatever were agreeing that we need to continually repeat the showing of the planes crashing into the WTC twin towers and people jumping to their deaths, with Jennifer especially noting that “Muslims need to be reminded” with all the typical collectivist claptrap mindset that apparently Jennifer possesses. She’s literally saying that ALL Muslims are responsible for 9/11, which is pretty much what I’m hearing other radio talk show Archie Bunkers saying.

The Felon was pointing out how immoral it is for these Muslims to murder innocent Americans. And he leaves it at that. Is he unaware that the U.S. government has been murdering innocent civilians overseas? Is he aware of it, but thinks that’s okay, because those are Middle-Easterners and not Americans? Or, does he think that it’s okay for the U.S. government to kill innocent human beings but it’s not okay to kill innocent Americans? Does he know that the U.S. government and its military have been killing innocent women and children, wedding parties and school gatherings in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (Iran is next) for many years now? This neanderthalish moral relativism is a direct result of majority rules democracy, that feeds the desire to define human beings by groups and not as individuals.

I am not with the mob rule simpletons, however.

It’s easy for these neanderthals to dehumanize the victims of State-committed atrocities, especially when those targets for annihilation are located in less advanced societies. That’s been my observation, anyway. It implies that the inhabitants of those societies have lesser value as human beings and makes their murders acceptable. I compare that to rationalizing abortion, as far as assigning to the unborn a status of lesser value as human beings based on their less advanced stage of development.

The Archie Bunkers out there have been talking about the “mosque” issue in terms of Muslims not really having rights as human beings, not really having First Amendment rights or other basic rights that are inherent in human beings, as the Declaration of Independence states.

As noted in yesterday’s post that referred to Glenn Greenwald’s post on this, the anti-Muslim hatred, anger and bigotry, blaming ALL Muslims for 9/11, isn’t to do with the Ground Zero NYC location, because the knuckle-draggers are foaming at the mouth about mosques in other cities. It’s no longer about 9/11, no longer about Ground Zero.

Will Grigg very well elaborates on the intolerance of the anti-Muslim crusaders.

This intolerance and these campaigns to block the building of Islamic mosques all across America is very dangerous, here in a country where the right of people of all religions was to be protected. At least, that’s what the Founding Fathers thought. So much for “original intent,” which is usually what we hear the conservatives screaming about.

Given how Barack Obomber, with the assistance of his predecessor, is turning our country into the Soviet Union, which showed nothing but intolerance toward religions and religious people, we better watch out. After the Muslims, the Jews are next, and then the Christians, I’m sure you’ve heard all that. The so-called “Christian” Archie Bunker bigots out there don’t seem to really understand what they’re really doing, in my opinion. The Soviet’s religion was the State. They worshiped the State, and in modern America, so do the warmongering conservatives, as much as the Obommunist ignoramuses. People have been wondering out loud whether Obama is a Muslim or a Christian. Obama’s religion is the State.

Like Soviet communists and their love for territorial expansionism, the warmonger conservatives believe in the expansion of the U.S. federal State across foreign lands, knocking over anyone who gets in their way. That is how true believing State-worshipers think. And with their collectivist mindset, as they blame ALL Muslims for 9/11, the warmongers who think State murders of innocents is a-okay now want to eradicate all the Iranians because of their one crackpot dictator.

Could all you Archie Bunker neanderthal ignoramuses out there please stop this anti-Muslim frenzy of yours? I’m sick of having to spend so much time on this issue here in this space, like this is still the 7th Century.