LewRockwell.com has been extremely helpful to me in learning about economics, history and philosophy. And it’s all for free. The same for FFF.org, the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation, Mises.org, the website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and AntiWar.com, the website by mainly non-interventionist conservatives and libertarians who oppose war and the statism the grows naturally with war.

Now, in my own writing, some people seem to think there is perhaps a little too much bitterness, vitriol and sarcasm, to which I plead guilty. I know, but I feel that, at least on this personal blog, I need some kind of outlet, combined with my trying to get some very important points across. But also, I don’t like others trying to intrude into my life. So naturally, when one disturbing thing after another comes up in the news, it has an effect on me. Such as Sen. Joe Lieberschnitzel wanting to make new laws or policies in which we are all presumed guilty (because he’s an ignoramus who has never read the Declaration of Independence, nor the Bill of Rights), and in which he wants to give the police even MORE power to stick their grubby paws into my car (even though I don’t have a car, it’s the principle here), and give the feds more power to stick their grubby paws into my home, my bank account, etc. And when Sen. Chuck Schmuck Schumer says “strangle the Palestinians,” that makes me upset, too.

Presumption of Innocence? Never heard of it.

I do try, however, to soften and even suppress my bitterness and vitriol in my formal articles that I send in to LewRockwell.com. But this blog here combines what I see as formal writing with my own personal outlet, and so on.

So, when it comes to why people feel it’s necessary to attack LewRockwell.com, as has apparently happened recently, there are just some people who have such an adoration — even a worship — of the State, that they do not like seeing the State being criticized. Some people, of course, are so personally and financially tied to the State that not only criticism but any attempts to make cuts in the government’s budgets or limiting its power is a threat to the parasites’ livelihood. The Obommunists want the government to be bigger and more intrusive, and have even greater power to take more from the fruits of peoples’ labor. The warmongers like the police state to violate our civil liberties under the presumption of guilt and they love the military and its might, and the warmongers like to “break things and kill people” abroad. The neocons want to reorganize the Middle East like the nosey little meddlers that they are, but their own version of grandiose “community organizing” in the

This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while.

Middle East has done nothing but destroy the Middle East, and their poking Islamic hornets’ nests for 60 years has done nothing but provoke the inhabitants of those territories to want to fight back. Destroying the Middle East and destroying America is what neoconservatives and Obommunists are good at. But producing anything of actual value to others in the marketplace? No way, José!

There are just many people out there who see any questioning of the State’s authority, challenging of the State’s intrusions, or efforts to cut whole government programs as some kind of threat. Those challenges are a threat to the power of the State, but those people don’t seem to see what a threat to our Liberty that the State has always been, and becoming more so each day. The reason why that is, and why America is becoming yet another totalitarian dictatorship is because of allowing that institution — the State — to have the power of compulsion over others, and giving the State legally protected monopolies. Once you give anyone the power of compulsion over others, the power to intrude into someone else’s life in some way, it will never end. Once you give anyone the power of compulsion over others, you are immediately negating the principles of the Declaration of Independence: “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and when just one individual (with a uniform, a badge, or a business suit) is given the power of compulsion over anyone else, you are then saying that, no, the individual does NOT have an inalienable right to one’s life and one’s Liberty, which is the right to be free from the aggression of others against one’s life and Liberty, one’s person and one’s property.

The danger in the message Obama’s speech sent to the world is that this is a country being led by a president who does not understand America’s role in guaranteeing global order in the world today.

What do you mean by America’s role in “guaranteeing global order”? Can Mark Steyn refer to any statements by the Founding Fathers that America is responsible for “guaranteeing global order”? Can he point to where the Constitution authorizes the U.S. government to “guarantee global order”? I don’t think so.

If anything, the use (or misuse) of the U.S. government apparatus as a means to “guarantee global order” has caused global chaos. I don’t know what it is with these globalists and internationalists who really believe that America is responsible to fix the rest of the world’s problems — really, they mean the U.S. government is obligated to do so. In actuality, these neoconservatives with their delusions of grandeur God Complex and their love of the State (as we clearly saw in Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin’s preachfest last week) have done nothing but destroy the rest of the world with their military aggression, from Iraq starting in 1990 to Afghanistan, and economically with their Federal Reserve as they continue to also destroy America. The neoconservatives are not really that different from communists (as Gary North pointed out today), in their love of always expanding government and collectivist State control over the individual. As Robert Wenzel pointed out yesterday, regarding “Basel III global banking capital regulations,”

…When implemented, it will, over time, result in a lower standard of living on a global level for nearly all and greater separation between the super-wealthy tied in with global governments, and the rest of us…

The highly technical Basel III rules are all about driving bank money, on a global scale, away from making what banks would consider prudent investments and forcing them into investments into often highly questionable paper such as sovereign debt and Fannie and Freddie paper…

It is nothing but a huge power grab directing money to governments and the elite. Further, since it drives banks to buy extremely risky debt, it will result in making the global banking system more unstable, and set the stage for a huge global inflation, when governments will be forced to bail out these bad investments by printing more money.

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More…

Henry Hazlitt: Can the State Reduce Poverty (1973)

Lawrence Reed: Good Economists, Bad Economists, and Walmart

Leon Hadar on Obama and the Middle East

Richard Ebeling: Homeland Security and the Bureaucratic Dilemma (2002)

Russell Longcore: Glenn Beck’s DC Rally and Secession

Chris Floyd: Mad Men: The Psychopaths Play the Insanity Card

Matt Purple on Glenn Beck and the lack of understanding the whole picture of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

• 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 7, 2010

–Regular blog posts are below the cartoon.

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

(This cartoon from 2009):

Jim Powell on the history of world leaders choosing aggression over laissez-faire (2005)

Robert Higgs on how the billionaire fat cat Obama supporters feel betrayed

Philip Weiss on Middle East peace talks

David D’Amato on Peace Talks for War

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Was Iraq Worth It? by Pat Buchanan

We Can’t Win This Way, by Lew Rockwell (Oct. 2001)

The Troops Don’t Defend Our Freedoms, by Jacob Hornberger (2005)

U.S. Presidents and Those Who Kill for Them, by Laurence Vance

No, I Do Not Support “The Troops”, by Arthur Silber

War, Peace, and the State, by Murray Rothbard

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?

DailyTech: Steve Jobs Accuses Google of Lying about Android Activations

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.

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

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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