This blog is for libertarians of all stripes -- left-libertarians, right-libertarians, anarcho-capitalists, free marketeers, and paleolibertarians -- who want to sound off on their thoughts on issues of the day as well as politics, current events, and other liberty-oriented projects of interest. This blog is pro-liberty, pro-voluntaryist, pro-peace, and pro-free market.
The Massachusetts Department of Revenue has issued a new video focusing on teens who, if they work at a summer job or on the weekends, must "learn what taxes are all about" and "need a few basics" about them before they spend that first paycheck at the mall. According to the DOR, this video is designed to "educate" adolescents about why it is paramount for them to get an early start on their tax filings.
That’s right; it’s probably not the first thing teens are thinking about. But teenagers work too — even if only at an after-school, weekend or summer job. And like everybody else, they need to know the basics to understand how their tax system works.
With that in mind, DOR announces the first release in a new “Teens ‘n’ Taxes” video series designed to educate teenagers about their tax responsibilities. The first video is set on a teenager’s first day on the job — and discusses the Form W-4, Employee Withholding Allowance Certificate, she needs to fill out.
As part of the department’s mission to educate younger residents about the tax system, Teens ‘n’ Taxes — like the successful DORM (Department of Revenue Media) video series for college students, — will be distributed to Massachusetts schools and posted on YouTube, Twitter and other social networking sites.
The vile state wants to get its dirty paws on our youth, who already know how tyrannical, oppressive, and villainous this political beast is. Now these youngsters will be slaves to the diabolical regime as well.
After all, isn't that what "equal tyranny for all" is all about?
Limousine left-wing socialist and Obama shill Bill Maher, who is also the host of the highly-rated show Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, went on a rant against Obama last Friday night, excoriating him for not "standing up to the energy companies and corporations" and for not socializing the health care industry like how the comic thinks it ought to be socialized.
What's even just as ridiculous is that a blowhard Huffington Post health writer/blogger named Ann Dunev praised Maher for his criticism of the One, in which she writes in part:
Just yesterday I asked my husband, "Who does Obama think he is -- Lindsay Lohan? Every time I look at the news, there is Obama -- having another Kodak moment." Then I find out Bill Maher noticed the same thing. And had the audacity to mention it on national television.
Aside from the fact that neither Obama nor Maher nor Dunev understand how the marketplace works and how socialized medicine has destroyed lives (and not saved them), their ignorance of the reality of the real world never ceases to befuddle me. They are for welfare for the poor including independent migrants (who, for the most part, pay more than they receive in welfare benefits).
What irks me about Maher is that he continues to labor under the rubric of libertarianism, claiming to be a "libertarian" when he has time after time sullied the word with his socialist nonsense. He's no better than the Neil Boortzes and the Eric Donderos of the world. Thus, it's time to excommunicate him from the Liberty movement....but then, he never was a part of it in the first place.
Here's a video of him on Keith Olbermann's show continuing his criticism of his boy Obama:
Americans who support President Obama’s “health care reform” plan involving the creation of a new public “government” insurance plan that would require private companies except for small businesses to provide it ought to be a red flag. As problematic as the corporatized health care system is (and it is, due to decades of never-ending government intervention), it could be in worse shape. However, if Obama, his hero-worshipping limousine leftists, and their collectivistic cronies have their way (and it looks as though it is heading in that direction), the deliberately-misnamed “single payer” health care for which the Democrats ache will come a cropper their way.
My latest and newest op-ed, aptly titled "Health Care Socio-Fascism," is available here at AssociatedContent.com. (It will soon be available at the Libertarian Enterprise and is currently being reviewed at the Nolan Chart site.)
Sam, 33, whose real name is Sam Miller (which was revealed in the Keene Sentinel on May 17* along with information regarding his malnutrition and health), had been languishing away in the Cheshire County Department of Corrections for nearly eight weeks following his arrest. The unexpected news of Dodson's release came out at approximately 2 p.m. EST, thanks to a NHUnderground poster by the name of Silent_Bob who posted on the website's forums that Sam's order "for his release was issued." At 3 p.m. EST, Sam left a message on Porc411, which reads as the following:
Hello free staters! This is SamIam and the jail has just thrown me out. The forced me to agree to PR terms that I’m already in violation of, I told them I did not understand. That I did not agree to them. I did not sign them. I requested my attorney who’s going to be here in 10 minutes. And they pushed me out the door, in the orange close. I guess I get to keep them. And gave me all my stuff. I was escorted out. They would not explain anything or put anything in writing. They were told just to release me and so I’m out of jail. Thank you guys for everybody who’s helped me, sent letters, cards, emails, done all the things you had to do to support me along the way and I’m looking forward to getting back to life and challenging a lot of this in court. Thank you, glad to be out, looking forward to talking all soon. Goodbye.
[*Note: The recorded .wav message that Sam sent was a tad bit shorter than the actual message posted on Bile's jailedactivist.info blog; here's the file.]
After his release, he was picked up by Free Stater Lauren Canario and brought to the Free Minds TV studio for an exclusive interview. Later that night, he appeared on FTL, resuming his duties as an occasional co-host. His preliminary trial is scheduled to commence at 1:30 p.m. EST at the same court where he was arrested -- Keene District Court in Keene, New Hampshire on June 15.
This is outstanding news, considering that the court had previously violated his First Amendment-protected, Fourth Amendment-protected, Sixth Amendment-protected, and Eighth Amendment-protected rights. After all, it was unconstitutional and federally illegal for Burke to arrest him on the bogus, trumped-up charges of disorderly conduct and possesion of property without a serial number. The only charges that are true but are sticking anyway are resisting arrest or detention and refusing to be processed. Moreover, the court decided to throw in a new charge of "common law criminal contempt of court" against him, simply because he refused to cooperate with his vile, repugnant captors.
I, for one, wouldn't want a law enforcement goon putting his hands on me and cuffing me for any charge, especially when the charges for the alleged crimes happen to be nonviolent. Moreover, why would I want to bow down to the state just to give it my legal name in order "to be processed," when the authorities can access my driver's license and other pertinent information if they wanted to identify me really bad? My real name and identity are on record, and therefore, I am under no legal obligation to give them that information. Besides, if what happened to Sam had happened to me simply because I refused to "participate" in the government's process by playing by their rules in order to acknowledge its legitimacy (which is the best way the system is employing simply as a PR scheme), then it would show how thuggish they were to me. However, even if I did play by a court's rules and recognized its legitimacy simply by giving the officials my legal name, it wouldn't make a difference anyway. Would the court really let me go and not throw me in a cage simply because I "participated" in a process that was coerced upon me at gun point? I sincerely doubt it.
The court officials, including Burke, incarcerated Sam because they wanted to make him an example of him and made certain that they wanted to "be right." It looks like they never got their wish.
As I have said before, courts, even the federal ones, are supposed to be open and transparent under the terms of the Sixth Amendment, yet they are breaking their own rules and expect the public at large to follow them at taxpayers' expense. Courts forbidding the videotaping on their own property are, by all means, creating a toxic environment where closed and tyrannical courts reign. Because Americans are not told the truth about the vile actions of the courts (particularly when there are high numbers of abuses and corruption practiced by judges, prosecutors, and police officers on government-owned and government-run property), the court's image from a PR standpoint will more than likely sit well with the public. As I noted in my previous blog entry on the subject:
Considering the courts are mechanisms for public relations, if the American people see through their PR nonsense, and see them for what they really are (I prefer to call them "prison processing centers"), then the American public could revolt against these statist judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement "government" officers and fight the system at all turns.
I can definitely see a very massive civil rights and civil liberties lawsuit aimed at these stooges being filed shortly, if not the not-too distant future.
Ian Freeman of Free Talk Live has announced on his popular New Hampshire-based radio show that he has left Bureaucrash Social, the social networking site that, to some extent, mirrors Facebook and Myspace and is run by the neoconservative-plagued Bureaucrash. Freeman announced on tonight's show that he pulled his BC Social account at 4:00 p.m. EST or sometime around that time.
This is on the heels of BC hiring a neoconservative Republican who has assumed control of the organization. Not only that, this comes a week after Freeman and his fellow Free Staters emailed the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), barraging them with complaints for their decision to hire Lee Doren, who has come under fire for not embracing true libertarian principles and for being the hypocrite that he is.
Bureaucrash Social, the social networking site for Bureaucrash which has taken over by a neoconservative Republican named Lee Doren (despite his claim that he's a "libertarian-conservative," has been deliberately set on "maintenance" to ensure that the group's membership numbers are inflated, the bulk of the incensed membership leaving the group notwithstanding. This has been implemented after the bulk of the membership has emailed the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) in an angry fashion for their ludricous appointment of this neocon nitwit.
Maintenance
We apologize for the inconvenience, but Bureaucrash Social is currently undergoing maintenance.
This is a clear-cut downfall of BC as we know it. It's an utter shame that this has come a cropper.
Bureaucrash, which was founded in 2001 by entrepreneur Al Rosenberg and the now-defunct Henry Hazlitt Foundation, has been funded by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) (a long-time libertarian think tank), and was run by former Crasher-in-Chief Jason Talley (who runs the Motorhome Diaries with fellow CEI activist Pete Eyre), has been taken over by a neoconservative Republican. Lee Doren, who is the organization's new Crasher-in-Chief, claims to be a libertarian-conservative (which is ridiculous because the libertarian ideology is a different animal from the conservative one), yet his so-called "libertarian-conservative" positions are not sitting well with the bulk of the group's entire member base.
Since CEI has control of Bureaucrash and has obviously decided to take the organization in this statist direction, this has had a very detrimental effect on the favorable view and reputation that the group has had for years. The bulk of the membership has expressed utter outrage over Doren's appointment to his new position, which has led to many members threatening to bolt from BC if Doren does not either embrace the complete ideologically pure tenets of liberty, step down voluntarily, or is not terminated from that job.
Okay, mea culpa. I came in here as the new guy trying to hit the ground running and may have moved too quickly, so I’d like to address the concerns that you have about the future direction of BureauCrash. First, BureauCrash will be an open forum for debate and discussion about the intersection between liberty and politics. Moreover, it will continue to allow all types of pro-liberty political philosophy (and if socialists want to come in here to debate, I’m sure we’ll all be up for that). I am sensitive to the fact that many of you are worried that my personal political views are more from the traditional wing of the liberty movement, but I make no apologies for that. Liberty is a broad concept. I will not be revamping BureauCrash to turn into my own pet project. My goal is to broaden our discussion and activist base while maintaining current ideas and projects. While that task may be difficult, I am sure we can work together to accomplish this goal.
Many BC members have already terminated their Bureaucrash Social (a website which acts as a pro-freedom social networking tool that mirrors Facebook and Myspace in some respects) accounts, while voluntaryists like Ian Freeman of Free Talk Live have already declared that they will be pulling their accounts on Monday. I have already pulled my account from the website, and I no longer wish to be associated with an organization that is transforming from a libertarian one to a conservative one.
Doren, who was on FTL to respond to the questions about his new appointment, was scrutizined by Freeman, co-host Mark Edge, and occasional co-host and AnarchyInYourHead.com cartoonist Dale Everett because of his neoconish positions, which he disguises as "libertarian-conservative." At one point in the interview, Lee, when asked whether the military budget should be cut, says that he doesn't "have an opinion" on the issue. What a ludicrous position to have! This man is the head of a libertarian group, and if he is ever interviewed and gets asked about whether the budget should be reduced dramatically, he should have a position as to whether the budget should be cut or not. But this nitwit has no position on the matter, and, because of CEI's bungling, it shows that he is not a libertarian, let alone an individual who advocates voluntary activism and opposes the state and its bureaucratic nonsense.
It is also indicative of what has become of the libertarian movement, considering there are conservatives like Wayne Allyn Root and Lee Doren who call themselves libertarians when they are not.
This is the problem when libertarianism becomes mainstream. When the libertarian movement and its ideas become mainstreamed into society, they lose their true meaning and their essence. The movement no longer becomes one that has its own autonomy and its own uniqueness; it becomes a political movement that warps and even perverses the purity of its tenets. Thus, the word "libertarian" no longer means an advocate for individual freedom and the elimination of the state; it becomes an advocate for "limited government" (meaning that the government can be what the advocates want it to mean) and the reformation of the state.
As a result of its mainstreaming, when the tent of the movement is widened for people to enter it, then it becomes watered down and sounds not so radical so that interested parties that support the initiation of force will join it. Conservatives who like this new brand of libertarianism (a faux one that it is) will adopt it and dupe ill-informed and unwitting members of society to believe that, because, if these people believe in this brand of liberty, then all advocates of human freedom must share these beliefs as well.
The reason that they would see it that way is that human beings are irrational creatures, thanks to human nature. They make irrational and illogical associations all the time. This is the reason why the libertarian philosophy must be guarded and protected at all times!!! This is not about making personal attacks on conservatives and neoconservatives and their ilk; this is about protecting the libertarianism from bigotry, jingoism, nationalism, xenophobia, collectivism, and even statism.
As for Bureaucrash, I doubt that there is any chance of saving the group from itself or bringing it back to its glory days. I'm convinced that the second BC ventured into neocon territory, it was over for the group as a libertarian organization. The odds of restoring and rescuing it from implosion are little to nil. After all, as Pete Eyre of Motorhome Diaries said on the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement Radio show on BlogTalkRadio.com on Friday, June 5, 2009:
You ask the last thing, 'What can it be done to resurrect Bureaucrash?' I mean, personally, I don't think Bureaucrash can be resurrected as it was. I think the move by CEI has just made it too radioactive. Even if Lee was fired or he chose to leave and they brought in somebody good, like I think the damage is done.
Dale Everett said it best on his AnarchyInYourHead.com blog:
Sadly, the organization is not likely to simply fade away. Instead, by embracing the mainstream, it will probably grow, but it will have lost the edge that made it a special place for principled lovers of liberty. For now, it has chosen a quantity over quality approach when it comes to members, which I feel is very short-sighted, but then that depends on the goals of the owners. If their only goal is to grow membership, then perhaps they have chosen well. I just hope they have more meaningful goals than that.
If this new direction is not quickly changed, Bureaucrash will lose quite a few supporters, including Ian Freeman, host of Free Talk Live, and myself. I do not want Mr. Doren wielding the voice of Bureaucrash to distort the already diluted meaning of the word “libertarian”. If this mistake isn’t nipped in the bud, it is my opinion that Bureaucrash goes far beyond becoming unworthy of your support. They become an enemy.
The tragedy of it is that Bureaucrash has been "bureaucrashed." What a loss to the libertarian movement this has become!
For those of you who want to know what Lee Doren looks like and is like, check out this YouTube video I got from Everett's blog:
MIAMI (AP) — A fifth patient has tested positive for HIV, and seven more tested positive for hepatitis after being exposed to contaminated medical equipment at three Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals, the agency said Friday.
That brings the total who have tested positive for hepatitis to 33.
They are among thousands tested because they were treated with endoscopic equipment that wasn't properly sterilized between patients and exposed them to the body fluids of others. The equipment is often used in colonoscopies and ear, nose and throat procedures.
Nearly 11,000 former sailors, soldiers, airmen and Marines could have been exposed at the hospitals in Miami, Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Augusta, Ga. The agency said 6,687 patients have been notified of their test results so far.
VA spokeswoman Katie Roberts said the new HIV case was found in the Miami hospital. The agency said in a news release the positive tests were "not necessarily linked to any endoscopy issues."
"It's very disturbing that anybody would contract it, of course. I am pleased that the VA has agreed to treat all the veterans regardless of where they may have contracted it," said Alexander Kovac, a veterans' advocate who was stationed in Korea in the 1960s.
The "VA has agreed to treat all the veterans regardless of where they may have contracted [HIV]"? Doesn't it matter where they "may have contracted" it? This attitude is proof that the government does not seem to care where and how these patients contracted the HIV virus. The mindset, of course, is deafening and pathetic to the Nth degree.
While it is unclear as to how these patients contracted these diseases, it is obviously confirmed that they were treated at these seedy facilities where unsterilized equipment has been commonly used.
Here's another disturbing revelation from the article:
The VA has said the problems with the endoscopic equipment had gone on for years, but were discovered in December when officials learned the Murfreesboro facility wasn't following cleaning procedures the manufacturer recommended. It issued an internal alert for hospitals to check procedures, and the problem at Augusta was discovered in January.
These issues were noticed in December in one facility when it wasn't following its sanitary procedures? Another one hadn't bothered to notice the problems until January? Did these "government medical centers" lack flashlights? Did they fail to pay the electric bills and notice that the quality of care in the facilities was third-rate? Or did the typical VA bureaucracy stand in the way of progress at these centers?
Imagine the private sector handling these hospitals. Could you see these abuses occuring at these government-run facilities? If they were to occur, rest assured that restitution would be in effect, as the victimizers would be targeted for accountability. That is not the case with the VA. After all, who will be held liable for the VA screw-ups? Look at the alleged accountability of prison guards and torturers, especially considering the state has its "extraordinary rendition" policy in effect. Who will hold these vile, diabolical government thugs responsible for how they treat their victims in time of war?
As for the VA, who will pay for these disgusting practices if lawsuits are filed? Will the victims be remunerated for their suffering? The answers to the last two questions are no one and no.
At least the VA victims can rest comfortably, knowing that their infections will be "treated."
[Cross-posted at Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity and The Freeman Chronicles.]
Free StaterSam Dodson, who is the founder of the Obscured Truth Network and OTN Productions, is a board member for CD Evolution, and originally hails from Texas, has been languishing in a jail cell for videotaping in the lobby of the Keene, New New Hampshire District Court. He was arrested on April 13, 2009 in the same court where Free Stater Dave Ridley of the Ridley Report was being arraigned for committing the politically blasphemous act of civil disobedience in the same court room -- refusing to stop videotaping civil disobedience on March 3, 2009. Since April 13, he's been incarcerated without having a court trial date set for him. Although initially he didn't have a defense attorney, he's now retaining the services of an attorney and Free Stater named Ivy Walker at no cost. (Walker is accepting PayPal donations at ivy@ivysspiceoflife.com from Free Staters and pro-freedom activists who are not Free Staters in order to offset her legal expenses.)
Sam has been slapped with the following litany of charges: disorderly conduct, resisting arrest or detention, possession of personal property without a serial number*, and refusing to be processed. Currently, he's being officially detained in the Cheshire County Department of Corrections in Westmoreland, New Hampshire. The long and short of it is that the court has trumped up these charges because Dodson refuses to participate in the judicial process that involves eliminating his freedom and surrendering his alleged right to remain silent. Judge Burke, the same one who had Ian Freeman of Free Talk Live jailed for not sitting down fast enough in his court room (especially when he yelled "Have a seat!" at him), has ordered the jail to keep Sam behind bars until he bows down to him and the state and gives his legal name.
Shortly after Dodson's arrest, six other peaceful pro-liberty activists were arrested and thrown into the county jail for not leaving the public "government" property after the court's prosecutor (also a cop) demanded that they do so. According to JailedActivist.Info's account of the incident:
In the audio clip made available by Ian Bernard he can be heard saying that Sgt. Rivera had called for backup only seconds after instructing them to leave. Some decide to leave while a few stand around in disobedience and/or considering what to do next. Richard T. Onley, Nicholas Ryder, Patrick S. Shields, Nicholas D. Krouse, Kurt W. Hoffman, and Timothy Danforth stayed around long enough for Rivera to decide to have them arrested. Onley and Ryder gave the officers their names resulting in them only receive a summons. Shields went limp and was carried to a squad car by three officers. The others did not comply completely and therefore were arrested and brought to other squad cars and taken to be booked.
(More information on Sam's incarceration can be found at JailedActivist.Info, including a timeline of the events and latest updates as well.)
Dodson has been engaging in a very long and dangerous hunger strike since he was jailed on April 13, which has been affecting his health. The only liquid he has been drinking is milk. However, he has been bartering food for stamps and has been refusing food. Lately, the guards have told him that he will not be given food, considering he's been indicating to the statist establishment that he has no intention of eating their meals.
The state's vile incarceration of Dodson is unforgivable and unconscionable. The courts, as paid by our tax dollars, are supposed to be open and transparent, yet the courts, as epitomized in this case, are violating their rules in order to "prove" that they are "right" and want to be "right." Courts that prohibit videotaping on their property are essentially creating closed, tyrannical court systems where, if the American people are kept in the dark about the abuses and practices by judges, prosecutors, and police officers on the government property, then the court's PR appearance would be viewed very much positive. Considering the courts are mechanisms for public relations, if the American people see through their PR nonsense, and see them for what they really are (I prefer to call them "prison processing centers"), then the American public could revolt against these statist judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement "government" officers and fight the system at all turns.
Dodson has asked activists to contact state senator Molly Kelly and ask her the following questions:
Do you know there are district courts writing their own rules?
Do you know many of these rules are unconstitutional and against several Supreme Court rulings?
Did you know Keene District Court is arresting political prisoners? You may remember Sam, you’ve met him a few times. He is one of these political prisoners currently incarcerated.
Do you support the taking of these political prisoners?
The civil rights violations of this man are unbecoming of the system. The state refuses to fingerprint him and photo I.D. him after Sam refused to give his legal name. Don't they know that they can get his identity from his fingerprints, his Social Security number, and all other pertinent legal information that are on file? They know who he is, even though they have dubbed him "John Sam Doe." On April 20, although he had requested to use the law library to do research for his defense, he was denied permission to gain access to the jail's computers. Fortunately, a couple of days later, he was granted access to those computers.
Other civil rights violations were dragging him to the county jail while he was screaming in pain, considering that it was subsequently discovered that the reason he was in pain because, according to JailedActivist.Info, "a large metal bracelet on his right wrist which got caught under the hand cuffs and was digging into his skin and bone. The cuffs had not been locked so they continued to ratchet tighter causing the bracelet to further dig and bruise his wrist."
Moreover, the toilet in his jail cell had been backing up and overflowing three times, resulting in feces-laced water coming out of it. Even the guards, who were aware of that incident, refuse to sanitize the toilet or provide the prisoners with chemicals to sanitize it.
If this isn't indicative of a vile incarceration and civil rights violation, I don't know what it is.
A naked neo-hippie, dubbed as the "Naked Wizard" online and in the online mainstream media, was tased by three overweight law enforcement officers at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Fields in Indigo, California on April 17. The man, identified as 23-year-old Johnathan Fredrick Felch of San Luis Obispo, was asked repeatedly by the cops to put his clothes back on but refused to comply.
In a video that's currently being widely circulated on the Internet, the three cops attempt to talk Felch into putting back on his clothes. When the officers throw a robe to Felch, he tosses it away from him, indicating his unwillingness to get dressed.
Here's the video for those who want to see it on here. WARNING: Those who are offended by nudity and strong language should not watch this video, as it does contain those things:
After Felch refuses to obey the officers, the ugliness of the situation begins to rear its head. The officers, dismayed that he wouldn't abide by their requests, pin him to the ground. One of them is shown pushing his knee into the man's stomach, resulting in him to break free of their grasp and get away from them.
Then one of the cops (who happens to be from Banning) pulls out his taser gun and accosts the man with the weapon. Felch continues to struggle to get away from the cops, but they proceed to keep tasing him several times (one in the chest, another on the back of the neck, and the other in the throat) before they arrest him and place him into custody. Obviously, Felch was under duress just as the statist thugs were cuffing him in broad daylight.
The onlookers who were concertgoers observing the assault were booing the entire time. In fact, one of them can be heard as saying, "This is fucking ridiculous."
It's been said that the man was inebriated and yet deserved to be taken down by the police. One commenter of the video on Vimeo, who claims to be from Portugal, says:
[R]ight on. I'm from Portugal and actually watched this live on TV when it happened. justice was served.
but in this case I think the crowd would have been shot at, americans are too easy on the trigger. and the guy had it coming...police brutality was wrong, but he was warned several times.
How can anyone support this vile paradigm -- the idea that the cops "ought to be" revered and looked upon as heros -- when the police state can come knocking on their door? If the police demand that you obey them and you refuse to cooperate and they tase you, will you stick to your story that the life of the cops are important and not the life of a non-violent criminal like Johnathan Felch?
[Hat tip to Karen DeCoster for first mentioning this on her blog.]
Today's online edition of the Wall Street Journal features an editorial piece titled "Presidential Poison." According to the WSJ's op-ed, the Washington torture gang that was responsible for the vile, diabolical water boarding acts in Iraq -- yes, those who were under former Dictator George W. Bush -- should get a "Get-Out-of-Jail-Free" card because what they had done in the last eight years was ethical. After all, these federal thugs were just "acting in good faith," according to the neocon brown-nosing sycophants at the WSJ.
The editors of the WSJ penned the following passage in the piece, which should give more than enough reason of raising eyebrows to anyone who reads it:
Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting [the Bush administration] for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.
It gets worse. The news organization tries to justify President Obama's precedessor's actions with these last three paragraphs:
Mr. Obama may think he can soar above all of this, but he'll soon learn otherwise. The Beltway's political energy will focus more on the spectacle of revenge, and less on his agenda. The CIA will have its reputation smeared, and its agents second-guessing themselves. And if there is another terror attack against Americans, Mr. Obama will have set himself up for the argument that his campaign against the Bush policies is partly to blame.
Above all, the exercise will only embitter Republicans, including the moderates and national-security hawks Mr. Obama may need in the next four years. As patriotic officials who acted in good faith are indicted, smeared, impeached from judgeships or stripped of their academic tenure, the partisan anger and backlash will grow. And speaking of which, when will the GOP Members of Congress begin to denounce this partisan scapegoating? Senior Republicans like Mitch McConnell, Richard Lugar, John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Pat Roberts and Arlen Specter have hardly been profiles in courage.
Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, due in part to his personal charm and his seeming goodwill. By indulging his party's desire to criminalize policy advice, he has unleashed furies that will haunt his Presidency.
In other words, the previous administration's actions were not only legal; they were also ethical. What the WSJ is really saying is this: "Then-President Bush and his administration's actions with respect to their practices of torture (i.e. water boarding) were moral and ethical, and they were necessary to prevent further attacks against American citizens in the U.S. Any attempt to undo the previous administration's decisions will put us in the cross hairs of the terrorists!"
Moreover, those who were critical of Bush's foreign and rendition policies, as the neocons want us to believe, are wrong and off-base to do so because the torture crowd was either giving the orders to have the "enemy combatants" (formerly called "prisoners of war") to be tortured or following them. That kind of attitude expressed by the pro-torture Wall Street crowd is just as bad as a Nazi soldier killing Jews with his guns or putting them in the ovens and then saying, "We were just doing our jobs!"
As LewRockwell.com blogger Christopher Manion correctly put it, the sad truth is that most politicians who "serve in office" or "represent the people" are basically legal criminals who legally steal from us and use the threat of violence in order to get what they want. They can easily punish their enemies and reward their allies in order to justify their lust for power and insulate themselves from any legal consequences, effectively making them above the law.
Partisanship does not and should not have a license to be reduced to a "policy dispute." It just simply means that some criminals legally decide on partisan politics as a career. Besides, the Democrats, according to the Journal, may be implicated as well. It's even suggested that investigations of any wrongdoing by both parties shouldn't be considered at all. If they are, as the statists say, they should be dismissed. It's an insult to the American people that both parties should not be probed even if they are tied to a crime.
And the Washington establishment says "ethics" matter in politics. How pathetic these people truly are!
Limousine leftist Hollywood nitwit Janeane Garofalo, who's also a third-rate actress and comedienne, appeared on limo lefty Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC on Thursday, April 16. The topic of discussion on the show was about the growing populist-laced Tea Party rallies that have been springing up as a grassroots movement all over the country. When asked about the groups, Garofalo attacks the Tea Parties with libels and smears by calling the protestors "a bunch of racists" and "a bunch of teabagging rednecks."
Here's a transcript of what this statist airhead said to Olbermann who did nothing to stop her idiotic rant:
KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST: Well, the teabagging is all over, except for the cleanup. And that will be my last intentional double entendre on this one at least until the end of this segment. Our number two story tonight, the sad reality behind the corporate sponsored Tea Parties, visual proof that this is not about spending, deficits, or taxes, but about some Americans getting riled up by the people who caused these things, and finally about some Americans who just hate the president of the United States. According to both the conservative organs, the New York Post and the Washington Times, see there was another double entendre coming, the protests only drew tens of thousands nationwide, despite relentless 24/7 promotion on Fox News, including live telecasts from several locations. Like Fox's Neil Cavuto caught yesterday off-air estimating his crowd in California's capitol at 5,000, then on air claiming it might have been 10,000 or 15,000. Despite Cavuto's live show with radio talker Michael Reagan there, Sacramento police put the crowd at just over 5,000. "I wouldn't say it was among the largest we've seen here, but 5,000 is pretty large for the west steps."
And then there were the protest messages, seething with hate. Cavuto calling that hate bipartisan. "They hate Republicans who waste money, they hate Democrats who waste money." That claim put to the test in Pensacola when an unemployed blogger named Jeff accepted an invitation to speak to Florida.
BLOGGER JEFF: I want to start off by honoring the service of our veterans, our current service members, thank you so much for all you've done for this country. I also want to say, a little history lesson here. Back in 2000, there was a bunch of surplus in the country. And then the next ten years, it was just destroyed by the profligate spending by the Bush administration. Here we are today in a situation where we have to...Cheer if you make less than $250,000 in a year. Just cheer. Your taxes are going to be cut under the current budget. Congratulations. I was laid off in September because my employer had to make budget cuts. That was before the election. Let's remember if you're going to argue about more taxes and less spending, to place the blame where the blame belongs and that's squarely in the hands of the Republican congress and...
CROWD: Boo!
OLBERMANN: Congratulations, Pensacola teabaggers. You got spunked. And despite the hatred on display, a few of you actually violated the penal code. But teabagging is now petered out, taint what it used to be. And when you co-opt the next holiday, Fourth of July, try to adopt a holiday food that does not invite the double entendres like, you know, franks and beans. On a more serious note, we're now joined by actor, activist Janeane Garofalo. Good to see you.
JANEANE GAROFALO: Thank you. You know, there's nothing more interesting than seeing a bunch of racists become confused and angry at a speech they're not quite certain what he's saying. It sounds right and then it doesn't make sense. Which, let's be very honest about what this is about. It's not about bashing Democrats, it's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston tea party was about, they don't know their history at all. This is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up. That is nothing but a bunch of teabagging rednecks. And there is no way around that. And you know, you can tell these type of right wingers anything and they'll believe it, except the truth. You tell them the truth and they become -- it's like showing Frankenstein's monster fire. They become confused, and angry and highly volatile. That guy, causing them feelings they don't know, because their limbic brain, we've discussed this before, the limbic brain inside a right-winger or Republican or conservative or your average white power activist, the limbic brain is much larger in their head space than in a reasonable person, and it's pushing against the frontal lobe. So their synapses are misfiring. Is Bernie Goldberg listening?
OLBERMANN: Russ.
GAROFALO: Because Bernie might not have heard this when I said this the first time. So, Bernie, this is for you. It is a neurological problem we're dealing with.
OLBERMAN: Well, what do we do about it, though? I mean, our friend in Pensacola there who played them like a $3 fiddle and led them right down the garden path with nothing but facts and then they went, wait a minute, that doesn't sound like Rush Limbaugh. If you can't get them to make that last leap to what are we all doing here, Howard Johnson is wrong, how do you break through that?
GAROFALO: I don't think you do, for most of them. This is a -- it's almost pathological or elevated to a philosophy or lifestyle. And again, this is about racism. It could be any issue, any port in the storm. These guys hate that a black guy is in the White House. But they immigrant bash, they pretend taxes and tea bags, and like I said, most of them probably couldn't tell you thing one about taxation without representation, the Boston tea party, the British imperialism, whatever the history lesson has to be. But these people, all white for the most part, unless there's some people with Stockholm syndrome there.
OLBERMANN: And, I didn't see them, the fact that they weren't near the cameras which is bad strategy on the part of the people that were staging this at Fox.
GAROFALO: True, and Fox News loves to foment this anti-intellectualism because that's their bread and butter. If you have a cerebral electorate, Fox news goes down the toilet, very, very fast. But it is sick and sad to see Neil Cavuto doing that. They've been doing it for years, that's why Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch started this venture, is to disinform and to coarsen and dumb down a certain segment of the electorate. But what is really, I didn't know there were so many racists left. I didn't know that. I -- you know, because as I've said, the Republican hype and the conservative movement has now crystallized into the white power movement.
OLBERMANN: Is that not a bad, long-term political strategy because even though your point is terrifying that there are that many racists left, the flip side of it is there aren't that many racists left.
GAROFALO: They're the minority, but literally tens of people showed up to this thing across the country.
OLBERMANN: But if you spear your television network or your political party towards a bunch of guys looking who are just looking for a reason to yell at the black president, eventually you will marginalize yourself out of business, won't you?
GAROFALO: Here's what the right-wing has in, there's no shortage of the natural resources of ignorance, apathy, hate, fear. As long as those things are in the collective conscious and unconscious, the Republicans will have some votes. Fox News will have some viewers. But what else have they got? If they didn't do that, who is going to watch -- you know what I mean? They have tackled that elusive clam -- you know, the clam, the 18 to 35 clam -- klan. Klan. With a k demo. But, you know, who else is Fox talking to? I mean, what is it urban older white guys? And the girlfriend, and, you know, the women who suffer from Stockholm syndrome gain. There's a lot of Stockholm syndrome, is what I'm saying ultimately. What else do you want to know?
OLBERMANN: What happens if somebody who's at one of these things hurt somebody?
GAROFALO: That is an unfortunate byproduct since the dawn of time of a volatile group like this of the limbic brain. Violence unfortunately may or may not ensue. It always, it's like a, the Republican Party now depends upon immigrant bashing and hating the black guy in the White House. Will people act on that? It's not new. But, you know, Fox doesn't mind fomenting it. Michelle Bachmann doesn't mine fomenting it. Glenn Beck doesn't mind fomenting it.
OLBERMANN: Lou Dobbs.
GAROFALO: Lou Dobbs. Oh, man he sure doesn't mind. But this is, this their, what have they got if they don't have this? You know what I mean? It's like an identity politics of the worst kind.
OLBERMANN: They'd have peace in our time.
GAROFALO: Is Bernie still listening?
OLBERMANN: Bernie doesn't listen. Bernie listened for about two minutes last week. And that was it.
GAROFALO: Oh, he doesn't watch your show?
OLBERMANN: No, no, no, no, no, I mean in general that was his year's contribution to the actual political
GAROFALO: So I can move up the rung from five to at least three.
OLBERMANN: Janeane Garofalo, number five, comedian, actress, political activist, and the expert on the limbic brain, great thanks as always.
GAROFALO: Very much thanks to you.
Did you get that, Tea Partyers? You guys, according to limo liberal Garofalo, are "a bunch of teabagging rednecks" and "a bunch of racists." She pretty much said that this new grassroots movement "is a neurological problem [we Democrats are] dealing with." In other words, those who speak out against Obama are not only "racists" and "rednecks," but also they're "mentally ill."
Wow. So this is what America has become, huh? What a sad sight to see.
Here's the video of Garofalo ranting about the "problem" with Olbermann:
Conservatoid nimrod Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber and wanna-be entrepreneur from Holland, Ohio who gained fame for his opposition to President Obama's "spread-the-wealth" plan that he touted on the final leg of Election 2008, appeared on Sean Hannity's showHannity on Fox News to not only bring support for a Tea Party rally in Atlanta, Georgia on April 15, 2009 (a.k.a. Tax Day), but to urge Americans to support the Fair Tax. He calls upon Americans to "become their own lobbyists. Actually become their own lobbyists. Don't listen to the Washington guys. Become their own lobbyists. Vote the IRS out, vote the Fair Tax in." As soon as he gave that, a huge cry of anti-Federal Income Tax protestors at the Tea Party rally could be heard, screaming, "Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax! Fair Tax!" Hannity then, in a smug fashion, says, "You know why I call it Boortz Land" (in reference to "libertarian" Atlanta talk radio show host Neal Boortz).
Of course, Hannity and Wurzelbacher switch the discussion from the Fair Tax to their disgust with the Obama administration's "downplaying" of the War on Terror by calling it "an overseas contingent operation." Hannity asks Wurzelbacher:
HANNITY: This is amazing. But they — if you have a pro-life bumper sticker on your car, if you have an "America is overtaxed" bumper sticker, if you have a pro-Second Amendment bumper sticker, they're viewing you potentially as a radical.
My question...
(BOOS)
My question is, if those are right-wing radicals, does that mean that somebody that starts their political career in Bill Ayers' house and hangs out with Jeremiah Wright for 20 years...
(CHEERS)
What does that make them?
WURZELBACHER: I'll tell you what, let me ask you one more question. Am I an extremist for saying, "in God we trust"?
HANNITY: No.
(CHEERS)
And by the way, and I said God bless America.
And by the way, we might want to steal a phrase from Jeremiah Wright.
President Obama, there's 15,000 to 20,000 people here. You know what, if I was Jeremiah Wright, I'd probably say, America's voters have come home to roost.
It doesn't help that there's a Tea Party anti-tax protestor who's holding up a sign while Wurzelbacher's speaking to Hannity that reads:
2 Steps to Save the USA: Fair Tax and Term Limits
While it sounds great in theory that term limits will "save the USA" by limiting the length of time served by a congressional Republican or Democrat in office, it will not accomplish that any more than slapping a carbon tax on CO2 levels will save the Earth from Global Warming. Term limits will not stop the corruption in the Congress and the Senate, considering new blood replacing the term-limited old blood can be just as corrupt as well. Term limits will not allow congressman and senators to abide by the Constitution. After all, we have term limits on the Presidency, and the Office of the Presidency has violated the founding document countless numbers of times. Why should we expect anything to be different when a new term-limited Congress convenes?
As for the Fair Tax, it will not be any fairer than the Federal Income Tax imposed upon us by the dreaded IRS. The Fair Tax, which promises to do away with the FIT and replace it with the FT, is alleged to be a 23 percent rate on the sales of all goods in the U.S. ($23 on every $100 spent in total, even though its calculation is similar to income taxes). However, the actual rate would be 30 percent on the sales of all goods in the U.S. (meaning $30 on every $77 spent before taxes).
Plus, the bad part about this tax scheme is that it creates a new bureaucracy, which would oversee the imposition of the tax at the federal level. Proponents of the tax say that the new tax would just be done at the state level rather than at the federal level, but that's just political sophistry. Even the FT opponents know this, countering that compliance would not be carried out by the individual, and that massive tax evasion could result. While the first part of their claim would most likely happen, the last part of the opponent's argument is speculative. It implies that the current system is better than the alternative. In actuality, the new tax could bring about a new underground economy, as many other opponents observe, because intermediate goods and services are factors of production and can be exempt and are not final sales on the purchases.
Moreover, another reason to oppose the Fair Tax is the fact that the proposed legislation favors a welfare state approach. It can issue checks to the Fair Taxpayers in advance, acting as welfare handouts to them in the process. Family households under the new system would receive what would be prominently known as a "Family Consumption Allowance" -- a tax rebate (or "prebate") -- that would easily be used as welfare cash handouts to families in advance for twelve months. A new welfare state can be easily generated because of this. Is this what the conservatives have in mind when they say that they are "anti-tax"? Shouldn't they just drop the "anti-tax" moniker and just say that they are "anti-Federal Income Tax" but pro-tax on other areas, including inflation and the Fair Tax?
And with this system in place, how would it be "fair" to everyone involved? I thought conservatives were against creating welfare classes. But of course not! They're only against welfare if it doesn't serve their interests and doesn't profit from it. How "pro-American" and "pro-liberty" all of that is!
And, as for the final part of the anti-Fair Tax argument, does anyone really believe that the conservatives, including Boortz and Hannity, will really push for the elimination of the Federal Income Tax and replace it with this new tax? This legislation can easily be amended to keep the original tax and tack on the new tax to go with it. That would mean that the IRS would still be in business, and Americans would be getting their federal income tax refund checks and begin to receive their new monthly "prebate" checks as well.
It should be of no surprise that conservatives like Wurzelbacher, who is also pro-Iraq War, pro-Israeli government, and pro-Fair Tax, is also pro-welfare state. Like Hannity, he also supports the warfare state as well. That's another part of the welfare state that conservatives love so much because they benefit from it.
Isn't it time for them to stop saying that they are for liberty and are for government, conservative-style? But then again, isn't this what you would expect from the old, tired Republican siren song that continues to be played every time they lose the White House and both Houses of the Congress?
Here's the video of Wurzelbacher and Hannity at the Tea Party "anti-tax" rally in Atlanta, Georgia:
Keene, New Hampshire's very own pro-statist Talkback, a political talk radio show hosted by Cynthia Georgina and Paula Phillips on its local radio station WKBK, is now engaging in randomly systematic censorship practices against Free Staters who frequently call into the program to offer anti-state, pro-liberty viewpoints against the political establishment in the town. Georgina, who is a statist serving in the Keene City Council, has espoused her political annoyance with the pro-liberty activists who call in repeatedly because, according to Cynthia:
CYNTHIA GEORGINA: We get caller after caller after caller calling in and saying, 'You're stealing homes, you're stealing homes.' That's not what it is. We are following the law. And that's not stealing homes. And that's where the problem lies.
Not only that, a number of statist callers phoned into the show, complaining about the Free Staters calling into the show for expressing their anti-state views, including one female caller who has once called into the show before and, on today's show, says once again that Ian Freeman and Mark Edge of Free Talk Live should only talk about their views on their show and stay off of Talkback's airwaves.
Georgina and Phillips, who have agreed with these statist callers that the Free Staters should not be allowed on the show's airwaves, allowed me on the air while I was waiting to go on for a few minutes. While I tried to complain about the statist clods who were defaming my fellow liberty activists in the Keene area, Phillips changed the subject about Obama's stimulus package for Michigan, considering I mentioned my name and my home state to the two of them. I didn't want to get into Michigan's economic woes (considering that's not why I called), but I played along wondering where they were going with this.
Basically, I said that Governor Jennifer Granholm (my governor, yes!) was responsible for destroying the state due to excessive taxation, regulations, overspending, and other pro-state machinations. They tried to make it sound like I was favoring companies getting away with not being regulated (although the fact is, they are regulated), and I was merely ignoring her questions because they were off-topic. As I tried to get back on topic about the other callers, Phillips, as the liar she is, claimed, "That's the caller's opinion, not my opinion!" Yet she and Cynthia agreed with the callers who had a beef with us about our calls into the show.
Anyway, here's a widget of the callers and me calling into the show:
Libertarian magician/TV personality Penn Jillette was on Larry King Live last night, with leftist talk radio show host Stephanie Miller, leftist Clintonite James Carville, and conservative and former RNC advisor Terry Holt, in which he points out that Obama "should have much less power." Collectivistic liberal Miller rebutts his argument by saying:
STEPHANIE MILLER: Penn, we got to have, you know, help around the world with the War on Terror. I mean, I know, after the Bush administration, it's kind of a low bar for an overseas trip [to London for the G20 Summit]. Uh, as long as, you know, he didn't throw up on someone, uh, chew with his mouth open, or give someone, uh, an unnecessary back rub, I guess we're happy. But, I do think his popularity around the world is really going to help us. You know, I mean, he said something starting for an American president. He said, "I'm gonna listen ... I'm here to listen and not just talk." And I think, I think that's really important.
Jillette responded with the following:
PENN JILLETTE: I was just going to say Bush didn't say the opposite. I mean, it's not, uh, that's not a very profound to thing to just say that you're going to listen. I mean, yes, people like him more. He's better looking, he's a better speaker, and I guess that's okay. But the whole country rallying behind somebody is always a bad idea.
And the following exchange between Miller and Jillette occured, especially given her smug remarks:
MILLER: Listen, Penn, the only people that are in bad shape after George Bush is gone are the people in the effigy business, because he was burned in effigy more times when he went on overseas trips...
JILLETTE: You can't, you can't, you can't I pretend I'm pushing for Bush. I'm not. I'm just saying the President shouldn't have that much power.
Right on, Penn! That statist scumbag Miller, whose demeanor on the show is atypical of a limousine leftist, thinks that the American people shouldn't be exercising individualism whatsoever. And not only that, she claims that we must "have help around the world with the War on Terror." But wait a second! Aren't Democrats for civil liberties? Aren't they for ending the War in Iraq? Aren't they against the War on Terror?
The answers to those questions are no, no, and no. It certainly proves that the Democrats were never against the War in Iraq; they were against Bush's handling of the war, because, had they had the White House for eight years after the attacks of 9/11, they would have launched their own invasion and occupation of Iraq. It proves that they are not for civil liberties, as they are not for releasing the inmates of Guantanamo Bay into civilian custody, even though Obama allegedly ordered an end of the detention center. It also proves that they are not for ending the war in Iraq, despite the fact that Obama claims that military operations will "cease" in Iraq on August 31, 2010.
The fact that Miller takes a hostile position against Jillette shows the Left's hypocritical nature and its vile, repugnant ways.
King himself arrogantly says, "You can be individualistic as much as you like. Someone's gotta think for the masses." Excuse me? Someone's "gotta think for the masses"? This sheeple mentality is indicative of the statist mind, including the limousine leftists like King, Miller, and Carville.
Can someone please remind these clowns that America was founded on the ideals of individual liberty, personality responsiblity, and limited government, not collectivism of the tyrannical kind, protection from personal responsibility, and limitless, out-of-control government?
Update: I was told by a fellow libertarian (a big LRC'er) that the conservative guest Terry Holt under Penn Jillette "was also okay but not as forceful." He also said that Holt was "more of a conservative" and had embraced "too many of the democrat premises and terms." For once, he's right. The conservative clown seemed to be more in agreement with Carville and Miller than with Jillette, although he did side with Jillette by saying that the government creates a system of "winners and losers" via the tax system. But, as a typical right-winger, he refuses to call for ending the state's control over the individual, especially by ending the federal income tax and other vile, diabolical government machinations.
The teen "child" pornography madness, which has been a subject of great mainstream media coverage over a number of months, has been getting out of hand. I'm not referring to child pornography itself (a practice which is very despicable), but to the allegations of "child pornography" that have been popping up in the courtrooms and the mainstream media within the last number of months. I'm specifically referring to today's Generation Y a.k.a. adolescents (teenagers), who used to be called "the youth," and are being prosecuted left and right simply for doffing their clothes and taking nude pics of themselves with their camera phones or just posting them on their social networking accounts like Myspace. Let's not forget that there have been cases of teenage males having been prosecuted for filming their girlfriends in the nude (or while they're having sex with one another) and taking naked pics of them.
Just this week a 14-year-old teenage girl from New Jersey was arrested for posting 30 nude pics of herself on her Myspace account. Why did she do this, you might be asking? Because she wanted her boyfriend to see them. According to media accounts, if the poor girl is convicted, under Megan's Law, she would have to register as a sex offender and serve 17 years in prison. Currently, she's been remanded to her mother's custody for the time being. A court date hasn't been set as well.
What started this brouhaha was that someone tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which then contacted the police. The authorities began a month-long investigation into the matter, sex stinging the girl until they came to the conclusion that she did this for her boyfriend.
An even more interesting fact is that many parents and pundits have lambasted the local law enforcement officials and the district attorney's office, including Maureen Kanka (the mother of the late Megan Kanka whose murder led to her mom lobbying for the passage of Megan's Law) who publicly condemned the arrest, saying that the police should "be ashamed of themselves" for charging the youth. University of Pennsylvania constitutional law professor Seth Kreimer even believes the arrest was insane as well:
To deploy the nuclear weapon of child pornography charges shows almost as bad judgment as posting the nude photos themselves.
Another case involving another 14-year-old teen girl from Pennsylvania provides a disturbing picture of the out-of-control government's obsession with prosecuting and persecuting adolescent women and men for taking sexually-explicit pictures and filming themselves engaging in explicit sexual activity. It also shows that the state is infantilizing (more correctly, "childifying") our youth and treating them like children, while imposing government-mandated "sex education" in the public "government" schools (which is encouraging kids to have sex). Let's also not forget that most parents do not educate their children about sex, because of their uncomfortability with the subject and their irrational fear that, if they did so, their kids would pursue that kind of activity. Yet it is common knowledge that, once the young children enter their adolescent years, they will learn about sex from either their peers or watch porn (and get the wrong ideas about sex and love) or both. And, because of that, it drives them to have sex, especially when they are not emotionally, mentally, and financially ready for that responsibility. After all, teen pregnancy, while having declined somewhat over the years, is still at an all-time high and sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs) is very prevalent as well.
Moreover, the state doesn't get that, as long as it continues to raise teens as little children, Generation Y'ers will act out as children and not as young adults. Once they are childified, it's almost impossible for them to snap out of it and it sticks with them for the rest of their lives.
As long as the state proceeds to prevent teens from learning responsibility and behaving like adults, they will be immature, irresponsible, and insecure. This is what the state is doing to the adolescent population: it's shielding teens from growing up and learning from the consequences of their actions. If teens were allowed to marry, sign contracts, have children, take control of their education, vote, join the military, drink, emancipate themselves from their abusive parents and families, etc., they would be more likely to wait until they were ready to handle those responsibilities. While the state deserves the lion's share of the blame here, the parents deserve it just as much.
Moreover, the sex registry system creates a new criminal class, which sticks with the convicted sex offenders for life. It's almost impossible for them to lose that label. Since there are no victims and the teens who are infantilized by their parents and the state are said to be victims of "statutory rape" (used to be called "jail bait"), the state will accuse the offenders of engaging in these "rapes," considering teen women voluntarily choose to be sexually active with their male lovers (who are usually older than them) and do not cry out rape. Not only that, the offenders are required to re-register with the state whenever they move and find it difficult to land jobs, considering employers tend to be leery about hiring them to begin with.
It's time for the state to get out of this business of protecting teens. It's also time for parents to assume the role of protecting and raising their kids and teaching them about sex, so they can wait until they are ready to deal with all and any adult responsibilities.
Raw Story leaked this story about President Obama's answer to the press about his position on the legalization of marijuana during his town hall Q & A event (simply billed as the "Open for Questions Town Hall event"). YouTubers and the American public, as reported by the mainstream "government" media, print media, and blogs like the Huffington Post, were online, asking him questions from his plan to nationalize the banks and mortgage industries to his insane socialized medicine plan. (Here's a New York Timestranscript of the event here.)
In response to the questions that 3.5 million people voted on the "Open for Questions" section of the White House website, one user with the username "Green Machine" asked the following question on the site:
Will you consider decriminalizing the recreational/medical use of marijuana(hemp) so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and a multi-billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?
Obama answered the question by issuing the following statist response:
THE PRESIDENT: Three point five million people voted. I have to say that there was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy -- (laughter) -- and job creation. And I don't know what this says about the online audience -- (laughter) -- but I just want -- I don't want people to think that -- this was a fairly popular question; we want to make sure that it was answered. The answer is, no, I don't think that is a good strategy -- (laughter) -- to grow our economy. (Applause) [Emphasis on the "applause" added.]
Here's the video of Obama's response:
Here's White House Press Secretary Robert Gibb's repugnant and sick response to a reporter's question about Obama's position on pot:
Clearly, I should never have allowed myself to be nominated for this spot. I did not realize that the only difference between serving on:
a) the National Committee of a multimillion-dollar political party, with multiple organized state affiliates, a number of elected officials and at least some clue of how to proceed; or
b) the National Committee of a non-money-based, fledgling and grassroots online discussion group, whose primary function seems to be passing resolutions that then disappear into the Internet ether ...
is merely the variety of energy-sink they entail.
Instead of quarterly meetings, requiring travel & hotel & meal costs ... this one requires TIME -- constant monitoring of Yahoo discussion lists, with tiny signal-to-noise ratios -- on the off chance something of substance shows up. ANd it's not enough to monitor the committee discuss list, one has to also play in the chat-pool ...
Sorry, folks! IN a very few months (Bastille Day to be exact) I shall be celebrating the completion of six decades in this cycle of human-form existence ... the last four-plus of which I have spent doing some form of "fighting for liberty" or another. Inasmuch as in doing so, I've tossed aside a lot of potentially lucrative pathways, in order to have the time to devote to that "higher goal" (while being taken for granted (and/or undervalued) by a wide variety of folks within the movement and beyond it? but I won't go there), I'm now scrambling to create enough ongoing and self-sustaining ventures so I may not need to be delivering pizzas when I am 80!
no time to check in every day in case something might be of interest; and even less time to do so without some notation that something pertinent to the "business" of the NC might be found there ...
good luck - Steve
Good riddance to a smug, arrogant jackass who really proved to be worthless on the Committee.
It looks official: Boston Tea Party founder and KN@PPSTER blogger Thomas L. Knapp has just dropped a huge ball on the BTP members and supporters by posting a message to the BTPNC Yahoo Group list, announcing that he was resigning from the Boston Tea National Committee and the Party as well.
This is what he said:
To whom it may concern,
I have resigned from the party, which in effect means that I've resigned my national committee seat (and any admin role on the site, since my resignation consisted of deleting my account).
I apologize for putting the committee through yet another vacancy-filling election. I also apologize for what looks like, but was not, a suddenly undertaken decision to resign. It's been coming for some time, and the latest episode of "whatever Tom Knapp says has implications for the party" was the straw that broke the camel's back. It's never been JUST my party, but that card's been played so many times that the only way to get it out of the tricksters' deck is for it not to be even partly my party.
I will leave this Yahoo! group as soon as I post this message. Naturally, I continue to welcome personal correspondence with any or all of you.
Interestingly enough, an hour and 14 minutes later, At-Large Member Steve Trinward (a former Libertarian Party member and Tennessee LP member who once served on the LP's Libertarian National Committee some years ago) decided to follow suit by posting his resignation on the same list. Here's Trinward's resignation as well:
Dammit, Tommy - Now I look a copycat.
I too am formally resigning from this whatever it is ... when I get a chance I will likely drop off the membership as well.
This has also been coming for a while, but other parts of my life have taken precedence. They continue to do so ...
This latest "resolution" is just the final straw. The effort to "amend" faulty language, while dealing with neither of Tom's concerns as he raised them, says it all. This is just another right-wing cover group, no more worth my energies than any other out there.
it's been ... interesting - Steve Trinward.
Trinward's gripe with a "resolution" is in reference to a resolution I authored and amended (see an incoming separate post, which will discuss the motion [original and amended] in great detail). Basically, this resolution condemns and repudiates President Barack Obama's backpedaling on the war in Iraq, which I believe was well-worded and no other objections were raised (except that Tom issued his concerns about my proposed motion). Former BTP Chairman and current Kansas BTP Chairman Jim Davidson responded to Tom's concerns, which is something that Trinward didn't even to notice.
I'm not sorry to see Trinward go. He has been highly unproductive and hasn't been voting on a number of motions, although he did manually vote on the first two resolutions after I became Secretary of the BTP. I am, however, disappointed and sad that Tom decided not to make a formal announcement of his departure from the Committee and the Party to the party base. After all, the BTP is and always will be his baby, and he is and always will be credited for that.
Although Knapp doesn't want me to publish my private correspondence with him, I will not do it. This is out of respect for the man, so people can draw their own conclusions as to why he left the Party.
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Words of Wisdom from LLR Publisher and Editor Todd Andrew Barnett
"A society that embraces the conventional wisdom saying that government is the be-all and end-all to every problem in the world is a society that embraces tyranny, violence, theft, and the initiation of force against our neighbors." -- on the American people's support of the state.
"A society operating under the paradigm of a true unrestricted free market and without a state is the society that best achieves liberty." -- on what human liberty should mean to American society and the entire world.
Let liberty ring Throughout this great land Let liberty ring It’s time for the people to make a stand Let liberty ring Let our voices ring clear and true Let liberty ring Our freedoms are up to me and you Let liberty ring Like our forefathers wrote about Let liberty ring Let it give its mighty shout To allow liberty to be a reality We must wake up and stand For all that we know and believe We the people are the ones who have control of this land And our own sweet Liberty!
A Foreign Policy of Non-interventism Quotes
"Peace, honest friendship, and commerce with all nations; entangling alliances with none." -- 3rd President Thomas Jefferson in his First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"But she does not go abroad, in search of monsters to destroy." - Sec. of State John Quincy Adams in reference to America to the Congress, July 4, 1821.
"War is the health of the state." - Randolph Bourne, a progressive writer whose quote happens to be the title of his unfinished essay which he never completed at the time of his death in 1918.
Pro-Liberty Quotes
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure." -- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to William S. Smith, November 13, 1787
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