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Monday, December 28, 2009

"Libertarians" or Libertarians, Part 1: The Real Advocates of Liberty Are The Original Leftists

In the late afternoon of Christmas Eve last Wednesday, sometime after my parents and I arrived at my brother's house to celebrate the holiday with him, my sister-in-law (his wife), and my niece (their daughter), my brother, my dad, and I sat at the table in his kitchen discussing politics (that is, his brand of "right-wing"/conservative with a heavy dose of libertarianesque Republican politics being monopolized in the discussion). These discussions have always been a politically religious tradition in the Barnett family on an annual basis, even if they are held on Thanksgiving Day and Xmas Eve. My mom, my sister-in-law, and my niece stepped out a few times for intervals of five to ten minutes, during which my dad, my brother, and I got into our political chats. (Interestingly enough, my sister-in-law, according to my brother, has grown quite intolerant of the political conversations that are often held at his house or anywhere with all of us together for dinner. Apparently, she can't stomach such discourse during those times together, from what I can gather.)

At one point during the talks, my brother, my father, and I found ourselves in a discussion over the ObamaCare bill that the Senate had just voted to pass its version of it. (The final vote tally is 60 to 39, with Biden presiding over the key vote on the mandate.) Now the Senate and the House (and even my sibling confirmed this at the table) are scrambling to match their provisions contained in their versions of the bill, so that they can draft a final bill to be passed by both chambers of the House and Obama to sign it into law.

(Keep in mind that, all his best intentions notwithstanding, my brother idealistically -- but not erroneously -- believes that the law will be successfully challenged by the courts on constitutional grounds. It's possible that the U.S. Supreme Court can and might overturn the impending law, but given the fact that most conservatives -- not to mention their right-wing populists and allies - have historically gone along with government programs once and long after they have passed, it stands to reason that this program will remain in place and be nearly impossible to abolish at the federal level.)

At one point in the conversation, (I'm paraphrasing here!), my brother states that when he talks to people regarding health care, they respond, "We have a right to health care!" My brother argues against that proposition (assuming those people with whom he spoke are of the progressive mindset), claiming that no one has a right to it because he takes the constitutional position that an individual "has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." (While the praxeology per se is valid, it is not a good argument to make against the so-called public option because it is a cookie cutter talking point that libertarianesque conservatives like him take.)

The reason for his argument against the "public option"? He says that it's taking money from those who didn't pay for it and giving it to those who can't. It's a fair and valid point, and quite a solid libertarian one at that. Who can rightfully argue against that? (The progressives can make a counter-argument in response to that standpoint, but that's a subject for another post.)

Of course, I interjected by saying that the same argument can be made about Social Security, and I made that point after he applied that same principle to Medicare. He even agreed that Social Security "should never have been created in the first place." It's nice to know that we concur on the principles, because his talking points are libertarian to the core. I even pointed out that those programs absolutely should never been created in the first place, and that I have told my listeners and guests on my BlogTalkRadio.com Internet talk radio show Liberty Cap Talk Live (specifically, some of those listeners who really don't get the point yet) that, once those programs are created, they eventually morph into something other than they were originally intended to be. (Interestingly enough, he agreed. I did even bring up my criticisms of the Big Players of the insurance industry who had a stake in this mess, but we were cut off because my mother, my sister-in-law, and my niece returned from their "in-the-garage" cigarette break.)

But this is what I wanted to ask him, and I wish I had the opportunity to ask him this but didn't have a chance to do so: "Do you oppose or support the big corporate players in the insurance industry (specifically the big corporate insurance firms like Blue Cross Blue Shield and BlueCare Network) that are on board with ObamaCare?" Furthermore, I wanted to ask him, "Do you oppose welfare in all of its forms? Or do you oppose welfare only for the poor, but support corporate welfare (or corporatism) all the way?"

I suspect he supports the latter. After all, his admission of his supporting the government bailouts of the Big Three and the automotive industry that transpired in the last few months of Bush's final term of his presidency (when I was at his house for Christmas Eve last year) is an overwhelming indication of that.

Herein lies the heart of the problem with my brother's thinking, including the mindset that dominates the old libertarian movement. The mentality that has long pervaded the libertarian movement is this: "Despite government intervention in the economy, corporations are still needed, are not the creature of the state, and are not protected by but are victims of the state. Oh, and we do need limited liability laws to protect the interests of our shareholders, specifically the small ones."

Thus, in corporate libertarianese (particularly those espoused by those self-proclaimed libertarians from both the CATO Institute and Lew Rockwell's Ludwig von Mises Institute), corporations are the apotheosis of laissez-faire and that they can exist without state-sanctioned privileges and guarantees and state-furnished subsidies. (Imagine the health insurance corporations that stand to gain everything once the state-provided, vile ObamaCare is set in stone. After all, consider how much tax money is riding on this bill by the entire corporate insurance establishment that's colluded with the state with this bill.) Furthermore, it's also another reason why many progressives revile libertarians for adopting Ben Steinan/Lawrence Kudlowesque rhetoric that has significantly dominated the vast majority of the movement, thus harming and scathing it in its entirety.

"Left-libertarian" a.k.a. ideologically pure libertarian/anarchist/agorist Sheldon Richman, who has been in the old libertarian movement for nearly 40 years, had this to say about the state of libertarianism as it stands today:

There are also good strategic reasons for associating libertarianism with the left and not with the right. The modern movement has, despite futile protests that we pro-Liberty activists are "neither left nor right," been placed on the right as sort of a hip variant of conservatism. Some of this comes from the observers' lack of perceptiveness, but much of it is the movement's own fault. A good deal of libertarian commentary sounds like corporate apologetics.

Sheldon is right on the money. Today's "modern movement" is seen by progressives and many other nonlibertarians as a "cool" aberration of the modern conservative movement. This is not a good PR image for the movement, whether we care to admit it or not. It does not bode well for us in the long run.

Furthermore, libertarians who take -- and not to mention embrace -- the unconvincing (and largely unbelievable) "neither left nor right" stance have given their adversaries excuses to think that conservatives and libertarians come from the same family when that is not so. Conservatives are fundamentally different from true advocates of liberty (whether those advocates use the label "libertarian" or not). Moreover, the movement has been infiltrated by shady opportunists and collectivists who seek to use the state to their advantage. Look at alleged "libertarians" like Wayne Allyn Root whose most recent book reads like a playbook for a Republican football team and former Libertarian Party activist and now retired Republican talk radio show host Larry Elder who fled the LP a few years ago because of its old non-interventionist position on foreign policy! He even has supported Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan consistently and the government's incessant intervention of the economy via corporate protectionism and mercantilism. Is that the image that we as pro-Liberty activists want to portray?

(Furthermore, how about the pro-preemptive war comments that GOP senatorial candidate Peter Schiff recently made? How would anti-war nonliberal leftists respond to that rubbish? Or how about Rand Paul's recent statements on the Gitmo detainees in his senatorial campaign's press release on the issue? What are civil libertarians and antiwar activists supposed to take away from that crud? Many of the defenders of those two candidates are "libertarian" [actually conservative] supporters of the Lew Rockwell/Ron Paul wing of the movement who, while trying not to come off as not very corporatist in rhetoric, appear to be very apologetic of the corporate state. Some of them take the "libertarian Republican" [quite an oxymoron to boot!], or what should be called the neolibertarian, position that an aggressive foreign policy and a solid national defense [conservative concepts, by the way!] will keep us safe from would-be terrorists and produce peace only by means of an offensive war.)

This is what "free market anticapitalist" Kevin Carson was referring to when he coined the term "vulgar libertarianism" -- the brand of libertarianism practiced by those "libertarians" who believe that today's corporate market would be what the free market entails if decades of government intervention and central planning had not been in the way. When libertarians have that attitude about the marketplace in that fashion, then they give the progressives legitimate reasons to discredit us and persecute us, thus making our jobs harder or even nearly impossible to remove the state from our lives.

Let's not forget that many free marketeers come off as very combative, very belligerent, and very antagonistic when a morsel of sympathy is given to working class laborers who are the true victims of government taxes, regulations, and pro-state business/corporate guarantees, protections, subsidies, and privileges. A number of those libertarians who complain about this spew this nonsensical attitude that a free market (especially one without state privileges, guarantees, and the like) would not last very long and that the current market, despite the government's incessant interventions, could not exist in the absence of the state. That assertion tells me several things: that ilk lacks an extraordinary amount of deep perception and objectivity, certainly fathoms the concept of a free market but has never experienced it in a real sense, and has never fathomed how the pains of government intervention have affected the poor and the blue-collar middle "working" class on all levels, physical, economic, mental, and psychological.

When libertarians become indifferent and cold to people who experience true cruelty and misery by defending rotten employers who treat their good employees like a pile of rubbish, it gives nonlibertarians and progressives an excuse to attack free enterprise and side with the state. Of course, there are rotten employees too, and that's a given in any business, yet that's not the point. Not only that, it's an unfair talking point, because libertarians (and conservatives as well) who employ that argument lump in the good laborers with the bad.

And that also raises another paramount standpoint as well: when shady, politically-protected firms abuse their good workers, and those libertarians come to their defense despite all that nonsense, that alienates those workers, thus pushing them into the arms of the politically-connected unions, the bureaucrats, and the politicians who will use them as political and campaign fodder to score some political points, even on the campaign trail. That transpires all the time during every election and legislative cycle. If the politicians, as opportunistic as they are, capitalize on the pains of the working class by appearing to be champions of the poor and the middle class, then those groups will flock to them and see their employers and the entire marketplace as enemies of the "working man."

This is a massive reason why libertarians of all stripes in the Liberty movement lose on economic liberty big time every single time, before, during, and after every election season. They will keep losing until they stop seeing big employers' workers as albatrosses on the necks of their businesses and understand that, without their customers and employees, employers don't have their businesses. If libertarians and employers do that, then the working class and the poor, who are the victims of the state like the entrepreneurs and every non-politically-connected businesses are, will side with them and support a real return to the free market. Why can't they just do that? What have we go to lose if we do exactly that?

The real advocates of liberty are the original leftists who support and advocate a voluntary society based on mutual consent, not the kind of society that these corporatists and their government cronies want to engineer for all of us.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

John Stossel's New Show "Stossel" to Premiere on Fox Business News Tonight

Former ABC News' 20/20 anchorman and reporter John Stossel, who recently flew ABC News' coup and jumped on the Fox Business News ship, will be premiering his new show "Stossel" on the Rupert Murdoch-run network tonight at 8 p.m. EST. Check it out!

Here's a description of tonight's debut show:

Tonight on “Stossel”, SuperFreakonomics co-author Stephen Dubner talks about the firestorm of criticism he received from the Global Warming Church for his chapter on "Geo-engineering." Plus, your tax dollars just bought John Stossel an electric golf cart! How? Find out tonight at 8 p.m. ET on Fox Business, as Stossel tackles the climate "crisis".

Here's the promo clip for the new show tonight:

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Brooke Kelley to Be Interviewed for 40 Minutes on Liberty Cap Talk Live

Brooke Kelley, the star and creator of the Liberty-oriented Internet-based reality TV show PuZzLeD and Editor-in-Chief and owner of her own magazine called Composing Moments, will be on my retooled show Liberty Cap Talk Live this upcoming Friday on November 4 for a 40-minute interview. The show, which starts at 11 p.m. EST, will feature her on at approximately 11:15 p.m. EST. Her interview ends at 11:55 p.m. EST.

She will be on to talk about the disastrous Continental Congress 2009 convention, her show, the convention booting PyraBang's Chris Pirillo from the event, and the current state of the Liberty movement.



Pass this on to every person you know.

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles.]

Ron Paul Debates Keynesian Stooge Peter Morici on CNBC's Kudlow Report

Ron Paul appeared once again on Larry Kudlow's The Kudlow Report on CNBC yesterday, in which he debated the secrecy of the Federal Reserve with Keynesian stooge/economist Peter Morici, who goes on the pro-Fed defensive. This statist goes out of his way to make a true statement by saying the following:

In order to create money, you have to buy bonds to issue the dollars. So they are always involved in fiscal policy. And, as for this inflation and...and...and this fiscal cri....this financial crisis, well, I think Congress had a lot to do with it. You know, they've had a hand in monetary policy or financial policy. For example, the Community Reinvestment Act, which encouraged banks to make irresponsible loans. The meddling in the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, getting them to make irresponsible loans. A $1.5 trillion deficit. That creates bonds that investors hold internationally. It's as good as dollars. Wait a minute! If anybody's going to apologize, then it has to be the people who are totally out of control on Capitol Hill.

While Morici is right on the button on those points, what he fails -- perhaps neglect -- to mention is that it is all the fault of Congress, the banks (including Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the mortgage and financial lenders, and the Federal Reserve for having a hand in the wipe out and evisceration of the value of the dollar, producing the fall of the financial markets, and so on. The only point that Morici gets wrong is that the Fed buys the bonds to print those dollars (as he contends religiously). Actually, it prints money out of thin air with no intrinsic value backing those dollars whatsoever..



Ron gets it right completely. Morici is an idiot when he says that we shouldn't link our monetary system to gold because it "will always be rising over time." He's ridiculous when he fearfully opines, "Well, there's simply not enough gold in the world. If you want to have 1880s, 1890s deflation, that's a great way to have it happen." Morici, on the price of gold, further notes, "The price of gold will always be rising over time while it gyrates around the trend. It will be rising, it will be very difficult to manage the currency that way." Ron Paul talks over him, correctly noting:

The pri...the price of gold does not go up; the value of the dollar goes down. You gotta understand that point, or you will never solve our problems.

Well, said, Ron! Well said indeed!

[H/T to Lew for his blog posting on this.]

[Cross-posted to the Freeman Chronicles.]

Sunday, November 29, 2009

Ed Begley Jr: Enviro-Whacko Extraordinaire

Radical leftist enviro-wacko Ed Begley, Jr., who is a prominent leader in the Green movement that has been pushing this faux Global Warming (more like Global Cooling) racket for years, appeared in a November 24 interview with Stuart Varney on Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto. During the 4 minute and 23 second pissing contest on the air, Begley Jr. goes off his rocker on the show, arguing with Varney about the validity of the Global Warming theory (which has been the heart of ClimateGate). This nutjob (not to mention a hack of an actor) begins spewing his pro-big government, pro-state, loopy propaganda with his opening line that states the following, "I think the science is very clear on Global Warming." He keeps spouting the lines, "Peer reviewed studies. Those are the key words, Stuart." Then he claims, "Peer reviewed studies are the key words." He keeps chanting those words religiously as though he were citing chapter and verse from his Green Holy Bible.



At one point during his fightfest with Varney, this numbskull has the gall to say that one "can be skeptical but not a denier" about GW. When Varney calls him out on whether the debate on the issue "is over," Begley, Jr. does his best to dodge Varney's question by saying, "The debate is clear. It's out in the scientific community. Read peer reviewed studies. That's all you need to do. Don't get it from you or me."

This cretin doesn't fathom the fact that "peer reviewed studies" are often subject to subjective and erroneous conclusions, especially when the "data" surrounding this "apocalyptic phenomenon" is faulty, unreliable, inconclusive, and prone to misinterpretation. Moreover, there is no global temperature, as temperatures are measured regionally and locally. Climatology is NOT an exact science and prone to mistakes.

Not only that, where has this moron gotten his degree? What makes him qualified to make "objective" scientific fact gathering? What degree does he have? What subjects in college did he ever study? Botany? Biology? Chemistry? Earth science? I don't profess to be an expert on these matters myself, but I don't need a Ph.D. in science or any of the other sciences I mentioned to know that what Begley, Jr. has said is nonsense. What utter claptrap!

I remember him back in the mid 1990s, spouting this crap when he was a guest on America Online's chat room where paid AOL members were allowed to come into the room and ask celebrities like him some questions. If your question was hand picked by the AOL crew, it would read on the air. Begley, Jr. was on one night (his AOL nickname at the time was FoodFarmer; it's no longer active), and he was spewing his nonsensical drivel down the audience's throat. I wondered how the people could really buy into half of what he was throwing out there. (One paid AOL'er challenged his Green beliefs in the AOL chat room, but Begley Jr. shot him down in a rude fashion and was quite obnoxious about it as I recall.)

[H/T to Karen DeCoster on Lew Rockwell's blog.]

[Cross-posted at the Freeman Chronicles.]

Friday, November 27, 2009

The American Family Association's Attack on "Anti-Christmas" GAP Ad

The American Family Association, a conservative "pro-American family" organization, is enraged because of this latest GAP ad, which has been branded "anti-Christmas."



The AFA, like its allies on the Christian Right, are reigniting the culture war flames once again for this Christmas season, like they always do every year. The ad, as absurd and tacky as it is, is anything but anti-Christian. What proof does the AFA have that shows that it's spewing hated for Christmas or any aspect of it that is synonymous with Christianity? None whatsoever!!!

Besides, haven't they been really listening to what the ad says? One can hear the dancers cheer "Go Christmas!" as they are watching it. How is that "anti-Christmas"?

Fortunately, AFA has pulled the plug on its earlier call to boycott GAP and its products, except that the company has agreed to air an ad that has "a very strong Christmas theme." How nice of them!

I'm all for boycotts; after all, that's a market function that a group of individuals or individuals by themselves should take if a company is engaging in a type of practice, selling a message or theme, or offering products or services that they don't like. Having said that, it does not change the point that this boycott is foolhardy because it's done for all the wrong reasons.

Besides, this nonsense that GAP had launched a "War on Christmas" is just preposterous. I don't see a bunch of GAP employees lining up outside fundamentalist Christian churches or GAP customers standing outside the store with signs saying that Christmas is evil and should be abolished. This culture war hysteria has frankly gone too far (this ad is just the latest example of the AFA's lunacy!), and the Christian Right kooks need to fly a kite for once.

Here's another thing: it's okay for the Christian Right, including the AFA and its delusional members, to say that tax-funded municipal events that are not and have never been pro-Christian are only oppressive to Christians. But it's not oppressive to taxpayers (many of whom are not Christians by the way and are of different alternative religions).

[H/T to Ryan W. McMaken of Lew Rockwell's blog.]

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles.]

Thursday, November 26, 2009

It's Beginning to Look A Lot More Riskless

A great parody of the old song "It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas"!



[H/T to David Kramer on Lew Rockwell's blog on his website.]

[Cross-posted at Let Liberty Ring.]

The Let Liberty Ring Blog Is Back

The Let Liberty Ring blog is back for good, and it will be updated daily. I have since left the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement because of the conservativesque and tyrannical delusions of its founder James Cox, who is well known as Facebook as a control freak, an evangelical atheist who has tried to convert me to Atheism while in the process of ditching my spiritual system (I hate the word "religion"!) known as Stregheria (a Tradition of Wicca), an inconsistent (and not a true one at that) Objectivist, and an Ayn Rand kook to top it off.

I'm glad to be done with him permanently. Just so everyone knows, I will no longer copy and paste my blog posts on PFP anymore.

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Ted Kennedy, D.R.I.P.



Ted Kennedy, the ubiquitous compassionate "lion of liberalism," is now dead at the age of 77, thanks to his incurable brain cancer. The limousine socialist is now being canonized by the talking heads of MSNBC, CNN, and other socialist-worshipping networks as well as the major print newspapers such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and many other state-cheerleading publications.

We are talking about the same vile collectivistic socialist Democratic senator who supported the evil Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its provisions, including Title VII, which transferred the private property of any free enterprise to the ruling domain of the state simply by outlawing discrimination "on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, and national origin." Subsequently, pregnancy, age, and disability discrimination and the prohibition of sexual harrassment were later included in the provisions of the law, which effectively demolished employers' right to discriminate against employees by not hiring them or simply firing them, even if the employees are discriminated on those grounds. It also resulted in the creation of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which intervenes in private employers' right not to hire or to fire employees if they are deemed discriminatory by the U.S. Supreme Court, the federal courts and the U.S. District Courts, and the lower courts and the U.S. Court of Appeal.

He was also responsible for expanding the U.S. intervention in Vietnam in the 1960s. He pushed for evil legislation such as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (which repealed quotas on national origin, thus restricting and empowering the state's role in the immigration market), the National Cancer Act of 1971 (a vile law which launched the U.S. War on Cancer and mandated that the National Cancer Institute would be subsidized with no incentive to find cures for cancer), and the vile No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act of 2009. He even voted against the infamous Iraq War Resolution, which is hypocritical considering he backed the Vietnam War and the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, not to mention backed additional Humvees for U.S. troops as a measure to keep them in Iraq.

And, oh yes, let's not forget his infamous involvement in the highly-publicized Chappaquiddick scandal that transpired on the night of July 18, 1969, in which he, in an inebriated stupor, drove his 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88 with one of the few women who had worked on his brother Bobby's presidential campaign as a passenger off a bridge into a pond inlet. This vile maniac didn't even bother to save the life of this 28-year-old woman; instead, he swam to safety and never reported the incident until her body was discovered the next day. He only served two months in jail, when he should have served a lot longer than that. Oh, and he was a pathetic alcoholic to boot.

This is the same Kennedy who pushed for the then-estimated $400 billion Medicare Drug Prescription Benefit that he, many Democrats, and the bulk of the Republican congressional leadership wanted. Just prior to his death, he took partisan measures to ensure that Obama's public option would pass.

It doesn't help that his fellow collectivists in the House and the Senate and the major talking heads in the mainstream press and media are canonizing him, as though he were a Catholic saint. Even Obama eulogizes him by asserting that Kennedy was "a colleague, a counselor and a friend" and then extoled him by saying that his "ideas and ideals are stamped on scores of laws, reflected in millions of lives."

Someone gag me with a spoon, please?

To sum it up, this "lion of liberalism" was all about controlling other people's lives, manipulated his way to avoid criminal prosecution for murder of people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, and a woman in his brother's campaign, lied to his constituents, and had neither any conscience nor remorse for stealing other people's money.

Goodbye and good ridance to you, Teddy. Just do us a favor: don't rest in peace. Just rest in torment. I hope you get the justice you deserve in the black bowels of political hell. Perhaps you'll end up pleading for mercy to save your soul.

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and The Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Ron Paul Goes Up Against Two Statist Physicians on Larry King Live

Ron Paul weighs in on the "health care debate" (more like a pro-socialized medicine cheering) on Larry King Live, which aired on August 11, 2009. The two statist physicians, Dr. David Scheiner (Obama's former personal physician and a member and supporter of the Physicians for a National Health Program that "supports a national single payer health program") and Dr. Dean Ornish (the founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and a medical editor at The Huffington Post blog)) who are on the same panel with him support the government control of health but want to take it further. CNN's Wolf Blitzer sits in for King and "moderates" the absurd "debate."

Scheiner, who is FOR the U.S. conversion to a "single-payer health care" apparatus, goes into defense mode for his precious "one-size-does-not-fit-all" policy, saying the following:

DR. DAVID SCHEINER: Well, you know, the question is, right now there are 89 representatives in the House, in, uh, the House that support single-payer. Sixty percent of physicians support, uh, single-payer. My organization, there are 16,000 physicians who are fighting for single-payer. The question is I don't think the public has adequately been informed as to what single payer is. It has been so demonized. Medicare works! Now why is Medicare expensive? Because it takes care of old, sick people. If it were universal, the costs would be spread out. If the administrative costs were lower, they, they...we would be able to afford it. I don't know why people are so frightened. A national health insurance doesn't mean that we have socialized medicine. We have private doctors. Free choice! Patients do not have free choice today. They have to go to the doctor; their insurance company says. They have to go the hospital, the laboratory. The medication constantly changes, because they tell us it's not in their formula. I want the public to have freedom of choice single payer gives them.


This nonsense that Medicare "works" is like saying the U.S. Post Office "works." It is so inefficient and bureaucratic and saturated with globs of red tape that doctors, registered nurses (RNs), and other medical practitioners are forced to comply with that the costs of Medicare are going through the roof. Plus, Medicare underpays doctors, who either quit the profession because they can't pay for the costs of their overhead or they are forced to spread the costs to their other patients who aren't on Medicare. Yeah, Medicare is "working" all right.

His claim here is enough to break out into laughter: "Now why is Medicare expensive? Because it takes care of old, sick people." No, Dr. Scheiner, it's not the reason why Medicare is breaking the bank. It's cost prohibitive because the agency coerces physicians to charge the highest amount to their customers (just as the private insurers do, as mandated by federal rules and guidelines) and it's in the red because it spends more on tax revenues than it takes in. Plus, it incentivizes the elderly to use the program more than they would; thus, the service mandated by government is, through the forces of the government-created market, rationed, and the demand for Medicare by the seniors exceed the supplies available to provide for them. That's WHY it is so expensive.

Here's the entire clip for people to enjoy:



[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity website.]

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

The Health Care Protesters and the Town Hall Meetings

The highly-publicized behavior of many of the town hall protesters, who object to Obama's "health care reform" (it's not a reform, but a government boondoggled engineered to convert the already-socialized health care system to a carbon copy apparatus of Massachusetts' "single-payer health care" system), should be viewed with disdain, simply because of their unruly and uncivilized behavior at these events. It's one thing to be outraged by the provisions of the 1,000-plus page bill, which includes globs of ominous sections (one of them giving the Secretary of the Department of HHS very vague and very undefined powers); it's another to level shouting matches, ad hominems, and personal attacks at the politicians and bureaucrats who obviously are not telling their constituents the entire truth about the bloated legislation.

Let's take Senator Claire McCaskill's appearance at a Hillsboro district meeting in Jefferson County, Missouri on August 11, 2009 for example. McCaskill, a socialist Democrat from the state, publicly declares that there won't be a "single-payer health care" bill passed in Congress. She also claims that members of Congress are not going along with the idea and that it's not on the table, although the bulk of the members of the audience are convinced otherwise. Watch the following YouTube clip that showcases how the audience members act towards the senator:



The next clip is not so clear at all. It unveils two purportedly disruptive black women who allegedly caused a commotion at the same event, and you can see an irate McCaskill shouting out to the women, who were being forcefully removed by the local police in attendance:



While it's not entirely clear what the "disruption" was all about, the women in the audience were not unruly at all and did not appear to be that way, except for the members of the audience there. If the women were "disruptive," what about the attendees? Weren't many of them being "disruptive" at all? Why wasn't the entire room cleared out if that were the case? Why the selective removal of certain people from what it appears to be more of a health care rally for McCaskill than a town hall meeting?

The two women shouldn't have been removed at all, and were not even disruptive at all. But even if they were, does that justify their removal from the room? One would think not.

The attitudes of the protesters that encourage some of the flaming emotions running wild at these events should not be condoned, although I sympathize and empathize with these people and how they feel. These angry emotions are epitomized at the following CNN video clip of Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA)'s uproarious town hall event:



The man who walks away from Specter after excoriating him in front of the audience members and the cameras screams furiously, "I'm leaving!" Then Specter, with great arrogance and smugness, responds with the following statement: "Ok, ok, ok, we just, uh, we just had, uh, we just a demonstration of democracy. Ok?" The idiocy of the "demonstration of democracy" argument can be argued for another day, so I won't waste the space on this blog post refuting Specter's ludicrous quip. This is hardly the time and place for it, so I will blog about that at a later time.

Here's the full CNN clip of some of the other members demanding Specter to "leave us alone," which includes a 35-year-old conservative Republican woman taking her potshots at the senator:



I have a suggestion for these individuals: calm down. Take some deep breaths. Blind anger and inability to reason is going to make you look not only bad on camera but also to the masses at large. While I concur with you that Obama's "health care reform" is a travesty (not to mention immensely terrible), flaring tempers and having meltdowns in front of your elected officials are not going to bring people, especially those who are undecided on the health care issue, to your side. Repeating unfounded rumors that you may have heard on the internet or on the radio isn't going to score you brownie points; it'll just turn people away from your talking points. All you're doing is alienating yourselves from those who might be persuaded to hear your side of the aisle. Just simply make the moral, philosophical, and economic case against government control and expansion of medical care. Nothing harms the cause of human liberty more than any of the childish and absurd claptrap I've exemplified.

All of that being said, that doesn't mean Specter, McCaskill, and the other Democratic lawmakers get a free "get-out-of-jail" card from the political beatings. The critics of the protesters -- those who want to sustain the current status quo of government-controlled, government-regulated, government-coddled, and government-subsidized health care (although currently it's a corporatized system) and want to extend it further -- are out of line because of their pathetically and ludicrously smug and arrogant sandbagging and smearing of the citizens who oppose the so-called reform bill. As Sheldon Richman recently and correctly opined in his Anything Peaceful blog post (which inspired this blog post about the matter):

Why would anyone have confidence in an 1,000-page-plus piece of legislation, obscurely written, that would give not-fully-defined powers to the secretary of Health and Human Services?


Why should anyone trust these thugs? What have Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Henry Waxman, and the entire U.S. House of Representatives (except for Ron Paul) and the U.S. Senate done for us lately (other than destroying our liberties behind our backs) and for our freedoms (they couldn't careless about them)? What makes them so special and unique? What, is it because they've got cute-and-cuddly legislative powers and we don't? How can they be representing us when they are only representing their special interests (particularly the ones who crafted the health care plan, despite what Congressman John Dingell of Michigan says; he only sponsored it and not wrote it)?

Sorry, but any attempt to dignify what these collectivistic crooks do with our stolen goods (in other words, our hard-earned money) need to look in the mirror and take a long look. Let's not forget that this oppressive and vile statist government to which we are subjected did not start with Obama.

Those who are ecstatic about the bill (like my socialistic Democratic brother Brian, for example) need to get their heads out of their behinds.

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and The Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity website.]

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

A Free Keene Blogger Pens An Open Letter to Sam Dodson's Arresting Officer

Meg McLain, FreeKeene.com's new blogger and a new, aspiring filmmaker, pens an outstanding open letter to Keene Police Department Lt. Peter Thomas, who arrested Sam Dodson on the charge of driving a vehicle with a suspended license moments after Dodson's July 31 appearance at the Keene District Court.

Here's the letter in its entirety:

Dear Peter Thomas,

This is Meg, from the Keene area activist group. I am writing to you because I believe anger is the gateway to violence, and I want none of it in my life. I’m sure you can understand the fact that someone in my position would be angry; however, you may not understand my views that led me to that point.

First off, I know many police officers, and I don’t believe you are bad people (or ‘monsters’, as you said). Sure, there are bad apples in the bunch; but for many of you, the current system has raised you to believe that enforcing the law keeps people safe from harm, and that is commendable. However, because those who make the laws have lost sight of the concepts of real safety, liberty, personal responsibility, and compassion, and instead turned their focus on power and money, it is the police that must take on the burden of being the ugly face of the lawmaker’s oppression. It is not you I am mad at; however, I am not impressed by your willingness to hurt peaceful people because “that’s your job”. I know it’s not your choice what laws are put in place; however, it is your responsibility as a peace officer to protect people from harm. If the lawmakers are setting up rules that hurt people who have not caused injury or damage to another, wouldn’t it be logical to expect you to protect us from their aggression?

Sam has never caused, or even threatened to cause harm to anyone. I’ve traveled the world, and have never found such a beautiful and compassionate person. I understand his actions may annoy you; but he does those things from a position of love for those who suffer, not hate of the corruption that causes that suffering. That goes for all of us. People driven by hate don’t have the passion that love gives us, so they will always fail. I’m not saying it’s easy… we all get mad. But I am able to pull back, remember the love i have been given by the most amazing person in my life, my Grandfather; and I am once again at peace, ready and willing to share that love with everyone… especially you.

Fact is, I need you on our side. You have accepted the responsibility of protecting us, so it saddens me when i see you unknowingly fail.

Two years ago, I was assaulted and stabbed. I’ve never seen efforts to catch the violent people who attacked me that day; yet twice now, i’ve seen Sam hauled off with his hands bound behind his back. I can’t help but wonder, “Why?”. Is it because people like Sam are easier for you to catch? I don’t want to believe that “justice” is based on laziness. But when I see you wasting time enforcing nonsense when I know violence is continuing unpursued, it leaves me to feel the exact opposite of what I should. I don’t feel protected by police, I feel threatened by them. It is my challenge to you to prove me wrong. Know that you are beautiful. I’m sure it was that beauty which drove you to become a police officer, because you care about your fellow man. Once you see that in yourself, let it come through in your work. I have faith that you can do this. Just ask yourself this simple question while performing your job:

“Who am I protecting?”

Are you protecting another person from harm? Who? Are you only protecting the system? Then who are you saving? If the system requires you to hurt, harass, kidnap, and cage someone, and you can’t place a face or name on the victim of their “crime”… then shouldn’t you recognize the system to be the criminal? It’s hard, I know. But learn to act from love, not from ‘authority’, and you can become a leader in the change to a peaceful society… and a hero to millions.

I thank you for your willingness to talk openly with us. I apologize for anything I’ve said or done to make you believe I hold anything but love and compassion for you, your friends, and family. You are not a monster. You may do things I believe are monstrous; and for that, I forgive you. No matter how long it takes you to stop these acts, I will continue to forgive you. And whenever you are ready to stop committing crimes against peaceful people on behalf of the lawmakers, I will be waiting for you to join my family with open arms.

In Peace,
Meg McLain


[H/T to Meg McLain for her posting of the letter on FreeKeene.com.]

[Cross-posted to The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity website.]

Friday, July 31, 2009

Sam Dodson Just Arrested for Driving With A Suspended License

Sam Dodson, prominent civil disobedience activist and a well-known Free Stater who was released recently after serving 58 days in a Keene, New Hampshire Department of Corrections facility for videotaping the lobby of the Keene District Court, has been placed under arrest for driving with a suspended license.

Here's a Qik video of the situation:



Here are the Porc411 message .wavs regarding the incident: msg0056, msg0057

More details are to come as they follow.

[H/T to Bile of BlogofBile.com for reporting this on Facebook.]

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

[Update {4:52 p.m. EST): Bile doesn't know if he is really being arrested. After all, he was let out of the cop car at 4:49 p.m.]

[Update (4:53 p.m. EST): Bile says, "It could be a false alarm."]

[Update (4:57 p.m. EST): Bile says, "[T]hey are trying to confirm he has a legit drivers license. They are detaining him till they find out."]

[Update (4:59 p.m. EST): Bile says, "Yup he's been arrested... taking him to the KPD."]

[Update: More details on Sam will follow in the hours to come.]

[Update: This is what Bile says on his blog: "Apparently while leaving the parking deck after his trial Sam was stopped by a Keene Police officer believing he had a suspended drivers license. Sam being unwilling or unable to provide them with a valid license was held till it could be confirmed. About 10 minutes later they decided to take him to the KPD to be booked. That was at approximately 16:50."

[Update (5:52 p.m. EST): Here's another immediate video of his arrest.]*



[Update (6:41 p.m. EST): Nick of FreeKeene.com writes, "Sam has been released with a summons. More information; including video; will likely be forthcoming throughout the weekend."]

[Update (10:16 p.m. EST): Two other Porc411 calls were put up on BileofBlog.com a few hours ago: msg0058 and msg0059.]

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

If Ron Paul Didn't Write Them, Who Really Did?

Congressman Ron Paul's appearance on Saturday's edition of Free Talk Live sparked an uproarious discussion about Paul's old racist Ron Paul Political Reports newsletters when a caller named Jeff from New York inquired about the matter. Of course, this subject has come up numerous times over the course of the Ron Paul for President Campaign, even though the issue has never been satisfactorily resolved and the true yet secret identity(ies) of the author(s) of the articles in the newsletters has (have) never been revealed. But the question that Jeff gave to Dr. Paul is a valid one, because it is a concern that has been long since brushed under the political rug, all in the name of protecting the Texan congressman's personal, professional, and political rapports with the individual(s) involved in the scathing debacle that dominated the political landscape at the height of the 2008 presidential race. [The show's entire podcast can be found here.]

Here's a rough transcript of the call that transpired on the show. One can decide whether or not the issue of whether Ron Paul had penned the newsletters or not is well worth the discussion and whether the caller was justified in inquiring about the buried subject that became the center of Paul's 2008 presidential campaign.

FTL HOST IAN FREEMAN: [A]h, so we're just gonna get, so we're just gonna get right into these phone calls. We have a lot of people with questions, and hopefully they will make these questions come out quickly. So let's start with the AMPlifier line and talk to Jeff in New York. Jeff, you're on with Ron Paul.

JEFF FROM NEW YORK: Hi, Dr. Paul! How are you doing?

RON PAUL: Doing fine, thanks.

IAN FREEMAN: (Speaking quickly after Paul finished his terse sentence) Go ahead.

JEFF: I just want to let you know, you know, I'm a huge fan. Um, I'm a supporter of Campaign for Liberty and the Mises Institute, and I voted for you...

IAN FREEMAN: (Annoyed; Interrupting) Get to the question, Jeff! I'm sorry, man, we've got to get to the question!

JEFF: Um, I wanted to say that, you know, was all before I read some things in the Ron Paul Political Reports in the '70s and '80s and '90s that had some really not so nice things to say about, you know, blacks and Hispanics and homosexuals, and I know you said you didn't write those reports, but, you know, I mean, uh, why was your name on there, and and, you know, do you so support all of those things that were said in there?

IAN FREEMAN: Thank you for the call.

RON PAUL: No, I didn't write them, and I don't support them, and that's been rehashed many, many times.

IAN FREEMAN: (Quickly speaking after Paul) Yeah, I'm surprised he even, uh, he even brought that up. Uh, you certainly addressed that during the presidential campaign, and it's when you got a lot of things going on beneath you, you can't oversee them all and it's one of those things that slipped through the cracks...

MARK EDGE: It's unfortunate, but it happens.

IAN FREEMAN: Yup, and it was a long time ago.


Let's deal with this subject, considering it is a grave issue that has been rendered moot by the Ron Paul supporters and activists within the old Ron Paul Revolution. It is distressing, although not surprising to say the least, to hear that a 10-term congressman from the 14th district of Texas -- a man whom I viewed as a hero of mine during the Campaign until the ruckus occurred -- decided to dodge Jeff's salient and relevant question by sweeping the old controversy under the political rug again (as the Paul Campaign, the Lew Rockwellers, and he had previously done many, many times). It is even more distressing to hear that two talk show hosts who run a nationally syndicated talk radio show on the Genesis Communications Network (GCN) have decided to help Paul with sweeping that ruckus under the political rug again by refusing to hold his feet to the fire on the matter which had been rendered moot by the Paul campaign and its activists, contributors, donors, and supporters, the bloggers with, supporters of, and contributors to LewRockwell.com, and a number of pro-Paul groups, including Paul's own organization Campaign for Liberty.

At the risk of severing my ties to my allies and those people who still support, love, and respect Dr. Paul, I cannot look the other way when a matter like this has been, with so much exertion and effort, pushed under the old political rug. Jeff raises a valid point: why would these putrid articles, which are laced with racism, bigotry, homophobia, collectivism, and nationalistic and jingoistic rhetoric, be placed under Paul's newsletter byline if the good doctor himself "didn't write them and doesn't support them"? This is an old political loose end that needs to be tied up once and for all, not nipped in the political bud as Paul and his supporters have been continuously done in the past and still doing in the present.

I believe Paul when he says that he didn't write the newsletters. After all, I disbelieve the idea that he held those odious notions expressed in them. But I do believe that he was around with the wrong people who would sooner or later harm and taint his credibility and respect in the libertarian circles and the movement itself. As Sheldon Richman wrote on his Free Association blog on January 10, 2008:

He may have had a sense of what was going on, but did not want to know the details. This doesn't absolve him of responsibility, but it does mean that he is not to be put in the same category as the author(s) and anyone else who had a hand in putting out such garbage in his name.

That said, I wish Ron Paul would more fully explain what went on. When did he first learn of the offensive material and what did he do about it? Most important, are the people responsible still advising him? He wouldn't even have to name names to answer these questions.


Sheldon is absolutely on the button, and his words still ring true to this very day. Like him, I wish Ron would expound on what happened during those years when the newsletters were published. When did he first discover the existence of the offensive content? How did he handle it? More importantly, what does he know about it? Even much more importantly, does he know the identity(ies) of the man (men) who is (are) responsible for writing the articles?

While I do concur with Sheldon that he "wouldn't have to name names to answer these questions," it would wipe the congressman's slate clean if he were to come out with the identity(ies) of the man (men) who is (are) responsible for the material. Why the need to keep his true identity a secret after the campaign? Paul has indicated on the show that he has no intention of running for the presidency again in 2012, yet he doesn't owe that (those) individual(s) anything. And, if those who read this blog post believe otherwise, what does Paul owe him (them)? His loyalty? His respect? His generosity? What?

Paul's dodging of Jeff's question and Ian and Mark's assistance with that dodging are not helping matters at all. There are many libertarians -- yours truly included -- who are wondering who was involved and why the scathing and offensive content were included in those reports. While legally speaking Paul isn't under any legal obligation to furnish details of what transpired over the years, libertarians who support him and his organizations are not legally obligated to blindly hero worship him, regardless of how popular he is in the libertarian movement at the present moment.

And what happened on FTL is an indication of that: blind hero worship. Hero worshipping is a very dangerous opiate, because an individual cannot see the facts and the reality for what they are. What Ian, Mark, and Paul did on the show provided the notion that the controversy should be forgotten and ignored, as though it never happened at all. Sidestepping a controversial incident like the racist Ron Paul Political Reports won't drive the issue away; it will only foster resentment, division, and disgust from libertarians who supported Paul initially but became disenchanted with Paul and the campaign because of their avoidance to talk about the incidents when they found about it. It even adds fuel to the fire for other libertarians who feel that the deliberate attempt to forget about and ignore the wrinkle simply harms the libertarian movement. Even Wendy McElroy, who is not even a fan of Paul, has acknowledged this in her personal blog on January 9, 2008:

Damage is being done to the libertarian movement (see Radley Balko's analysis) and to Ron Paul. Frankly, I don't give a flying fuck about the latter...but I know you do. Will you now do the decent thing for libertarianism and come forward to acknowledge responsibility for the material being used against your mentor?


When I initially wrote about this on Facebook, I wrote the following two statuses:

Todd Andrew Barnett is disappointed that Ron Paul, who was on FTL last night, brushed the racist Ron Paul Political Reports newsletters under the political rug in response to a caller named Jeff from New York who inquired about the comments made in them by saying, "I didn't write them, and I don't support them, and that's been rehashed many, many times."

Todd Andrew Barnett is equally disappointed in Ian Freeman and Mark Edge for helping to brush that issue under the rug by not holding Paul's feet to the fire. It's a valid issue to this day, because hero worshipping a congressman on a very uproarious matter, even if the man himself didn't write those comments, gives the notion that such statements should simply be forgotten and ignored. If Paul didn't write them, who really did?


Bile of Blog of Bile and I had the following exchange on Facebook:

Bile: It really has been beaten to death. A few seconds on Wikipedia will turn up the suspects.

If it is the person or persons some claim it's probably not going to harm them much but it could harm Paul's professional relationships with them. The people who dislike them already believe they said it and that they are racists. Those who don't care as much... Read More dismiss it as pandering the wrong crowd and a clash of cultures.

I find the whole thing very unfortunate and stupid... but see it as minor compared to everything else. When Holdren is found to have written a book calling for population control... the Paul letter calling rioters barbarians, black teenage theft's fleet-footed, etc. seems pretty tame. I want the truth too... but I don't see that happening and find it more of a distraction then anything else.
Sun at 11:02am · Delete

Me: With all due respect, Bile, I personally disagree with you on this one, and not even a large extent. It's easy to shrug it off and say that it's "as minor compared to everything else." It's hard to get to the real gut of the truth when it's been officially swept under the rug by the old Paul campaign. And, if Paul chooses to run again in 2012 (... Read Morewhich I hope he won't), what if the issue comes up again? That old "I didn't write it" excuse won't fly. Hero worshipping is a very dangerous opiate, and it's too easy to fall into that trap. When you advance the old "let's ignore it, ok?" argument, it opens the door for acrimony and animosity which will fester and continue to fester for posterity.

I'll buy the fact that, if the person or persons who wrote them did come out, it would jeopardize Paul's professional relationships. But so what if that happens? They certainly didn't help his credibility when they buried that issue last year. And, as a result, it harmed the Liberty movement.
Sun at 11:13am · Delete

Me: Even outstanding agorist libertarians like Sheldon Richman (a REAL ideological hero of mine), KN@PPSTER's Tom Knapp, and Wendy McElroy have been critical of the RP Revolution and its politically-religious treatment of the controversy. When the newsletter uproar hit the blogosphere last year near the end of the campaign, many libertarians on that ... Read Moreside demanded to know who was responsible for the comments if Paul didn't know about it. Even though I do believe Paul that he didn't write the comments, his comment that he didn't know about them (and he publicly stated that at the time) was implausible and absurd. Even Stefan Molyneux has been critical of Paul and his followers, and many of his points are well taken, whether the man has done good for the movement or not.

Lew Rockwell is named as the man who allegedly wrote the newsletters.
Sun at 11:23am · Delete

Bile: I don't see this as a hero worship issue with most. I'm just treating it realistically. I really don't think that if he said "It was Lew Rockwell" much would come of it. I'm just saying that I suspect that that's the reason he's not doing it and I can understand that position. I disagree it'd be a real problem for him but I can see that it could be... Read More seen as one.

I don't care if it hurt Paul's or Rockwell's or whoever's reputation... I just don't see it making much difference whether he says or not. Those who dislike them already do... those who will forgive them already have.

In addition I really don't believe his credibility or the liberty movement was hurt outside a very small circle of those who already were against him or on the fence. The people we care about understanding and respecting liberty are those in the general public. Those people often heard nothing of the incident or figured it was just some normal election attack. And the MSM didn't believe Paul did it either.
Sun at 11:31am · Delete

Me: I don't know if it's true that he wrote them and there is no evidence that he did (if there is, prove it and not just make some baseless claim!), but if he did write them, it's time to fess up.

It's even suggested that Eric Dondero Rittberg, who was a former Paul campaign staffer, wrote the crud. I don't know if he actually did it (no proof has ... Read Morebeen established, although it would not surprise me if he did given his nefarious reputation on the Web), but if he did, it's time to fess up. Besides, how do we know that those people who have a great professional relationship with Paul didn't leave him holding the bag when that newsletter nightmare came out? Obviously, they did....by making him out to be the fall guy so that Paul could protect them. And for what? What honor and integrity did this individual or individuals have?

As for Holdren, I haven't read his book, so I can't comment on that. But I say both matters are equally disturbing. And that's how I feel about it.
Sun at 11:32am · Delete

Bile: I agree that he should come clean and that "I don't know" is highly unlikely. I just don't see it being something to focus on.

Stefan was critical of Paul regardless of the letters. His "grandmom is going to be murdered when Paul turns off SSI" was crazy.
Sun at 11:34am · Delete

Me: Fair enough, Bile. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. No offense intended as always.
Sun at 11:47am · Delete


Another Ron Paul supporter, whose Skype nickname I won't reveal, told me this in a private Skype chat:

Dude, the newsletter thing is a nothing story. It was dug up by the establishment as the only thing resembling 'dirt' they could find, and blown way out of proportion. It's a pure hit piece. DOn't know how you can't see that. FTL is right to drop it - it's been rehashed a million times, when it wasn't worth discussing once. There are plenty of legit things to pick on - he's a minarchist and a Christian. But he is most definitely not a racist.


Sorry, but it's not a "nothing story." Peddling such sophistry won't get us anywhere. But since this person brought up the establishment, let's focus on that angle here.

Yes, James Kirchick used the Paul newsletters to skewer Paul, the campaign, and his supporters and allies. It is true that Kirchick, who published the infamously notorious New Republic hit piece on Paul, was looking to make a name for himself and to boost his then-favored candidate Rudy Giuliani's poll numbers, and he certainly did that. But, since the Paul supporters were looking to Paul as some sort of Republican version of Barack Obama who touted himself as the "real" agent of change, wouldn't some Paul supporter have done the same thing? After all, isn't it true that Lew Rockwell changed his personal website to be a pro-Paul vehicle, thereby sacrificing the site's tax exempt status (under the guise of the 501 c(3) registration) and became a Paul for President campaign tool?

The fact is that Paul and his campaign became fair game, whether they want to acknowledge, embrace, accept, or tolerate that or not. The second the Kirchick piece came out, the second Paul was an easy target. And it doesn't help the fact that, according to my good friend Tom Knapp of KN@PPSTER, LewRockwell.com (LRC.com), the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI), and the paleolibs like Karen DeCoster pandered to the racists, who have successfully tried to torpedo any investigation into this matter. All of this have resulted in further damage to the libertarian movement.

Finally, my criticism of Paul goes a bit further here. When this ruckus began to explode, he said that he didn't "know about it." Sorry, but that's a implausible and ridiculous excuse. He should have known who was responsible for the articles. Fortunately, he has taken responsibility for this mess by saying that he hadn't written them. He could have urged the person who refused to come forward to come clean. But he chose not to do this. That's another mark on him from a personal and political standpoint.

Ron Paul has done a lot of good for the Liberty movement, and that goes without saying. But he is not above reproach or criticism. He has his political sins that he carries on his shoulder. His avoidance of the issue does not absolve him of aiding and betting with the people responsible for the crud in his reports. But that universal question remains: if Ron Paul didn't write them, who really did?

[Cross-posted at the Freeman Chronicles.]

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Teens...and Taxes?

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.

From the state agency's website:

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?

Here's the aforementioned YouTube in question:



[H/T to Manuel Lora of the LewRockwell.com Blog for bringing this video to the Liberty movement's attention.]

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Need to Excommunicate Bill Maher

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:



[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and The Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

Health Care Socio-Fascism

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.)

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Sam Dodson a.k.a. Sam Miller Has Been Released From The State's Cage







Free Stater and journalist Sam Dodson, who also occasionally co-hosts the popular Free Talk Live in Keene, New Hampshire, has been released from jail after he was arrested for videotaping the lobby of the Keene District Court on April 13, 2009. Dodson had been confined to a cage mandated by Judge Burke, the same presiding officer of the Keene District Court who arrested Ian Freeman last November simply for not sitting down fast enough in the courtroom in the beginning of his arraignment on the charge for having a couch on his lawn.

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.

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

*This is the link to the Keene Sentinel's reporting on Sam's real identity.

[Update (5:51 p.m. EST): Here's Sam's full recording of his cell phone call to Porc411 he made yesterday at 3 p.m. EST]

Monday, June 8, 2009

Ian Freeman of Free Talk Live Leaves Bureaucrash Social

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.

The fall of Bureaucrash continues onward.

[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

Bureaucrash Social Under "Maintenance"

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.

[Cross-posted at the Freeman Chronicles and the Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity Movement website.]

[Update 8:16 p.m. EST: Bureaucrash Social is back up now. Anyone who is a member can remove his or her membership from the site.]

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Bureaucrashed

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.

This is what Doren wrote on the front page of BC's official website, even though he wrote a long missive in the form of an intellectually dishonest "mea culpa" from which this message is taken:

Dear Current Members of BureauCrash

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:



[Cross-posted at The Freeman Chronicles and Peace, Freedom, and Prosperity.]