Sheldon Richman: 'War Is A Government Program'

In case anyone really believes that war is necessary to bring about peace and/or stimulates the economy, they ought to read Sheldon Richman's recently-penned op-ed at the Future of Freedom Foundation website, in which Richman lays out the argument that war "is a government program."

Here's a snip of his FFF op-ed:

It is always amusing to hear conservatives complain — as they are complaining now and used to complain during the Vietnam War — that if it weren’t for the politicians, the generals could win America’s wars. Those with this mindset believe the politicians are always getting in the way by subordinating military considerations to — ugh! — political considerations. Politicians, leave those generals alone!

This is amusing for a couple of reasons. First, these same conservatives claim to worship the U.S. Constitution, which, the last time I read it, subordinated the military to civilian authority.

Second, those who make this complaint seem willfully blind to the nature of war. At its most fundamental level, war is no more a military phenomenon than it is a scientific phenomenon. True, militaries fight wars, and military tactics is a meaningful discipline. But war also requires weapons that make use of the principles of physics. Does that mean wars are fundamentally the province of scientists? No, and neither are they fundamentally the province of generals.

Wars are political phenomena. You’d think the armchair generals and word-processor pilots would know that. It’s been 175 years since the publication of Karl von Clausewitz’s posthumous book, On War, which stated,

[War] is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.

War is politics.

Unless they are also heads of state, generals don’t start wars. Politicians start wars. In fact, generals have been known to oppose wars, having a more realistic sense than politicians of what wars really entail.

Politicians start wars for political reasons. (This is not to imply that economic reasons aren't involved.) They may seek to control resources or a foreign population. Or they may seek to secure existing interests that could be at risk without the war. The mark of a global empire is that nothing can happen anywhere in the world without its potentially involving the interests of the imperial power and requiring, under the appropriate circumstances, war to protect those interests. This well describes the United States for the last half-century at least. The military is the means to a political end. The politicians cannot be concerned with military matters exclusively because that might cause them to ignore important political considerations, both domestic and foreign.

The False News Channel and Benito Ghouliani: Unfair and Unbalanced

Benito Ghouliani's very own False News Channel has been exposed as the unfair and unbalanced network it truly is in every sense.

{Thanks goes to Lew for unveiling this at LRC.)

Bush's Homeland Stupidity....Errr.......Security Advisor Resigns

It's official: Bush's top Homeland Stupidity....ahem....Security Advisor Frances Fragos Townsend steps down after 4 1/2 years while being under the supervision of DHS Secretaries (and Bush clods) Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff. Interestingly enough, the reason for her departure is conveniently withheld from the White House and is not given in the Washington Post piece.

This is another fatal strike against Bush and his collectivistic stooges whose empire is about to crumble.

UPDATE: Bush issued a public announcement of Townsend's resignation but refused to disclose the reason for her departure. Could it be that the recent series of exits from the Bush administration, with Townsend being the latest one, are a signal of the administration's fall in light of the calamitous war in Iraq, out-of-control spending deficits, the sinking economy and dollar, and massive entitlement programs?

Boston police wanting to search teens bedrooms

Would you allow police to come into you house and search your child's room for guns?

The Boston Herald has reported that parents in the higher crime areas of Boston want police to be allowed to search their teens rooms for guns. (Not with a warrant but with the parents permission.) This procedure was requested by BPD Commissioner Edward Davis and Suffolk District Attorney Dan Conley due to a lot of interest of activists and the family of a 13 year old boy who was killed by gang gunfire.

The boys mother, Kim Odom is very thankful for this program. Now, as a parent, I kind of understand her wanting this program put in place but I feel this is just another step in the "Policed States of America". I can only imagine what it would be like to lose a child but from an outsiders perspective, this plan is a terrible thing.

The idea is that police will ask to search a child's room based on reports from the child's school and/or schoolmates. Now, more than likely they will come to the "suspected" child's house and say something on the line of "I'm gonna have to ask you to let us search your child's room." The problem with this is that many people will take this as not asking, but ordering. That isn't so. If they had the right to come in, they wouldn't ask to come in, they would show you a warrant and just come in.

At first glance, it may look like a good idea as long as they are asking. Well, I strongly disagree! Once you give police permission to come into your home anything they see or find is fair game. Anything they see that is contraband or any other things that maybe you shouldn't have will give them the right to cease and then charge you for. Yeah, I know some of you are saying "Well, if you don't have anything to hide......" That's bull! There could be something in your home you didn't know was there and if they find it, you're screwed! Wake up, sheeple! You are being lied to and mislead by your government. This country is continually giving up its personal rights.

If you think your child's room should be searched then be a damn parent and do it yourself.

Sectarian Violence in Iraq Dips to Pre-February 2006 Levels

The U.S. Military reports that the sectarian violence on Iraqi soil has dropped to pre-February 2006 levels.

This is what the following New York Times excerpt states:

BAGHDAD, Nov. 18 — The American military said Sunday that the weekly number of attacks in Iraq had fallen to the lowest level since just before the February 2006 bombing of the Shiite shrine in Samarra, an event commonly used as a benchmark for the country’s worst spasm of bloodletting after the American invasion nearly five years ago.

Data released at a news conference in Baghdad showed that attacks had declined to the lowest level since January 2006. It is the third week in a row that attacks have been at this reduced level.

But this is where it becomes more interesting. It further notes:

To be sure, the level of violence in Iraq is still high. Even as military officials announced the figures, Iraq had one of its deadliest days in weeks, with at least 22 people killed. Among the killed were nine civilians in Karada, a mixed neighborhood in central Baghdad, when a car bomber rammed a convoy carrying Iraq’s deputy finance minister. The official was not hurt, but a guard was among the wounded.

The mainstream "government" media is spinning this to make it sound like the violence has completely stopped altogether, yet the above-mentioned paragraph from the Times story points out that the sectarian violence levels are "still high." Adding insult to injury, the piece tries to justify the spinning by suggesting "factors" contributing to the drop, such as the military attacks "weakening" an Al Qaeda group in Mesopotamia and new Sunni volunteers teaming up with American forces to counter the Iraqi insurgency, without citing any evidence to back them up.

Even if they did contribute to the decrease, this latest report is only indicative of a short term drop. In the long term, the violence levels are high enough to indicate that the civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites is still brewing with no end in sight.

Isn't it about time that, not only that we withdraw our troops from Iraq and bring them home, we also withdraw our troops from Afghanistan, Germany, Spain, and over 170 countries around the world? Isn't it also time that we close down the bases in those countries as well?

Kudos should go to Ron Paul for urging for a new foreign policy, one that would demand non-interventionism, peace, diplomacy, and true free trade.

American Thinker's Andrew Walden: "Ron Paul Is a Useful Man for Democrats"

A collectivistic, pro-welfare-warfare statist Neo-Con goes out of his way to smear Ron Paul by claiming that he's a "useful man for the Democrats."

Here's the following excerpt of the piece:

The Ron Paul story never seems to end -- and yet never seems to quite make it into the mainstream media. That's because, in the political equivalent of a bank shot, Paul's fringe support helps bleach embarrassing stains from the Democrats.

First there is the revelation that Jim C Perry, the "Orthodox Jewish" head of "Jews for Paul" also calls himself a gay pagan Unitarian.

Now it turns out that Perry, Paul's point man in response to questions raised by the Jewish Telegraph Agency, is also accused of stealing money from the local New Hampshire branch of the Libertarian Party. What a great guy! It's only an accusation. And the "Libertarian" Perry was in 2006 running for New Hampshire Legislature as a Democrat.

Oh yes: Then the federal raids started.

It turns out that some folks actually buy-in to Ron Paul's blither about US dollars being "phony money". Here Paul is talking about "phony money" at a recent Ron Paul rally outside the Philadelphia Mint with a large crowd including -- surprise, surprise, -- some more white supremacists. (Who show they fully understand the New Orleans protocol.)

Some of Paul's gold bug supporters been trying to pass so-called "Liberty Dollars" off as real currency at stores nationwide. Sleepy clerks have given them change in US currency for purchases. Raids have been conducted in the last few days by the FBI and Secret Service at Liberty Dollar HQ in a strip mall office in Evansville, Indiana, (that's not where I would be keeping three pounds of gold, but I digress) as well as Asheville, NC (here the segregationist ‘Council of Conservative Citizens' is very concerned) and a private mint located in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Arrests were also made recently in Wisconsin (on their blogsite, these geniuses detail three places where the spent Liberty Dollars as if they were legal tender). In 2006 two arrests had been made in Buffalo, NY. The Evanston raid netted a huge load of "Ron Paul Dollars" apparently just delivered from Idaho and backed perhaps by the full faith and credit of... Ron Paul?

Prince George County Judge to Parents: Vaccinate Your Kids in Court or Go to Jail

A Prince George County judge in Maryland coerces parents to either appear in his courtroom for school vaccinations or risk a 10-day jail sentence.

It is THIS reason that the state of the American family is in utter decline, because of the state's never-ending, ruthless anti-family, anti-parent interventions, which are a significant contributing factor to the cultural, moral, and ethical decline of our society. Collectivistic, social-engineering-loving Republicans who claim to be pro-family values, pro-parent, and pro-moral values have, for the longest time, stood in the way of parental rights and parents' right to control their children's education and health care. They talk a good game, but they don't measure up to their claims at the end of the day.

The same goes for the collectivistic, social-engineering-loving Democrats, except that, for decades, they have been for the welfare state and its destructive force against parents and their right to raise and educate their children and control their children's health. At least they never had to hide behind the "free market" rhetoric like the Republicans do.

This is one more reason on top of a plethora of reasons to abolish the state and its utopian and fascistic practices. Any socialist/fascist who argues against this point and urges the state to move forward and continue its coordinated efforts to undermine parents and their families must be exposed, no matter the costs.

(Thanks to Tom Knapp's Rational Review News Digest for providing a link to this piece.)

FBI's Forensic Tests Now Discredited

The FBI's once-widely-accepted-but-now-discredited forensic evidence test used to convict hundreds of criminal defendants sitting in prisons nationwide has now been viewed with skepticism. This is, after all, the same test whose method of convicting defendants who didn't commit any crimes but has been looked upon by the state as criminals is now called into question.

Now that this new revelation has come into public light, isn't it about high time to abolish capital punishment at the federal and state levels, considering evidence of DNA and forensic analysis can be viewed with great suspicion, especially in federal and state drug cases?

The piling of evidence against the vile state and its anti-liberty practices -- all in the name of the War on Terror and the War on Drugs -- epitomizes the need to abolish the Drug War and the WOT.

Let's legalize freedom while we still can. In the immortal words of the Twisted Sister song "We're Not Going To Take It":

We're not going to take it
No, we're not gonna take it
Oh, we're not going to take it...anymore!!!

Bernard von NotHaus on Free Talk Live

Liberty Dollar creator and founder Bernard von NotHaus was interviewed by Ian Bernard, Julia Miranda, and Mark Edgington on Friday's airing of Free Talk Live. An edited clip of the show can be found on the talk show's website here.

To sum it up, it was an excellent interview. Von NotHaus, who is still shaken up over the entire raid, was calm and very gentle on the air. He answered each question honestly and did not beat around the bush, even though he may come off to some people as quite blunt. Other than that, he was a real trooper on the air.

He did answer a few questions with the callers on the air, which you can hear in the show's archives and edited clip of the interview. He was very patient and kind with them, taking his time as well.

Overall, the interview was the best one I've ever heard. Kudos go to Mark and Ian for an excellent job they have done.

Day II of the Liberty Dollar Raid

Bernard von NotHaus, the self-described "Money Architect" of the Liberty Dollar whose company was raided by the federal government yesterday, sent out an email with the title of the subject line reading as "Day II - FBI Raid on the Dollar Liberty." The email basically provides updated coverage of the raid that transpired yesterday, showcasing the evil nature of the vile goons who swarmed the entire facility and officially charged von NotHaus and the entire company with "mail fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering."

This is what the body of the email message entails:

Friday, November 16, 2007: Make no mistake, the FBI and Secret Service raid on he Liberty Dollar at 8:00 AM on Wednesday, was a direct assault against the US onstitution and your right to own and use gold and silver in any way you chose.

I personally spoke to FBI agent Andrew Romagnuolo shortly after he and his gang invaded the peaceful home of the Liberty Dollar. He told me that the raid was related to the US Mint's warning and the beginning of a criminal investigation. This is the first battle of a long war that I intend to win!
Please note the Search Warrant, Seizure Warrant and Agent info is now posted. Click HERE for that info. If that link does not work the URL is: http://www.libertydollar.org/ld/legal/raid.htm.

Also posted is the correspondence between US Senator Bill Nelson of Florida and Edmond C Moy, Director of the US Mint. Of particular interest is Moy's statement that the! paper Certificates are not covered by the Title 18, Section 486 and hence legal. So there was no need to raid Sunshine Mint and confiscate all the gold and silver that backs the paper and digital currencies.
No need, unless the government knew their 486 case didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning and needed to expand their case into the never-never land of mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering as mentioned in the Seizure Warrant. I anticipate being arrested on any one or all of these charges.

But I see my arrest and trial as a golden opportunity to win and return our great country to a value based currency. I sincerely believe that the right creative marketer could orchestrate an effective counter attack and win big. I believe the Liberty Dollar will win and become one of the great institutions in America. I have devoted the past ten year to the Liberty Dollar and am willing to risk a few years in federal prison to vindicate it. Winni! ng is certainly possible, even probable with your help.
Wi! nning wi ll require good, dedicated legal support and your support. First, if you are angry and resent the government's assault on your right to own and use gold as you please then call the agents and express your displeasure of their actions in a polite way. Don't kill the messenger, just tell them they are wrong. Add your voice to this movement.

Second: If you are owed an order and want to get your money back or have paper certificates or digital Liberty Dollars, I urge you to demand redemption or the return of your money by joining the Class Action Lawsuit. Your participation is absolutely critical. If you don't join the CAL you will not get your money back. Please click HERE to sign up for the Class Action Lawsuit. If that link does not work, the URL is: http://www.libertydollar.org/classaction/index.php.
Third: A Legal Defense Fund will be established very soon. Its purpose is to win the cr! iminal case and get your money back. It will take money to make it successful. So your contribution is also critical. Please don't let the government steal your money.

So if you have an existing order, want to redeem your paper Certificates or digital Liberty Dollars, please join the fight to defend our right to own and use gold as you so chose and sign up for the Class Action Lawsuit. This is the
only way you will get your stolen property back.
If you have no standing and want to finally get involved, no problem. There is still $20 million Liberty Dollars in circulation. Simply get some paper Liberty Dollars and sign up for the Class Action Lawsuit. There is still time for all the thick-headed Lewrockwellites, Markskousenites, Dougcaseyites and Agoraites to pull your head out and get 'right' on this important issue.

I regret to inform you that the Liberty Dollar office is now closed. The government boys took everything except for t! he desks and chairs. We have no stock, no records, no money. I! can' ;t even change the phone message because they took the phone manuals. Nor can I answer the thousands of email and calls from a national organization that now numbers into the hundreds of thousands. I am the last man standing. I need your help.
Thank you for your many offers of help. Now is the time for us to help our selves and our great country as it faces the greatest monetary challenge since the Revolutionary War. Buying gold and silver is good for you, but it will not solve our country's problems.

Government requires participation. The problems we have today are because our parents did not participate. Please keep using the Liberty Dollar. Keep the ideals and benefits of real money alive. Gold and silver is going to be very rewarding as the US dollar disintegrates. Please join the Class Action Lawsuit and give something to the Legal Defense Fund when it is established.
But you don't have to wait. Donations can be sent to the old address as the ma! il is now being forwarded. Of course we will still accept Liberty Dollars, but unfortunately due to the current situation, the attorneys require those dreaded depreciating US dollars.

Please make your check or money order out to me as there is no other bank account and mail it to: Liberty Dollar, 225 N. Stockwell Road. Evansville. Indiana. 47715.
Now is the time to band together and support our fight for value based currency as never before. Now is the time to throw off the yoke of a manipulated monetary/tax system and generate a peaceful and prosperous society.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your offer of help, prayers and support.

The Liberty Dollar and our great country sincerely needs your support.
God bless you and our great country!

Bernard von NotHaus
Monetary Architect

Go Here to Be Added to E-mail List

Alert Send on No! v 15 200 7

US Mint - Paper is legal (Click to View PDF)Search Warrent (Click to View PDF)

Seizure Warrent (Click to View PDF)Agent Information (Click to View PDF)

Click to View Local Article

The war against human liberty is now exacerbated on the heels of this raid.

Coincidentally, could it be that the Neo-Cons and their collectivists ignited this raid on the company, all because of Ron Paul's surging rise to fame and success due to the growing grassroots activism online and in public?

The Federal Government's Raid of Liberty Dollar

Liberty Services, Inc., the private company that prints, coins, and distributes the gold-and-silver backed Liberty Dollar, was the target of a federal raid by the Federal Bureau of Intruders....ahem, Investigation (FBI) and the United States Secret Service (USSS), as of 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, November 15. Steve Gordon reports all the details.

Here's the letter that Liberty Dollar founder Bernard von NotHaus sent out on the company's email announcement list Thursday morning at around 9:45 a.m. with the following message:

Dear Liberty Dollar Supporters:

I sincerely regret to inform you that about 8:00 this morning a dozen FBI and Secret Service agents raided the Liberty Dollar office in Evansville.

For approximately six hours they took all the gold, all the silver, all the platinum and almost two tons of Ron Paul Dollars that where just delivered last Friday. They also took all the files, all the computers and froze our bank accounts.

We have no money. We have no products. We have no records to even know what was ordered or what you are owed. We have nothing but the will to push forward and overcome this massive assault on our liberty and our right to have real money as defined by the US Constitution. We should not to be defrauded by the fake government money.

But to make matters worse, all the gold and silver that backs up the paper certificates and digital currency held in the vault at Sunshine Mint has also been confiscated. Even the dies for mint the Gold and Silver Libertys have been taken.

This in spite of the fact that Edmond C. Moy, the Director of the Mint, acknowledged in a letter to a US Senator that the paper certificates did not violate Section 486 and were not illegal. But the FBI and Services took all the paper currency too.

The possibility of such action was the reason the Liberty Dollar was designed so that the vast majority of the money was in specie form and in the people’s hands. Of the $20 million Liberty Dollars, only about a million is in paper or digital form.

I regret that if you are due an order. It may be some time until it will be filled... if ever... it now all depends on our actions.

Everyone who has an unfulfilled order or has digital or paper currency should band together for a class action suit and demand redemption. We cannot allow the government to steal our money! Please don’t let this happen!!! Many of you read the articles quoting the government and Federal Reserve officials that the Liberty Dollar was legal. You did nothing wrong. You are legally entitled to your property. Let us use this terrible act to band together and further our goal – to return America to a value based currency.

Please forward this important Alert... so everyone who possess or use the Liberty Dollar is aware of the situation.

Please click HERE to sign up for the class action lawsuit and get your property back!

If the above link does not work you can access the page by copying the following into your web browser. http://www.libertydollar.org/classaction/index.php

Thanks again for your support at this darkest time as the damn government and their dollar sinks to a new low.

Bernard von NotHaus

Monetary Architect

(Thanks to my good friend Chris Kemp of We The People, who told me about this later in the afternoon on that day.)

The Club for Growth's Seventh Presidential White Paper on Ron Paul

The Club for Growth's official report on Ron Paul.

These Neo-Con cretins, who spew their so-called fiscally conservative rhetoric on many of their reports, really have it in for Ron. They don't mind beaming about the other Big Government, Big Empire, Big Military whackjobs posing as GOP contenders being different from the Democrats, but they sure do have a problem with Ron and his consistent voting record and his principled constitutionalist positions.

But then, what do you expect from former CATO-ite Stephen Moore and his cronies in the CFG?

(Thanks to Max Raskin at Lew's blog.)

Glenn Beck: "Is Ron Paul Really The Best Guy You've Got?"

Neo-Con Extraordinare Glenn Beck, in an October 8th airing of his CNN show, certainly has an axe to grind with Ron Paul in his show titled "The Ron Paul Effect." First, within the first three minutes of his segment on Paul, he appears to wax enthusiastic about Ron's position on the issues when he plasters Ron's statements on the TV screen during his "Name That Candidate" segment. Then he goes on a moronic rant about how Ron is the "same Ron Paul who pulls in a whopping 2 percent in the polls of likely Republican voters." He, in an arrogant fashion, asks, "How does that happen, even though this guy raised over $5 million in the third quarter? Only two percent. Why is that?" He goes on to talk a good game with his Big Government viewer base by saying that, for him, at least "the breaking point are the policies that I don't agree with like pulling out of Iraq and legalizing drugs. But, on the whole, I probably agree with his libertarian, Founding Father, Constitution-focus values more than other candidates. Why then doesn't America consider voting for him?"

Then Beck, in a demagogue-esque fashion, says the following: "Real story is: Maybe, just maybe, because you can certainly judge a book by its cover. And Ron Paul's cover? Not exactly looking like a bestseller, ya know? Uh, I mean, if you're going to tell me you're going to abolish the FBI? Okay, you better do it, ya know? You better wrap that up in a nice, slick wrapper, ya know? You gotta look like you actually can do that. He's got some pretty sane proposals, um, and, and, and if his fundraising is of any indication, he has tapped into the frustation every American feels right now towards the dummies in Washington. But, unfortunately, no matter what he's selling for good or for ill, he's looking like the Mayor of Crazy Town. And that seems to be a little problem." As soon as he says the last sentence, he cuts to some video excerpts of Ron in the debates, in his interviews, etc.

Then Beck levels smears at Ron Paul supporters by saying the following: "Okay, there's one other problem that I see with, uh, the Ron Paul Revolution, and I say this with due respect but the revolutionaries? You kinda scare me a little bit. I mean it's the little sheets that are the banners that you put over the freeways, you know what I mean? And then you crash the web polls so the candidate gets 95 percent of the vote. And then you complain when you're excluded from future polls. Whenever I talk politics on the radio, half the phone calls I get are from people who want to talk about Ron Paul, and I take them. And then the other half of the calls are asking me why I'm part of some media conspiracy to not talk about Ron Paul."

Then he laments more on the Ron Paul supporters: "They also love to say that the mainstream media refuses to interview their candidate. I'll be completely honest with you: I've asked Ron Paul repeatedly to come on this program, never really agreed. I'll offer you fair, I'll give you fair questions, Ron, I really will. He, I should say, he never has agreed except for one time, and then, at the last minute, he bailed on us and stiffed us, which is good on national television to do."

And then Beck, in a hilariously ridiculous and pathetic move on his part, throws in his "I'm-a-libertarian" rhetoric: "I guess my question to all true libertarians is this: your platform has reawakened a disgruntled electorate. I am more libertarian than anything else. Voters are begging for common sense Founding Father types values, and you've got 'em. But you can't sell steak without sizzle. The question is: 'Libertarians, is Ron Paul really the best guy you've got?'" [Emphasis added]

Of course, at that point, David Boaz, Executive Director of the CATO Institute and Peter Fenn, a Democratic strategist and a former Al Gore Campaign advisor, joined him for a discussion on Paul. Fenn gushes about how impressive and amazing Ron has been doing with his campaign. He is amazed about the fact that Paul raised $5 million for his campaign and waxed glowingly about his campaign website, even though he says Ron didn't know what the Internet was (which isn't true). Fenn poignantly notes at one point, "I think part of it, Glenn, that, you know, there is a none-of-the-above quality that's out there by a lot of people. And he kinda, he brings it in. And you remem -- in '88, this guy was on the ballot in 46 states in the District of Columbia. He got 500, a little less than 500,000 votes, not that many, but no one knew who he was then. If he's a libertarian candidate for President of the United States with an cynical, angry electorate, you know, who knows what could happen out there?"

Beck then asks Boaz about if there is a libertarian candidate while paying lip service to a true-blue libertarian candidate. The conversation went this like:

"David, do you know any good -- I mean, good quality -- I mean, our founding fathers were more libertarian than anything else.

DAVID BOAZ, THE CATO INSTITUTE: Well...

BECK: And they were scientists and preachers and everything. They were great. What happened?

BOAZ: Well, that`s right, and I think one thing that happened is that people like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson probably would have trouble in today`s media market, today`s special interest-dominated politics.

(CROSSTALK)

BECK: ... a reason to pull for a libertarian then.

BOAZ: Ron Paul is not necessarily the ideal libertarian candidate, but he`s the one who`s out there running. And it`s interesting. You named a lot of his positions, and I think you like all the ones I don`t. But maybe he can appeal to both of us in different ways."

Interestingly enough, all three of them veer off-topic from Ron, with Beck lamenting on the fact that there is no "moderate" candidate in the race from either side of the aisle. Soon enough, they all talk about their discontent with no candidate out there besides Ron Paul who is "socially liberal and fiscally conservative."

At the end of the blabfest, Beck finally says, "Why can`t we find anyone on either side that`s fiscally responsible? That`s my question. David, Peter, I`ve got to run. Thanks a lot."

In a nutshell, Beck is a fool if he thinks that Ron Paul needs to wrap up his message in "a nice, slick wrapper," as if Ron needs to tone down his anti-war, anti-Drug War message. Beck, a bottom-feeding Bush brownnoser who talks the pro-liberty talk but doesn't walk the walk, is so wishy-washy that he makes Ron look like a true saint, compared to faux saints like Mother Theresa and Princess Diana.

If anything, Ron Paul is the real deal and the best libertarian candidate for freedom. Not only that, he's an eloquent messenger for human liberty. It's not surprising that Glenn Beck doesn't understand that.

As for Boaz, he notes on the air that Beck "likes all of his [Paul's] positions that I [Boaz] don't." Could it be that Ron is far more libertarian on the issues, whereas Boaz and his shady group the CATO Institute is a Big Government, corporatist-supporting Republican front since Bush's first term in office?

Minds with serious inquiries only want to know.

Michigan to Citizens: Pay Higher Flat Income and Sales Taxes

Granholm and her collectivistic thugs have finally won their battle to raise the flat income tax and extend the sales tax on services. The shut-down was "averted," although it hasn't really been averted; it's been postponed to a later date, in actuality. What Granholm and her collectivistic thugs in Lansing have done is that they have merely delayed the inevitable -- the impending financial and economic implosion that will eventually engulf Michigan and every obedient, sheeple we call citizens to go with it.

Of course, it's not a surprise that Granholm and her collectivistic stooges are going along with this, but it is troublesome. With the taxes going up and no changes in state government spending and the state's regulatory code, this state will continue to sink further and further into economic ruination.

It's bad enough that it's a one-state depression; it's going to be worse in the months to come.

The Continuing Michigan Partial Shut-Down Mess

The continuing saga of the partial shut-down mess in my home state proceeds unabated. Apparently the Michigan media is saying that there has been some progress in the talks regarding the shut-down nonsense, but that doesn't say much, as far as I'm concerned.

My governor Jennifer Granholm is not wasting any time trying to blackmail the Legislature into hiking the state's flat income tax rate from 3.9 percent to either 4.3 percent or 4.6 percent, whichever is decided first. She claims to be pushing the tax hike in the state to "close a $1.75 billion gap in the budget," yet she offers no proof that raising the tax rate is going to rectify the mess that the state's in -- a mess that Granholm and the Democrats largely created for the state.

Since she's not even remotely interested in slashing the spending, tax, and regulatory levels statewide, the chance of an impending financial implosion in this state is becoming greater with each passing moment.

Not only does Jenny want to raise the flat income tax, she's also trying to redouble on her efforts to push for an extension of the state's sales tax (which is 6 percent) to services currently not covered under the law, such as movie tickets, performing arts, accounting services, etc. (There's a litany of other services that are targeted to be taxed under the new extension, but that's not a surprise.)

The real answer to this insanity is to dramatically slash spending, taxes, and regulations, many laws that impede in the market process, and truly privatizing many government services and functions that can work better in a laissez-faire free market. A "right to work" law is seriously needed for Michigan, considering many other states do have such laws on the books and their economies are doing far better than states that don't carry them. If the Legislature and the Governor were to sign and pass such a law, there would be a significant turn around economically and financially.

Until such legitimate reforms are implemented, the state will not survive the financial and economic implosion that is yet to come. Even if the Legislature, Granholm, and the special interests get their way, the "fixes" -- that is, the Democrats' beloved "balanced budget" -- will pave the way for the Legislature to boost spending, which can, in turn, lead to higher taxes again. The cycle would just keep continuing. The state will not survive it at the rate it continues to go.