A LITTLE REBELLION

Global Warming Debunked

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, a group of sixteen world-renowned scientists call out the unscientific alarmism over “global warming,” citing numerous inconvenient facts that dispute global warming claims. So much for the "unanimous consensus" from all Serious Scientists.

Here's David Theroux writing at the Independent Institute blog on the WSJ piece:

The group of scientists note the following facts that refute climate alarmist claims:

1. The lack of global warming for well over 10 years now:

This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.” But the warming is only missing if one believes computer models where so-called feedbacks involving water vapor and clouds greatly amplify the small effect of CO2.

The lack of warming for more than a decade—indeed, the smaller-than-predicted warming over the 22 years since the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began issuing projections–suggests that computer models have greatly exaggerated how much warming additional CO2 can cause. Faced with this embarrassment, those promoting alarm have shifted their drumbeat from warming to weather extremes, to enable anything unusual that happens in our chaotic climate to be ascribed to CO2.

2. CO2 is not a pollutant:

CO2 is a colorless and odorless gas, exhaled at high concentrations by each of us, and a key component of the biosphere’s life cycle. Plants do so much better with more CO2 that greenhouse operators often increase the CO2 concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO2 concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today. Better plant varieties, chemical fertilizers and agricultural management contributed to the great increase in agricultural yields of the past century, but part of the increase almost certainly came from additional CO2 in the atmosphere.

3. The smear campaigns by the warming establishment are outrageous:

Although the number of publicly dissenting scientists is growing, many young scientists furtively say that while they also have serious doubts about the global-warming message, they are afraid to speak up for fear of not being promoted—or worse. They have good reason to worry. In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the Journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years. The international warming establishment quickly mounted a determined campaign to have Dr. de Freitas removed from his editorial job and fired from his university position. Fortunately, Dr. de Freitas was able to keep his university job.

4. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy now. Many other policy responses would have a negative return on investment. And it is likely that more CO2 and the modest warming that may come with it will be an overall benefit to the planet.

If elected officials feel compelled to “do something” about climate, we recommend supporting the excellent scientists who are increasing our understanding of climate with well-designed instruments on satellites, in the oceans and on land, and in the analysis of observational data. The better we understand climate, the better we can cope with its ever-changing nature, which has complicated human life throughout history. However, much of the huge private and government investment in climate is badly in need of critical review.

This is not the way science is supposed to work, but we have seen it before–for example, in the frightening period when Trofim Lysenko hijacked biology in the Soviet Union. Soviet biologists who revealed that they believed in genes, which Lysenko maintained were a bourgeois fiction, were fired from their jobs. Many were sent to the gulag and some were condemned to death.

The scientists then address the key issue of why there is so much intolerance and corruption among global-warming proponents, and the answer they give is sadly, “Follow the money.”

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

And according to a recent article in the Daily Mail, the effect of the Sun on the Earth may force us to abandon CO2-based climate models and that the Earth will likely be heading into a cooling period. This is basic common sense to anyone not blinded the ideology of "climate change" (and who doesn't think climates don't change? They always are). That big, beautiful, glowing ball in the sky has way more to do with what goes on here on Earth than any establishment, tenured scientist would ever admit, and there are brave and honest scientists who have been trying for decades to counter the echo-chamber that in exists in the halls of universities and government buildings handing out grants. They are also not only skeptical of anthropomorphic global warming but also find tremendous fault with the other pillars of establishment science: treating Einstein's words as infallible, holy scripture and the modern "epicycles" like black holes, dark matter, and dark energy that rely on faith and magic more than actual science.

Anyway, the point is that one should always be skeptical of any information coming out of any institution that is closely aligned with the state, whether it be the universities, media, or medicine. Just like the hysteria over influenzas and terrorism, "global warming" is a bogeyman propagated by those who would like to see other human beings under their thumb; monitored, regulated, controlled, and coerced according to the whims of the Ivory Towers.

But the steam under the lid is leaking, and one by one the Noble Lies of those who live and breathe at the thought of controlling others - using any excuse, hysteria, or propaganda to do so - are being debunked by the Internet and the alternative media.

Land of the Free

Social Cooperation: Why Thieves Hate Free Markets

 

Supreme Court's U.S. v. Jones Ruling is a Victory for Civil Liberties and Privacy, But Questions Remain

This article originally appeared at PolicyMic.

On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the case of U.S. v. Jones that police violated the Constitution when they attached a GPS tracker to suspect Antoine Jones’ vehicle without a warrant. As one of the first major cases dealing with privacy in the digital age, this ruling is definitely a victory for civil liberties and privacy issues. The Justices, however, differed over their reasoning, and unfortunately leave a lot of ambiguity that must be resolved in order to maintain our Fourth Amendment protections. Due the sluggish pace of Supreme Court decisions, technological advances in the market may prove to be the best way to strike this proper balance between freedom and privacy.

For example, in the majority opinion (held by Justices Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Sotomayor and Scalia), the Court found that placement of a tracking device on the suspect’s car was a “search” because according to Scalia, “the government physically occupied private property for the purpose of obtaining information.” But they failed to maintain whether the search was “reasonable” or “unreasonable,” but instead subject to “procedural rules.” This leaves the door open for police to justify not seeking a warrant if they have “reasonable suspicion.” The minority opinion (held by Justices Breyer, Alito, Kagan and Ginsburg) agreed with the ruling but argued that a warrant was only required for prolonged surveillance (in this case, 28 days), but didn’t say whether a warrant was needed for shorter periods of time.

In a complex issue like privacy in the digital age, the Supreme Court threw up its hands and admitted that current jurisprudence and 18th century tort law of the “originalists” are unable to strike the proper balance in an age of monitoring that James Madison could have never imagined. While Justice Sotomayor argues forcefully that the “third-party doctrine” precedent set in Katz v. United States will likely stifle free speech and free expression, Justice Alito states that legislation — whether from Congress or the states — not the courts, will provide better solutions.

Justice Sotomayor is absolutely right to worry about government monitoring individuals more constantly without an update in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, but many of the problems concerning the Fourth Amendment are due to the fact the government has so many unconstitutional laws to police us with. The PATRIOT Act, the drug war and intellectual property restrictions provide a great incentive for governments to snoop, spy, wiretap, monitor, and violate civil liberties. Besides, by the time a case involving specific technological devices makes it to the Supreme Court, the technology is obsolete anyway. The Court was inconclusive about the proper role of GPS monitoring; meanwhile, Predator drones are being used by law enforcement over the skies of U.S. cities.

It is true that we live in a time where we share private information with every email, document, online purchase, and website we visit, but technology is also a double-edged sword that may itself provide some answers to protecting privacy in the digital age. Like an Apple laptop that is constantly updating itself and plugging viruses, these threats are easily countered through the evolving ebb and flow of the technological sector. This demand for security has already created a market for encryption, anti-spam software and outlets to expose these transgressions.

While the concerns over privacy in the digital age will likely be a permanent fixture of American society, perhaps the efficiency and adaptation of the market is a better outlet for protection of civil liberties than either the Supreme Court or congressional legislation.

Progressives Prefer Genghis Khan Over Ron Paul

Via Mockpolitics:

In a surprising poll last week, liberals turned out to vote for Genghis Khan for his progressive tax policies over Ron Paul, if Barack Obama hypothetically wasn’t in the race. Despite the numerous arguments heard before the voting began over how Khan didn’t actually care about the poor, and that he was actually a war-mongerer, the left still voted 67% for Genghis Khan over Ron Paul.

“Ron Paul is a crazy anarchist, even though I do like that he would legalize pot and end the wars. But he needs to wake up to the fact that unregulated capitalism always breeds monopolies and without Khan, most of the poor in his empire would’ve been starving” said an anonymous voter. “Plus he doesn’t care about the environment.”

When it was pointed out that Khan did nothing to protect the environment either, even razed many lands he conquered, the voter pointed out that Ron Paul was also a racist, and that Khan was open to everyone in his empire.

Prosecute Caesar, Not Marines, for War Crimes

I just have a few thoughts concerning the US Marine who was recently sentenced to three months in prison for his role in the massacre of 24 Iraqi civilians in 2004.

First of all, three months? For leading a bunch of his fellow Marines into a house, telling them "to shoot first and ask questions later?" If an armed gang did this in, say, Ohio, they'd all be facing life sentences. But this is what war and the Bizzaro World of statism does: it flips ethics and morality on its head, and the prohibitions against murder that (rightfully) are banned in civil society suddenly become elastic and negotiable.

Those involved in this incident should be prosecuted, of course, but more importantly, why doesn't anyone really important up the chain of command face any consequences? Like the Generalissimos that send their pawns into battle after indoctrinating them with the KILL, KILL, KILL mentality? Or the Presidents, Congressmen, and corporate lobbyists that fuel the propaganda, votes, and tax money for the assault?

They are the ones who truly deserve to be rotting in a cage - and not for three months, but for the rest of their lives.

From Base to Shining Base

Click on the imagine to zoom in and see the true extent of the US Empire.

Stanley Cup Goalie Refuses to Bow to Caesar

Here's Boston Bruin Tim Thomas on why he didn't attend the White House celebration:

"I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.

"This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.

"Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.

"This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT"

Oliver Stone on Ron Paul

"There’s no way that we can continue this spending spree.  In fact, I think in many ways the most interesting candidate – I’d even vote for him if he was running against Obama – is Ron Paul.  Because he’s the only one of anybody who’s saying anything intelligent about the future of the world," says Oliver Stone in an interview with RockCellar Magazine. Read the whole interview here.

Jesus, Anarchy, and the Golden Rule

This article originally appeared at Strike The Root.

"So in everything, do unto others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." ~ Matthew 7:12

"Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." ~ Matthew 37:40

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God." ~ Matthew 5:9

 It is truly amazing what politics and the State have done to Christianity--and nowhere is this more evident than the recent GOP "debate" in South Carolina. While Newt received raucous applause and standing ovations as he reveled in thirst for Muslim blood, Ron Paul was booed and jeered for arguing in favor of Christ's admonition and a Golden Rule foreign policy.

 

This is what the evil Republicans have done to the good and decent instincts of most Christians. They have accused "the Left" of wanting to destroy their religion, their country, and their way of life while advocating a Mussoliniesque program of torture, endless war, empire--and wallowing in it.

 

While wrapping their socialism, statism, and megalomania in "family values," they rail against abortion while turning a blind eye to the mass murder of innocents committed by the US government overseas in order to get the Evangelical vote. Paul is the only candidate up there--probably the only national politician--who is consistently pro-life: anti-abortion, anti-war, and anti-capital punishment. Like John the Baptist screaming in the wilderness, Paul is more prophet than politician, and a statesman--and more importantly, he represents a philosophy--that any Christian who truly values the words and deeds of Christ should support.

 

When Romney or Santorum or Newt or any other of these fascists takes over the White House and government spending skyrockets and nothing that Christ valued is even remotely closer to a reality, I will have no pity for those who cheered on the bloodshed. You reap what you sow.

 

I only hope that this will make Christians realize that ethics and morality are completely and utterly destroyed by the State, politics, elections, and the right of some individuals to defy natural law and claim for themselves the right to initiate aggression against the innocent with no punishment, accountability, or apology. And although nearly all political movements try to claim Jesus as a champion of their philosophy, like nearly all great historic and prophetic figures in history, Jesus was essentially an anarchist.

 

Throughout his life and teaching, Jesus attempted to separate the peaceful order of civil society away from the coercive state--in his case, the Roman Empire. At the time of Jesus's birth, Rome was a large, centralized, and stratified empire, saddled with the bureaucracy of a standing army and a welfare state, and the de facto "world's policeman" through Pax Romana (sound familiar?).

 

Under this "Pax," all were subject to an excise tax, and eventually the Israelites as well relied on Rome's police protection--and with that, all of the blessings of government goodies. With the influence of Romans and Pharisees, a welfare state was imposed on the Israelites in Judea, and people soon began to look with envy eyes on their neighbor's possessions while electing politicians to bring home the loot. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus condemns the Pharisees and their influence in Israel for this top-down governance of society, for imposing a tax on Jewish temples that fed the coffers of the Judean government, and for overturning Moses's kosmos of free will offerings distributed by ministers to serve the needy.

 

When brought before Pontius Pilate, Jesus said, "My Kingdom is not of this world." Jesus was telling Pilate that he and his followers were not subject to the laws, dictates, and edicts of Rome, that the Roman state had no jurisdiction over his private, stateless kingdom. The horizontal, decentralized, bottom-up, and fundamentally anarchic society that Jesus had founded stood in stark and dire contrast from the Roman Imperial model. As his ideas spread like fire, an order based on institutionalized theft, barbarism, murder, and violence like the Roman State did the only thing it could do when faced with such a threat to its interests and condemned Jesus to brutal torture and death. But as Mises argued, an idea cannot be wiped out by any army, force, or state.

 

Jesus essentially created a stateless society in the middle of the largest empire the world had ever known at the time, an alternative order to the coercive slavery of man-made law, man-made idols, and man-made empire. No man, especially Caesar, was "Father," Jesus said, "Thou Father art in Heaven." The law of individual freedom and the inalienable rights of men stemmed not from the rule of fallible men in palaces, but from God and our nature. If the Golden Rule that governs private society implies anarchy, so be it! Withdraw your consent, he said. Peace, non-violence, and voluntarism are the alternatives to empire and the welfare-warfare state.

 

But thanks to politics and scheming Republicans, proud declarations of affinity for razing countries to pieces from the air is lauded and sacrificing, killing, and dying for the state is the highest honor. This is how predominantly Christian South Carolina could boo and jeer someone advocating the Golden Rule--the very essence of Christ's message and philosophy.

 

Republicans deserve a lion's share of the blame for this disgusting appeal to nationalism and for waving the bloody flag of war in Christ's name, but Evangelicals, too, should be ashamed of themselves for applauding Caesar's war machine.

 

Jesus pointed his finger at Caesar, spread the truth about his lack of clothes, and tried to liberate the Kingdom away from those who would loot, plunder, and tax in order for men to be free, both personally and spiritually.

 

Here's hoping those who follow Jesus will listen.

Bastiat on Government vs. Society

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to it being done at all.

"We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain."

            - Frederic Bastiat, "The Law"

Millard Fillmore for President!

Here is Millard Fillmore, one of our greatest - or more accurately, least evil - Presidents, beautifully describing the foreign policy of a free and independent republic:

Among the acknowledged rights of nations is that which each possesses of establishing that form of government which it may deem most conducive to the happiness and prosperity of its own citizens, of changing that form as circumstances may require, and of managing its internal affairs according to its own will. The people of the United States claim this right for themselves, and they readily concede it to others. Hence it becomes an imperative duty not to interfere in the government or internal policy of other nations; and although we may sympathize with the unfortunate or the oppressed everywhere in their struggles for freedom, our principles forbid us from taking any part in such foreign contests. We make no wars to promote or to prevent successions to thrones, to maintain any theory of a balance of power, or to suppress the actual government which any country chooses to establish for itself. We instigate no revolutions, nor suffer any hostile military expeditions to be fitted out in the United States to invade the territory or provinces of a friendly nation. The great law of morality ought to have a national as well as a personal and individual application. We should act toward other nations as we wish them to act toward us, and justice and conscience should form the rule of conduct between governments, instead of mere power, self interest, or the desire of aggrandizement. To maintain a strict neutrality in foreign wars, to cultivate friendly relations, to reciprocate every noble and generous act, and to perform punctually and scrupulously every treaty obligation -- these are the duties which we owe to other states, and by the performance of which we best entitle ourselves to like treatment from them; or, if that, in any case, be refused, we can enforce our own rights with justice and a clear conscience.

10 Reasons the US is No Longer a Free Country

And every single person who wants to be President next year (excluding Ron Paul) supports maintaining or expanding every single one of these provisions. Via Information Clearing House:

Assassination of U.S. citizens

President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism. Last year, he approved the killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi and another citizen under this claimed inherent authority. Last month, administration officials affirmed that power, stating that the president can order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists. (Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.)

Indefinite detention

Under the law signed last month, terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism. While the administration claims that this provision only codified existing law, experts widely contest this view, and the administration has opposed efforts to challenge such authority in federal courts. The government continues to claim the right to strip citizens of legal protections based on its sole discretion. (China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”)

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)

Warrantless searches

The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records. The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens — and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party. (Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.)

Secret evidence

The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question. Even legal opinions, cited as the basis for the government’s actions under the Bush and Obama administrations, have been classified. This allows the government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. In addition, some cases never make it to court at all. The federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs under a narrow definition of standing to bring a case.

War crimes

The world clamored for prosecutions of those responsible for waterboarding terrorism suspects during the Bush administration, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it would not allow CIA employees to be investigated or prosecuted for such actions. This gutted not just treaty obligations but the Nuremberg principles of international law. When courts in countries such as Spain moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials not to allow such cases to proceed, despite the fact that the United States has long claimed the same authority with regard to alleged war criminals in other countries. (Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.)

Secret court

The government has increased its use of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has expanded its secret warrants to include individuals deemed to be aiding or abetting hostile foreign governments or organizations. In 2011, Obama renewed these powers, including allowing secret searches of individuals who are not part of an identifiable terrorist group. The administration has asserted the right to ignore congressional limits on such surveillance. (Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.)

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.

The Tyranny of Government Schools

 

How the Government Has Caused Poverty, and How Libertarians Can Fix It

This article originally appeared for PolicyMic.

As Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) continues to grow in popularity with his recent success in Iowa and New Hampshire, much more attention has been focused on the libertarian ideas he represents. Liberals sympathize with his opposition to foreign wars and defense of civil liberties but question his support of free market economics and his criticisms of domestic welfare programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Without these government programs, liberals ask, how will the poor get taken care of?

It’s easy to see why progressives think that without a big, activist government providing essential social services, the world would likely look like a Dickensian nightmare. After all, for most of human history, poverty has coexisted next to a wealthy minority. Textbooks may tell us of noble governments protecting the public from the excesses of the market, but the poverty and exclusion evident throughout history, and unfortunately still very much a part of today’s world, can frequently be traced precisely to government intervention itself.

Licensing laws, zoning regulations, minimum wage laws, and many other restrictions raise the cost of being in poverty and make it much more difficult for the poor to enter the labor market and start their own business. The Federal Reserve destroys the value of the dollar, harming those with the least amount while subsidizing big banks and big corporations. Governments use “eminent domain” laws to force people out of their homes in favor of rich land developers and politically-connected industries. A look back in history reveals that more often than not, governments tend to centralize wealth, protect the interests of the rich, and pay lip service to looking out for the little guy. Food stamps are nothing compared to the welfare large corporations receive.

Larger programs like Medicare and Medicaid also show the harmful effects of government intervention on the poor. Despite being implemented with the best intentions, the costs of medical care have skyrocketed while the level of access has either remained stagnant or fallen. Sectors of the economy that have far less government intervention and regulation, like computers and electronics, have the exact opposite result as the market drives down prices and increases quality.

It seems that government often breaks your legs, especially of those with the least amount of power and control over policy, and then hands you the crutches while convincing you of its necessity.

Before America was saddled with the debt, dependency, and opportunity costs associated with the welfare state, mutual-aid societies did a far better job of taking care of the poor than government welfare. These fraternal organizations were not charities per se, but private associations of individuals. Those who chose to join would voluntarily pay membership dues in return for a defined schedule of benefits, which, depending on the society, could include life insurance, permanent disability, sickness and accident, old-age, or funeral benefits. And because they were private and thus more immune to bureaucracy, the annual fee was usually about a single day’s paycheck.

Libertarians oppose government welfare programs and government intervention into the economy not because we disagree with their intentions (helping the poor), but because the means (taxation) violates the non-aggression principle by initiation of force through taxation. It is a healthy sign that society cares about the poor and less fortunate; there is no virtue, however, in using force in order to achieve a certain set of desired goals or ends.

The free market and individual liberty allow society to cooperate peacefully, produce wealth, and find the means to address problems, like poverty, in infinitely and creative ways voluntarily. Coercion through government tends to magnify the problems they were intended to solve.

Progressives should think twice about supporting such a destructive and dangerous institution.

Obama's Secret Wars in Africa

At the end of last October, I blogged about how Caesar's war in Libya and his drone wars and interventions in East Africa was likely just the tip of the iceberg when it came to the US Empire's increasingly noisy military footprint in Africa.

Last Monday, the Marine Corps Times reported that Marines are now being deployed all over Sub-Saharan Africa all the way to Djibouti as part of Obama's "terrorism strategy." They are being used to military assist a handful of kleptocrats, rich off the backs of US taxpayers, who have vowed to work with the US to fight the supposed presence of Al-Qaeda officials.

Even with small-scale interventions and assistance missions like these these, there is no doubt that there lies the high potential for the common characteristic of military intervention: blowback and unintended and unpredictable consequences.

All done in secret, with not a peep from the presstitutes and state stenographers in the media.

The Race War on Drugs

Via The Rutherford Institute:

In terms of its racial impact, the U.S. government’s war on drugs also constitutes one of the most racially discriminatory policies being pushed by the government in recent decades, with African-Americans constituting its greatest casualties. As the ACLU has reported, “Despite the fact that whites engage in drug offenses at a higher rate than African-Americans, African-Americans are incarcerated for drug offenses at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of whites.” Indeed, blacks—who make up 13% of the population—account for 40% of federal prisoners and 45% of state prisoners convicted of drug offenses.

Moreover, a November 2011 study by researchers at Duke University found that young blacks are arrested for drug crimes ten times more often than whites. Likewise, a 2008 study by the ACLU concluded that blacks in New York City were five times more likely to be arrested than their white counterparts for simple marijuana possession. Latinos were three times more likely to be arrested. The Drug Policy Alliance and California NAACP released a report claiming that between 2006 and 2008 “police in 25 of California's major cities arrested blacks at four, five, six, seven, and even 12 times the rate of whites.”

This disproportionate approach to prosecuting those found in possession of marijuana is particularly evident in California, where black marijuana offenders were imprisoned 13 times as much as non-blacks in 2011. In fact, between 1990 and 2010, there was a 300% surge in arrests for marijuana possession for nonwhites. As the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice concluded, “California’s criminal justice system can be divided into two categories with respect to marijuana: one system for African-Americans, another for all other races.”

Thus, while the government’s war on drugs itself may not be an explicit attempt to subjugate minority groups, the policy has a racist effect in that it disproportionately impacts minority communities. Moreover, the origins of drug prohibition have explicitly racial justifications. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, prohibitionists clamoring to make drugs illegal tapped into common racial prejudices to convince others of the benefits of drug prohibition. For example, opium imports to America peaked in the 1840s, with 70,000 pounds imported annually, but Chinese immigrants did not arrive in large numbers until after the 1850s. Thus, Americans were using opium in copious amounts before Chinese immigrants arrived. Once they arrived however, they became convenient scapegoats for those interested in making opium illegal. Prohibitionists portrayed opium smoking as a habit below the respectability of “white” men. In a similar manner, marijuana was later associated with blacks, Latinos, and jazz culture, making marijuana an easy target for prohibition.

Progressive Fascism

The intertwining of state and corporate power is usually called corporatism, crony capitalism, and - in my opinion, most accurately - fascism.

Call it whatever name you want, but Mussolini summed it up best when he described it as "everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state;" the iron fist without the bother of any illusions of a velvet glove. And although Mussolini was a little more upfront than our current Duces are, when one looks at the policies that have been implemented at the federal level since FDR's New Deal, to call the US anything but fascist is really a distinction without a difference.

What defines a society dominated by economic fascism is one in which every individual owns a certain amount of private property that is subject to detailed and binding state regulation, restriction, edict, or control, subsidies and privileges that are handed out to large corporations at taxpayer expense, and a highly rigid, highly regulated, highly militaristic economic model that resists the creative destruction and competition of a free market, decentralized liberty, and horizontal human interaction.

Both sides are guilty of cheering this process on. Conservative support for the vast subsidies for anything in the realm of "security:" the military-industrial-complex and the weapons manufacturers, the militarization of law enforcement, and the prison cobweb that cages more people per capita than anywhere else in the world.

But despite all of their rhetoric about "equality" and "fairness," the progressive Left has actually been the worst enablers of corporatism and fascism - often without even realizing it - by supporting federal regulations and programs that cartelize industries, regiment corporate hierarchy by placing more and more hoops for smaller companies to jump through, and allow larger companies to feed at the political trough and avoid the constant competition and innovation of a free market.

Here's Warren Meyers in Forbes:

Unfortunately, the progressive Left which makes up most of the OWS movement has taken exactly the opposite approach over the last century or so, expanding government powers and the scope of state economic institutions and thus the greatly increasing opportunity for cronyism.   In fact, most of the interventions that make crony capitalism possible are facilitated and enabled by the very progressive legislation that the progressive Left and the OWS protesters tend to favor.  Consider some examples

Antitrust: Justified as consumer protection, it’s hard to actually point to any case in history where consumers were protected from monopoly pricing (Standard Oil’s kerosene prices, for example, were dropping right up to its breakup).  Today, antitrust law is mainly used by politically connected corporations to try to check their more successful rivals.  Microsoft was convicted, for God sakes, for offering too much free stuff to consumers.

Licensing: Milton Friedman once wrote, “The justification offered is always the same: to protect the consumer. However, the reason is demonstrated by observing who lobbies at the state legislature for the imposition or strengthening of licensure. The lobbyists are invariably representatives of the occupation in question rather than of the customers. True enough, plumbers presumably know better than anyone else what their customers need to be protected against.  However, it is hard to regard altruistic concern for their customers as the primary motive behind their determined efforts to get legal power to decide who may be a plumber.”

Protectionism: The Left nearly always supports strong trade protectionism — OWS, for example, tried to shut down west coast ports.  But protectionism is one of the worst forms of cronyism.  In most cases, only a few politically connected companies benefit from tariffs and import restrictions, to the detriment of all consumers and most industries who must pay higher prices for their inputs.

Economic Management: Progressives want the government to take an active hand in managing the economy, and in today’s context, in preventing economic downturns.  But every bailout — and every rich banker who has kept his millions despite making losing bets, at the expense of taxpayers — is directly attributable to this impulse.  True capitalists would have let the 1% go bankrupt.  It was a progressive-left President who bailed them out.

Picking Winners: Progressives, particularly of the technocratic bent, always feel like they can better optimize the economy top down than the markets can bottom-up.  They love to pick winners and losers, halting private oil production (for example) while subsidizing windmills.  But picking winners generally turns out to mean “giving money to rich investors,” with taxpayers pouring billions into the pocket of wealthy, politically connected owners of companies like Solyndra.

Green Energy: It’s incredibly illuminating that the largest maker of light bulbs, GE, actually supported the Federal light incandescent bulb ban.  Why?  Because traditional light bulbs are a commodity product with little profit.  The government ban, which was carefully crafted in collusion with a GE CEO who had special access to the President, forced consumers into higher-price, higher margin products where GE had technological and other barriers in place to keep out competition.  And don’t even get me started on ethanol, a disaster of an environmental program opposed by both Left and Right but kept alive because mandates and subsidies benefit well-organized farm and big Ag groups.

Consumer Protection: A couple of years ago, we had a mild media tempest around some lead toys that Mattel had sourced from China.  In response, Congress passed a comprehensive set of regulations and controls that imposed incredibly expensive inspection and reporting duties on toy makers.  Those progressives really showed Mattel who was boss, right?  Well, in fact, Mattel and a few large toy companies were exempted from the most burdensome regulations, being allowed to self-police.  The real costs fell disproportionately on Mattel’s smaller competitors, such that the law turned out to be a huge boost to Mattel’s competitive position.

Employee Protection; A while back, Maryland was considering setting minimum wages in the retail sector.  The law was aimed primarily at Wal-Mart, the perennial whipping boy of the Progressive left, who supposedly kept employees in a state of quasi-serfdom.  Guess who came out in support of the measure?  Wal-Mart.  It turns out that the wages in the law were set about where Wal-mart was already paying employees, so its main impact was to hammer a number of lower cost competitors that were starting to dog the company.  As with Mattel, the law would strengthen the position of larger retailers with huge stores (that yielded very high sales per employee) versus smaller competitors.

Obamacare: Remember all the rhetoric from Progressives and President Obama about how the health insurance companies were making outsize profits and he was going to give them what-for?  Well guess who ended up strongly supporting Obamacare?  That’s right, the health insurance companies.  Again, you have to strip away the progressive rhetoric and look at the fundamentals.  At the end of the day Obamacare forces, with threats of fines and imprisonment, every American to buy the health insurers’ product.  Government purchase requirements for ethanol worked so well to enrich Archer Daniels Midland, just think what it can do for health insurers!

Ron Paul: 'A Victory for the Cause of Liberty'

 

Voluntaryists for Ron Paul

As a voluntaryist, I have very little to no faith in the political process in bringing about real change in this country, but I do support Ron Paul's candidacy for President. I am not naive enough to think that electing Paul will somehow reverse a century of creeping and ever-growing statism, but what a Paul Presidency would provide is a daily dose of him on his bully pulpit explaining to America, and the rest of the world, the follies of empire and central banking, and the principles of a free society and a free economy - Austrian economics, property rights, sound money, and the non-agression axiom - that might just light the fire needed for future generations to peacefully withdraw consent from coercive rule.