Obama on Free Speech (He's Against It) ...From My Brother, Nathaniel Witmer

Ever heard of the Fairness Doctrine?

It was an FCC regulation put into effect in 1949 requiring broadcast licensees to present controversial issues of public importance in a manner deemed by the FCC to be honest, equitable, and balanced. In practice it requires a political talk show to present both viewpoints of an issue equally. It was taken out bit by bit between 1974 and 2000. Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine for more detailed history.

The result of the Fairness Doctrine is that if you own a radio broadcasting or tv station or political talk show prepare to be sued and or face FCC fines and disciplinary action. Someone will think that you were not presenting a political issue in a "honest" or "balanced" way. It's inevitable. Political talk shows begin to disappear because they are too risky to operate. Political talk stations begin to disappear because there can no longer be "conservative talk" stations and "progressive talk" stations. It's difficult to market your station if you have to provide a mix of opinions that you may need to later PROVE was balanced. Overall, it has a huge stifling effect on political talk shows and is clearly in violation of our first amendment rights.

The Fairness Doctrine has historically been supported by Democrats and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both have voiced their intentions of pushing for legislation to revive the Fairness Doctrine and make it federal law.

Obama is on record saying, "I hope Congress gets to work right away on reestablishing the Fairness Doctrine with the FCC. There needs to be balance on the airwaves again on radio as well as TV and cable."

On his official campaign website it says, "As president, he will...clarify the public interest obligations of broadcasters who occupy the nation’s spectrum."

Dick Durbin, Pelosi, and John Kerry are all recently on record supporting a revival of the Fairness Doctrine as well.

So much for free speech. If you find this deeply troubling please forward it to those who may be supporting Obama or Clinton. If you don't find it deeply troubling then please email me back and let me know why. -Nat

Comparative intelligence: Japanese Parrot, US Citizen

This bird is smarter than most US citizens. Smart enough to clam up until he's away from the law. The uniforms, and regimentation probably sent it a natural signal of some kind that low-functioning, violence-prone intelligences were present. Could it be that the prosecutorial state (shown here) has forever soured my view of "law enforcement" (formerly known as "peace officers")?

Yay! It's OK to believe in aliens!

(...as long as they're not gay.)

So, you want to live in a State with low taxes...

Heartland puts it into perspective for you, here...

Bob Barr: Walks Like a Libertarian, Occasionally Quacks Like a Libertarian... ...Not a Libertarian.

Dear Mr. Barr.,

Allow me to clarify a key element of the libertarian philosophy for you:

Libertarians believe that individuals have rights, and that STATES do not! Decentralization to state control (from federal control) is simply a way of limiting the greater of 2 enormous evils. But if a policy is anti-libertarian it is anti-libertarian no matter which gang is doing the violating of individual rights. This is true whether the aggressor is the federal government, a state government, a city government, or the local street gang. Or is there any libertarian here who thinks that Chicago's gun ban is libertarian, simply because it isn't a federal program? When the Chicago anti-gun enforcement unit sends poor minorities to jail for felony gun possession, and ignores white suburbanites who possess similar guns, is that any less a violation of their rights because it's being done locally? (Libertarian answer: No.) Libertarianism is a philosophy that protects the rights of individual human beings, and gracefully devolves power to the individual, until an individual proves he cannot handle the responsibility of power (and only then does the state deprive him of power, and only then by due process of decentralized, jury-based law). If all human beings are equal under the law, then federalism is simply a tool that checks the abusive power of the federal government: it doesn't excuse or limit culpability for localized tyranny.

Apparently, even the village voice knows libertarianism better than Barr, and they still can't get a straightforward APOLOGY out of him (they also parrot some bullshit about him being the "front runner", which isn't true, last time I checked).

Simon Wiesenthal once said that ex-nazis should be perhaps allowed to be citizens in peacetime, without being punished for their prior conformity to social norm, in the interest of preventing a long-term, entrenched feud. But he stated emphatically that "ex-nazis should not govern us". He stated this position with much disrespect to former SS man, Kurt Waldheim. I state the same position with much disrespect to Bob Barr. for the years he served as a congressional tyrant, and his many votes against the basic rights of the individual. Barr opposed gay marriage, favoring "separate but unequal" status for gays during his "service" in congress. He favored funding the drug war, even the militarization of the drug war in Columbia (and his blog stated his support for this monstrosity as recently as Saturday, June 09, 2007 at 9:00 AM http://www.bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=858 ).

Bob Barr might have a personal interest in running for president as a Libertarian, but he is not a libertarian. "He should not govern us." I dearly hope, for the future of the libertarian party, that the Libertarians in Denver (at the 2008 LPNC), vote for Wayne Root, or one of the other ACTUAL libertarians. Barr carries a the stigma of gullibility. I knew that when I saw him spitting out "cheese made from Borat's wife's titmilk" in a public movie theater. The left hates Barr, and so does Ron Paul's young and hip internet constituency. Let's dodge a bullet here, and keep this chef in the kitchen.

When Bob Barr disavows his past, and helps get several other Libertarians elected to congress, then maybe he'll have earned my trust. Now, for all I know, he's seeking the presidency for the same reason he sought congress: HE NEEDS A JOB.

BOB BARR, Wednesday, June 13, 2007 at 9:00 AM: "As a conservative Republican member of Congress from 1995 to 2003, I was hardly a card-carrying member of the gay-rights lobby. I opposed then, and continue to oppose, same-sex marriage..."

For every unknown Columbian coca farmer who was shot dead trying to make enough money to feed his family, or bombed with paraquat, Bob Barr owes an apology. For every unintended consequence of the drug war, from turf wars, higher crime, and a booming black market that poisons users, Bob Barr owes an apology. For every victim of local or state gun bans who is confused into thinking there is a "limited government" basis for those gun bans, Bob Barr owes an apology. For every gay whose lover died, who was denied their rightful estate (often by by bigoted family members) who lawfully violated their relative's wishes in the name of legalized theocratic bigotry and bureaucracy, Bob Barr owes an apology. For everyone of us with a gay family member, Bob Barr owes us an apology, for mixing his poisonous religious intolerance with our secular government, and forcing us to pay taxes to support inequality under the law.

After he apologizes and understands how very wrong he was, THEN, he can say he's seen the light, CHANGED, and become a libertarian.

Barr's "States' rights" argument has no merit. The tenth amendment can be argued over, and just like every amendment, it is misinterpreted by stupid scheming collectivists, ...and it is one of the more vague amendments (that is clear only to educated and logically-consistent historians, of which there are few).

The Libertarian Party position is crystal clear: The individual has rights, the government does _not_. The government is a service to the individual, and nothing more. The military may occasionally face a "trade-off" choice in defending one group of individuals over another. That is why there are objectivist scholars who understand the concept of individual rights, and lifeboat scenarios.

But Barr doesn't even disavow his former positions. Running him for president would be a disgrace to Ron Crickenberger, the LIBERTARIAN who cost Barr his seat in congress.

Barr may be a defector to the cause of liberty, and in time, he may eventually prove to be a big gun in the battle for more individual freedom. But let's let him rack up a body count for our army, before we trust him with the keys to the castle.

In the meantime, for those among you who want to see a real libertarian: http://www.rootforamerica.com or even http://www.votemary2008.com, for a more radical libertarian...

By comparison, you can see an anti-property rights drug warrior here: http://www.bobbarr.org/default.asp?pt=newsdescr&RI=858 , and note how very different the stances are to the two preceding websites.

Bob Barr may believe on some limits to government, and he may be a fellow traveler. ...But that doesn't make him a libertarian, and being a former congressman who lost his job because he was too dumb to understand how drug laws violated individual rights doesn't make him an asset to the LP.

I hope Bob Barr changes his ways, reads a lot of Ayn Rand, Lysander Spooner, Michael Shermer, Robert Heinlein, etc... and becomes a more philosophical libertarian. He may well pursue an intellectual path, and in time, might be a great defender of freedom.

Unfortunately, he is too new to the ideas, and his blog --and the village voice interview-- indicate that he is not yet ready to run for office as a big "L" Libertarian. Keep studying, Barr. Keep learning. Help other libertarians out with strategy, and maybe they'll help you with political philosophy that lays claim to the non-aggression principle.

...But don't run for President as a Libertarian in the year 2008. You're not "ready to represent". You still have too much prosecutor in you. You still don't "get it". Sit this one out, and I'll consider helping you get through the cliff's notes to "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority".

Nevermind Craiglist. Ever Tried Kijiji? ...It's better.

My experience with craigslist has been terrible. I am never going to waste another second of my life on craigslist. I tried to post 10 ads on their financial services section, and all of them never even made it up. They were all "ghosted" or flagged off immediately by the pant-hooting trogolodyte mass of socialists that is craigslist.

Craigslist's days are numbered. They cater to the lowest common denominator. I suppose the fact that I posted a company logo, that linked to my website, and that I didn't post more than a bare-bones text ad "tipped them off" that my posting was "too commercial". BIG DEAL.

I was using Craigslist for the same reason everyone else is: I'm too broke to waste money on more real advertising, (and to see if it lives up to the hype).

Well, guess what? Time is money, and even cross-eyed socialist lives have value. They should think about the lives they're wasting while they're flagging off other people's hard work. (Of course, the real blame lies with Craigslist.)

Craigsslits will be history as soon as people find out about kijiji --it simply functions better.

As Adam Nash wrote: "However, where some people see strength in Craig Newmark’s resistance to profit-motive, I see a potential weakness."

Amen, brother! Nothing wrong with capitalism at all. In fact, I want the people I hire to have a profit motive! (So their services don't look like they've been performed by slothful socialists on craigslist.)

Oh, and BTW, a friend of mine rented an apartment to someone he found on craigslist, and it turned into "Pacific Heights". It took him 4 months to evict her. Socialism on craigslist (trying to cut corners) cost him $1,200 in rent, and $2,000+ in legal bills. Hmmm.

Now then, I'm not saying Kijiji should become as fascist as craigslist has become about deleting people's posts. Quite the contrary.

I'm suggesting that some of the very best, most professional, "most commercial looking" of the posts on craigslist (the kind that gets flagged off after 2 minutes by the mongol horde of dim-witted art-students) might be worth allowing! So much for free discourse, and "craigslist".

Craigslist deserves to be the flash-in-the-pan that showed Kijiji (and perhaps other services like it) what is possible with a social networkign website.

I hope they make a good old-fashioned CAPITALIST killing! :) Best of Luck!

-Jake

One Nation of Hypocrites...

...Under lies, with tyranny for those who dare oppose the incumbent police state, and injustice for all.

Prostitution, Theft, and Murder in D.C.

This brave woman, DC Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey, threatened to tear down the hypocritical wall of prostitution prohibition. The very legislators making use of the American citizenry's fear, loathing, and ignorance of prostitution (that allowed them the power to outlaw, arrest, and prosecute prostitutes and their clientele) were the same people frequenting prostitutes.

When they cracked down on her, rather than take their abuse, their fines, their court costs, and their jail sentences, she turned it right back around on them and threatened to expose them as "johns".

...So the legislators she threatened to identify had her murdered.

Alex Jones uncovers Palfrey's pledge to defend herself in court, and not to commit suicide, from an earlier interview of his with her,right here

Some people speculate that the order came from the President or the Vice President of the United States, but that level of conspiracy, though possible, is not necessary for one to exist. The average Senator wields that much political force, and has easy access to mob, ex-KGB, ex-CIA, and ex-SAS security forces who are not always morally-restrained. There is plenty of professional muscle for hire in D.C.

But the people who really killed Ms. Parfrey were the U.S. voters (minus the libertarian vote, which supports the legalization of prostitution).

Everyone who thinks prostitution should be illegal (while ignoring the fact that it cannot be made illegal without creating a soviet-style police state) is directly at fault, as an accomplice to Parfrey's murder. This brave woman's blood is on your hands if you delusionally want to make the world's oldest and most established profession illegal. Moreover, anyone who so wishes for the impossible is at fault for betraying the American idea of a separation of church and state (since the fuel behind the desire to outlaw prostitution is religiously-motivated, and without religious superstition, prostitution would be illegal overnight).

But the fact that prostitution is not legal means that we've created a government based on prohibition: much like the one depicted in Frank Miller's "Sin City".

Has that stopped prostitution? No. It's only increased the profitability of it for those who are willing to ignore the law (as well as created a host of other "unintended consequences", such as less ability to monitor the spread of prostitution caused STDs, crime associated with those who are violent towards prostitutes, the lack of protection of prostitutes under the law --since they can't confess what they were doing at any sort of crime scene, etc...).

The evil and thoughtlessness of the public is manifested in a government that steals, cheat, and murders. In short, in a government that prohibits freedom.

And why is freedom of action prohibited? ---Authoritarian religious "thought".

The nation's churches are filled with people who are commanded not to steal and murder, and every 2 years they fill the voting booths asking for people they do not know(and have never met) to be stolen from and murdered. They rationalize this by saying "It's the only way we know how to govern" or "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's" or "There's no better way to do things", but that's all false, because they have a Constitution and a Bill of Rights written in plain English, that even a child of 9 can understand, and in every election for the last 36 years, there have been libertarians on the ballot who represented capitalism and freedom (typically getting less than 1% of the vote from all these other people who would rather vote for the lesser of two extreme evils than dare to vote for the good).

If we look at the libertarian vote as the approximate total of US citizens who are honest enough, brave enough, and smart enough to resist evil commands, it does not speak well of the American people.

Creating a nation of forbidden (for no valid reason) actions and thieving (to no good end) tax laws hasn't even benefitted any of these faux-religious people, but they continue to do the same things that have led them to the edge of poverty, with state-enforced bigotry and intolerance for all (except themselves of course).

People are confused by the command to "love their neighbor as they love themselves", so I will clear things up for them:
1) "Loving your neighbor as yourself" is a bad way to phrase "the non-aggression principle". It is bad because it is not clear, and does not take into account a variety of human ability and goals(some people don't love themselves adequately, others would rather lower their self esteem than rise to the level that they value their neighbor, others interpret this fictional "command" to mean that they should value the creation of legal restrictions (that they already personally obey) that they mistakenly think will benefit their neighbor --for that neighbor's own supposed good [while ignoring the fact that everyone is different, and that laws that one person is perfectly happy to obey, other people view as tyrannical], etc.).
2) The (logically superior) nonagression principle broadly states that "The initiation of force is morally wrong." (As is theft, since theft is a form of force. As is the threat of initiating force, which is a simple corollary to initiating force. As is deception in a contract, which is simply a delayed form of theft/force.) Additionally... "Whoever initiates force(is the agressor) is morally wrong, and has lost the right to be free from retaliation. Logically, the amount of retaliation should roughly match the initiation of force, plus an additional amount necessary to prevent additional initiations of force. For instance, if a rescuer subdues a rapist, he must also handcuff him, or disable him, so that the rapist does not attack again, this time targeting the rescuer. Even though the rapist may suffer death because of this, it is a death he earned, by initiating force."
3) Truly loving your neighbor as yourself, you would need to give your neighbor his freedom (meaning his freedom to be different than you: to value and pursue different things than you value and pursue, since his standard of happiness is probably somewhat different than yours). Otherwise, you are falsely offering him only the ability to be a herd animal, while wrongfully fooling yourself into believeing that you are offering him the same right that you yourself exercise. For all you know, your neighbor may well be vastly more intelligent than you are ---and if so, he could not possibly be happy living "equally" to you. This is why laws must be written to prohibit only the initiation of force, and nothing else. The only debate that should surround the creation of a law is this one: "What kind of initiated force does it outlaw?" If the answer is "none" then the law should not be made.
4) Unfortunately, superstitious religious belief prevents the prededing logical dialogue from even taking place, much less determining course of action, because logic is always drowned out by illegitimate references to fictional beings, such as "God". Yet God is irrelevant to any debate of laws, especially in a free country that practices the legal separation of church and state.

The preceding lesson isn't a soundbite from a gospel, so no matter how much it makes sense, or is a more accurate guide than "love thy neighbor", it won't be followed by people who feel that they need to be told how to act by an external authority.

These people who don't trust their own judgement or logical ability are called "conformists". At one point in evolution, social conformity probably benefitted people, by herding them together, so they could take refuge in the strength provided by numbers.

At the time that technology and trade became significant to increase the strength of the individual, this mental characteristic became a hindrance to the evolution of mankind, and not a benefit. (We clearly see this in the actions of innovators and achievers. How similar are their actions to other people's actions? Not very similar. Not even from one innovator to the other. Their ideas could not have been dictated to them, nor could they have been the result of narrowly proscribed limits. The achievers and innovators are the people whose actions were not limited. History has shown that these people are in constant conflict with those who sought to limit their freedom of action with legal restrictions and social restrictions, often using force. )

...So stop going to church! Stop promoting bad ideas! Stop suggesting the use of force to solve problems! Stop supporting the initiation of force via the ballot box!

And start producing better products to trade, new business plans, and better ideas in conversation, so that people become richer from knowing you, not poorer. Start reading about freedom, and what it takes to make a free society. Start avoiding gossip and negativity about other people, and start avoiding people who want to initiate force against others.

A wealthy society that is governed by voluntary trade does not murder prostitutes, nor the people who solicit clients for them (and prepare their tax returns).

Let's make America into a more tolerant nation.

Let's talk about LEGALIZING: prostitution(scary private actions), drugs (scary private property), guns(scary private property), charitable giving, opting out of destructive social planning tools like the income tax, legally opting-out-of embalming and opting-in-to cryonic preservation, weapons self-defense classes, self-regulating driving speed (above or below the suggested maximums, with full responsibility on the driver, so that there is no omnipresent and unequally-enforced threat of coercion against all drivers), the exercise of superior knowledge in the stock market (so there is no threat of punishing wall-street traders for exercising their superior knowledge of coming financial transactions, and knowledge becomes an even more valuable tool than it already is, due to its ability to be legally communicated), etc...

Legalizing some of the above will make life less threatening to the poor. Legalizing others will make life less threatening to the rich. Legalizing others will make life less threatening to both groups.

Legalizing any of the above will threaten legislators who make their livings off of the initiation of force. Legalizing any of the above will not threaten police officers, but it might reduce their pay or move them into private security jobs, in areas where they are artificially supported by the legalized and immoral initiation of force. Legalizing any of the above will dramatically threaten state prosecutors, who spend the majority of their days preying on the innocent and the forcefully-disarmed.

The lawmakers, prosecutors, and the police are powerful lobbies that all oppose freedom (in their majority).

But legalization (the abolition of unnecessary laws) presents the possibility of creating an America that is as productive and innovative as the America of the industrial revolution. In addition to being as productive and innovative as the earlier America, the comfort level of all citizens (except those who initiate force) would be dramatically raised.

This is the clear and obvious result of legally banning the initiation of force, and nothing else.

This concept is also called "social tolerance". I encourage it. It brings peace and prosperity.