Showing posts with label Ron Paul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ron Paul. Show all posts
Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Ron Paul Wins!
...100% of the educated vote, in the Iowa caucuses!
Thesis: Whenever you hear someone describing libertarian foreign policy views as "isolationist" they are misleading you, in the belief that you are too stupid to know the immense difference between the terms "military non-interventionist" and "isolationist." Alternate phrasing: "Will you blathering idiot pundits please stop calling Ron Paul an 'Isolationist'?" Alternate phrasing: Nonintervention =/= isolation.
Please, ...remember that. Your future may depend on it.
Why am I so angry about this right now? In short, the TV political blather show "FOX and Friends."
Stuart Varney just made the idiotic statement on "FOX and Friends" that Wall Street isn't supporting Ron Paul because he's an "isolationist." Steve Doocy then idiotically states that "...and that's because you can't be an isolationist in a global economy." These idiots are apparently incapable of comprehending the difference between "military non-interventionism" and "isolationism."
Ron Paul supports a foreign policy that Thomas Jefferson described as: "Free trade with all, entangling alliances with none." That's military noninterventionism, and historically, it prevents war and conflict. Stated another way: "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." "Isolationism" --a completely different thing-- is a backwards politicial philosophy that encourages the reduction and isolation of trade to favor "American business," as well as military and political disengagement, often with populist or nationalist overtones. Pat Buchanan is an "isolationist." F. A. Hayek, Harry Browne, and Ron Paul are "military noninterventionists." There's an immense difference, as any kindergartener of median intelligence can understand.
But I guess that Stuart Varney and Steve Doocy aren't quite that bright. ...Or, they're willing to sell out America on orders from their corporate overlords.
Sadly, the Ron Paul-supporting intellectuals in Iowa were not numerous enough to keep our grandkids out of "indefinite detention" in tomorrow's prison camps. (Let's hope there are enough people who comprehend the basic concept of America for Paul to win NH and SC.) If not, it's bye bye, America, ...fun while it lasted!
"FOX and friends" further reveals its ignorant media bias by their wording of their push poll: "Given expectations going into Iowa, the biggest loser from Tuesday night was: Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul" THEY LEFT MITT ROMNEY'S NAME OUT!
...He got fewer votes than he got in 2008, even though the Republican establishment has been supporting him from the beginning! He came 8 votes from being beaten by the ridiculous socialist and bigot, Rick Santorum (who benefitted from an enormous herd of sheeple who mindlessly listened to their pastors and to santorum's words, without bothering to check his record out)! This weak showing is amazing, when put in the context that the media establishment has been working for free for Romney for months!
Even all that money and free support couldn't take the stink out of Romney enough to give him a landslide victory! Plastic Mitt is just too transparently a tool of the Federal Reserve bankers! FOX clearly wants their unthinking low-brow conformist viewers, to view Romney as a "winner." ...Ridiculous!
Don't worry, tyrants, your strategy of bringing education under the control of government has paid off. With voters in Iowa calling themselves conservatives, and working for their own enslavement, it's apparent that depriving highschoolers of proper history, philosophy, and economics lessons has accomplished its goal: a servile American population of willing "free range" serfs. A serf owns nothing, not even his own body: as this video (and the existence of the AMA, FDA, and DEA) clearly shows. So, congratulations on doing a very thorough job. The general public is completely unaware that America had the highest standard of literacy in the world, prior to the advent of public education.
"Conservative" is now a word with completely no meaning. It is a suitcase word that means anything from the legitimate "limited government" to the illegitimate "institutionalized bigotry on behalf of a fearful majority."
If you're a part of the uneducated majority, I strongly recommend these four works of nonfiction:
The Triumph of Liberty,
by Jim Powell
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Liberty-Jim-Powell/dp/078612296X
The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve,
by G. Edward Griffin
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212
America: From Freedom to Fascism,
by Aaron Russo
free video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173#
Why I am Not A Conservative,
by F. A. Hayek
free online: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html
Well, I need to go and watch the Fox News media fascists argue about the differences between 99% support for unlimited government, and 99% support for unlimited government allocated to slightly different subject areas. ...It's been fun.
Thesis: Whenever you hear someone describing libertarian foreign policy views as "isolationist" they are misleading you, in the belief that you are too stupid to know the immense difference between the terms "military non-interventionist" and "isolationist." Alternate phrasing: "Will you blathering idiot pundits please stop calling Ron Paul an 'Isolationist'?" Alternate phrasing: Nonintervention =/= isolation.
Please, ...remember that. Your future may depend on it.
Why am I so angry about this right now? In short, the TV political blather show "FOX and Friends."
Stuart Varney just made the idiotic statement on "FOX and Friends" that Wall Street isn't supporting Ron Paul because he's an "isolationist." Steve Doocy then idiotically states that "...and that's because you can't be an isolationist in a global economy." These idiots are apparently incapable of comprehending the difference between "military non-interventionism" and "isolationism."
Ron Paul supports a foreign policy that Thomas Jefferson described as: "Free trade with all, entangling alliances with none." That's military noninterventionism, and historically, it prevents war and conflict. Stated another way: "When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will." "Isolationism" --a completely different thing-- is a backwards politicial philosophy that encourages the reduction and isolation of trade to favor "American business," as well as military and political disengagement, often with populist or nationalist overtones. Pat Buchanan is an "isolationist." F. A. Hayek, Harry Browne, and Ron Paul are "military noninterventionists." There's an immense difference, as any kindergartener of median intelligence can understand.
But I guess that Stuart Varney and Steve Doocy aren't quite that bright. ...Or, they're willing to sell out America on orders from their corporate overlords.
Sadly, the Ron Paul-supporting intellectuals in Iowa were not numerous enough to keep our grandkids out of "indefinite detention" in tomorrow's prison camps. (Let's hope there are enough people who comprehend the basic concept of America for Paul to win NH and SC.) If not, it's bye bye, America, ...fun while it lasted!
"FOX and friends" further reveals its ignorant media bias by their wording of their push poll: "Given expectations going into Iowa, the biggest loser from Tuesday night was: Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul" THEY LEFT MITT ROMNEY'S NAME OUT!
...He got fewer votes than he got in 2008, even though the Republican establishment has been supporting him from the beginning! He came 8 votes from being beaten by the ridiculous socialist and bigot, Rick Santorum (who benefitted from an enormous herd of sheeple who mindlessly listened to their pastors and to santorum's words, without bothering to check his record out)! This weak showing is amazing, when put in the context that the media establishment has been working for free for Romney for months!
Even all that money and free support couldn't take the stink out of Romney enough to give him a landslide victory! Plastic Mitt is just too transparently a tool of the Federal Reserve bankers! FOX clearly wants their unthinking low-brow conformist viewers, to view Romney as a "winner." ...Ridiculous!
Don't worry, tyrants, your strategy of bringing education under the control of government has paid off. With voters in Iowa calling themselves conservatives, and working for their own enslavement, it's apparent that depriving highschoolers of proper history, philosophy, and economics lessons has accomplished its goal: a servile American population of willing "free range" serfs. A serf owns nothing, not even his own body: as this video (and the existence of the AMA, FDA, and DEA) clearly shows. So, congratulations on doing a very thorough job. The general public is completely unaware that America had the highest standard of literacy in the world, prior to the advent of public education.
"Conservative" is now a word with completely no meaning. It is a suitcase word that means anything from the legitimate "limited government" to the illegitimate "institutionalized bigotry on behalf of a fearful majority."
If you're a part of the uneducated majority, I strongly recommend these four works of nonfiction:
The Triumph of Liberty,
by Jim Powell
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Liberty-Jim-Powell/dp/078612296X
The Creature From Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve,
by G. Edward Griffin
http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/0912986212
America: From Freedom to Fascism,
by Aaron Russo
free video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1656880303867390173#
Why I am Not A Conservative,
by F. A. Hayek
free online: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html
Well, I need to go and watch the Fox News media fascists argue about the differences between 99% support for unlimited government, and 99% support for unlimited government allocated to slightly different subject areas. ...It's been fun.
Monday, January 2, 2012
What Will Iowa's Legacy Be?
If Iowa's Republicans don't vote for Ron Paul, they will forever be remembered as the state Republicans that eliminated all hope of returning America to the constitutional rule of law. They will go down in history as "Republicans" who could not define the term "republic."
A republic is defined by a constitution that limits the power of government, no matter what 51% of the voters decide. A republic's constitution is the sourcecode or DNA of country that determines what form its body politic will take. Even if 51% of the voters decide to eliminate jury trials, or build gas chambers for Jews, a constitutional republic does not allow them to have their way. A constitutional republic allows multiple overlapping checks on government power to say "That's too far, this government action cannot be allowed." The president or governor can pardon those who acted in violation of unconstitutional government laws. The congress can pass a law providing relief to the people, and the State legislature can pass laws that offer relief from congress's laws and the president's executive orders. Judges can soften a punishment even when the jury returns a guilty verdict. And juries can outright refuse to return guilty verdicts. Even one single juror can hang a jury, based on his individual conscience.
This is the very core of what it means to be a Republican, and the very core of what it means to be an American.
Ultimately, We, the Jury, are the final check on government power. The government's prosecutors must ask a jury for permission to enforce the law. They must get 12 people to give them the word "GUILTY."
But Republics don't always last. In Germany, in 1934, the Nazis won a decisive plurality of seats in the Reichstag. A false flag attack then rallied the German people into giving up jury trials, and freedom of speech. The German state consolidated power, and began to use state power to destroy its opponents, internally. By the time the German public woke up to this fact, to speak out was to be raided by SS storm troopers. Those nice young men in uniform who were "keeping the order" were no longer protectors, but victimizers who served a political master, not the public peace.
Before the Civil War, in our own USA, jury trials were attacked by the government, and prosecutors were allowed, for the first time ever, to question the jury for agreement with the Fugitive Slave Law. Northern abolitionists like Lysander Spooner saw through this barbaric and unconstitutional practice, and reported it to the press. Juries responded to the state's efforts to return escaped slaves to slavery by getting smarter, and lying to state prosecutors, so they would be seated, and get the chance to acquit runaway slaves and their neighbors who harbored them. After the civil war ended, this practice of allowing the prosecutor to question the jury was not repealed, and is the reason for unconstitutional laws being enforced today.
...But we still have jury trials, and those determined to send a message can still present themselves as willing to enforce unjust laws, and can still veto unconstitutional laws. ...So prosecutors must still be wary not to punish those who are too obviously innocent of wrong.
Once Germany's nazis had eliminated jury trials, the life-blood of the economy, Germany's industrialists, were no longer safe from being looted under the "color of law." There were no longer legal protections in courts of law for them, and no longer jury trials. If they wanted to survive, they had to bow and scrape, and give Germany's nazi politicians everything they wanted. They were taxed and looted into bankruptcy. Before the war was over between six and eight million Jews were murdered, but people forget that that genocide is less than half of the murdering that took place. The rest of the murdering was democide. Approximately twelve million non-Jews were also murdered, for opposing, or simply being victimized by, Hitler's unconstitutional police state. They were not murdered for their race, or "genes," they were murdered for their beliefs, speech, or political identity. What if they had taken up arms against Hitler when he had passed his "Enabling Act?"
Germans in 1933 had to choose between marxists, social democrats, and fascists. But here, in America, we have a final shot at a better alternative: A true Republican. A man who favors proper constitutional limits on government power. A small-L, philosophical libertarian in the mold of Thomas Paine.
Nearly everyone disagrees with one or another constitutional limits on government power. Nearly everyone believes that if government power were expanded in some area, it would be able to do more good, or accomplish more to benefit society in some way. It's been pounded into every American in the form of "social studies" classes, since they were children.
The same thing happened to Germany, in the 1920s. For many years, Germans had been indoctrinated by tax-financed government schools to favor unlimited taxation. This was the genesis of the decline of the German Republic. Gradually, the Weimar Republic eliminated the already weak limits on government power that it had.
In modern Germany, grandparents now need to explain to their grand kids how they either supported or opposed the nazi police state. Young, curious minds want to know how such a betrayal was possible.
How would you explain to your grandkids, if they cracked a book open, years after the fall of America? Would you tell them something like this?: "I was on the wrong side. I was stupid. I didn't read about how jury trials had been eroded. I didn't think about the loss of free speech, or the NDAA's new executive-enabling powers. I just didn't understand what was going on." ...Do you think they'd forgive you their impoverished, hard-scrabble existence? Do you think they'd forgive the fact that you took the last of America's wealth, and spent it putting innocent people in prison, and bombing goat-farming foreigners into pre-industrial oblivion? Do you think they'll forgive the fact that you were willing to allow the police state to make exceptions to property rights for marijuana, guns, and gold (real money)? Do you think they'll forgive you for not ever cracking a proper economics or history book? There's some indication that Iowa is snapping out of America's socialist delusion. There's some indication that just because socialism is labeled "Republican," some of the voters are daring to ask bold questions of the candidates. There's some indication that the voters won't betray their grandparents, who marched into Germany to prevent world fascist domination by a superpower gone terribly wrong.
Let's not make America into another rogue superpower. Let's not share in the disgrace of Hitler's Germany. Germany lost their Republic, but we can keep ours. Germany allowed Hitler's enabling act, but we don't need to allow Bush and Obama their "PATRIOT Act", and "NDAA" that allows the elimination of trials by jury.
TRIALS BY JURY! That's what Obama and our congress has now put on the chopping block! Since 1215, we've had to fight to keep trial by jury! Almost 800 years of relative freedom and progress! The foundation of our civilization! Citizens must agree that their neighbor's transgression deserves government punishment! A last-ditch means of preventing government from going "off the rails" and into despotism! All of the progress of the industrial and information revolutions made possible by juries that would not punish the organizing free speech of factory migrant workers, or of modern computer and internet innovators!
All this will be lost if Ron Paul does not win the Republican nomination.
Is your own individual freedom not worth showing up, and being counted as a supporter of the derided, criticized, insulted, and ridiculed?
If you feel your childrens' freedom is not worth the effort, then how about simple self interest? How about keeping the interest on your paychecks, instead of giving it all away without a fight to Federal Reserve bankers? Most of your savings have already been eaten by this monster! The purchasing power of the dollar of 1900 has fallen by 98%! Will you just idly stand by while your legacy is devoured?
Or will you risk ridicule and social discomfort to do what is right?
YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART THAT RON PAUL, FOR ALL HIS FAILINGS, IS RIGHT: THE UNITED STATES CANNOT SURVIVE THE LOSS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, IT CANNOT SURVIVE THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, IT CANNOT SURVIVE WARS WITHOUT CLEAR END GOALS.
DO THE RIGHT THING ON JANUARY 03, 2012.
STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.
VOTE RON PAUL IN THE IOWA CAUCUSES.
A republic is defined by a constitution that limits the power of government, no matter what 51% of the voters decide. A republic's constitution is the sourcecode or DNA of country that determines what form its body politic will take. Even if 51% of the voters decide to eliminate jury trials, or build gas chambers for Jews, a constitutional republic does not allow them to have their way. A constitutional republic allows multiple overlapping checks on government power to say "That's too far, this government action cannot be allowed." The president or governor can pardon those who acted in violation of unconstitutional government laws. The congress can pass a law providing relief to the people, and the State legislature can pass laws that offer relief from congress's laws and the president's executive orders. Judges can soften a punishment even when the jury returns a guilty verdict. And juries can outright refuse to return guilty verdicts. Even one single juror can hang a jury, based on his individual conscience.
This is the very core of what it means to be a Republican, and the very core of what it means to be an American.
Ultimately, We, the Jury, are the final check on government power. The government's prosecutors must ask a jury for permission to enforce the law. They must get 12 people to give them the word "GUILTY."
But Republics don't always last. In Germany, in 1934, the Nazis won a decisive plurality of seats in the Reichstag. A false flag attack then rallied the German people into giving up jury trials, and freedom of speech. The German state consolidated power, and began to use state power to destroy its opponents, internally. By the time the German public woke up to this fact, to speak out was to be raided by SS storm troopers. Those nice young men in uniform who were "keeping the order" were no longer protectors, but victimizers who served a political master, not the public peace.
Before the Civil War, in our own USA, jury trials were attacked by the government, and prosecutors were allowed, for the first time ever, to question the jury for agreement with the Fugitive Slave Law. Northern abolitionists like Lysander Spooner saw through this barbaric and unconstitutional practice, and reported it to the press. Juries responded to the state's efforts to return escaped slaves to slavery by getting smarter, and lying to state prosecutors, so they would be seated, and get the chance to acquit runaway slaves and their neighbors who harbored them. After the civil war ended, this practice of allowing the prosecutor to question the jury was not repealed, and is the reason for unconstitutional laws being enforced today.
...But we still have jury trials, and those determined to send a message can still present themselves as willing to enforce unjust laws, and can still veto unconstitutional laws. ...So prosecutors must still be wary not to punish those who are too obviously innocent of wrong.
Once Germany's nazis had eliminated jury trials, the life-blood of the economy, Germany's industrialists, were no longer safe from being looted under the "color of law." There were no longer legal protections in courts of law for them, and no longer jury trials. If they wanted to survive, they had to bow and scrape, and give Germany's nazi politicians everything they wanted. They were taxed and looted into bankruptcy. Before the war was over between six and eight million Jews were murdered, but people forget that that genocide is less than half of the murdering that took place. The rest of the murdering was democide. Approximately twelve million non-Jews were also murdered, for opposing, or simply being victimized by, Hitler's unconstitutional police state. They were not murdered for their race, or "genes," they were murdered for their beliefs, speech, or political identity. What if they had taken up arms against Hitler when he had passed his "Enabling Act?"
Germans in 1933 had to choose between marxists, social democrats, and fascists. But here, in America, we have a final shot at a better alternative: A true Republican. A man who favors proper constitutional limits on government power. A small-L, philosophical libertarian in the mold of Thomas Paine.
Nearly everyone disagrees with one or another constitutional limits on government power. Nearly everyone believes that if government power were expanded in some area, it would be able to do more good, or accomplish more to benefit society in some way. It's been pounded into every American in the form of "social studies" classes, since they were children.
The same thing happened to Germany, in the 1920s. For many years, Germans had been indoctrinated by tax-financed government schools to favor unlimited taxation. This was the genesis of the decline of the German Republic. Gradually, the Weimar Republic eliminated the already weak limits on government power that it had.
In modern Germany, grandparents now need to explain to their grand kids how they either supported or opposed the nazi police state. Young, curious minds want to know how such a betrayal was possible.
How would you explain to your grandkids, if they cracked a book open, years after the fall of America? Would you tell them something like this?: "I was on the wrong side. I was stupid. I didn't read about how jury trials had been eroded. I didn't think about the loss of free speech, or the NDAA's new executive-enabling powers. I just didn't understand what was going on." ...Do you think they'd forgive you their impoverished, hard-scrabble existence? Do you think they'd forgive the fact that you took the last of America's wealth, and spent it putting innocent people in prison, and bombing goat-farming foreigners into pre-industrial oblivion? Do you think they'll forgive the fact that you were willing to allow the police state to make exceptions to property rights for marijuana, guns, and gold (real money)? Do you think they'll forgive you for not ever cracking a proper economics or history book? There's some indication that Iowa is snapping out of America's socialist delusion. There's some indication that just because socialism is labeled "Republican," some of the voters are daring to ask bold questions of the candidates. There's some indication that the voters won't betray their grandparents, who marched into Germany to prevent world fascist domination by a superpower gone terribly wrong.
Let's not make America into another rogue superpower. Let's not share in the disgrace of Hitler's Germany. Germany lost their Republic, but we can keep ours. Germany allowed Hitler's enabling act, but we don't need to allow Bush and Obama their "PATRIOT Act", and "NDAA" that allows the elimination of trials by jury.
TRIALS BY JURY! That's what Obama and our congress has now put on the chopping block! Since 1215, we've had to fight to keep trial by jury! Almost 800 years of relative freedom and progress! The foundation of our civilization! Citizens must agree that their neighbor's transgression deserves government punishment! A last-ditch means of preventing government from going "off the rails" and into despotism! All of the progress of the industrial and information revolutions made possible by juries that would not punish the organizing free speech of factory migrant workers, or of modern computer and internet innovators!
All this will be lost if Ron Paul does not win the Republican nomination.
Is your own individual freedom not worth showing up, and being counted as a supporter of the derided, criticized, insulted, and ridiculed?
If you feel your childrens' freedom is not worth the effort, then how about simple self interest? How about keeping the interest on your paychecks, instead of giving it all away without a fight to Federal Reserve bankers? Most of your savings have already been eaten by this monster! The purchasing power of the dollar of 1900 has fallen by 98%! Will you just idly stand by while your legacy is devoured?
Or will you risk ridicule and social discomfort to do what is right?
YOU KNOW IN YOUR HEART THAT RON PAUL, FOR ALL HIS FAILINGS, IS RIGHT: THE UNITED STATES CANNOT SURVIVE THE LOSS OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS, IT CANNOT SURVIVE THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM, IT CANNOT SURVIVE WARS WITHOUT CLEAR END GOALS.
DO THE RIGHT THING ON JANUARY 03, 2012.
STAND UP AND BE COUNTED.
VOTE RON PAUL IN THE IOWA CAUCUSES.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
Let the Record Show...
That Bob Barr is an abject scumbag, drug warrior, and anti-libertarian, and that the Constitution Party's Chuck Baldwin is a kind and decent human being, with libertarian values. Let the record also show that more choices on a ballot is a generally a good thing. Even in the case where the State of Virginia just illegally put two totalitarians (Newt Gingrich, and Rick Perry, who both failed to collect enough signatures to legally access the ballot) on the ballot, it's a good thing, because they will split the VA totalitarian vote three ways.
Although I fully comprehend that Newt and Rick's hypocrisy regarding their support for ballot access restrictions is grotesque, and that they deserve to lose ballot access (as Ron Paul would have if libertarian activist Bob Lynch had not come through for him, and delivered last-minute ballot access to him on a silver platter) ...I'm glad they've decided to split the totalitarian vote. That will give Ron Paul a better chance to make a bigger impact in the race, and possibly even win.
Although I fully comprehend that Newt and Rick's hypocrisy regarding their support for ballot access restrictions is grotesque, and that they deserve to lose ballot access (as Ron Paul would have if libertarian activist Bob Lynch had not come through for him, and delivered last-minute ballot access to him on a silver platter) ...I'm glad they've decided to split the totalitarian vote. That will give Ron Paul a better chance to make a bigger impact in the race, and possibly even win.
Friday, December 30, 2011
Eric Dondero Reminds Me to Pick Up Nuts At the Grocery
A link to a commentary by Warren Redlich that is critical of Eric Dondero. Warren's piece includes one of my earlier criticisms of Dondero and some amusing anecdotes about him in the comments section. (For those late to the party, Eric Dondero is an unphilosophical political hack who has an insane vendetta against his former boss, Ron Paul.)
Here's another website with a lot of information about Dondero.
Conclusion: anyone who takes Dondero seriously is a damned idiot.
Here's another website with a lot of information about Dondero.
Conclusion: anyone who takes Dondero seriously is a damned idiot.
Jury Nullification is the Solution to the Problem of Tyranny
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/montana-jury-marijuana-mutiny_n_800074.html
Ron Paul and R. J. Harris advocate jury nullification of law, as the proper constitutional remedy for overbearing government tyranny. Keep in mind that you're under no obligation to comply with answering intellectually dishonest and unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) "voir dire" (jury selection) questions from the prosecutor when you're called as a juror. Also keep in mind you'd be stupid/servile to plea bargain with a prosecutor if a jury couldn't be seated. You're always stupid not to fight with 100% of everything you have. Never accept injustice.
Ron Paul and R. J. Harris advocate jury nullification of law, as the proper constitutional remedy for overbearing government tyranny. Keep in mind that you're under no obligation to comply with answering intellectually dishonest and unconstitutional (and thus unlawful) "voir dire" (jury selection) questions from the prosecutor when you're called as a juror. Also keep in mind you'd be stupid/servile to plea bargain with a prosecutor if a jury couldn't be seated. You're always stupid not to fight with 100% of everything you have. Never accept injustice.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
If Ron Paul Loses the Republican Primary...
...He should announce that he's running as a Libertarian, and that he will seek the LP nomination in Las Vegas, with R.J. Harris, Paul Butler, or Jesse Ventura as his running mate. Paul could easily win the nomination, and it would allow him another 6 months of "money bomb" style fundraising, which he could use to mount an effective Jury Rights Activism campaign, from coast to coast. This would do vastly more to legitimize libertarianism than any politician running for office. Simultaneously, it would PROVE that Ron Paul cares about minorities and the downtrodden: by removing the government boot from their necks. We know that Ron Paul comprehends jury nullification of law, (AKA "jury veto"), because he's spoken so eloquently on the subject.
...Or, he should endorse R.J. Harris for the LP nomination. R.J. Harris is a stellar human being and a dedicated libertarian and Ron Paul supporter. He makes a great "Plan B."
...Or, he should endorse R.J. Harris for the LP nomination. R.J. Harris is a stellar human being and a dedicated libertarian and Ron Paul supporter. He makes a great "Plan B."
Monday, December 26, 2011
My Commentary on the Huffington Post's Hitpiece on Ron Paul: "Eric Dondero, Former Ron Paul Aide, Addresses Newsletters"
See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/26/eric-dondero-ron-paul-racist-homophobic_n_1170054.html?ref=politics
While we're airing dirty laundry, let me air some of Dondero's. He's a militarist. He literally believes "My military, right or wrong." If tomorrow, the military was tasked with rounding up Jews (or Muslims) and putting them all into concentration camps, Dondero would champion the process, so long as the U.S. military was doing the work. I asked him point blank if he believed that his allegiance to the military was more important than the libertarian aspects of his philosophy, and he said "yes." Make of that, what you will. (In the past, he's defended the door-to-door gun confiscations that occurred in New Orleans in 2006, whether the occupant was home, consented, or not. So much for Dondero's "libertarianism.")
As further proof that Dondero is totally unphilosophical, he started a group called "Libertarians for Guiliani" after the famous debate where Ron Paul stood up to Guiliani's bullying on the issue of foreign interventionism. Dondero took this group so seriously that he ended his minor friendship (my good-natured toleration of him) with me over my lack of willingness to mindlessly join it.
Dondero is a disgruntled former staffer of Paul's who was fired for disavowing Paul's noninterventionist stance on foreign policy. Later, after being fired, he threatened to run against Paul, before he realized he was delusional and didn't stand a snowball's chance in Haiti of beating Paul.
I know Dondero better than most people. I stayed at his house for about a month and a half in 2004, back before I knew what a militarist lunatic whackjob he was. At the time I only wondered how he could screw up the best job in the world: working for Ron Paul, the only elected libertarian. The more I learned about Dondero, the more I learned that his libertarianism was skin deep, but that his commitment to interventionism defines his whole personality.
How did Dondero wind up working for Paul? He testified against the draft, since he's in favor of an all-volunteer military. This was a noble thing to do in the 1980s, when Reagan was still putting people in prison for agitating against the draft. Since Dondero was a veteran, his testimony was seen as being especially legitimate. In spite of opposing the draft, Dondero loves all things having to do with the U.S. Military. ...He is a worshipper of military might.
A few years ago, I introduced Dondero to the most legitimate, libertarian arguments for foreign interventionism that he now has, by introducing him to R.J. Rummel's webpage. I regret doing so, because it legitimized his arguments in his own mind, without raising the standard of his arguments. Dondero believes 100% and in all cases that "the ends justify the means." Thus, he feels justified in using any tactics whatsoever to win an argument. Instead of the R.J. Rummel material refocusing Dondero's debate style so we could have a real argument, he clings to red herrings, straw man arguments, and ad-hominems that lack rhyme or reason. And he spends about half of every day online, plastering public fora with his insane rantings. (One reason many people suspect him of being a paid agent provocateur.)
I don't know precisely why he's like this. Perhaps he's a paid agent provocateur, as many in the libertarian movement have postulated. I do know that he has absolutely no standards of logic or reason whatsoever. If someone too soundly defeats his arguments, as Andrew Jacobs and Paulie Cannoli have done in the past, he resorts to insults and ad-hominems.
Now, is Dondero right about Paul? Many old people are uncomfortable around rap music and openly gay behavior. Ron Paul is probably no different (although I can't say, because I've never met the man, and Dondero is highly unreliable). But Ron Paul has the ideas that defeat institutionalized homophobia and institutionalized racism. Has Ron ever voted the wrong way in congress? Yes. When a vote came up for liberalizing the punishment standards for rape in DC, so that juries would stop acquiting rapists for fear of sentencing the wrong guy to a cruel and unusual punishment, that bill also would have legalized then-illegal anal sex or "sodomy." Paul voted "No." It's clear in hindsight that Paul voted the wrong way on that, and that James Peron was right to confront him about it, as some commenters have noted below.
However, the bill that Paul voted against was a mix of various subjects, a practice that deserves to be recognized as wrong, especially in the absence of a line-item veto. Did Paul fully understand what he was voting against, or was he simply voting against a complex bill with lots of different subject matter in it, that he didn't understand? When in doubt, it's best to vote no, and not be surprised later.
And to attack Paul for this when he's advanced the cause of individual liberty more than anyone else in the past 10 years? ...That's a profound mistake.
Paul is the ONLY candidate talking about ending the grotesque and mass-incarcerating war on (some) drugs. (A war which disproportionately imprisons poor minorities, btw.) He's also the only candidate talking about abolishing the grotesque and rights-violating BATFE or war on (some) guns. In short, Paul is the only candidate who believes in the Bill of Rights and its fourth amendment. For that, noone should consider voting for anyone else in the GOP primary.
Paul's also the only candidate talking about ending the debt enslavement of all Americans to the Federal Reserve. (Something Eric Dondero isn't smart enough to care about.)
Paul's also the only candidate talking about ending grotesque overspending (and bombing) on the part of the U.S. military (and its industrial complex).
For Dondero to betray his old boss, and America's best shot at electoral freedom over a personal vendetta is disgusting. But then, I think Dondero is a disgusting human being.
Since Dondero spoke about Paul's antiquated personal tastes, I feel turnabout is only fair play.
Direct quotes from Dondero:
"Women don't understand politics, and shouldn't be involved with politics."
(He said this when his wife, a chinese immigrant, was defending Mao Tse Tung, and Mao's policies, at Dondero's house, in 2004)
"Atlas Shrugged is my second favorite book, right after Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities'"
(Interesting. ...Too bad he didn't understand much of what he read.)
Also, regarding Dondero's character: For years he refused to take down a retracted quote from me on his webpage stating something to the effect that he was 'the best petitioner in the country.' (And why would this matter, even if it were true? Mercenary petition circulation is hardly an intellectual pursuit, in the form it currently stands. Dondero is a right-wing pseudo-libertarian political petitioner. He is not libertarian, and doesn't limit himself to working for libertarian causes. He gathers about 1/2 the petition signatures that a mercenary such as Russell Baggett collects on any given day.)
Here's a brief forum post I wrote regarding some of the problem areas of Dondero's thinking. All are free to repost it and quote from it:
Google "Eric Dondero a Real Life Master Shake" for a great essay on Dondero. I know in great detail what a scumbag and agent provocateur Eric Dondero is. Anyone from the media who wants a few entertaining true anecdotes about Eric Dondero is encouraged to call me. 312-730-4037 the insane rantings of Dondero shouldn't be taken too seriously.
1) His wife is a maoist, but Eric Dondero says that's OK, because "...Women shouldn't be involved with politics."
2) Ron Paul fired Dondero when Dondero started claiming at press-releases and public events that Paul had reversed his position, and favored the Iraq war. Paul had to yell at him and remind him "You work for me." (Not a lot of people have seen Paul this angry, which further points to how principled the man is.)
3) Dondero claimed to be friends with me at one point. (I had stayed at his house while putting the LP on the ballot in 2004 in TX because a LP-member friend of his, Scott Kohlhaas, had arranged that. After the very anti-war Badnarik got the nomination, Dondero went nuts and said he was now a "lifelong enemy of the LP.") I thought then that Dondero was not a good libertarian, because he was anti-libertarian in his foreign policy, but on most domestic issues, Dondero is somewhat libertarian. So I remained a friendly acquaintance of his. In 2007, when I refused to endorse his prima-facie fascist and idiotic group "Libertarians for Guiliani," I said "I hope this doesn't mean we still can't be friends." and he replied "Actually Jake, it does. No further contact necessary." He then hung up. I haven't spoken with him since, and good riddance!
4) Prior to ending the friendship, when I pointed out that I didn't need military protection at its current cost in lives and tax dollars, Dondero said "Who's going to protect you?" and I said "I'll protect myself. I'm a gun owner." Dondero then said "Gun guys can't protect the US!" (I'm not sure Dondero comprehends that former military and current reservists are also gun owners, and that no nation could ever invade and occupy a nation as well-armed as the USA. ...LOL.) This servile mindset of Dondero that we need a bloated military or we'll all be killed, is a weak and un-libertarian, not to mention un-American, mindset.
5) Dondero claims that foreign interventionism is libertarian, and that if you're not a foreign interventionist, you cannot be a libertarian. This makes him laughably wrong, and one doesn't really need to pay any attention to him after he makes this clear. In fact, only a few self-proclaimed libertarians are interventionist, such as Christopher Hitchens and R. J. Rummel.
6) Dondero claims that military men are all libertarian, because "anyone who hires a prostitute or uses drugs is a libertarian." Even without pointing out that sailors who use prostitutes aren't necessarily 100% of sailors, Dondero's argument is absurd. I guess that makes foreign dictators "libertarian," given the tales of decadence that I've heard while overseas (even though they put their own people to death for doing the same). I guess that Dondero can't understand the concept of "hypocrisy." (Which is funny, since it so often applies to him.)
7) Another amusing incident was when Scott Kohlhaas of the AK LP (a paid petitioner), Anthony Garcia of the TX LP (the 2004 TX LP petition coordinator), myself, and Eric Dondero were all out eating a mexican dinner. A program director of the liberal radio station, KPFT, Clay Smith struck up a conversation with Scott Kohlhaas and Anthony Garcia, because they had identified themselves as libertarians who disagreed with Eric Dondero. He offered to help them express the libertarian viewpoint on the radio. Dondero was so stupid and belligerent that instead of allow the men to exchange numbers, to the benefit of the libertarian message, he said "You guys don't understand! This guy is liberal scum! If he's going to be here, I'm not!" And he threw down his fork, and ran out of the restaurant without paying. As I've tried to make clear, Eric Dondero is quite a nutjob!
8) Interestingly, Eric Dondero is also a racist eugenicist. He stated to me at one point, in 2004, "Blacks aren't as smart as whites." I roundly criticized him for this, and he tried to justify it by referencing "The Bell Curve," by Charles Murray, a book I admittedly haven't read. Nonetheless, when I started pointing to examples of black men who were clearly smarter than Eric, he qualified his statement by claiming that "Overall, blacks are less intelligent, although there are some smart ones." (If that's not an exact quote, it's very close, and captures the sentiment, 100%.) Eric claims this view point, because his "second major passion, beyond politics," according to him, "is anthropology." His bookshelves are full of books about primitive man (I saw this when I was there in 2004). Now, reading books by Louis Leakey doesn't usually make someone a racist, ...unless they're like Eric Dondero, and they're scouring the texts for things that could possibly justify their self-superior view of existence. Part of this viewpoint comes from holding Theodore Roosevelt as a personal idol (T.R. was a racist eugenicist as well, if my memory serves me correctly).
So, if I'm faced with Ron Paul's version of the facts, or Dondero's version, I think I'll stick with Ron Paul's version. No offense to "The Real Life Master Shake!"
While we're airing dirty laundry, let me air some of Dondero's. He's a militarist. He literally believes "My military, right or wrong." If tomorrow, the military was tasked with rounding up Jews (or Muslims) and putting them all into concentration camps, Dondero would champion the process, so long as the U.S. military was doing the work. I asked him point blank if he believed that his allegiance to the military was more important than the libertarian aspects of his philosophy, and he said "yes." Make of that, what you will. (In the past, he's defended the door-to-door gun confiscations that occurred in New Orleans in 2006, whether the occupant was home, consented, or not. So much for Dondero's "libertarianism.")
As further proof that Dondero is totally unphilosophical, he started a group called "Libertarians for Guiliani" after the famous debate where Ron Paul stood up to Guiliani's bullying on the issue of foreign interventionism. Dondero took this group so seriously that he ended his minor friendship (my good-natured toleration of him) with me over my lack of willingness to mindlessly join it.
Dondero is a disgruntled former staffer of Paul's who was fired for disavowing Paul's noninterventionist stance on foreign policy. Later, after being fired, he threatened to run against Paul, before he realized he was delusional and didn't stand a snowball's chance in Haiti of beating Paul.
I know Dondero better than most people. I stayed at his house for about a month and a half in 2004, back before I knew what a militarist lunatic whackjob he was. At the time I only wondered how he could screw up the best job in the world: working for Ron Paul, the only elected libertarian. The more I learned about Dondero, the more I learned that his libertarianism was skin deep, but that his commitment to interventionism defines his whole personality.
How did Dondero wind up working for Paul? He testified against the draft, since he's in favor of an all-volunteer military. This was a noble thing to do in the 1980s, when Reagan was still putting people in prison for agitating against the draft. Since Dondero was a veteran, his testimony was seen as being especially legitimate. In spite of opposing the draft, Dondero loves all things having to do with the U.S. Military. ...He is a worshipper of military might.
A few years ago, I introduced Dondero to the most legitimate, libertarian arguments for foreign interventionism that he now has, by introducing him to R.J. Rummel's webpage. I regret doing so, because it legitimized his arguments in his own mind, without raising the standard of his arguments. Dondero believes 100% and in all cases that "the ends justify the means." Thus, he feels justified in using any tactics whatsoever to win an argument. Instead of the R.J. Rummel material refocusing Dondero's debate style so we could have a real argument, he clings to red herrings, straw man arguments, and ad-hominems that lack rhyme or reason. And he spends about half of every day online, plastering public fora with his insane rantings. (One reason many people suspect him of being a paid agent provocateur.)
I don't know precisely why he's like this. Perhaps he's a paid agent provocateur, as many in the libertarian movement have postulated. I do know that he has absolutely no standards of logic or reason whatsoever. If someone too soundly defeats his arguments, as Andrew Jacobs and Paulie Cannoli have done in the past, he resorts to insults and ad-hominems.
Now, is Dondero right about Paul? Many old people are uncomfortable around rap music and openly gay behavior. Ron Paul is probably no different (although I can't say, because I've never met the man, and Dondero is highly unreliable). But Ron Paul has the ideas that defeat institutionalized homophobia and institutionalized racism. Has Ron ever voted the wrong way in congress? Yes. When a vote came up for liberalizing the punishment standards for rape in DC, so that juries would stop acquiting rapists for fear of sentencing the wrong guy to a cruel and unusual punishment, that bill also would have legalized then-illegal anal sex or "sodomy." Paul voted "No." It's clear in hindsight that Paul voted the wrong way on that, and that James Peron was right to confront him about it, as some commenters have noted below.
However, the bill that Paul voted against was a mix of various subjects, a practice that deserves to be recognized as wrong, especially in the absence of a line-item veto. Did Paul fully understand what he was voting against, or was he simply voting against a complex bill with lots of different subject matter in it, that he didn't understand? When in doubt, it's best to vote no, and not be surprised later.
And to attack Paul for this when he's advanced the cause of individual liberty more than anyone else in the past 10 years? ...That's a profound mistake.
Paul is the ONLY candidate talking about ending the grotesque and mass-incarcerating war on (some) drugs. (A war which disproportionately imprisons poor minorities, btw.) He's also the only candidate talking about abolishing the grotesque and rights-violating BATFE or war on (some) guns. In short, Paul is the only candidate who believes in the Bill of Rights and its fourth amendment. For that, noone should consider voting for anyone else in the GOP primary.
Paul's also the only candidate talking about ending the debt enslavement of all Americans to the Federal Reserve. (Something Eric Dondero isn't smart enough to care about.)
Paul's also the only candidate talking about ending grotesque overspending (and bombing) on the part of the U.S. military (and its industrial complex).
For Dondero to betray his old boss, and America's best shot at electoral freedom over a personal vendetta is disgusting. But then, I think Dondero is a disgusting human being.
Since Dondero spoke about Paul's antiquated personal tastes, I feel turnabout is only fair play.
Direct quotes from Dondero:
"Women don't understand politics, and shouldn't be involved with politics."
(He said this when his wife, a chinese immigrant, was defending Mao Tse Tung, and Mao's policies, at Dondero's house, in 2004)
"Atlas Shrugged is my second favorite book, right after Dickens' 'A Tale of Two Cities'"
(Interesting. ...Too bad he didn't understand much of what he read.)
Also, regarding Dondero's character: For years he refused to take down a retracted quote from me on his webpage stating something to the effect that he was 'the best petitioner in the country.' (And why would this matter, even if it were true? Mercenary petition circulation is hardly an intellectual pursuit, in the form it currently stands. Dondero is a right-wing pseudo-libertarian political petitioner. He is not libertarian, and doesn't limit himself to working for libertarian causes. He gathers about 1/2 the petition signatures that a mercenary such as Russell Baggett collects on any given day.)
Here's a brief forum post I wrote regarding some of the problem areas of Dondero's thinking. All are free to repost it and quote from it:
Google "Eric Dondero a Real Life Master Shake" for a great essay on Dondero. I know in great detail what a scumbag and agent provocateur Eric Dondero is. Anyone from the media who wants a few entertaining true anecdotes about Eric Dondero is encouraged to call me. 312-730-4037 the insane rantings of Dondero shouldn't be taken too seriously.
1) His wife is a maoist, but Eric Dondero says that's OK, because "...Women shouldn't be involved with politics."
2) Ron Paul fired Dondero when Dondero started claiming at press-releases and public events that Paul had reversed his position, and favored the Iraq war. Paul had to yell at him and remind him "You work for me." (Not a lot of people have seen Paul this angry, which further points to how principled the man is.)
3) Dondero claimed to be friends with me at one point. (I had stayed at his house while putting the LP on the ballot in 2004 in TX because a LP-member friend of his, Scott Kohlhaas, had arranged that. After the very anti-war Badnarik got the nomination, Dondero went nuts and said he was now a "lifelong enemy of the LP.") I thought then that Dondero was not a good libertarian, because he was anti-libertarian in his foreign policy, but on most domestic issues, Dondero is somewhat libertarian. So I remained a friendly acquaintance of his. In 2007, when I refused to endorse his prima-facie fascist and idiotic group "Libertarians for Guiliani," I said "I hope this doesn't mean we still can't be friends." and he replied "Actually Jake, it does. No further contact necessary." He then hung up. I haven't spoken with him since, and good riddance!
4) Prior to ending the friendship, when I pointed out that I didn't need military protection at its current cost in lives and tax dollars, Dondero said "Who's going to protect you?" and I said "I'll protect myself. I'm a gun owner." Dondero then said "Gun guys can't protect the US!" (I'm not sure Dondero comprehends that former military and current reservists are also gun owners, and that no nation could ever invade and occupy a nation as well-armed as the USA. ...LOL.) This servile mindset of Dondero that we need a bloated military or we'll all be killed, is a weak and un-libertarian, not to mention un-American, mindset.
5) Dondero claims that foreign interventionism is libertarian, and that if you're not a foreign interventionist, you cannot be a libertarian. This makes him laughably wrong, and one doesn't really need to pay any attention to him after he makes this clear. In fact, only a few self-proclaimed libertarians are interventionist, such as Christopher Hitchens and R. J. Rummel.
6) Dondero claims that military men are all libertarian, because "anyone who hires a prostitute or uses drugs is a libertarian." Even without pointing out that sailors who use prostitutes aren't necessarily 100% of sailors, Dondero's argument is absurd. I guess that makes foreign dictators "libertarian," given the tales of decadence that I've heard while overseas (even though they put their own people to death for doing the same). I guess that Dondero can't understand the concept of "hypocrisy." (Which is funny, since it so often applies to him.)
7) Another amusing incident was when Scott Kohlhaas of the AK LP (a paid petitioner), Anthony Garcia of the TX LP (the 2004 TX LP petition coordinator), myself, and Eric Dondero were all out eating a mexican dinner. A program director of the liberal radio station, KPFT, Clay Smith struck up a conversation with Scott Kohlhaas and Anthony Garcia, because they had identified themselves as libertarians who disagreed with Eric Dondero. He offered to help them express the libertarian viewpoint on the radio. Dondero was so stupid and belligerent that instead of allow the men to exchange numbers, to the benefit of the libertarian message, he said "You guys don't understand! This guy is liberal scum! If he's going to be here, I'm not!" And he threw down his fork, and ran out of the restaurant without paying. As I've tried to make clear, Eric Dondero is quite a nutjob!
8) Interestingly, Eric Dondero is also a racist eugenicist. He stated to me at one point, in 2004, "Blacks aren't as smart as whites." I roundly criticized him for this, and he tried to justify it by referencing "The Bell Curve," by Charles Murray, a book I admittedly haven't read. Nonetheless, when I started pointing to examples of black men who were clearly smarter than Eric, he qualified his statement by claiming that "Overall, blacks are less intelligent, although there are some smart ones." (If that's not an exact quote, it's very close, and captures the sentiment, 100%.) Eric claims this view point, because his "second major passion, beyond politics," according to him, "is anthropology." His bookshelves are full of books about primitive man (I saw this when I was there in 2004). Now, reading books by Louis Leakey doesn't usually make someone a racist, ...unless they're like Eric Dondero, and they're scouring the texts for things that could possibly justify their self-superior view of existence. Part of this viewpoint comes from holding Theodore Roosevelt as a personal idol (T.R. was a racist eugenicist as well, if my memory serves me correctly).
So, if I'm faced with Ron Paul's version of the facts, or Dondero's version, I think I'll stick with Ron Paul's version. No offense to "The Real Life Master Shake!"
Commentary on Ron Paul's Essay, "What Really Divides Us?"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul68.html
Let me first say that Ron Paul is right in this essay, but that there are some minor sins of omission. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and believe he's the only candidate worth supporting in the current GOP or Democratic races.
Ron Paul writes: "The real reason liberals hate the concept of states' right has nothing to do with racism, but rather reflects a hostility toward anything that would act as a limit on the power of the federal government."
I hate it when libertarian politicians, who ostensibly wish to generate pro-freedom votes, paint everyone who identifies themselves with a 'suitcase word' (such as "liberal," or "conservative" -words that describe many phenomena, values, conditions, or independent variables) as possessing the most hateful formulation of that suitcase word.
Paul could equally correctly have written:
"The real reason conservatives love the concept of states' right has nothing to do with limiting the power of the federal government, but rather reflects a hostility toward minorities who would benefit from an even application of the 14th Amendment and true equality under the law." (And it would be just as wrong as slamming liberals for opposing states' right. In truth, implementing states' rights is a strategy for decentralizing power, not an end goal. As an end goal, only the preservation of individual rights is valid.)
The point isn't that Paul is wrong. Generally speaking, he's not. But he'd have been a lot more correct if he didn't paint all liberals with such a broad brush. He should have qualified his statement by saying "many liberals" or even "most liberals" or "the liberal establishment." He could have singled out ranting socialists who call themselves liberals, such as Chris Matthews (who apparently believes that all decentralists are racists). This would have left a little room in his statement for the minority of well-educated libertarian-leaning liberals (many of whom support his candidacy) to not feel like they were being painted "Obama blue." Moreover: is there any reason to alienate the "socially liberal" people who mistakenly voted for Obama because they incorrectly thought he would keep his campaign promise to stop raiding state medical marijuana collectives? Those people should vote for Paul!
In one of his most famous essays, F. A. Hayek (one of Ron Paul's heroes) states that the best word to describe his libertarian political views is still "liberal," given the history of the term. From Hayek's essay "Why I am Not A Conservative, point 6:" (also at Lew Rockwell.com):
"What I have said should suffice to explain why I do not regard myself as a conservative. Many people will feel, however, that the position which emerges is hardly what they used to call "liberal." I must, therefore, now face the question of whether this name is today the appropriate name for the party of liberty. I have already indicated that, though I have all my life described myself as a liberal, I have done so recently with increasing misgivings...
...In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use "liberal" in the sense in which I have used it, the term "libertarian" has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavor of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html
I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that modern defenders of jury nullification and true equality under the law, such as Clay Conrad, David T. Hardy, and Paul Butler, might agree with Hayek.
I also wish Dr. Paul would have included more criticism of the drug laws, gun laws, and other mala prohibita that victimizes minorities in our society. You can't correct unfairness caused by government force until you identify it. To be fair, Paul has done this before on Nationwide TV, just not in this essay on the same subject. It would have made an excellent addition to the argument that in order to defeat racism, one needs to end institutionalized racism allowed by selective enforcement of mala prohibita.
Of course, that could fill ten times the space to fully explain and defend.
This criticism is minor, since Paul's main point is correct. Still, it's incomplete and too general. Now is the time for specifics, and for victory. I loved it when Paul was pointing out how racist the drug war is, on TV the other day, and how the drug war denies both property rights and equality under the law. He needs to do a lot more of that.
Every time he criticizes liberals, I'd also like to hear a criticism of conservatives. Neither position is legitimate, in its modern formulation.
Let me first say that Ron Paul is right in this essay, but that there are some minor sins of omission. I'm a Ron Paul supporter, and believe he's the only candidate worth supporting in the current GOP or Democratic races.
Ron Paul writes: "The real reason liberals hate the concept of states' right has nothing to do with racism, but rather reflects a hostility toward anything that would act as a limit on the power of the federal government."
I hate it when libertarian politicians, who ostensibly wish to generate pro-freedom votes, paint everyone who identifies themselves with a 'suitcase word' (such as "liberal," or "conservative" -words that describe many phenomena, values, conditions, or independent variables) as possessing the most hateful formulation of that suitcase word.
Paul could equally correctly have written:
"The real reason conservatives love the concept of states' right has nothing to do with limiting the power of the federal government, but rather reflects a hostility toward minorities who would benefit from an even application of the 14th Amendment and true equality under the law." (And it would be just as wrong as slamming liberals for opposing states' right. In truth, implementing states' rights is a strategy for decentralizing power, not an end goal. As an end goal, only the preservation of individual rights is valid.)
The point isn't that Paul is wrong. Generally speaking, he's not. But he'd have been a lot more correct if he didn't paint all liberals with such a broad brush. He should have qualified his statement by saying "many liberals" or even "most liberals" or "the liberal establishment." He could have singled out ranting socialists who call themselves liberals, such as Chris Matthews (who apparently believes that all decentralists are racists). This would have left a little room in his statement for the minority of well-educated libertarian-leaning liberals (many of whom support his candidacy) to not feel like they were being painted "Obama blue." Moreover: is there any reason to alienate the "socially liberal" people who mistakenly voted for Obama because they incorrectly thought he would keep his campaign promise to stop raiding state medical marijuana collectives? Those people should vote for Paul!
In one of his most famous essays, F. A. Hayek (one of Ron Paul's heroes) states that the best word to describe his libertarian political views is still "liberal," given the history of the term. From Hayek's essay "Why I am Not A Conservative, point 6:" (also at Lew Rockwell.com):
"What I have said should suffice to explain why I do not regard myself as a conservative. Many people will feel, however, that the position which emerges is hardly what they used to call "liberal." I must, therefore, now face the question of whether this name is today the appropriate name for the party of liberty. I have already indicated that, though I have all my life described myself as a liberal, I have done so recently with increasing misgivings...
...In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use "liberal" in the sense in which I have used it, the term "libertarian" has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavor of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/hayek1.html
I don't know this for sure, but I suspect that modern defenders of jury nullification and true equality under the law, such as Clay Conrad, David T. Hardy, and Paul Butler, might agree with Hayek.
I also wish Dr. Paul would have included more criticism of the drug laws, gun laws, and other mala prohibita that victimizes minorities in our society. You can't correct unfairness caused by government force until you identify it. To be fair, Paul has done this before on Nationwide TV, just not in this essay on the same subject. It would have made an excellent addition to the argument that in order to defeat racism, one needs to end institutionalized racism allowed by selective enforcement of mala prohibita.
Of course, that could fill ten times the space to fully explain and defend.
This criticism is minor, since Paul's main point is correct. Still, it's incomplete and too general. Now is the time for specifics, and for victory. I loved it when Paul was pointing out how racist the drug war is, on TV the other day, and how the drug war denies both property rights and equality under the law. He needs to do a lot more of that.
Every time he criticizes liberals, I'd also like to hear a criticism of conservatives. Neither position is legitimate, in its modern formulation.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
To Bloody Hell With Newt Gingrich
Newt Gingrich is a grotesque demogogue. Here are two things you need to know about him:
1) Newt introduced a bill in 1997 that would sentence individuals to death for possession of two ounces of marijuana. For those of you who aren't intimately acquainted with marijuana or the black market, this amount of marijuana is often encountered in this context: sell one ounce, and have the profit from that sale pay for the remaining ounce (an amount that might last a regular user for one month). So, your son or daughter at college has a room-mate who is selling marijuana as a small-time dealer and heavy user. He/She doesn't want to pay for his/her marijuana, so he/she buys two ounces (which, even if smoked all at once, would not kill them, as an entire bottle of LEGAL hard liquor could kill someone without a significant tolerance). Under a totalitarian Gingrich America, your son or daughter is now being sentenced to death, if they try to take that marijuana across an arbitrary state border. Newt also supports eliminating jury trials for drug crimes, as Singapore has. (How does that work in a constitutional republic?! What does the word "republican" even mean to a totalitarian like Newt?) Now, Gingrich did this when anti-drug hysteria made his actions seem reasonable, and he defended this stance less than two weeks ago, here. Do you want to vote for someone who embraces state-sponsored murder when the political climate dictates that the culture is bankrupt enough for murder? If so, you're absolutely no different than the nazis who did the same thing in 1934 Germany. Hitler, like Newt, informed the world about what he intended to do, before he did it. Those who supported or support either man deserve whatever retribution the defenders of the enlightenment could heap upon them.
2) Newt was paid 1.6 Million by Fannie Mae, a quasi-government institution that was behind the easy government-backed credit and corresponding mortgage crash. He claims this Federal Reserve-backed (coercively tax-financed) as "private sector" work. Don't you wish your "private sector" work would pay you a gauranteed $1.6 million un-earned dollars? If you buy into Newt's interpretation of the events, you're dumber than a boot. Working for tax dollars =/= "private sector work."
Now, if you support the juryless death sentences Newt wants to hand out in example #, you're an immoral, evil person. And if you want your government masters to make oodles of cash on your labor, as indicated by example #2, you're a servile sucker.
...To vote for Newt Gingrich, you've got to be both evil, and a sucker.
Now, Mitt Romney doesn't often exhibit the sociopathic swagger of Newt Gingrich in public (unless it's directed toward Dave Ridley of The Ridley Report), but his policies are more or less identical to Newt's. Mitt's also a supporter of the DEA, ONDCP, and Federal Reserve (and every other big-government program). Neither of these clowns would repeal anything: they are simply lying to you if they say they would, since they never give any specifics that they can possibly be held to. And neither of them would ever dare to impound federal funds, or issue pardons to mala prohibita offenders, as a Libertarian candidate would.
Perry's a blithering idiot who can't remember his core reasons for running for president (at least any such reasons beyond number one and number two). Bachmann's an unelectable theocratic simpleton who alternately champions and condemns Ron Paul, without a clear strategy for dealing with Iran, other than "delegate to the generals" (who take their marching orders from the central bankers who will profit from endless war). Santorum is a mindless and unelectable social bigot whose grotesque bigotry has been roundly condemned and attacked by the gay community.
In short, if you don't vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Primary, you're a damned idiot, and a traitor to everything about America that remains free.
Ron Paul is the only Republican in the race who supports the supremacy of the jury in our legal system. As such, he is the only candidate who supports the rule of law, and the proud tradition of western civilization. Be an American: Vote Ron Paul.
1) Newt introduced a bill in 1997 that would sentence individuals to death for possession of two ounces of marijuana. For those of you who aren't intimately acquainted with marijuana or the black market, this amount of marijuana is often encountered in this context: sell one ounce, and have the profit from that sale pay for the remaining ounce (an amount that might last a regular user for one month). So, your son or daughter at college has a room-mate who is selling marijuana as a small-time dealer and heavy user. He/She doesn't want to pay for his/her marijuana, so he/she buys two ounces (which, even if smoked all at once, would not kill them, as an entire bottle of LEGAL hard liquor could kill someone without a significant tolerance). Under a totalitarian Gingrich America, your son or daughter is now being sentenced to death, if they try to take that marijuana across an arbitrary state border. Newt also supports eliminating jury trials for drug crimes, as Singapore has. (How does that work in a constitutional republic?! What does the word "republican" even mean to a totalitarian like Newt?) Now, Gingrich did this when anti-drug hysteria made his actions seem reasonable, and he defended this stance less than two weeks ago, here. Do you want to vote for someone who embraces state-sponsored murder when the political climate dictates that the culture is bankrupt enough for murder? If so, you're absolutely no different than the nazis who did the same thing in 1934 Germany. Hitler, like Newt, informed the world about what he intended to do, before he did it. Those who supported or support either man deserve whatever retribution the defenders of the enlightenment could heap upon them.
2) Newt was paid 1.6 Million by Fannie Mae, a quasi-government institution that was behind the easy government-backed credit and corresponding mortgage crash. He claims this Federal Reserve-backed (coercively tax-financed) as "private sector" work. Don't you wish your "private sector" work would pay you a gauranteed $1.6 million un-earned dollars? If you buy into Newt's interpretation of the events, you're dumber than a boot. Working for tax dollars =/= "private sector work."
Now, if you support the juryless death sentences Newt wants to hand out in example #, you're an immoral, evil person. And if you want your government masters to make oodles of cash on your labor, as indicated by example #2, you're a servile sucker.
...To vote for Newt Gingrich, you've got to be both evil, and a sucker.
Now, Mitt Romney doesn't often exhibit the sociopathic swagger of Newt Gingrich in public (unless it's directed toward Dave Ridley of The Ridley Report), but his policies are more or less identical to Newt's. Mitt's also a supporter of the DEA, ONDCP, and Federal Reserve (and every other big-government program). Neither of these clowns would repeal anything: they are simply lying to you if they say they would, since they never give any specifics that they can possibly be held to. And neither of them would ever dare to impound federal funds, or issue pardons to mala prohibita offenders, as a Libertarian candidate would.
Perry's a blithering idiot who can't remember his core reasons for running for president (at least any such reasons beyond number one and number two). Bachmann's an unelectable theocratic simpleton who alternately champions and condemns Ron Paul, without a clear strategy for dealing with Iran, other than "delegate to the generals" (who take their marching orders from the central bankers who will profit from endless war). Santorum is a mindless and unelectable social bigot whose grotesque bigotry has been roundly condemned and attacked by the gay community.
In short, if you don't vote for Ron Paul in the Republican Primary, you're a damned idiot, and a traitor to everything about America that remains free.
Ron Paul is the only Republican in the race who supports the supremacy of the jury in our legal system. As such, he is the only candidate who supports the rule of law, and the proud tradition of western civilization. Be an American: Vote Ron Paul.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
A Rant About Border Security Theater
As far as this issue is concerned, only the voluntaryists are correct:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrwXYhCU9pQ –Marc Stevens on immigration.
http://www.papersplease.org
and
http://www.thenewspaper.com
I want to travel. I want to destroy all borders. I want to get on a plane, and fly to China or Columbia tomorrow, for the cost of a plane ticket only, without paying for any bogus fake “security” (security theater). I want to bring back anything I like, with none of the bullshit prohibitions that have made me totally unfree and incapable of something as simple as self-medication or eating the food I like. I have a .45 pistol. That’s all the more personal security I need, especially when combined with everyone else’s CCW pistol. No additional security (beyond non-intrusive hi-tech directional explosives sniffers in the airports) is even physically possible.
The answer to security is decentralization: all other security is fake, police actions designed to allow the government absolute power. That makes us all infinitely insecure: it means we must follow every law, even laws that require us to be murdered or jailed for victimless crimes, without a trial, …just like happened in Soviet Russia. They always reply: “Well, if you weren’t _____ (trying to live your life, you fucking peasant!), then you wouldn’t have anything to worry about!” Well, I love life, and want to live it! I want to drink coca leaf tea, not because I am a drug addict (although it wouldn’t be any of the state’s business if I was) ..but because it’s safe, harmless, and you only live once! There are a thousand things I want to do that are made very costly, if not illegal by government. I want my freedom, because I am not of the slave mentality.
As far as traveling to China and Bangkok, I just did all of this. I was at an unpaid job that paid for me to travel in a pauper’s style, and I got to see a lot of the world. I just returned from Bangkok and China. China was freer than the USSA is now. Pathetic, how we’ve lost our freedom! (Chinese people can cure their cancer with apricot kernels, they are sold in supermarkets and stores there. There is a gold store in the Beijing Airport that sells gold bullion, and the USA limits how much you can buy there! No more than 55 grams, you fucking peasants!) …But the cost of my travel was raised dramatically by the existence of all the parasitic governments. I was literally enslaved in Bangkok, because I stayed more than 90 days until I could raise a ransom to pay the kidnapper state around $650. It matters not whether such governments pretend to be constitutional. Those who want to restrict travel, to the extent that they want this, are evil, stupid, and “part of the problem”.
That’s why we need a 100% consistent libertarian revolution. And if we all pursue the freedom we wish to have, with 100% of our intelligence, …we will get it! But we must THINK.
We will NEVER, EVER, EVER have a 100% consistent libertarian politician (although Harry Browne came pretty damn close, and Badnarik was “good enough for government work”). Humans are simply too stupid, and every vote diminishes the intelligence of the few, and amplifies the tendency toward conformity. …Sorry. A few humans are very, very, very consistently pro-freedom when it comes to political belief, but it is impossible to get elected with such consistency. The bad religious memes alone in the Ron Paul revolution disprove the idea of a savior.
Ron Paul is as good as it gets, although there can be many people who approach Ron Paul’s level of consistency.
Ron Paul is dead wrong on immigration, but he seems to sense this, and not vote for things that are consistent with “controlling the border” (such as universal government issued IDs for all, a border fence, random checkpoints, etc…). “Controlling the border” is bullshit police action, and a police state for everyone. It is one giant “police action” at its very worst, and totally anti-libertarian.
Ron Paul is a hero to the freedom movement, and –by far– the best elected politician in the USSA.
The problem? He’s operating within a bloated, festering, theocratic-plague-spreading corpse known as “The Republican Party”. As such he represents pure anti-biotics, but I dear he must be applied to a rebooted patient that has more hope of life than the evil and controlled Repuglican Party.
This doctor recommends amputation. …LOL
Even though I’m saying that, I laud Dr. No’s attempt to change the Republicans from within, because his force is a counterforce to the Demopublicans’ evil, and all good things counter bad, in complex systems.
The key is to increase non-electoral strategies in conjunction with Paul’s message. More effort must be directed at non-Ron-Paul electoral efforts (Libertarians, libertarian Democrats, libertarian Republicans not associated with Paul), and at Ron Paul’s “Campaign for Liberty”. All of these can be in communication with one another. Synergy is the strongest solution: talk to all, work with all, DO YOUR OWN THING.
Form connections when it helps. Trumpet “Libertarianism” as the answer. It’s a consistent vision of freedom that gracefully decays around the edges into peaceful debate. …It’s beautiful. It’s consensual, voluntary, reasonable, logical.
It’s the solution to the problem of tyranny and false authority.
It’s LOVE.
So what does a freedom fighter do? I think they help prevent their fellow man from unjustifiably going to the gulag for victimless “crimes”. I think libertarians –at their very best– try to stop the state from enforcing injustice, and try to rescue victims of injustice.
Here is an example of that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpEB5T2ekTU –Jury rights activism.
Courthouses should be mobbed with jury rights activists who are all CCW.
Force them to lock the USSA down like a police state if they want communism.
Why do you think the fucking DHS exists? They are simply the USSA’s KGB, or “shutz-staffeln”. They are federal stormtroopers.
If you know nothing of history, you should be able to see that. Did you see the immense response in the video above to one lone elderly man speaking political truth –without swearing or “obscenity”– in public? They carted him off, using physical force. They took him to a psyche ward, and threatened him with pumping him full of dangerous psychoactive drugs against his will.
They continue to threaten this for anyone who dares to stand up against them.
And maybe that’s why the USA is no more. It has changed from the land of the brave into the land of the abject coward.
I can just hear all the musclebound morons right now: “You take it back, or I’ll kick your ass!” Well, that would only prove my point: The USA is the land of the INTELLECTUAL COWARD.
Sure, there are a lot of “physically brave” people who would fight a much larger attacker who attacked their wife and kids. Because they’d have the support of their community full of intellectual cowards! Intellectual cowards are very brave at defending “the obviously good”, the safe, the tranquil. …But so are communists, and nazis. Nazis defended motherhood and apple pie.
They murdered “degenerate artists”, and “dissidents”(partisans) by the score. In fact, they murdered more dissdents than jews. (Not many people know this, but 12 million dissidents were murdered during peacetime in the death camps, and between 6-8 million Jews were murdered. It was –by body count– even more dangerous to speak out against the government than it was to be a Jew. And that’s always the way it is: those who identify themselves as intellectually brave are the state’s real enemies.)
So who should we be protecting and defending now?
I’d start with
…Julian Heiklen, and anyone who dares do the exact same thing he’s doing.
The people who know that the jury is the most powerful check on abusive government power.
Do you think any of those people are immigrants? Poor, downtrodden, redugees from a state even less just than the USSA?
I think so!
Talk to anyone who dared flaunt the stormtroopers by crossing the Rio Grande without permission, to come to a foreign land in an attempt to “work their way up”.
This is one area where SEK3′s logic totally defeats Ron Paul’s logic.
Ron Paul’s “white market” or “constitutional government” DOES NOT EXIST.
But how do we take one step back towards it?
Not by restricting immigration. The order of events is immensely important!
Should prisons be privatized? They practically have been! See:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/4669/
This didn’t lead to them jailing fewer people, out of a sense of fiscal responsibility, it led to the USSA jailing the greatest percentage of its submitizens of any nation on earth! Why? Because the Federal Reserve is paying the bills, and the politicians have a philosophy of unfreedom. The common idiot who supports this system is totally unaware of the ideas advanced by:
Murray N. Rothbard
F. A. Hayek
Ludwig von Mises
Harry Browne (a “voluntaryist” who ran for president twice as the Libertarian candidate in 1996 and 2000)
Carl Watner (who was wrong about opposing electoral participation and right about everything else, as a “voluntaryist”)
Samuel Konkin III AKA SEK3 (who was wrong about opposing electoral participation and right about everything else, as a “voluntaryist”)
Ayn Rand (who was wrong to oppose the Libertarian Party on the stupid grounds that they didn’t defeat their candidates “out of the gate” by opposing religion, and other more minor things)
Nathaniel Branden (I link to Nathaniel Branden's "Objectivism and Libertarianism" here, because this is a common point of confusion amongst both libertarians and objectivists, as well as other less-educated contrarians. ...LOL)
Etc…
Many of the thinkers and philosophers were 90% right. …Ron Paul SEK3 and Ayn Rand among them. (I'd put Harry Browne over that 90%, but I'm horribly biased in his favor.)
Most of us won’t ever be Ron Paul, but most of us do have the ability to be the guy in front of their local courthouse handing out fliers, like Julian Heicklen and company did in the above video.
Should we do it smarter than they did? …Yes. Here are a few pointers on how to do that:
1) Wear a suit. A suit is good for 99% of conformists (a western button-up shirt is good for 80% of conformists, a radical t-shirt or sloppy appearance is good for the 10% of “non-superficial early adopters” …and you’re playing a “numbers game”). This means you’ll be more effective at targeting conformists. Conformists don’t evaluate the message alone, they evaluate the person’s appearance who’s delivering the message, and if they don’t think the person appears professional, the message is ignored. Moreover: mainstream conformists will be hand-picked to sit on the jury. If we don’t elevate logical conformists, it doesn’t matter how many early-adopters agree with us.
2) Hand out professionally printed materials, or at least adequate black and white text with the text found here: http://www.fija.org, without crazy-looking or cheap graphics.
3) Have your words prepared in advance to “draw in” spectators. Don’t stutter and stumble under pressure like Pete Eyre did (this is not a bad criticism –Eyre had the balls to do what was smart and film it, truing his course with feedback. I stumbled and stuttered my first few times standing up to the police too, and I was too damned stupidly financially broke to videotape it!!!). The only way the DHS goons will ever “stand down” is if a crowd of Americans actually stands up and shows that they exist (right now, they don’t exist, because being an American is being intellectually brave, and there must be information-containing-brains before there can be intellectual bravery).
4) Bring a friend and videotape it (these guys did this very well, but it bears repeating), and make sure there is one person who is present with a hidden camera and recorder who IS NOT HANDING OUT FLIERS OR TALKING TO PEOPLE. This is optimal, in case the police decide to arrest everyone and destroy all the footage –as they commonly do. Later, they deny everything in court, and it’s your word against a lying cop’s –the conformist tools hand-picked by the prosecution to sit on the jury always believe the cop.
5) Emphasize the fact that those who intend to nullify bad laws must not reveal this to the prosecutor during VOIR DIRE, and must have a set of planned responses ready for the prosecutors, should they ever be called for jury duty.
6) For those who support Ron Paul, or are already “halfway libertarian” emphasize: This is a top-level strategy in the heirarchy of all pro-freedom strategy, even if it doesn’t at first seem like it is. How do we know this? The state has overwhelmingly reacted against it, as they have recognized the threat to their dominion before the libertarin community has. Also: Why is it top level? Because if the Liberty Dollar had nullifiers on their jury, then freedom lovers and banks could “opt out of the dollar”, and act as “gold-only” transitional banks, and could print initial dollar-value denominations on their coins, encouraging large numbers of sheep to “opt out of the herd”.
This email has enough information for people to begin to learn how to effectively battle our enemy: the unlawful, unconstitutional, immoral, wrong, police state.
A part of that is saying “Not Guilty” when an immigrant is on trial for having crossed a state border illegally.
If you would say “Guilty”, then you are nothing more than the tool of a petty tyrant, encouraging the unchallenged dominion of lawlessness and injustice, under the color of law.
Only those who are wired for freedom can see the light on this issue, and it’s a testament to the fact that pro-freedom brushfires are even more enlightening than the spark that initially set them going (in 2007, Ron Paul).
Enlightenment values demand a free market in goods and services. A free market in services demands open immigration. Open immigration is the core value, it matters not what the constitution or law says about it. The laws against open immigration are “mala prohibita” in the same way the drug and gun laws are “mala prohibita”. Those bad laws should be ignored. Luckily, it’s constitutional to ignore bad laws, as Thomas Woods Jr.’s new book “Nullification” proves.
Tom Woods’ book references an earlier masterpiece with the same title, and a different subtitle that explains the role of the jury in nullification. That book is Clay Conrad’s masterpiece “Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine”.
If you stand for the constitution, and you take away nothing else from this writing, know this: The constitution allows citizens to veto the enforcement of laws that they personally believe are immoral or being unfairly applied. The founding fathers believed it was perfectly legitimate for a jury member to vote “Not Guilty” even if a person clearly broke the law.
There are mountains of proof for this viewpoint, (and plenty of quotes from the founding fathers) and you can obtain them at http://www.fija.org and http://www.jurorsforjustice.com
Don’t be a tool of the state. Don’t put your faith in any one man (politician). Get grounded in the ideas of freedom, and resist tyranny to your maximum ability. Encourage all others around you to do the same. Make sure every one of your family members agrees to vote “not guilty” when they are seated on a jury (if the law is wrong), and make sure every one of them knows how to get seated (how to not be removed during “voir dire”, and how to appear like a good little sheep until it’s time to strike the blow and say “NOT GUILTY”).
This is 100% of the game. This is 100% of the movement toward freedom. If you oppose me on this, you are nothing, you are a tyrant, and godspeed you to a quick destruction.
Peace (through superior intelligence),
-Jake
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrwXYhCU9pQ –Marc Stevens on immigration.
http://www.papersplease.org
and
http://www.thenewspaper.com
I want to travel. I want to destroy all borders. I want to get on a plane, and fly to China or Columbia tomorrow, for the cost of a plane ticket only, without paying for any bogus fake “security” (security theater). I want to bring back anything I like, with none of the bullshit prohibitions that have made me totally unfree and incapable of something as simple as self-medication or eating the food I like. I have a .45 pistol. That’s all the more personal security I need, especially when combined with everyone else’s CCW pistol. No additional security (beyond non-intrusive hi-tech directional explosives sniffers in the airports) is even physically possible.
The answer to security is decentralization: all other security is fake, police actions designed to allow the government absolute power. That makes us all infinitely insecure: it means we must follow every law, even laws that require us to be murdered or jailed for victimless crimes, without a trial, …just like happened in Soviet Russia. They always reply: “Well, if you weren’t _____ (trying to live your life, you fucking peasant!), then you wouldn’t have anything to worry about!” Well, I love life, and want to live it! I want to drink coca leaf tea, not because I am a drug addict (although it wouldn’t be any of the state’s business if I was) ..but because it’s safe, harmless, and you only live once! There are a thousand things I want to do that are made very costly, if not illegal by government. I want my freedom, because I am not of the slave mentality.
As far as traveling to China and Bangkok, I just did all of this. I was at an unpaid job that paid for me to travel in a pauper’s style, and I got to see a lot of the world. I just returned from Bangkok and China. China was freer than the USSA is now. Pathetic, how we’ve lost our freedom! (Chinese people can cure their cancer with apricot kernels, they are sold in supermarkets and stores there. There is a gold store in the Beijing Airport that sells gold bullion, and the USA limits how much you can buy there! No more than 55 grams, you fucking peasants!) …But the cost of my travel was raised dramatically by the existence of all the parasitic governments. I was literally enslaved in Bangkok, because I stayed more than 90 days until I could raise a ransom to pay the kidnapper state around $650. It matters not whether such governments pretend to be constitutional. Those who want to restrict travel, to the extent that they want this, are evil, stupid, and “part of the problem”.
That’s why we need a 100% consistent libertarian revolution. And if we all pursue the freedom we wish to have, with 100% of our intelligence, …we will get it! But we must THINK.
We will NEVER, EVER, EVER have a 100% consistent libertarian politician (although Harry Browne came pretty damn close, and Badnarik was “good enough for government work”). Humans are simply too stupid, and every vote diminishes the intelligence of the few, and amplifies the tendency toward conformity. …Sorry. A few humans are very, very, very consistently pro-freedom when it comes to political belief, but it is impossible to get elected with such consistency. The bad religious memes alone in the Ron Paul revolution disprove the idea of a savior.
Ron Paul is as good as it gets, although there can be many people who approach Ron Paul’s level of consistency.
Ron Paul is dead wrong on immigration, but he seems to sense this, and not vote for things that are consistent with “controlling the border” (such as universal government issued IDs for all, a border fence, random checkpoints, etc…). “Controlling the border” is bullshit police action, and a police state for everyone. It is one giant “police action” at its very worst, and totally anti-libertarian.
Ron Paul is a hero to the freedom movement, and –by far– the best elected politician in the USSA.
The problem? He’s operating within a bloated, festering, theocratic-plague-spreading corpse known as “The Republican Party”. As such he represents pure anti-biotics, but I dear he must be applied to a rebooted patient that has more hope of life than the evil and controlled Repuglican Party.
This doctor recommends amputation. …LOL
Even though I’m saying that, I laud Dr. No’s attempt to change the Republicans from within, because his force is a counterforce to the Demopublicans’ evil, and all good things counter bad, in complex systems.
The key is to increase non-electoral strategies in conjunction with Paul’s message. More effort must be directed at non-Ron-Paul electoral efforts (Libertarians, libertarian Democrats, libertarian Republicans not associated with Paul), and at Ron Paul’s “Campaign for Liberty”. All of these can be in communication with one another. Synergy is the strongest solution: talk to all, work with all, DO YOUR OWN THING.
Form connections when it helps. Trumpet “Libertarianism” as the answer. It’s a consistent vision of freedom that gracefully decays around the edges into peaceful debate. …It’s beautiful. It’s consensual, voluntary, reasonable, logical.
It’s the solution to the problem of tyranny and false authority.
It’s LOVE.
So what does a freedom fighter do? I think they help prevent their fellow man from unjustifiably going to the gulag for victimless “crimes”. I think libertarians –at their very best– try to stop the state from enforcing injustice, and try to rescue victims of injustice.
Here is an example of that:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpEB5T2ekTU –Jury rights activism.
Courthouses should be mobbed with jury rights activists who are all CCW.
Force them to lock the USSA down like a police state if they want communism.
Why do you think the fucking DHS exists? They are simply the USSA’s KGB, or “shutz-staffeln”. They are federal stormtroopers.
If you know nothing of history, you should be able to see that. Did you see the immense response in the video above to one lone elderly man speaking political truth –without swearing or “obscenity”– in public? They carted him off, using physical force. They took him to a psyche ward, and threatened him with pumping him full of dangerous psychoactive drugs against his will.
They continue to threaten this for anyone who dares to stand up against them.
And maybe that’s why the USA is no more. It has changed from the land of the brave into the land of the abject coward.
I can just hear all the musclebound morons right now: “You take it back, or I’ll kick your ass!” Well, that would only prove my point: The USA is the land of the INTELLECTUAL COWARD.
Sure, there are a lot of “physically brave” people who would fight a much larger attacker who attacked their wife and kids. Because they’d have the support of their community full of intellectual cowards! Intellectual cowards are very brave at defending “the obviously good”, the safe, the tranquil. …But so are communists, and nazis. Nazis defended motherhood and apple pie.
They murdered “degenerate artists”, and “dissidents”(partisans) by the score. In fact, they murdered more dissdents than jews. (Not many people know this, but 12 million dissidents were murdered during peacetime in the death camps, and between 6-8 million Jews were murdered. It was –by body count– even more dangerous to speak out against the government than it was to be a Jew. And that’s always the way it is: those who identify themselves as intellectually brave are the state’s real enemies.)
So who should we be protecting and defending now?
I’d start with
…Julian Heiklen, and anyone who dares do the exact same thing he’s doing.
The people who know that the jury is the most powerful check on abusive government power.
Do you think any of those people are immigrants? Poor, downtrodden, redugees from a state even less just than the USSA?
I think so!
Talk to anyone who dared flaunt the stormtroopers by crossing the Rio Grande without permission, to come to a foreign land in an attempt to “work their way up”.
This is one area where SEK3′s logic totally defeats Ron Paul’s logic.
Ron Paul’s “white market” or “constitutional government” DOES NOT EXIST.
But how do we take one step back towards it?
Not by restricting immigration. The order of events is immensely important!
Should prisons be privatized? They practically have been! See:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/12/the-prison-industrial-complex/4669/
This didn’t lead to them jailing fewer people, out of a sense of fiscal responsibility, it led to the USSA jailing the greatest percentage of its submitizens of any nation on earth! Why? Because the Federal Reserve is paying the bills, and the politicians have a philosophy of unfreedom. The common idiot who supports this system is totally unaware of the ideas advanced by:
Murray N. Rothbard
F. A. Hayek
Ludwig von Mises
Harry Browne (a “voluntaryist” who ran for president twice as the Libertarian candidate in 1996 and 2000)
Carl Watner (who was wrong about opposing electoral participation and right about everything else, as a “voluntaryist”)
Samuel Konkin III AKA SEK3 (who was wrong about opposing electoral participation and right about everything else, as a “voluntaryist”)
Ayn Rand (who was wrong to oppose the Libertarian Party on the stupid grounds that they didn’t defeat their candidates “out of the gate” by opposing religion, and other more minor things)
Nathaniel Branden (I link to Nathaniel Branden's "Objectivism and Libertarianism" here, because this is a common point of confusion amongst both libertarians and objectivists, as well as other less-educated contrarians. ...LOL)
Etc…
Many of the thinkers and philosophers were 90% right. …Ron Paul SEK3 and Ayn Rand among them. (I'd put Harry Browne over that 90%, but I'm horribly biased in his favor.)
Most of us won’t ever be Ron Paul, but most of us do have the ability to be the guy in front of their local courthouse handing out fliers, like Julian Heicklen and company did in the above video.
Should we do it smarter than they did? …Yes. Here are a few pointers on how to do that:
1) Wear a suit. A suit is good for 99% of conformists (a western button-up shirt is good for 80% of conformists, a radical t-shirt or sloppy appearance is good for the 10% of “non-superficial early adopters” …and you’re playing a “numbers game”). This means you’ll be more effective at targeting conformists. Conformists don’t evaluate the message alone, they evaluate the person’s appearance who’s delivering the message, and if they don’t think the person appears professional, the message is ignored. Moreover: mainstream conformists will be hand-picked to sit on the jury. If we don’t elevate logical conformists, it doesn’t matter how many early-adopters agree with us.
2) Hand out professionally printed materials, or at least adequate black and white text with the text found here: http://www.fija.org, without crazy-looking or cheap graphics.
3) Have your words prepared in advance to “draw in” spectators. Don’t stutter and stumble under pressure like Pete Eyre did (this is not a bad criticism –Eyre had the balls to do what was smart and film it, truing his course with feedback. I stumbled and stuttered my first few times standing up to the police too, and I was too damned stupidly financially broke to videotape it!!!). The only way the DHS goons will ever “stand down” is if a crowd of Americans actually stands up and shows that they exist (right now, they don’t exist, because being an American is being intellectually brave, and there must be information-containing-brains before there can be intellectual bravery).
4) Bring a friend and videotape it (these guys did this very well, but it bears repeating), and make sure there is one person who is present with a hidden camera and recorder who IS NOT HANDING OUT FLIERS OR TALKING TO PEOPLE. This is optimal, in case the police decide to arrest everyone and destroy all the footage –as they commonly do. Later, they deny everything in court, and it’s your word against a lying cop’s –the conformist tools hand-picked by the prosecution to sit on the jury always believe the cop.
5) Emphasize the fact that those who intend to nullify bad laws must not reveal this to the prosecutor during VOIR DIRE, and must have a set of planned responses ready for the prosecutors, should they ever be called for jury duty.
6) For those who support Ron Paul, or are already “halfway libertarian” emphasize: This is a top-level strategy in the heirarchy of all pro-freedom strategy, even if it doesn’t at first seem like it is. How do we know this? The state has overwhelmingly reacted against it, as they have recognized the threat to their dominion before the libertarin community has. Also: Why is it top level? Because if the Liberty Dollar had nullifiers on their jury, then freedom lovers and banks could “opt out of the dollar”, and act as “gold-only” transitional banks, and could print initial dollar-value denominations on their coins, encouraging large numbers of sheep to “opt out of the herd”.
This email has enough information for people to begin to learn how to effectively battle our enemy: the unlawful, unconstitutional, immoral, wrong, police state.
A part of that is saying “Not Guilty” when an immigrant is on trial for having crossed a state border illegally.
If you would say “Guilty”, then you are nothing more than the tool of a petty tyrant, encouraging the unchallenged dominion of lawlessness and injustice, under the color of law.
Only those who are wired for freedom can see the light on this issue, and it’s a testament to the fact that pro-freedom brushfires are even more enlightening than the spark that initially set them going (in 2007, Ron Paul).
Enlightenment values demand a free market in goods and services. A free market in services demands open immigration. Open immigration is the core value, it matters not what the constitution or law says about it. The laws against open immigration are “mala prohibita” in the same way the drug and gun laws are “mala prohibita”. Those bad laws should be ignored. Luckily, it’s constitutional to ignore bad laws, as Thomas Woods Jr.’s new book “Nullification” proves.
Tom Woods’ book references an earlier masterpiece with the same title, and a different subtitle that explains the role of the jury in nullification. That book is Clay Conrad’s masterpiece “Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine”.
If you stand for the constitution, and you take away nothing else from this writing, know this: The constitution allows citizens to veto the enforcement of laws that they personally believe are immoral or being unfairly applied. The founding fathers believed it was perfectly legitimate for a jury member to vote “Not Guilty” even if a person clearly broke the law.
There are mountains of proof for this viewpoint, (and plenty of quotes from the founding fathers) and you can obtain them at http://www.fija.org and http://www.jurorsforjustice.com
Don’t be a tool of the state. Don’t put your faith in any one man (politician). Get grounded in the ideas of freedom, and resist tyranny to your maximum ability. Encourage all others around you to do the same. Make sure every one of your family members agrees to vote “not guilty” when they are seated on a jury (if the law is wrong), and make sure every one of them knows how to get seated (how to not be removed during “voir dire”, and how to appear like a good little sheep until it’s time to strike the blow and say “NOT GUILTY”).
This is 100% of the game. This is 100% of the movement toward freedom. If you oppose me on this, you are nothing, you are a tyrant, and godspeed you to a quick destruction.
Peace (through superior intelligence),
-Jake
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Saturday, November 24, 2007
My updated comments on whom I think the most effective Libertarian Petitioner in the nation is...?
...And no, it's no longer Eric "straw man" Dondero. Eric is now the most effective _political pragmatist_ political petitioner in the nation. The following quote:
"Eric Dondero is simply the most effective, reliable, and consistent Libertarian political petitioner in the country." Jake Witmer, Libertarian Party of Alaska
attributed to me on ED's website went out-of-date on 11/20/2007. It was at this time that Eric indicated that he cared nothing for truth, and everything for the range of the moment paycheck (Which ideologically makes him more of a "Democrat" than anything else). (Eric apparently is trying to get a job as a political whore with the Giuliani campaign, and he realizes that he needs to sell his soul to that bucktoothed devil before they'll even consider him.)
Sure, it's possible to be an "interventionist libertarian", as Eric Dondero claims to be. I personally think that that stance requires a kind of gullibility regarding the perceived competence of both the federal government, and America's religious enemies, but it is philosophically possible and philosophically legitimate (stemming from the idea that it's the job of the government to provide for defense of the nation and thus prevent the anarchy of continual attack from threatening rogue nations). However, Eric is not a pro-war libertarian. He is a pro-war RINO (Republican in name only).
If domestic liberty mattered to Eric Dondero, THEN, and only then, he could be called a libertarian. --But Eric doesn't give a rat's ass about free trade, gun rights ( http://www.gunowners.org ), drug rights, medical rights ( http://www.healthfreedomusa.org ), jury rights ( http://www.fija.org ), or objective currency ( http://www.ronpaul2008.com ). If he did care about any of those things, he would swallow his pride, and support his old boss's presidential campaign.
But Eric's pride is the biggest thing in the world. And pride is what fires neurons in the prion-infested sponge that is his brain.
Eric would have to be insane in order for him to turn against his former boss, Ron Paul, at the very height of his (Ron Paul's) electability. Luckily, Ron Paul is as correct about Eric Dondero as he is everything else. Ron Paul has a perfect track record in his 20 years in congress. PERFECT. His opinion on Dondero? “If Eric Dondero is all I have to worry about, I don’t have much to worry about."
Giuliani (who is currently touted by Eric Dondero as a "libertarian") is just another goddamned corporate fascist who in no way stands for individual liberty. Even a cursory look online will reveal this, and anyone who "googles" Giuliani in any depth will find that he was a terrible tyrant of a prosecutor who stood squarely against property rights of any kind. (Google: Milken Giuliani to see what he did to stockmarket traders for the 'horrible crime' of investing their money in low-priced stocks.)
Therefore, to support Giuliani over Paul is not just anti-libertarian, it's also demonstrably stupid. Eric convinced no intelligent person that Giuliani was libertarian. Moreover, the only thing he is doing is getting a few unintelligent people to mistakenly think they are either libertarian (if they like Giuliani) or mistakenly think they are not libertarian (if they dont like Giuliani). Either way, the only thing Dondero has done is to create a small amount of confusion amongst a small number of already confused people.
Before throwing himself full force into the job of selling his own soul, Dondero actually was a good mostly-libertarian petitioner. (He would get around 200 signatures per day in a location where a really good petitioner would get around 300). But, admittedly, he was consistent. He took no days off, and he would steadily do those 200 signatures. Well, shit, I guess I'd better give the military some credit for training him.
In 2006 he helped me out by going to Anchorage, Alaska to try to repeal a socialist-sponsored ban on smoking that wound up passing anyway. The passage of this local ban made me realize that although Alaska might be worth fighting for, there needs to be a media war waged against the socialist assholes who run Anchorage before it will make any difference.
...So I gave Eric a compliment at his website that he no longer deserves. Incidentally, I also recently blocked him from all of my email accounts, for not replying to any logical point I raised (as a legitimate adversary would have done), but for merely repeating his earlier and fully-refuted arguments. (Eric follows the mantra of Hitler, believing that if something is said often enough, people will start to believe it. Hence, he is a busy beaver online, repeating his lies and distortions on as many webpages as possible, and promoting his own lie-filled blogs to the maximum.)
Sadly (for Eric), now that he has entered the ranks of political pragmatist petitioners, there are thousands of more effective petitioners all across the nation. Moreover, if Dondero is hired by you, you can't really be sure where his loyalties lie. (After all, just look at the teensy-tiny, ineffective smear campaign he's tried to mount against his former boss, Ron Paul. He tried every trick in the book, and a few political insiders and a few liberal reporters even briefly paid a bit of attention to him!) Perhaps Eric's loyalties are in the same dark anus where his head is currently located! The questions: is it Giuliani's or his own? ...and... ...does it really matter?
As far as the most effective libertarian petitioner in the nation, I think the title currently goes to Russell Bagget, who was referred to me by Richard Winger of ballot access news ( www.ballot-access.org ). Russell has pulled a minimum of 250 signatures per day out of post offices every single day this past week. He has regularly cleared the 300 signature mark, in rural areas in Illinois' 17th and 18th districts.
Of course, he has the distinction of working for Ron Paul, Eric's old boss (who is an actual libertarian Republican).
Russell Baggett is certainly one of the most effective petitioners in the nation. His per signature average is MUCH higher than Dondero's ever was. And he gets up earlier and dawdles less than Eric.
From my conversation with Russell, he sounds like a libertarian Republican. ...And of course, he actually has the distinction of working for one, ...unlike Eric.
To recap: I am glad that Eric has done libertarian work in the past, but I am not glad he's currently working in favor of pure undiluted fascism. This marks him as a mark, a hired gun, an apolitical pigeon of political pragmatism -NOT a libertarian. And if one is a petitioner, but not a libertarian petitioner, then who cares? ...Any young ruffian can be plucked off the streets and paid a buck a sig from the taxpayer's wallet.
...So 'good luck' with pimping "Ghouliani" AKA "Nosferatuliani" AKA "drag-queen anti-gun fascist from NYC", Eric. I hope that works out for y... ...uhh... ...actually, I hope it gets you exactly what you deserve.
"Eric Dondero is simply the most effective, reliable, and consistent Libertarian political petitioner in the country." Jake Witmer, Libertarian Party of Alaska
attributed to me on ED's website went out-of-date on 11/20/2007. It was at this time that Eric indicated that he cared nothing for truth, and everything for the range of the moment paycheck (Which ideologically makes him more of a "Democrat" than anything else). (Eric apparently is trying to get a job as a political whore with the Giuliani campaign, and he realizes that he needs to sell his soul to that bucktoothed devil before they'll even consider him.)
Sure, it's possible to be an "interventionist libertarian", as Eric Dondero claims to be. I personally think that that stance requires a kind of gullibility regarding the perceived competence of both the federal government, and America's religious enemies, but it is philosophically possible and philosophically legitimate (stemming from the idea that it's the job of the government to provide for defense of the nation and thus prevent the anarchy of continual attack from threatening rogue nations). However, Eric is not a pro-war libertarian. He is a pro-war RINO (Republican in name only).
If domestic liberty mattered to Eric Dondero, THEN, and only then, he could be called a libertarian. --But Eric doesn't give a rat's ass about free trade, gun rights ( http://www.gunowners.org ), drug rights, medical rights ( http://www.healthfreedomusa.org ), jury rights ( http://www.fija.org ), or objective currency ( http://www.ronpaul2008.com ). If he did care about any of those things, he would swallow his pride, and support his old boss's presidential campaign.
But Eric's pride is the biggest thing in the world. And pride is what fires neurons in the prion-infested sponge that is his brain.
Eric would have to be insane in order for him to turn against his former boss, Ron Paul, at the very height of his (Ron Paul's) electability. Luckily, Ron Paul is as correct about Eric Dondero as he is everything else. Ron Paul has a perfect track record in his 20 years in congress. PERFECT. His opinion on Dondero? “If Eric Dondero is all I have to worry about, I don’t have much to worry about."
Giuliani (who is currently touted by Eric Dondero as a "libertarian") is just another goddamned corporate fascist who in no way stands for individual liberty. Even a cursory look online will reveal this, and anyone who "googles" Giuliani in any depth will find that he was a terrible tyrant of a prosecutor who stood squarely against property rights of any kind. (Google: Milken Giuliani to see what he did to stockmarket traders for the 'horrible crime' of investing their money in low-priced stocks.)
Therefore, to support Giuliani over Paul is not just anti-libertarian, it's also demonstrably stupid. Eric convinced no intelligent person that Giuliani was libertarian. Moreover, the only thing he is doing is getting a few unintelligent people to mistakenly think they are either libertarian (if they like Giuliani) or mistakenly think they are not libertarian (if they dont like Giuliani). Either way, the only thing Dondero has done is to create a small amount of confusion amongst a small number of already confused people.
Before throwing himself full force into the job of selling his own soul, Dondero actually was a good mostly-libertarian petitioner. (He would get around 200 signatures per day in a location where a really good petitioner would get around 300). But, admittedly, he was consistent. He took no days off, and he would steadily do those 200 signatures. Well, shit, I guess I'd better give the military some credit for training him.
In 2006 he helped me out by going to Anchorage, Alaska to try to repeal a socialist-sponsored ban on smoking that wound up passing anyway. The passage of this local ban made me realize that although Alaska might be worth fighting for, there needs to be a media war waged against the socialist assholes who run Anchorage before it will make any difference.
...So I gave Eric a compliment at his website that he no longer deserves. Incidentally, I also recently blocked him from all of my email accounts, for not replying to any logical point I raised (as a legitimate adversary would have done), but for merely repeating his earlier and fully-refuted arguments. (Eric follows the mantra of Hitler, believing that if something is said often enough, people will start to believe it. Hence, he is a busy beaver online, repeating his lies and distortions on as many webpages as possible, and promoting his own lie-filled blogs to the maximum.)
Sadly (for Eric), now that he has entered the ranks of political pragmatist petitioners, there are thousands of more effective petitioners all across the nation. Moreover, if Dondero is hired by you, you can't really be sure where his loyalties lie. (After all, just look at the teensy-tiny, ineffective smear campaign he's tried to mount against his former boss, Ron Paul. He tried every trick in the book, and a few political insiders and a few liberal reporters even briefly paid a bit of attention to him!) Perhaps Eric's loyalties are in the same dark anus where his head is currently located! The questions: is it Giuliani's or his own? ...and... ...does it really matter?
As far as the most effective libertarian petitioner in the nation, I think the title currently goes to Russell Bagget, who was referred to me by Richard Winger of ballot access news ( www.ballot-access.org ). Russell has pulled a minimum of 250 signatures per day out of post offices every single day this past week. He has regularly cleared the 300 signature mark, in rural areas in Illinois' 17th and 18th districts.
Of course, he has the distinction of working for Ron Paul, Eric's old boss (who is an actual libertarian Republican).
Russell Baggett is certainly one of the most effective petitioners in the nation. His per signature average is MUCH higher than Dondero's ever was. And he gets up earlier and dawdles less than Eric.
From my conversation with Russell, he sounds like a libertarian Republican. ...And of course, he actually has the distinction of working for one, ...unlike Eric.
To recap: I am glad that Eric has done libertarian work in the past, but I am not glad he's currently working in favor of pure undiluted fascism. This marks him as a mark, a hired gun, an apolitical pigeon of political pragmatism -NOT a libertarian. And if one is a petitioner, but not a libertarian petitioner, then who cares? ...Any young ruffian can be plucked off the streets and paid a buck a sig from the taxpayer's wallet.
...So 'good luck' with pimping "Ghouliani" AKA "Nosferatuliani" AKA "drag-queen anti-gun fascist from NYC", Eric. I hope that works out for y... ...uhh... ...actually, I hope it gets you exactly what you deserve.
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