Blog Chez Jacq'

Governor Palin's "inexperience" is a talking point that might have some plausibility if it were not for the fact that Barack Obama has far less experience in actually making policies than Sarah Palin has. Joe Biden has had decades of experience in being both consistently wrong and consistently a source of asinine statements.

Labels: corruption, politics

Ask the average person his opinion of politicians. You'll hear words like crooks, hustlers and tyrants.

The reason for this dim assessment of politicians is that in all societies, the scum, with few exceptions, tends to rise to the top. Let's look at it.

People want government to do all manner of things, things that if done privately would lead to condemnation and jail sentences. Some want government to give money to farmers, poor folk, college students, senior citizens and businesses.

There's no Santa Claus or tooth fairy. The only way government can give money to one person is to forcibly take it from another person. If I privately used the same method to raise money for a "deserving" college student, homeless person or businessman, I'd face theft charges.

Others among us want government to protect wild wolves, bears and the Stephens kangaroo rat even if it results in gross violations of private property and loss of lives.

The problem is that some people disagree with having their earnings taken to satisfy someone else's wishes. They don't want the Corps of Engineers and the Fish and Wildlife Service dictating to them what they can and cannot do with their property to ensure a habitat for the kangaroo rat. Force and threats must be used.

Here's the question: Could the average American kill a person who resolutely refuses to give up his earnings so Congress can give it to farmers? Could you kill a person who insists on using all of his property, even though some wolves have set up a den on it?

You say, "What do you mean, Williams: kill?"

Here s a scenario: The Corps of engineers commands me not to remove debris from a drainage ditch on my property, placed there by beavers building a dam, because the debris creates a wetland. I remove it anyway.

The Corps of Engineers fines me. I refuse to pay the unjust fine. The Corps of Engineers threatens to seize my land. I say no, you won't; it's my land, and I'll protect it.

A politician sends marshals to take it, and I get killed defending it.

Few Americans have the stomach or ruthlessness to do what is necessary to make their governmental wishes come true. But they are willing to abandon constitutional principles and rule of law so that those with the stomach for ruthlessness have the tools of massive central government power to achieve those wishes.

The path we're embarked upon, in the name of good, is a familiar one. The unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism did not begin in the '30s and '40s with the men usually associated with- those names.

Those horrors were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to the consolidation of power in central government in the name of "social justice."
It was decent but misguided Germans, who would have cringed at the thought of extermination and genocide, who built the Trojan Horse for Hitler to take over.

We Americans promote disrespect for our Constitution, rule of law and private property in our pursuit of "social justice." But the scum that rises to the top has an agenda of control that's leading toward totalitarianism.

Incidentally, it's no coincidence that most of those at the top are lawyers: people with a special, seemingly tutored contempt for our Constitution and rule of law.

Labels: constitution, corruption, police state, politics, western culture

"Obama must realize that government has no wealth of its own and that commandeering scarce resources from the private sector only stifles the economy. Deficit spending does this two ways. When the Treasury borrows money, it outbids private borrowers who would have put the money to productive use. When the Fed creates money, it depreciates the dollar, shifts purchasing power from the people to special interests, and -- by tampering with the price signals -- creates an unsustainable recovery that will collapse and throw people out of work when the inflation stops."

Labels: government tyranny

"When a firm routinely fails to turn a profit, there are bankruptcy pressures. The firm's resources, workers, building and capital become available to someone else who might put them to better use. When government steps in with a bailout, it enables executives to continue mismanaging resources."

Labels: corruption, government tyranny

If the key to prosperity is a centrally planned economy fueled by fiat currency, why isn’t Zimbabwe the wealthiest nation in history?

Labels: world gov'ment

It's freezing here. I'm sitting on hard, cold dirt between rocks and shrubs at the base of the Hindu Kush Mountains along the Dar 'yoi Pomir River watching a hole that leads to a tunnel that leads to a cave. Stake out, my friend, and no pizza delivery for thousands of miles.

I also glance at the area around my ass every ten to fifteen seconds to avoid another scorpion sting. I've actually given up battling the chiggers and sand fleas, but them scorpions give a jolt like a cattle prod. Hurts like a bastard. The antidote tastes like transmission fluid, but God bless the Marine Corps for the five vials of it in my pack.

The one truth the Taliban cannot escape is that, believe it or not, they are human beings, which means they have to eat food and drink water. That requires couriers and that's where an old bounty hunter like me comes in handy. I track the couriers, locate the tunnel entrances and storage facilities, type the info into the handheld, shoot the coordinates up to the satellite link that tells the air commanders where to drop the hardware, we bash some heads for a while, then I track and record the new movement.

It's all about intelligence. We haven't even brought in the snipers yet. These scurrying rats have no idea what they're in for. We are but days away from cutting off supply lines and allowing the eradication to begin.

I dream of bin Laden waking up to find me standing over him with my boot on his throat as I spit into his face and plunge my nickel plated Bowie knife through his frontal lobe. But you know me. I'm a romantic.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: This country blows, man. It's not even a country. There are no roads, there's no infrastructure, there's no government. This is an inhospitable, rock pit shit hole ruled by eleventh-century warring tribes. There are no jobs here as we know jobs.

Afghanistan offers two ways for a man to support his family: join the opium trade or join the army. That's it. Those are your options. Oh, I forgot, you can also live in a refugee camp and eat plum-sweetened, crushed beetle paste and squirt mud like a goose with stomach flu if that's your idea of a party. But the smell alone of those “tent cities of the walking dead” is enough to hurl you into the poppy fields to cheerfully scrape bulbs for eighteen hours a day.

I've been living with these Tajiks and Uzbeks and Turkmen and even a couple of Pushtins for over a month and a half now and this much I can say for sure: These guys, all of 'em, are actual, living Huns. They LIVE to fight. It's what they do. It's ALL they do. They have no respect for anything, not for their families or for each other or for themselves. They claw at one another as a way of life. They play polo with dead calves and force their five-year-old sons into human cockfights to defend the family honor. Huns, roaming packs of savage, heartless beasts who feed on each other's barbarism. Cavemen with
AK47's. Then again, maybe I'm just cranky.

I'm freezing my ass off on this stupid hill because my lap warmer is running out of juice and I can't recharge it until the sun comes up in a few hours.
Oh yeah! You like to write letters, right? Do me a favor, Bizarre. Write a letter to CNN and tell Wolf and Anderson and that awful, sneering, pompous Aaron Brown to stop calling the Taliban “smart.” They are not smart. I suggest CNN invest in a dictionary because the word they are looking for is “cunning.” The Taliban are cunning, like jackals and hyenas and wolverines. They are sneaky and ruthless and, when confronted, cowardly. They are hateful, malevolent parasites who create nothing and destroy everything else.

Smart. Pfft. Yeah, they're real smart.

They've spent their entire lives reading only one book (and not a very good one, as books go) and consider hygiene and indoor plumbing to be products of the devil. They're still figuring out how to work a Bic lighter. Talking to a Taliban warrior about improving his quality of life is like trying to teach an ape how to hold a pen; eventually he just gets frustrated and sticks you in the eye with it.

OK, enough.

Snuffle will be up soon so I have to get back to my hole. Covering my tracks in the snow takes a lot of practice but I'm good at it. Please, I tell you and my fellow Americans to turn off the TV sets and move on with your lives.

The story line you are getting from CNN and other news agencies is utter bullshit and designed not to deliver truth but rather to keep you glued to the screen through the commercials. We've got this one under control The worst thing you guys can do right now is sit around analyzing what we're doing over here because you have no idea what we're doing and, really, you don't want to know. We are your military and we are doing what you sent us here to do.

You wanna help? Buy Bonds America.

Labels: semper fi

Labels: world gov'ment

Labels: diversion, energy, travel

A Major Wake-Up Call?

Tuesday evening was a sad night for America, a very bad setback politically in which the party/faction most responsible for undermining those values and principles which once made America a great nation stacked up many electoral wins, not only in the presidential campaign, but also in both the House and Senate, adding to their already large majorities in Congress. There is no sugar coating of this: This bodes bad for America's future.

The U.S. economy, historically at least, provided more opportunities for more people than any other system in the history of the world because it approached (but never achieved in full measure) laissez-faire capitalism. It was the most moral and efficient economic system in human history. To the extent that it still exists, it is capitalism -- the system of private ownership and the freedom to save, invest, market, and trade -- which made American economic advances possible. And it is capitalism -- to the extent it is still allowed to exist -- that is the powerhouse behind America's military strength and national security. To the extent that that system has been undermined by taxes, regulations, controls, judicial restrictions, and the ever-increasing burdens of government spending programs, to that extent America's national health and success have been increasingly undermined and are at risk of being destroyed.

As a result of the election of Barrack Obama as President and the clear majorities controlled by the Democrat Party in Congress, we can expect several deleterious consequences over the next several months and years. We can expect the new regime to do as much as it can to consolidate its power and try to prevent losing it ever again. I expect the Senate will propose new legislation for federal government censorship of talk radio programs with which it disagrees. Anyone in talk radio who dares to voice disagreement with the Obama regime will be attacked as "racist" or "reactionary" and steps will be taken by the new government to drive them off the air.

The U.S. economy, already burdened by financial crises brought on by previous programs of government meddling, could become stagnated into a long-lasting depression under the new Democrat power monopoly in Washington. These politicians are like four-year-old kids playing with matches in a room full of dynamite sticks. Of course the partisan "news" media networks will help the Democrats blame any problems on the other party and the supposed demon of free enterprise -- even though America has been taken a very long way from its free-market roots. Like the communists, American Democrats, both in and out of the media, are brilliant propagandists and always accuse their opponents of what they themselves are guilty of.

In foreign affairs, we can expect appeasement and concessions to America's enemies and potential military adversaries -- from Russia's Putin to Red Beijing to the ayatollahs of Iran. Because of Obama's perceived weakness and inexperience, he will be "tested" by a revival of Russian socialist imperialism in Georgia and the Ukraine, and China, still under communist control, will continue its massive military buildup, and take an increasingly adversarial stance with respect to the United States. America will move closer to war under Obama while the relative freedom achieved over the past two decades in some parts of the world will begin to slip away once more as socialist imperialism renews its deadly march.

Depending on whether Obama is a one-term or two-term President, he will have opportunities to appoint the most left-leaning (ultra-statist) judges to the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. The salutary appointments made by President Bush of Roberts and Alito cannot be reversed, but Obama will try to create a permanent Democrat majority on the high court and continue the Clinton administration's practice of packing the federal judiciary with partisan Democrats.

What should freedom-loving Americans do? Resistance! This is not the time for cooperation and conciliation. This is the time to continue to build resistance to these advances in socialist tyranny. Now, more than ever. I predict that secessionist movements may see a revival in Texas, Alaska, and elsewhere. Those who support the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the U.S. Bill of Rights must work to restore their legal force. And our Second Amendment rights as armed citizens must be preserved at all costs, else none of our other rights will be secure.

If the Republican Party is to become a vehicle to retake America its leadership must change and it must be better prepared to wage the ideological battles with its political adversaries, a party that has moved further and further in the direction of the totalitarian left in recent decades that the communist Party no longer runs candidates for President. Given the way the political system works in the U.S., third party efforts are doomed to fail on the national level. What is needed is not a third party but rather a new second party. Before we can take back America, we must first take the Republican Party which all too often has included politicians guilty of me-tooism and collusion with the Democrats. What America needs is a choice, not an echo.

If 9/11/01 was America's wake-up call about terrorism, 11/04/08 was a final political wake-up call for many Americans who have been complacent and out of touch with what has been going on for the past several decades in the struggles for power in the national political arena. If nothing else, at least one good thing came from this presidential campaign: the national news services (with the possible exception of Fox News) were so blatantly obvious in their pro-Democrat anti-GOP partisanship and bigotry in their coverage that only morons who were not paying attention could fail to notice. With its credibility shattered (at least among intellectually honest thinking people with some brains), the leading wire services, TV networks, big newspapers, and national slick magazines (especially Time, Newsweek, U.S,. News) showed themselves to be unofficial spokespersons for the DNC. If Americans are ever going to recapture their country and get Big Government under any kind of control or limitation, conservatives and libertarians must get into the media and in academia. Americans must find alternative venues for news and analysis -- and reject the superficial "liberal" talking points offered up as conventional wisdom by the television networks and other organs of the drive-by media.

The U.S. will survive the Democrat Party sweep of 2008 -- but only if enough good people take action over the next few years to reverse statist encroachments. Get informed and inform others -- and stop watching network television!

Labels: constitution, economics, politics, world gov'ment

Greetings in the Name of Him Who Is Truth!

Americans have voted a president in Barack Hussein Obama that has told them he would rather let babies who survived abortion die than put the validity of abortion in jeopardy; that he would support homosexual unions; that he would tax the entire coal industry out of business; that he believes spreading the wealth around is good for everybody; and that he believes there is more than one way to God with Christ being a historical figure who serves as a bridge between man and God. Yet the world is celebrating the progressive Americans for electing the first ever Arab African to the office of President of the United States.

But to this nation, founded under God, the election of a man with such social, political and spiritual beliefs to its highest office will have lasting and serious implications. If he is successful in leading this nation the way that he has outlined to the public, America will fall further away from its founding roots, further from its belief in God, further from holding to traditional values of family and marriage, further from embracing the founding economic principles of working hard and smart and creating wealth by pursuing the American dream-a dream that until of late has been weighted in favor of rugged individualism and significantly less government intervention.

The times ahead will be challenging for believers in Jesus Christ. Religious liberties will be pressured in all directions at a faster pace than ever before in American history. Freedom of speech will be challenged, especially in areas where the Bible is counter to the culture of homosexuality and the false religion of Islam. Persecution of those who believe the Bible could become legal through the hate speech initiatives spelled out by Obama's campaign website. And Israel will oft find itself isolated as America accelerates its pace toward diplomatic resolutions to the Middle East by direct talks with terrorist sponsoring states. These are not prophetic utterances, they are what Obama promised to do if elected.

The foundational tenets of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are about to change for every American. Patriots of the America of the Founding Fathers and citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven must aspire to boldness in the uncompromising mission of the Great Commission. Romans Chapter 13 explains how to be subject to the higher powers for they are ordained by God. Romans 13:11-12 says, "And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light." Armor, you know, is for battle. And light conquers darkness.

Have a Blessed and Powerful Day!
Bill Wilson

Labels: abortion, constitution, government tyranny, mendacity, religion, western culture, world gov'ment

For the U.S. Congress, news media, pundits and much of the American public, a lot of economic phenomena can be explained by what people want, human greed and what seems plausible. I'm going to name this branch of economic "science" wackonomics and apply it to some of today's observations and issues.

Since July this year, crude oil prices have fallen from $147 to $64 a barrel. Similarly, average gasoline prices have fallen from over $4 to a national average of $2.69 a gallon. When crude oil and gasoline were reaching their historical highs, Congress and other wackoeconomists blamed it on greedy oil company CEOs in their lust for obscene profits. But what explains today's lower prices? The only answer, consistent with wackonomic theory, is easy: Oil company CEOs have lost their lust for obscene profits. Or, maybe, since many of these CEOs are getting up in years, they might have begun to heed Matthew's warning (19:24), "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Speaking of CEOs, there's the "unconscionable," "obscene" salaries they receive, in some cases over $10 million a year. Wackonomics has an easy answer for these high salaries: it's greed. However, CEOs don't have the corner on greed. There are other greedy people we don't scorn but hold in high esteem. According to Forbes' Celebrity 100 list, Oprah Winfrey receives $275 million, Steven Spielberg gets $130 million, Tiger Woods $115 million, Jay Leno $32 million and Dr. Phil $40 million. I need to talk to these people and learn their strategy. I've been making every effort to get that kind of money. I go to bed greedy, dream greedy dreams, awaken greedy and proceed through the day greedy. Despite my heroic efforts, it's all been for naught; I earn a pittance by comparison.

Wackonomics can help us understand what some people call the income distribution. The logical extension of wackonomic thought is that the unequal or unfair distribution of income is the handiwork of a dollar dealer who distributes dollars. The dollar dealer might deal one person a million dollars a year while dealing most others a mere pittance like $10, $20 or $30 thousand a year. Thus, the reason why some people are wealthy while others are poor is because the dollar dealer is a racist, sexist, a multi-nationalist, or just plain mean. Economic justice requires a re-dealing of the dollars, income redistribution or spreading the wealth, where the government takes the ill-gotten gains of the few and returns them to their rightful owners. Wackonomics might have a greed-based explanation for income inequality. There is a pile of money called income and greedy people got there first and took their unfair share. Similarly, economic justice requires a redistribution of income.

Wackonomics isn't just practiced by the uninitiated. This year's Nobel Laureate, Princeton University Professor Paul Krugman, after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, gave one rendition of wackonomics in his column "After the Horror," New York Times (9/14/01). Krugman wrote, "Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack -- like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression -- could do some economic good." He went on to point out how rebuilding the destruction in New York and Washington, D. C., would stimulate the economy through business investment and job creation. For practitioners of non-wackonomics, this reasoning doesn't even pass the smell test. If Professor Krugman's vision is correct, and extending his logic, the terrorists would have made an even larger contribution to our economic well-being had they been able to fly a plane into the White House and destroyed buildings in other cities.

Wackonomics isn't all bad. There's an upside to it. It spares people the bother of having to understand the complexities of the world.

Labels: corruption, economics, mendacity

In the United States, the Bill of Rights is the name by which the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution are known.[1] They were introduced by James Madison to the First United States Congress in 1789 as a series of constitutional amendments, and came into effect on December 15, 1791, when they had been ratified by three-fourths of the States. The Bill of Rights limits the powers of the federal government of the United States, protecting the rights of all citizens, residents and visitors on United States territory.

The Bill of Rights protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right to keep and bear arms, the freedom of assembly, and the freedom to petition. It also prohibits unreasonable search and seizure, cruel and unusual punishment, and compelled self-incrimination. The Bill of Rights also prohibits Congress from making any law respecting establishment of religion and prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. In federal criminal cases, it requires indictment by grand jury for any capital or "infamous crime", guarantees a speedy public trial with an impartial jury composed of members of the state or judicial district in which the crime occurred, and prohibits double jeopardy. In addition, the Bill of Rights states that "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people,"[2] and reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the citizenry or States. Most of these restrictions were later applied to the states by a series of decisions applying the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1868, after the American Civil War.

Madison proposed the Bill of Rights while ideological conflict between Federalists and anti-Federalists, dating from the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, threatened the overall ratification of the new national Constitution. It largely responded to the Constitution's influential opponents, including prominent Founding Fathers, who argued that the Constitution should not be ratified because it failed to protect the basic principles of human liberty. The Bill was influenced by George Mason's 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, works of the Age of Enlightenment pertaining to natural rights, and earlier English political documents such as Magna Carta (1215).

Two additional articles were proposed to the States; only the final ten articles were ratified quickly and correspond to the First through Tenth Amendments to the Constitution. The first Article, dealing with the number and apportionment of U.S. Representatives, never became part of the Constitution. The second Article, limiting the ability of Congress to increase the salaries of its members, was ratified two centuries later as the 27th Amendment. Though they are incorporated into the document known as the "Bill of Rights", neither article establishes a right as that term is used today. For that reason, and also because the term had been applied to the first ten amendments long before the 27th Amendment was ratified, the term "Bill of Rights" in modern U.S. usage means only the ten amendments ratified in 1791.

The Bill of Rights plays a central role in American law and government, and remains a fundamental symbol of the freedoms and culture of the nation. One of the original fourteen copies of the Bill of Rights is on public display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

Labels: constitution

Labels: corruption, economics, humor

Although he says his constituents were overwhelmingly against the $700 billion rescue package, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver said he voted for it Friday out of both “fear and education.”

Cleaver was the only member of the Missouri and Kansas congressional delegation to switch his vote from Monday.

The four other House members representing the Kansas City region did not change their votes from Monday. Democrats Dennis Moore of Kansas and Ike Skelton of Missouri voted for it both times, while Democrat Nancy Boyda of Kansas and Republican Sam Graves of Missouri remained opposed to it.

Labels: constitution, corruption, federal reserve, mendacity, politics

Fred Throws Sombrero in Ring

The Only Thing We Have to Be Afred of is Fred Hisself

September 24, 2008

I see that I shall have to come out of retirement and become President. It is the only hope for the country and the world. That I am willing to undergo the humiliation of the office is a measure of the depth of my sense of duty. Though perhaps I will do it under an assumed name.

First things first. I will need a stirring bumper sticker, this being the key to high office. What? I’m considering “Fred! Piss Poor but Look at the Rest.” Or “A Fred in Every Pot,” or perhaps “Better Fred than Dead”? Or “Tippecanoe and Frederick Too.” The possibilities are endless. In any event, election is a mere detail. Given the competition, the country will flock to my standard. Or wish it had.

Next I’ll need some promises. How about :When in office, I will do the following wholesome things:

Education. Put a bounty on members of the teachers unions. The season will start with a week for bow hunters and black powder and then be open to all. No bag limit. Think stuffed heads over the mantle. “Ah, yes, Miss Grundy. I knew her well.”

That accomplished, I will require a score of 1200 on the old SATs, before the dumbing-down, for teaching positions. I will then raise salaries until such people take the job. The schools today are in the hands of people too dim to know what schooling is, and resentful of people who have it or might want it. They remind me of vegetarian butchers: The whole concept doesn't work.

Then I will have everyone in the Department of Education strangled (possible electoral slogan: “Strangulation in the Common Interest”). Local governments will run their schools as they damned well please. Ha. Ha ha!

The military: I will support a constitutional amendment requiring that Congress declare all wars. (I know, but it doesn’t work.) This would have spared us Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and perhaps Afghanistan. The first urge of Congress is reelection, and the second, the avoidance of responsibility. They will never spawn a war they have to admit to.

Further (an old favorite of mine), I will require that the mothers of the graduating class at Harvard be strapped to the glacis plates of any tanks sent to foreign wars. Joan Baez will be my Chairman of the JCS. She’s a decent woman, sane, and has a nice voice. I bet the incumbent can’t sing at all.

Under my guidance, the military will assume a new mission of defending the United States rather than being a presidential hobby. I know: This is radical, but radical times require radical solutions.

I will put the defense contractors under Apple Computer. They will then beaver away making groovy if unnecessary gadgets to sell to bored teenagers. This will at least do no harm, and perhaps allow the US to compete with Japan in consumer electronics. Though I doubt it.

Energy. I will issue a cyanide pill to all Americans. When vines begin growing through the fan belts of the SUVs, because there is no gas, they will pop the pill. This will reduce the consumption of energy, and for that matter drop the population to a reasonable level—say, twenty people.

Suicide really is the only practical solution. Democracies have the foresight of retarded rabbits and never notice the inescapable, such as that the world’s demand for oil grows and the supply doesn’t. Anyone who points this out is called a commie, anti-market, un-American, a green, and accused of links to the Sierra Club.

Pills on the way.

Social policy. I will end affirmative action, zap. It does nothing but inspire division and resentment. Well, it also prevents its beneficiaries from doing anything to better themselves, since they don’t have to. Like all federal do-goodery, it is a magnet for grifters, crooked lobbies, charlatans, shysters, and bus-station rabble. If you need affirmative action, you aren’t good enough; if you if you are good enough, you don’t need it; and if you take it anyway, you are a freeloader.

Foreign policy. I will end the embargo of Cuba. It’s stupid, gives the US a terrible rep in Latin America, accomplishes nothing of use, and makes life hard for eleven million perfectly good Cubans. If the professional pseudo-Cubans in Miami object, I’ll have the frauds freeze-dried and air-dropped on some starving country in Africa. (Possible slogan: “Every cloud has a protein lining.”) Cannibalism gets a bum rap.

I will tell the Israelis to get back inside the 1967 borders, be a Jewish state, and shut up—especially the latter—or they will never see another American dollar or F16. I will then give the Palestinians exorbitant aid to build a country unless they attack Israel again, at which point I’ll spray anthrax on the whole place. This probably won’t work, but it has a better chance than anything else.

I pledge to end the lamebrain policy of looking for a war with Russia. The US has now put NATO, an anti-Russian military alliance, in the Baltics, on the Russian border; in Poland, on the Russian border, and is trying to bring Georgia, on the Russian border, into NATO. The US and NATO have large combat forces in Afghanistan, on the Russian border, and want to colonize it. Not smart. Think Canada, Mexico, and Cuba in the Warsaw Pact.

There are three levels of military stupidity: stupid, really and truly stupid, and war with Russia. Right now we’re going for the brass ring.

I will bring the GIs home from Korea. If South Korea wants to defend itself, it easily can. If it doesn’t, I don’t care.

Further, (I’m really getting into this) I will bring the GIs home from Europe. There’s nobody there we need to fight. As for Bosnia and suchlike geographic trash, last time I looked they were in Europe. Europe can worry about them. The US is not Europe’s mother.

Purple-haired dyke feminists: These venomous lynxes have done enough harm that I shall have to be firm. All public doorways will have a spectrophotometer to detect purpleness at hair level. When this happens, a laser will light up and, ssssssssPOP! her head will explode. The entire membership of NOW will be sent to Bangladesh to work in a jute factory. Since most of them look like fire plugs with leprosy, on their return they will be required to wear burqas.

The economy. I am against compulsory redistribution of wealth. This usually means taking money from those who earn it, and giving it to the federal government. If federal employees want to eat, they can plant corn. Or eat their cyanide pills. I will encourage the latter as simpler.

Finally, patriotism will become a capital offense. It serves chiefly as a mechanism allowing rogues and pathological short men to send our puzzled teenagers to kill someone else’s. Iraq can kill its own damn teenagers if it likes. I understand the urge, having had teenagers, but it isn’t my job.

How can I lose? The Age of Fred dawns.

Labels: economics, education, military, politics, taxes

I continue to wish the Libertarian and Constitution Parties well. The more votes they get, the better. I have attended Libertarian Party conventions frequently over the years.

In some states, one can be on the ballots of two parties, as they can in New York. This is good and attacks the monopoly control of politics by Republicans and Democrats. We need more states to permit this option. This will be a good project for the Campaign for Liberty, along with the alliance we are building to change the process.

I’ve thought about the unsolicited advice from the Libertarian Party candidate, and he has convinced me to reject my neutral stance in the November election. I’m supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate.

Labels: constitution, government tyranny, politics

Pat Buchanan has written a brilliant description of the circumstances surrounding our incipient economic collapse [Please see http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=76313] However, he is wrong when he writes of the proposed bailout, "Nevertheless, it must be done, and done now, as collapse is imminent." Mr. Buchanan is wrong for the same reasons President Bush was wrong the other night when he told the nation that government intervention was needed "because financial markets are no longer working."

In fact, the financial markets ARE working. They are doing exactly what they are supposed to do. They are running away from worthless "investments" as fast as possible. Unless and until the market corrects the toxic legacy of decades of market manipulation by the Federal government and the Federal Reserve, economic order will not be restored. That correction is apt to be very painful.

The so-called bailout cannot work for the same reason that one cannot rescue a drowning man by pouring more water in the swimming pool. The U.S. is not in trouble because of insufficient debt. We are experiencing the inevitable end of the world's longest running Ponzi scheme.

The proposed bailout will not add one penny of real value to overpriced houses nor in any way diminish the gap between excessive mortgages and the true value of the houses being held as collateral. The bailout will not increase demand for the houses that account for residential real estate's excess inventory. What the bailout will do is rapidly accelerate the implosion of the dollar, precipitating decisions by foreign governments and sovereign wealth funds to stop purchasing our debt. When that occurs, the wheels will well and truly fall off.

Labels: economics, politics

Labels: government tyranny, Political "Correctness" racism, politics

The Creation of the Second Great Depression

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.
The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress’ throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we’re being told it’s unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences – predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics – are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.
• Financial institutions are "designated as financial agents of the Government." This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
• Then there’s this: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this "sadly necessary." Sad, yes. Necessary? Don’t make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind – another example of the big choice we’re supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they’re not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we’ll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

September 25, 2008

Labels: constitution, federal reserve, government tyranny, Political "Correctness"

PREMISES

Those who know me, know that in early June I dropped almost everything to deal with a family emergency. It is not as if there was a sudden dearth of topics. There was the Georgia-Russia fracas which took our minds off Iran, the two major-party coronations (or Nuremberg rallies, if you prefer), Ron Paul's alternative convention in Minneapolis, the evidence of intimidation and unconstitutional harassment of supporters of Ron Paul in and around the McCain coronation, the bailout out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, bank failures and other signs of a rapidly deteriorating economy, the sudden appearance of Sarah Palin on the national stage, and doubtless several others. But I am a strong believer in the moral priority of family. Thus when my aging parents needed my help in the worst way I was there even when it meant tabling other projects including writing this column. My parents have given me much, and the time had come to give something back.

Those three months of near-isolation did afford me space to think. A few weeks ago, LewRockwell.com reprinted a column by Charley Reese—who just retired. The column was entitled "Basic Premises." Reese recommended writing out one's premises as a good method for clarifying one's thinking. I don't always agree with Reese, but I do agree with this.

And so over the intervening weeks, during those periods of time I had to myself (often in the very early morning), I took his advice. Initially I ended up with close to 20. I realized, however, that some were either versions of others, or derivative instead of basic. I sought the basic ones, and ended up with seven. My premises differ from Reese's somewhat, doubtless because of the differences in our backgrounds—and to be honest, because some of his are derivative instead of basic. But so far as I can tell, mine are consistent with his. In any event I am convinced these are true. I'd like to think many are common horse sense. Those who disagree 180 degrees need read no further.

1 - The universe is indifferent to human life—indeed, to all life.
2 - Concentrations of power are dangerous wherever they are found.
3 - Most people never think about what does not affect them directly and immediately.
4 - Governments in the U.S. (federal, state, local) are not fundamentally different from governments anywhere else in the world.
5 - The truth will not necessarily make us happy.
6 - Life is short.
7 - We are deluded if we think we can save ourselves.

These all have corollaries, of course, both individually and in combination, and they have logical implications. For example, the most immediate implication of (1) for the human condition is that we will not long survive if we sit on our duffs. Specific courses of action are necessary for survival and self-improvement. And we are better off if we are able to keep the fruits of our labors, as opposed to having them taken from us at gunpoint, or its equivalent, and redistributed. On the other hand (and here is where I part company with the Ayn-Randroids and many libertarians), I do not believe a truly civilized society will allow people to starve if it has an alternative, or allow the strong and wealthy (or simply the clever) to steal the rest of the population blind and say caveat emptor. This last brings me to (2).

Back in the very early 1990s—while researching my first book Civil Wrongs—I came to the realization that in any population is a minority that is fascinated with power, measures all values in its terms, and will do anything to obtain and maintain it—often using money to keep score. And as the oft-quoted Lord Acton famously wrote,"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." While power-seekers often end up in governments, they are also drawn into the upper echelons of large corporations, and into foundations where they can use the power of the purse to determine which agendas are funded and which wither on the vine. Think Ford and Rockefeller.

By the end of that decade I had concluded that the number one problem for those who want to live in a free society is: how do we control power. "How, that is, do we control that minority that is in or that seeks power, while maintaining justice." The best answer I had at the time: Constitutionally limited government.

(3), however, suggests limits on what we can do. The masses don't think—although in fairness, their incapacities have been made worse by America's government school system which is designed to produce a mass of serfs, not a free people. Both Jefferson and Jackson warned that vigilance is the price of liberty. America's masses have been anything but vigilant. A corollary of (2) and (3) together is that there is bound to be a power elite in any society. Much of its actions are hidden almost by default: it isn't that the primary actors are hiding so much as that the masses aren't paying attention and are usually content so long as their paychecks keep coming and sports is available on television.

Another corollary is that any program of reform—including "third parties"—that depends on getting the masses on board, is probably doomed. The masses will respond to serious inconveniences such as the lights going out during ice storms and hits on their pocketbooks from inflated gas prices, but very little else. They won't notice gradual change. I think the Fabian socialists realized this, which is why they recommended stealth, infiltration, and the subversion of institutions from within instead of overt revolutionary activity. Their efforts were brilliantly successful. This is the key to the Saul Alinsky movement which guided Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. Anyone who has read Rules For Radicals knows that it gives sound advice on how "change agents" can gain power in communities by getting "buy-in" from dominant personalities. I think it likely that the power elite understands mass human psychology and mass behavior better than we restore-the-Republic types. Why wouldn't they" They've been bankrolling "education" and "social sciences" (i.e., studies in manipulation and social control through conditioning) for decades now.

What of (4), which many red-blooded Americans will deem "unpatriotic." Once we realize that power tends to corrupt, I am unsure why anyone would think our governmental systems would be immune, simply because they are ours. All such systems—and those in faceless corporate empires?tend to attract the same kinds of people. And speaking of corporations, many freedom-believers (and I would include past versions of myself in this before I wised up) operate under the assumption that the bad guys automatically flock to government and the good guys go into corporations to participate in the "free market." I do not know how they explain Big Pharma's efforts to destroy the dietary supplements industry and ensure that we remain the sickliest, most sedated, and drugged up society in human history. The truth: large corporations don't want a free market economy, they want an economy they can control. Their primary instruments are government agencies—in the case of Big Pharma, the FDA, which has clearly been owned by Big Pharma and Big Agrabiz concerns (e.g., Monsanto) since before aspartame, a known carcinogen, was placed in diet drinks as a sugar substitute. Thinking individuals, of course, could thwart such efforts through their choices as consumers, of course. The trouble is, again, there aren't enough thinking individuals out there. Thus Big Pharma's controls over the FDA and over so-called scientific medicine remain, and our so-called health care industries remain sick care industries.

One of the downfalls of Randism and Libertarianism were their na've trust in corporations and their belief that their denizens wanted free markets.

(5) asserts that the truth will not necessarily make us happy. Tie this back into (1). In an indifferent physical universe, the truth usually won't make us happy, or even especially comfortable. We don't want to think about it, but we live in a broken political system. To my mind, the only statesman running for the nomination of a dominant political party this past year was Ron Paul. He and his supporters were thwarted through a combination of mainstream media neglect (always effective with unthinking masses for whom if it isn't on TV it isn't real) , actual blocking of his efforts by Republican Party operatives, and vote stealing which was pretty much proven in New Hampshire. Despite this, the warmongering John McCain is the nominee. Moreover, McCain's—or more likely, his handlers'—choice of "true conservative" (pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, etc., etc.) Sarah Palin has already succeeded magnificently at getting the "true conservatives" among the masses with the program. (And her politics aside, she's hot!!)

The plain truth is—someone who does not have power elite approval is not going to advance in the controlled political system of today's America. The Ron Paul people are marching on. I have begun to wonder if learning skills such as organic gardening, etc., for survival as the economic fortunes of the majority of Americans continue to decline might not be better uses of their time.

(6) makes me wonder as to the importance of haranguing the public about any of this. It is true that the masses won't listen. But the issue (6) raises cuts deeper than that. Over the past four months working through my parents' situations I've been in and out of hospitals, combined nursing home/skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living centers—before we finally settled on one of the latter. The residents are not just elderly, but infirm. Many cannot walk or bathe without help. Many have dementia, the best known form of which is Alzheimer's disease; they cannot remember where they are, or in some cases what their relatives' names are. Others are on medication ("gratefully" supplied by Big Pharma for huge fees) for constant arthritis pain, or worse. Some are incontinent. A few are utterly helpless, and would starve if not fed by nursing assistants.

The uncomfortable truth is that we're all going to get there someday. We're all going to become variations on one of these themes—unless, of course, heart attacks or cancers or sudden accidents do us in first. Or, as I only half-jokingly sometimes say, we are murdered by the government. That "someday," I've come to realize, is a whole lot closer than we think. Readers, have you ever noticed that the older you get, the more the years seem to speed up"

In the final analysis, there remains just one basis for any sort of optimism about the future: the faithful realization that this is God's universe, and that God never intended that we understand all its workings, or why events play out the way they do. We can, of course, get some understanding if we pay attention. The lesson we learn from history—especially the history of our attempts to organize politically and socially—is that human nature is too fouled up by sin for us to ever build the Utopia philosophers as far back as Plato have dreamt of. An honest "free trade" system, moreover, is as Utopian as any form of Marxian communism.

The United States of America was as close as we came to a Utopian order. The U.S. was founded on a distrust of concentrations of power—on the belief that while government was necessary, it was just as necessary to keep it on a short leash. Chroniclers of our period in history will eventually record that our system failed because its founders could not keep the European banksters out. Later, we failed to recognize Fabian socialism and its "penetration and permeation" methods which continue to this day. Today, our broken system is dominated by a political class—elite-sponsored, well organized and monied?that stopped representing "we the people" long ago.

Those who measure all value through money and power don't grasp who is really in charge, of course, and never will. This means that those of us who have trusted Jesus Christ as our personal savior will come out on top in the long run. It also means that we have to keep our eyes on the prize, as the saying goes-because nowhere were we promised lives free of trials and troubles. Christians especially may be in for a very rough ride before the real "end of history" is made manifest.

© 2008 Steven Yates - All Rights Reserved

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Dr. Steven Yates has a Ph.D. in philosophy. He is the author of two books, Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (1994) and Worldviews: Christian Theism versus Modern Materialism (2005), roughly two dozen articles and reviews in refereed professional journals, and hundreds of opinion columns both online and in news periodicals (he writes a regular column for the Greenville-SC based weekly The Times Examiner).

He was involved in the struggles against CAFTA and the FTAA, participated in a successful citizens’ effort to have legislation passed declining to implement the Real ID Act of 2005 in South Carolina, and was active on behalf of the Ron Paul campaign. He has spoken to local, state-level and national groups including the Patriot Network, the Georgia Eagle Forum, Freedom 21, and the John Birch Society. He lives in the Greenville, South Carolina area where he commutes between two colleges teaching philosophy and is pondering the fate of his latest almost-completed book The Real Matrix: Fabricated Reality in the Emerging New World Order in light of the fact that for all practical purposes the New World Order is here and he doesn’t want to end up a political prisoner.

E-Mail: freeyourmindinsc@yahoo.com

Labels: government tyranny, premises, world gov'ment

Aaron Russo: "I set out on a journey to make a film about whether or not there was a law requiring Americans to pay an income tax...or was the tax a fraud being perpetrated by the American government. This process of discovery brought something much more dangerous and frightening to my attention...now, I will bring it to yours."

This film not only puts the legalities of the IRS and the Federal Reserve into question, but it also reveals the carefully concealed oligarchy of elitists and globalists whose main goals include financially enslaving society by creating a world order of manufactured consent devoid of individuality and freedom -- much like the former Soviet Union.

PS: If you really care about America, and want your taxes to go towards your country, rather than rich fat cats operating out of foreign countries draining your hard earned tax dollars, this film won't disappoint.

Film: "America: From Freedom to Fascism"

Labels: constitution, federal reserve, world gov'ment

Labels: constitution, politics

Tom Brady grabs his knee in pain after suffering a first-quarter injury.

Labels: diversion

Labels: diversions

“What if I told you that a prominent global political figure in recent months has proposed: abrogating key features of his government’s contracts with energy companies; unilaterally renegotiating his country’s international economic treaties; dramatically raising marginal tax rates on the ‘rich’ to levels not seen in his country in three decades (which would make them among the highest in the world); and changing his country’s social insurance system into explicit welfare by severing the link between taxes and benefits?” Michael J. Boskin writes in the Wall Street Journal.

“The first name that came to mind would probably not be Barack Obama, possibly our nation’s next president. Yet despite his obvious general intelligence, and uplifting and motivational eloquence, Sen. Obama reveals this startling economic illiteracy in his policy proposals and economic pronouncements,” said Mr. Boskin, a Stanford University economics professor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.

“From the property rights and rule of (contract) law foundations of a successful market economy to the specifics of tax, spending, energy, regulatory and trade policy, if the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback.”

Labels: economics, mendacity, politics

THE FROG THEORY

If you drop a frog in boiling water he will leap right out. If you
slowly heat the water he will be content until it's too late to get out.
That is exactly how history works. It moves slowly and we never really see any
danger until it's too late.

Remember how suppressed workers were before unions came along? The
unions leveled the playing field. Unfortunately, over a long period of time the
pendulum swung too far. Slowly, businesses and factories closed and jobs left
the country. We were comfortable and didn't see the change coming. We
blamed everyone except ourselves for what happened. We weren't alert to how
slow things change over time.

World War II, and the Korean War, demonstrated how powerful a united
nation could be. Our nation, and our families, were united. The father was the
head of the family and the President was the head of the nation. Both were
highly respected. We were content and happy.

We were good at fighting a hot war but we were unprepared to fight a
cold war with the communists in the 50's. They knew they couldn't change
us but they didn't care. Their philosophy was to wait it out and capture
the minds of our children. They loaded our colleges with many of their
professors and waited. It didn't take long to see the results.

The 60''s ushered in the radicals, drug culture, student
protesters, and the Vietnam War. The aim of the cold war was to divide and
conquer. They divided our families and the nation. The secret to defeating a
polite and respectful people is to scream. The louder and longer you scream the
better your chance of winning. Radicals are masters at this form of attack.
They know if you constantly scream and repeat a lie it will eventually become
the truth.

The media, and Hollywood, hammered us with hate America themes and
stories. Our service men, and women, were jeered, cursed, and spit on. We
lost our first War in history. There was no hero's homecoming for our
fighting men and women.

The Reverend King, who was raised in the old school, peacefully changed
the race issue and united the people. When he died the new breed of leaders
like Jesse Jackson, Lewis Farakon, Al Sharpton, and Rev. Wright put a lid on his
efforts and turned racism into a money-making machine.

Corporations were green-mailed by threats of protests, product
boycotts, or endless lawsuits. Every issue, large or small, became a race
issue. The public recoiled in fear of being called a racist. Their voices were
silenced because one word could cost you a career, get you fired, or get you
sued.

Even politicians buckled under to the pressure. The Florida
legislature issued a formal apology for having slavery 200 years ago. They were
thanked by being asked for compensation. There is no end in sight for this kind
of nonsense. America didn't capture slaves and bring them to America.
Their own people sold them to slave traders from several nations. This
knowledge doesn't stop the screamers. History is what it is and you
can't change it. There have been many tragic events in history. You
acknowledge them and move on.

They divided our nation into two separate Americas. We now have
Americans, and African-Americans, although Africa has nothing to do with being
an American. You can be one or the other but not both. You are what you were
born to be. You do not subordinate our country to any foreign nation. It's
equivalent to flying the African flag above the Stars and Stripes. If you
hyphenate two countries America always comes first.

This election year could be the turning point in our history because
the frog theory has come into play. It's time to step back and look at how
the country has slowly changed since the cold war started. Don't get caught
up in all the hype.

George McGovern was the first Presidential candidate to test the waters
with college students. The Clintons played a big role in his campaign. It was
the worst campaign ever run. He was crushed in the election.

Step two was to infiltrate all the information vehicles such as radio,
newspapers, magazines, TV and movies. They were quite successful at that.
Jimmy Carter was the first President to demonstrate the leadership skills of the
far left. Weak military, high taxes, runaway inflation, 19% mortgage rates, and
plain incompetence ended his career in Washington. Iran, a small country at the
time, took American hostages and kicked sand in our face. By negotiating from
weakness Carter could not get the hostages released.

The big benefit of the Carter years is that they were followed by the
Reagan years. The nation got a clear look at the difference between a weak
nation and a strong nation. Every student should know this difference. When
Ronald Reagan took over the hostages were quickly released, taxes were lowered,
inflation dropped, mortgage rates dropped, and the military was strengthened.
Russia quickly waved the white flag and waited for another Democrat term.

Clinton took over Carter's uncompleted social programs. He
weakened the military and tried to pass large government programs. An Intern
derailed his Presidency. While he was tied up with his personal problems his
lawyers ran the country. He passed up three opportunities to take out Osama Bin
Laden. This eventually cost us the loss of our Twin Towers, thousands of
American lives, and got us involved in a war with Iraq.

By the end of his term the left had captured a large share of the media
and it flexed its muscle in 2000. The hate Bush campaign got off to a roaring
start. The brainwashing theory of repeating the same story over and over again
was launched.

There were endless stories about our evil nation and its President.
Top-secret plans were leaked to the press and printed for the entire world to
see. Hollywood cranked out documentaries about the evil Bush administration and
our evil military. They laid the groundwork for the next election. The ACLU
flooded the courts with lawsuits and the Democrat party became a law firm.
Almost every incumbent, or his or her spouse, is a lawyer.

They now have the perfect candidate because they can squash criticism
by playing the race card. If you don't like Obama, or criticize him, you
are a racist. They can hide his inexperience and background by turning him into
a rock star and singing change and hope. They don't tell us what kind of
change, or how it will be done, only that you should hope for the best. By
keeping the hype going they don't have to put anything of substance on the
table.

The only thing we really know about Obama is that his wife has never
been proud to be an American. They want us to believe that his liberal college
professors, Rev. Pfleger, his ties to radicals Bill Ayer and Lewis Farakon, and
listening to the Rev. Wright's hate talks for 20 years, had no influence on
his thinking. If they didn't, then who did? He wasn't in business and
didn't see fit to serve his country. These people launched his political
career and their organizations received earmarks in return for their campaign
donations and political help. They must have had some influence. Rev.
Wright's church received over $15 million. That's only one small local
church. Think on a national scale.

The change being promoted is a change back to the Carter years. It
started in 2006 when the lawyer party took over. There have been endless
lawsuits and investigations in retaliation for the Clinton years. It keeps the
lawyers busy but does nothing for the economy. The economy has been in a
downward spiral since they took over.

Returning to the Carter years of high taxes, high inflation, and a weak
military is not the change we are looking for. We cannot cower to a bunch of
crazies whose only goal in life is to kill us.

The old sages (over 50) will have to play a big role in this election.
The young people simply don't know what the aged know. The advantage of
aging is the knowledge you accumulated. You know what United States means. You
know what the seldom-heard word respect means. You know how wonderful freedom
and independence is. You know the difference between a strong and a weak
nation; and you know what it takes to keep it strong. You know history because
you have lived it.

Although the old guard is dying off, and getting too tired to fight,
they have to muster one more charge. If they don't, our children, and
grandchildren, will never know the joy and freedom that is the bedrock of our
country. The heat is slowly being turned up and the water is getting hot. The
old frogs better start jumping before it's too late.
________________________________________________________________________-

I don't know who Joe Porter is or if he wrote this letter, but it really
doesn't matter. The content stands on its own.
Dear Friends:

My name is Joe Porter. I live in Champaign, Illinois . I'm 46 years old, a
born-again Christian, a husband, a father, a small business owner, a veteran,
and a homeowner. I don't consider myself to be either conservative or
liberal, and I vote for the person, not Republican or Democrat. I don't
believe there are "two Americas" - but that every person in this
country can be whoever and whatever they want to be if they'll just work to
get there - and nowhere else on earth can they find such opportunities. I
believe our government should help those who are legitimately downtrodden, and
should always put the interests of America first.

The purpose of this message is that I'm concerned about the future of this
great nation. I'm worried that the silent majority of honest, hard-working,
tax-paying people in this country have been passive for too long. Most folks I
know choose not to involve themselves in politics. They go about their daily
lives, paying their bills, raising their kids, and doing what they can to
maintain the good life. They vote and consider doing so to be a sacred trust.
They shake their heads at the political pundits and so-called "news",
thinking that what they hear is always spun by whomever is reporting it. They
can't understand how elected officials can regularly violate the public
trust with pork barrel spending. They don't want government handouts. They
want the government to protect them, not raise their taxes for more government
programs.

We are in the unique position in this country of electing our leaders. It's
a privilege to do so. I've never found a candidate in any election with whom
I agreed on everything. I'll wager that most of us don't even agree with
our families or spouses 100% of the time. So when I step into that voting booth,
I always try to look at the big picture and cast my vote for the man or woman
who is best qualified for the job. I've hired a lot of people in my
lifetime, and essentially that's what an election is - a hiring process. Who
has the credentials? Whom do I want working for me? Whom can I trust to do the
job right?

I'm concerned that a growing number of voters in this country simply
don't get it. They are caught up in a fervor they can't explain, and
calling it "change".

Change what?, I ask.

Well, we're going to change America , they say.

In what way?, I query.

We want someone new and fresh in the White House, they exclaim.

So, someone who's not a politician?, I press.

Uh, well, no, we just want a lot of stuff changed, so we're voting for
Obama, they state.

So the current system, the system of freedom and democracy that has enabled a
man to grow up in this great country, get a fine education, raise incredible
amounts of money and dominate the news and win his party's nomination for
the White House - that system's all wrong?

No, no, that part of the system's okay - we just need a lot of change.

And so it goes. "Change we can believe in." Quite frankly, I
don't believe that vague proclamations of change hold any promise for me. In
recent months, I've been asking virtually everyone I encounter how
they're voting. I live in Illinois, so most folks tell me they're voting
for Barack Obama. But no one can really tell me why - only that he's going
to change a lot of stuff. Change, change, change. I have yet to find one single
person who can tell me distinctly and convincingly why this man is qualified to
be President and Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on earth - other
than the fact that he claims he's going to implement a lot of change.

We've all seen the emails about Obama's genealogy, his upbringing, his
Muslim background, and his church affiliations. Let's ignore this for a
moment. Put it all aside. Then ask yourself, what qualifies this man to be my
president? That he's a brilliant orator and talks about change?

CHANGE WHAT?

Friends, I'll be forthright with you - I believe the American voters who
are supporting Barack Obama don't have a clue what they're doing, as
evidenced by the fact that not one of them - NOT ONE of them I've spoken to
can spell out his qualifications. Not even the most liberal media can explain
why he should be elected. Political experience? Negligible. He has exactly 143
days of Senate Experience!! Foreign relations? Non-existent. Achievements? Name
one. Someone who wants to unite the country? If you haven't read his
wife's thesis from Princeton , look it up on the web. This is who's
lining up to be our next First Lady? The only thing I can glean from Obama's
constant harping about change is that we're in for a lot of new taxes.

For me, the choice is clear. I've looked carefully at the two leading
applicants for the job, and I've made my choice.

Here's a question - where were you five and a half years ago? Around
Christmas, 2002. You've had five or six birthdays in that time. My son has
grown from a sixth grade child to a high school graduate. Five and a half years
is a good chunk of time. About 2,000 days. 2,000 nights of sleep. 6, 000 meals,
give or take.

John McCain spent that amount of time, from 1967 to 1973, in a North Vietnamese
prisoner-of-war camp. When offered early release, he refused it. He considered
this offer to be a public relations stunt by his captors, and insisted that
those held longer than he should be released first. Did you get that part? He
was offered his freedom, and he turned it down. A regimen of beatings and
torture began.

Do you possess such strength of character? Locked in a filthy cell in a foreign
country, would you turn down your own freedom in favor of your fellow man? I
submit that's a quality of character that is rarely found, and for me, this
singular act defines John McCain.

Unlike several presidential candidates in recent years whose military service
is questionable or non-existent, you will not find anyone to denigrate the
integrity and moral courage of this man. A graduate of Annapolis , during his
Naval service he received the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart and
Distinguished Flying Cross. His own son is now serving in the Marine Corps in
Iraq . Barack Obama is fond of saying "We honor John McCain's
service...BUT...", which to me is condescending and offensive - because
what I hear is, "Let's forget this man's sacrifice for his country
and his proven leadership abilities, and talk some more about change."

I don't agree with John McCain on everything - but I am utterly convinced
that he is qualified to be our next President, and I trust him to do what's
right. I know in my heart that he has the best interests of our country in mind.
He doesn't simply want to be President - he wants to lead America , and
there's a huge difference. Factually, there is simply no comparison between
the two candidates. A man of questionable background and motives who prattles on
about change can't hold a candle to a man who has devoted his life in public
service to this nation, retiring from the Navy in 1981 and elected to the Senate
in 1982.

Perhaps Obama's supporters are taking a stance between old and new. Maybe
they don't care about McCain's service or his strength of character, or
his unblemished qualifications to be President. Maybe "likeability" is
a higher priority for them than "trust". Being a prisoner of war is
not what qualifies John McCain to be President of the United States of America -
but his demonstrated leadership certainly DOES.

Dear friends, it is time for us to stand. It is time for thinking Americans to
say, "Enough." It is time for people of all parties to stop following
the party line. It is time for anyone who wants to keep America first, who wants
the right man leading their nation, to start a dialogue with all their friends
and neighbors and ask who they're voting for, and why.

There's a lot of evil in this world. That should be readily apparent to all
of us by now. And when faced with that evil as we are now, I want a man who
knows the cost of war on his troops and on his citizens. I want a man who puts
my family's interests before any foreign country.
I want a President who's qualified to lead.

I want my country back, and I'm voting for John McCain.

Labels: constitution, democrats and RINOS, politics

Labels: democrats and RINOS, politics

“Barack Obama likes to portray himself as a centrist politician who wants to unite the country, but occasionally his postpartisan mask slips. That was the case at Saturday night’s Saddleback Church forum, when Mr. Obama chose to demean Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Pastor Rick Warren asked each Presidential candidate which Justices he would not have nominated. Mr. McCain said, ‘with all due respect’ the four most liberal sitting Justices because of his different judicial philosophy. Mr. Obama took a lower road, replying first that ‘that’s a good one,’ and then adding that ‘I would not have nominated Clarence Thomas... I don’t think that he was a strong enough jurist or legal thinker at the time for that elevation. Setting aside the fact that I profoundly disagree with his interpretation of a lot of the Constitution.’ The Democrat added that he also wouldn’t have appointed Antonin Scalia, and perhaps not John Roberts, though he assured the audience that at least they were smart enough for the job. So let’s see. By the time he was nominated, Clarence Thomas had worked in the Missouri Attorney General’s office, served as an Assistant Secretary of Education, run the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and sat for a year on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the nation’s second most prominent court. Since his ‘elevation’ to the High Court in 1991, he has also shown himself to be a principled and scholarly jurist. Meanwhile, as he bids to be America’s Commander in Chief, Mr. Obama isn’t yet four years out of the Illinois state Senate, has never held a hearing of note of his U.S. Senate subcommittee, and had an unremarkable record as both a ‘community organizer’ and law school lecturer. Justice Thomas’s judicial credentials compare favorably to Mr. Obama’s Presidential rèsumè by any measure. And when it comes to rising from difficult circumstances, Justice Thomas’s rural Georgian upbringing makes Mr. Obama’s story look like easy street. Even more troubling is what the Illinois Democrat’s answer betrays about his political habits of mind. Asked a question he didn’t expect at a rare unscripted event, the rookie candidate didn’t merely say he disagreed with Justice Thomas. Instead, he instinctively reverted to the leftwing clichè that the Court’s black conservative isn’t up to the job while his white conservative colleagues are. So much for civility in politics and bringing people together. And no wonder Mr. Obama’s advisers have refused invitations for more such open forums, preferring to keep him in front of a teleprompter, where he won’t let slip what he really believes.” —The Wall Street Journal

Labels: constitution, democrats and RINOS, mendacity

Just to clear up some confusion people have expressed to me, I now have TWO books in print. (The first was never promoted widely enough for very many people to know that.) The two books are as follows:

1) "How To Be a Successful Tyrant (The Megalomaniac Manifesto)"
http://www.tyrantbook.com

This book, which was written before I spent my year as a political prisoner, but printed only shortly before I got out, is pretty much what it sounds like: a manual for aspiring tyrants. It tells how to trick your subjects into viewing you as a savior instead of a crook, how to use propaganda to control both the thoughts and actions of the peasants, how to all but eliminate resistance, and so on. (Of course, the purpose of the book isn't actually to create more tyrants, but to show their VICTIMS how they function, in the hopes that maybe a few more people might start to see through the tyrant tricks of the all the modern megalomaniacs.)

2) "Kicking the Dragon (Confessions of a Tax Heretic)"
http://www.kickingthedragon.com

This book, which was written almost entirely from inside federal prison (though not printed until a few weeks ago), is the story of my "adventures" with the IRS, the DOJ, and the federal court system, up to and including my trial. While the "861 evidence" is obviously involved in the story, understanding or agreeing with that legal position is NOT essential to appreciating the utter insanity of what happened in my case. I'm happy to say that the book has been getting rave reviews — some of which I'll be sharing soon.

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If there is still any confusion, my purely unselfish suggestion is that you buy and read BOTH books. (Actually, it's totally selfish and self-serving, but I suggest it anyway.) To make doing so lesspainful, during this fabulous Bush economy we're in, I'll make this deal: If you act now (wow, how cliche was that?), you can get BOTH
books, including shipping, for $30. (It would be $39 if you ordered separately.)

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This offer is NOT available at the web sites (because we haven't set it up yet), but you can do it now either by sending $30 via PayPal to "cartoonlion@hushmail.com" or by sending $30 in check or money order (or cash, if you dare take the risk) to the address below. Then I'll fling both books in the mail to you right away. Then you can read a story about real-life tyrants in action, AND learn to be one yourself! What could be better? (Freedom, maybe?)

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Larken Rose
P.O. Box 653
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006-0653

Labels: constitution, politics, taxes

Being For the Constitution SOME of the Time And Not All Of The Time Is Like Being ‘A Little Bit Pregnant’

Bob Barr, former Republican Congressman and US Attorney and now the Libertarian Party candidate for president has held many positions that constitutionalists can agree with. Many see Barr as the natural movement forward of the Ron Paul campaign, but even the most cursory examination of Bob Barr’s past political positions show he doesn’t pass the smell test.

In other words, you can’t be for adherence to the Constitution some of the time and against it some of the time, as we shall see Bob Barr clearly is.

Close enough is not close enough at all when it comes to our civil liberties and the rights guaranteed in the founding documents.

Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin (www.Baldwin2008.com) believes the US Constitution was then and is now designed to tie down the tentacles of the Federal government and that any and all powers given to the Federal government are clearly outlined in and limited by that document.

Bob Barr has not held fast to that single absolute and that is why you should know there is a very large distinction between Barr and Baldwin.

• Barr is in favor of an interventionist foreign policy, arguing for intervention in Iran and South America, among other countries. Barr voted for the Iraq war. He praised Bush because "the surge is working." Chuck Baldwin believes, as our Founders did, that we should be a friend to all and avoid ‘foreign entanglements’. Baldwin has stated that if elected he would see to it that those who have been sent to fight the illegal, unconstitutional and immoral wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would receive orders to return home immediately.
• Barr voted for the Patriot Act, and favored reauthorization of that liberty-robbing set of laws. Chuck Baldwin has always stood against the Patriot Act as an unconstitutional power grab by the executive branch.
• Barr favors a national sales tax. Chuck Baldwin contends that does not reform our tax system, it merely re-orders the heavy-handed manner the IRS controls the illegal and unfair robbing of Peter to subsidize Paul.
• He’s held an advisory position with the ACLU- a group which has worked tirelessly to push anti- Christian and anti- free speech agendas
• While Bob Barr has publicly, at times, supported pro-life groups, sadly, in his private life, according to his ex wife, Barr encouraged the abortion of their child.
• Chuck Baldwin has been a vocal and steadfast defender of the sanctity of life- publicly and privately.

Bob Barr is no Chuck Baldwin and that is why in November it behooves liberty-minded Americans to vote for the Constitution and vote for the Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin.

Labels: constitution

Labels: Political "Correctness", religion, western culture