Gary Johnson announcing his bid for the presidency as the candidate of the Libertarian Party, December 28, 2011. Credit: Flickr
“And the man under the influence of hasseesh catches up his knife and runs through the streets hacking and killing everyone he meets.”
DOPE: The Story of the Living Dead by Winfred Black, William Randolph Hearst employee, 1932.
We are told we must pick between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and accept all of the debt, dead sons and daughters in the military, people locked up in prison, control over the smallest aspects of your life that they both promise to bring to the presidency. But that is a lie -- we do not have to put either one in office. What good is it going to do you if either one of them, your guy, wins but the American people lose? When Barack Obama’s campaign tells me that Mitt Romney is a greedy evil manipulator whose election will be bad for the country and Mitt Romney’s campaign tells me that Barack Obama is a power hungry control freak whose election will harm us, I believe them both. They are both so adept at the big government lie, “We are doing this to you or preventing you from doing that for your own good.” However, it will not benefit you -- it is done only to help them obtain what they crave the most: the power to make all important and even trivial decisions for you. They believe the way to maintain their position is selling their monopoly on the use of force and coercion for votes. All of this pro-government propaganda that is now coming from the mouths of our news media and our academics is designed for one purpose only: to create a society and culture whose main operating principle is the use of force and coercion. This leads to their second big lie: “government violence is not really violence.” I am going to vote for Gary Johnson because both Obama and Mitt reject the fundamental truth that vices are not crimes. Their selfish ignoring of this principle is a way for them to obtain power and it has caused untold misery and unhappiness for the American people. I am not going to vote for either Obama or Romney because they both believe the kind of wicked nonsense put out before by William Randolph Hearst and his modern equivalents. How else do you explain their policies towards drug use? If they really believe this, then they are both too stupid to be elected, and if not they are both too dishonest to be our president.
The functional equivalent of Pravda during the Communist era, our mainstream media -- both its news and cultural components -- do not want you to know that you do not have to accept either one of their horrendous two choices. They will continue to ignore Gary Johnson, who you will see on the ballot in November. They are not even attacking him, because if they do people will know he exists and also if they do their lies will be even more transparent than the ones they told before about Ron Paul being a racist and an anti-Semite. As much as the people at both much FOX and MSNBC would like to believe that they control what you know and what you think they are also wrong you can find out for yourself that you are not trapped by their choices. If the sight of either Ed Schultz or Bill O’ Reilly fills you with such disgust and loathing that you want to smash your TV screen, then the worst thing you can do to both of them is click on the link I just provided and find out that there is a third and much better choice and vote accordingly.
Around 1830 the argument about American slavery profoundly changed. It went from one where those supporting it defended the institution by saying it was a necessary evil to one where those advocating it claimed it was a positive good. Events such as writings of William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, petitions to Congress calling for its end, the Virginia legislature’s very narrow decision to retain it, and Nat Turner’s rebellion made it impossible to continue sustaining the latter viewpoint. The necessary part was always unconvincing because the food and textiles produced by slaves were always going to be made but the real question was who would get the benefit from them. Articles in periodicals such as The Southern Planter, The Southern Agriculturist, and The Tennessee Farmer, compiled in a book by historian James O. Breeden Advice Among Masters: The Ideal in Slave Management In the Old South, clearly answer the inquiry, no matter what the topic communal eating, type of clothing, work off the plantation, recreation allowed, medical care, or any other one you could think of there were often disagreements on strategy but the advice was always the same, do whatever is best for the master and his or her bottom line. The notion that the system was good for the slaves because kept them in line and prevented them from harming themselves was rubbish and this is the very same idea that is being made of support of government today. This video clip of John Stossel posted on the Daily Paul does the very same service that Breeden’s book did. When you watch it carefully you quickly realize that all of the people here, and pretty much everywhere else. defending government are doing so out of their own self-interest. It is not being done to protect us or provide us with opportunity it is being done for them. When we think about government we need to remember that behind every rule, regulation, executive order, law, or tax lays the implied threat of violence. They need so much violence, just like the slave master needed force, because most of time they are either coercing an individual to do something he or she does not want to do because it is against their self-interest benefiting someone else or they are stopping a person from doing what he or she wants therefore committing the immoral act of denying them knowledge. We must also think about the fact that government turns every decision whether it is about economics, diet, health care, education, personal finance, safety, war, or any other matter into a political a political question and political answers are inherently flawed not about what is but rather about what is most popular. Ron Paul is the only candidate who understands these basic truths
Every four years we are told how important the upcoming election is and how its results will have far ranging consequences. Each and every individual must participate no matter how limited the choice is or how uninformed or misinformed about that choice you are. However, this year unlike years past this talk is not just media hype there is an actual choice to be made for the first time in our lives. We can choose ever increasing financially crippling debt which is systematically destroying our children’s future, perpetual warfare which harms countless lives, but does not make any of us the least bit safer and is one of the main causes of our impending total bankruptcy by voting for Barack Obama or any of the Republican candidates except Ron Paul. Or we can vote for someone who has demonstrated his belief in freedom, which already has vastly improved the lives of millions of people all over the world throughout history, many times before in both words and actions, Of course the Democrat and Republican parties and their handmaidens in the media will do everything and anything they can to stop Ron Paul from being elected because he represents the one thing they fear the most, change and the diminishment of their own personal power as a result. In 2008 the people wanted and voted for real change but the establishment and propagandists did not fear or oppose Barack Obama because unlike many of the rest of us they were not fooled by his lies. Yes he was able to produce good sounding rhetoric but nothing of any substance changed when he took power. The most racist policy since chattel slavery ever devised by government, drug prohibition, is still in effect and being pursued by Barack Obama with renewed vigor. Last summer the Republicans allowed Obama to borrow another 4,2 trillion dollars and as I write this he is preparing grab yet another 1.2 trillion more so the burden on our children will continue to astronomically increase, while Obama pretends to be a man of peace we are still engaged in various wars all over the globe ,and Obama, perhaps not so much with words but certainly with deeds, is encouraging a new one with Iran. The political classes decisions against their own interests still continues unabated. If you provide a good or service that has real value and their devotion to the military industrial complex did not change with the election of Barack Obama. The micro managing of peoples’ lives forcing them through the use of government coercion to make badle are willing to pay for it voluntarily with your own money then Barack Obama considers you an enemy of mankind. However, if you are able to manipulate government into employing its monopoly on the use of force into stealing for you no matter if you get anything of value in return or how much it is unfair and disrupts your life then to Barack Obama you are a hero. We must put Rom Paul in office because the country really needs effective change because the other Republicans do not offer that option.
Over sixty years ago General Dwight Eisenhower warned us that our nations leaders had plans for us that included perpetual warfare and growing debt slavery. Since then Barack Obama and all of the Republican candidates for President except Ron Paul have tried to make this warning a reality. The corrupt and lying news media have done their best to aid in this effort. however the voters in Iowa have made their constantly repeated mantra, that Ron Paul can not be elected, ring hollow. Ron Paul has given the American people something they have lacked for for decades, a viable candidate who wants peace. But he and his supporters like myself are not going to be able to stop this useless carnage by ourselves, we need your help. As Glenn Greenwald explained in his latest article the forces arrayed against peace are very powerful and their primary tactic is keeping you and I divided. The profits of the military industrial complex and what Jesse Jackson termed the prison industrial complex must be protected. The politicians who see that as their main function and not the welfare of ordinary people will do anything and raise any issue no matter how false to preserve this system of constant warfare and debt slavery which produces enormous undeserved wealth along with great hardship. Kevin please do mot let them succeed help put Ron Paul in office because my friend I do not see any other alternative right now. Compared to one our sons or daughters lying bloody and dying in some ditch in Afghanistan what other issue really maters that much.
When Barack Obama wanted to get rid of Osama Bin Laden, arguably the largest victory in the War on Terror to date, he handled the situation the same way Adolf Hitler or Joe Stalin would have, he just went out and killed him. Obama gave up the golden chance to show that we were still different, to prove to our enemies, our friends, and the whole world that no matter how provoked we continued to be a nation of laws, not a nation of men. My cousin was a firefighter in Queens New York and he died on September 11th when one of the towers collapsed on his headso I do not mourn the death of Osama Bin Laden with even a single tear. I do however regret the passing of an American exceptionalism that has kept us free and safer for hundreds of years. We are told that we had to do this and that our sons and daughters have to experience a bloody death in some field in Afghanistan in order to protect American lives, yet on the day that Osama Bin Laden died our government informed us oh by the way you our all less safe today then you were yesterday. If you believe as I do that American freedom and safety are worth preserving then vote for Ron Paul.
In 2008 Obama supporters set up a website, Change.org in order to advance his quest to be President. The website was designed to fool people into thinking that Obama actually cared what the public wants when comes to public policy. Those who went there were asked to list ten policy alterations they wanted to see Obama implement and list them by priority. By far the number one change that his supporters believed needed to happen was the legalization of marijuana.
The site itself continues to advocate a more enlighten and less vicious policy, however, Obama’s administration in a display great disloyalty towards those who elected him totally rejects such a beneficial program as marijuana legalization. He is in fact currently persecuting marijuana users with renewed vigor.
Obama has now employed the IRS as an instrument to deny seriously ill people a medicine that they need and find effective. The IRS is attempting to tax the lawful medical marijuana clinics out of business and not only will patients needlessly suffer but the federal as well as some state governments will lose a great deal of revenue during a time of fiscal crisis.
Not only is Obama perverting the role of the of the IRS from one of collecting revenue, they will lose money, to one of enforcing bad, unjust, mean spirited, inhumane public policy. He is also attacking the concept of free speech by demonstrating once again that he has no regard whatsoever for the Constitution including the 1st Amendment. Our President is now threatening to unjustly prosecute any media outlet that runs perfectly legal advertisements for medical cannabis dispensaries.
Barack Obama is pursuing this despicable course not only against the wishes of millions who supported him in 2008 also but also disregarding the opinion of the majority of Americans, Perhaps the worst aspect of his betrayal is that he is doing it in service of a policy that is clearly racist. Studies looking at racial bias in the enforcement of marijuana laws done in California, New York City and nationwide show conclusively that Blacks and Hispanics are unfairly targeted and disproportionately affected by the racially biased enforcement of marijuana laws.
Cross posted on The Trebach Report
On September 9th Sheldon Richman put up a post, Ron Paul and Immigration: A Speculative Theory, that reminded me very much of some conversations I took part in back when I was very active with the Montgomery County Maryland Libertarian Party. They revolved around the issue, were we a real political party or just a glorified debating society. At the time that was a legitimate question because our candidates had no chance of winning power and gathering 3% of the vote was considered a good outing. It is different with Ron Paul he can and must win the presidency in 2012. He is the only one running who will take us off the road to serfdom before it becomes too late to change our direction without massive suffering or even bloodshed.
However, Richman seems willing to condemn millions of Americans to increasing poverty and perpetual warfare because Ron Paul is not ideologically pure enough to suit his tastes. At first glance his piece seems to favor immigrants but it really does not. I too favor open borders because I have always had a problem with the notion that someone is a criminal merely for existing in a particular space but I also agree with Ron Paul that economic prosperity relieves the need for scapegoats a role now filled by so called illegal immigrants. All the other candidates are defenders of a status quo which will keep these people despised. Ron Paul is the only one offering real change if you oppose him you also oppose their interests as well.
When I used to work events for the Libertarian Party I gave thousands of Nolan Chart quizzes and occasionally compiled statistics on the answers. By far the question which received the most negative responses was the one on open borders even considerably exceeding the one on legalizing drugs. The human tendency to blame ones problems on others is a very powerful one. Now, Sheldon Richman argues that Paul’s failure to loudly proclaim his support for open borders “doesn’t speak well of the candidate.” He could not be more wrong. First off we do not even know if Paul really supports open borders but even if he does it is much more important to win the election then to make pure rhetorical points. Or, perhaps Ron Paul and I disagree on this particular point, so I should just forgo all of the positive change a Ron Paul presidency would bring?
I would ask Sheldon Richman what is the purpose of your discourse? Is it to discourage people from working for, financing, and voting for Ron Paul? I must say it is very sad for me to see you and so many other libertarians joining the ranks of such defenders of the status quo as Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow. It is very easy to argue that Ron Paul has no chance of winning, as you do in the last line of your post, it provides a convenient excuse for doing nothing and makes you seem smarter than though if that is the way it turns out. However, if you truly believe in human freedom you would use your considerable eloquence and logic to make it more likely that it turns out the out the other way.
I sent Senator Mikulski a message in support of Ron Paul and Barney Frank's bill to legalize marijuana at the federal level and she replied "I'm against legalization of marijuana." My response is below:
Dear Senator Mikulski
If you are against the legalization of marijuana then you are for wasting 40 billion dollars a year persecuting people who choose to use it rather than alcohol or prescription drugs with suicide warnings on the label. Those who talk about the harms of marijuana are all people who benefit from this persecution. Your statement here shows you to be an ignorant selfish arrogant woman that knows absolutely nothing about marijuana. Like most politicians you know about one thing and one thing only, lying your way into office. The reason you want to keep persecuting people who make the perfectly rational decision to use marijuana is not to protect them from anything but rather because you selfishly think that this stand will help keep you in office. Never mind the police violence your position encourages. Never mind the families you break up, the children you deny parents Never mind the employers that you cause to lose valuable workers. Never mind the brutal treatment of marijuana users in prison who unlike you do not commit or constantly sanction violence. Never mind the enormous expense you burden the taxpayers with. Never mind the fact that case against marijuana is built upon one lie after another refuted by one commission report after another. No, you do what you believe is best for yourself screw the rest of us that is what is important right?
Keith Halderman
This is the best interview with Ron Paul that I have ever seen, hands down. It was done at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference in New Orlean by Mike Church. I think I will vote for this guy.
Ever since he first took his seat in the House of Representatives Anthony Weiner has shown through his voting record a dedication to ensuring that America remains a society run from the top down that is ordered on the use of force and coercion. Apparently this juvenile misogynistic lying cretin is not sufficiently embarrassed by his own atrocious behavior to serve this country’s citizens in the only way he is capable of by resigning his office. His love of micro-managing and disrupting the lives of complete strangers through fear, fraud, and theft is too great.
The more comprehensive as well as the more impartial a Commission charged with studying marijuana use conclusions are, the more likely its report is to be ignored and have no effect on public policy. This occurred with studies by the British in India, the U. S. Army in the Panama Canal Zone, the Mayor of New York, a panel appointed by Richard Nixon, the Canadian Senate, the Dutch government and the Jamaican Parliament despite the fact that their member credentials were unimpeachable. In every one of these cases and many others besides they found that marijuana prohibition caused far more problems than it ameliorated and should be abolished. Yet it still exists and is now being enforced by the Obama Administration with relentless zeal.
Now, The Global Commission on Drug Policy associated with the UN has declared that war against people who use certain kinds of drugs is “a failure and urged nations to consider steps such as legalizing marijuana to help undermine the power of organized crime.” If history repeats itself as it has so many times before we will hear little more about these conclusions and politicians will continue to disregard the truth that drug prohibition is unconstitutional, unjust, racist, destructive, inhumane, expensive, immoral, lethal and benefits no one except busy body moralists, prison guard unions, police swat teams and politicians seeking to fool people into believing they are tough on crime. If the past is any clue to the future, our leaders will continue to enforce these symbolic drug laws violated on a daily basis by millions of people with no harm through simple use to anyone, not even themselves. Therefore the blood on the hands of politicians, commentators, and ordinary citizens who support this horrendous deadly policy will continue to accumulate.
Cross posted on The Trebach Report.
Anyone who wins a Fulbright-Hays scholarship probably has a head so filled with soul destroying progressive ideology that they have passed the point of ever being useful to America or anyone else. Also, when Paul Krugman has won an economics award and Barak Obama a peace accolade then defending the program by citing the number of Nobel Prize winners does not make much sense to me. Maybe I am wrong and the program is really good and worthwhile but that does not matter the people who give out the money are 14 trillion dollars in debt, not to mention the trillions more in unfunded liabilities. There are many things that would be good for me to have; however, I do not have the money for them and unlike the federal government I cannot borrow it from my unborn grandchildren. (This is a response to Charles Nuckolls post directly below. I tried unsuccessfully to put it up as a comment. I realize changes to the mechanics of the Blog were most likely necessary, still I find it harder to post anything than it used to be.)
Osama Bin Laden is dead but he can still prevail in his struggle against the American people. His goal all along has been to bankrupt the United States and he came closer to his objective then any American, especially a congressman, should be comfortable with and he could still succeed. Members of the House of Representatives who vote to raise the debt ceiling will be serving Osama Bin Laden’s purpose.
Anyone who has gotten into trouble with debt and then come out of it knows that the absolutely imperative first step is to STOP BORROWING MORE MONEY. I am a constituent and you do not just represent the Democrats in your district or just the people who agree with you in. You represent everyone and therefore I am your boss. I have a specific instruction, under no circumstances vote to increase the debt ceiling. If you fail to follow this directive you will betray not only me but the American people, their children and their children’s children. Each child born today already owes in excess of $30,000 and it is immoral as well as unforgivable to increase this burden, which promises to follow them throughout their lives.
There are those who say we have to raise the debt limit, otherwise the United States will default on its financial obligations and they are bald faced liars. It does not take a Ph.D. in economics just the ability to compare two numbers to see this assertion for the despicable scare tactic that it is.. If Congress does the only rational thing by telling the President no you cannot mortgage the country’s future any further and the United States subsequently defaults on its debt that will be a choice made by Barack Obama. He and he alone will bear the responsibility for the consequences.
There are many reasons to think Barak Obama is bad president from 1.7 trillion dollar deficits to five on going wars but I think he is also a bad human being. How his is use of drones really that much different from what Tony Soprano used to do on HBO. They both arbitrarily decide that someone needs to be killed. Just as a mafia member cannot question why the boss has is murdering a certain individual, we the taxpayers who pay for Obama’s hit are not privileged to know the reason it is taking place. Both of them surround their actions with secrecy Soprano will say that he is doing it for the good of the family. Obama, in the same vague manner, asserts he is killing to keep American’s safe. I do not think that I am the only one who is extremely skeptical of this rationale. If Obama wants to keep me safe how about not going around all over the world giving people reasons to want me dead just because I live in the United States. Barak Obama, however, does Tony Soprano one better, when Tony kills it is usually just the one intended, in contrast when Barak murders it is not just the person, for who knows what reason, targeted but also many people whose only crime is living in the same village.
I have thought Obama was a deeply flawed person long before I realized he was killing little Pakistani children with his drones. That opinion stems from his unbelievably hypocritical and enthusiastic support for drug prohibition. In his autobiography Obama admits to drug use, so he knows from personal experience that marijuana is not a dangerous drug yet he continues to persecute those who use it to this day. Not only is the President’s stance intensely hypocritical but it is also another one of his many betrayals. During the 2008 campaign a website supporting him asked the voters what they wanted to see changed and by far the number one answer was an end to our nation’s irrational policy towards marijuana use. In this respect nothing has changed. If Barak Obama were a better man it would have.
In fact, monies given to Ron Paul or Gary Johnson are the only political contributions to candidates worth making. If either of these two men are not the Republican nominee in 2012 it really won’t matter who the GOP candidate is because the American people will face the same choice they had in 2008. They will be stuck with picking between two people sharing the same goal, destroying the United States and its Constitution with a combination of perpetual warfare and accumulation of massive amounts of debt.
One modern use of anti-Semitism is to raise funds for National Public Radio (NPR). Much in the news today is a meeting between conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe and two NPR executives Ron Schiller and Betsy Liley. The NPR people mistakenly thought they were sitting down with two representatives of the Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) a group fronting for the Muslim Brotherhood about to donate five million dollars. A video of this encounter is drawing attention for remarks by Schiller and Liley disparaging Tea Party members and Republicans as well as a statement of belief that in the long run NPR would be better off without federal funding. Less talked about is the fact that these NPR leaders were willing to make a deal that could not help but influence their content in an anti-Semitic direction. They sought funding from what they believed was a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with strong historic ties to Nazism. Seldom has the media bias against the Jewish people in Israel been so clearly explained and blatantly put on display.
Cross posted on The Trebach Report.
First the taxpayers will now have to pay for expensive prosecution of 25 people and since most of those on trial will be low level dealers the public will also have to pay for much of their defense. If the government is successful at trial we will have to house, feed, clothe, and provide medical care for those convicted. In some cases this responsibility will last for decades. When you also consider the direct costs of the two year investigation and the fact that for this time period law enforcement resources were not being used to protect the public from rape, armed robbery, murder and other forms of mayhem you can see that these drug busts are very expensive with little return for the rest of us.
The article in The Washington Times does not mention any violence just street level sales of illegal substances. Since the task force has done nothing to reduce demand for the product, disruption of supply will be minimal or perhaps even non-existent. However, there will be a period where market share is contested with the most vicious and ruthless people winning. In the black market of illegal drugs disputes are settled with guns and murder. Therefore in this instance the main accomplishment of Northern Virginia Violent Crime Task Force will most likely be to engender violence that would not have occurred if they did not exist, putting at risk the rest of us.
Cross Posted on The Trebach Report
