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June 29, 2004

Sovereignty 2: The Sequel

"Iraqis have lived this lie before" is the title of this fascinating article from the U.K. Guardian. (Link courtesy Antiwar.com.) The author details the last "transfer of sovereignty" from the British to the Iraqis, in the 1920s, including how and why it happened and what the results were. The parallels to yesterday's "transfer of sovereignty" are absolutely uncanny. The author concludes with these paragraphs:

Three major events have shaped our national identity. The 1920 revolution, the 1958 coup regarded by most Iraqis as a revolution that finally achieved real Iraqi independence - and the Palestinian cause. At the heart of the three lay the struggle to end occupation. Occupation has always been perceived as a process by which to rob us of our identity and dignity. The British, in the past, failed to understand the depth of the feeling among Iraqis both against occupation and towards the Palestinian issue. Now, in their partnership with the US, they are repeating the same mistakes.

As in the past, Iraqis are denied their natural right to resist the occupier and its imposed form of government. The "extremists" of our history are now called "terrorists".

Within a year the occupiers have achieved what Saddam's regime failed to do over decades. They have killed our hope in democracy. What of tomorrow? It would be useful to reread history and take notice of Al Istiqlal Al Tam and above all Miss Bell's warning about Iraq: "There are so many quicksands."

History? What's that? Besides, we Americans, under the guidance of the neocons, have turned a corner and need pay no attention to the lessons of the past. We have reached "the end of history," after all. Onward to the great democratic revolution!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:55 PM | Comments (276)

Meet Your Friendly Neighborhood Slave Traders

Isn't this nice? The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ran a glowing report, complete with photographs of smiling, friendly faces, on the "thousands of volunteers trained and ready to serve" on local draft boards in the event of a military draft.

Here are some comments from the fine, civic-minded volunteers:

"I'm one of those old potbellied guys that when they play the national anthem at the ball game, I take my hat off and put my hand over my heart," said Wright, a draft board member since 1999. "I just believe this is the best country in the world. Whatever we have to do to keep it the best, we should do."

Wright, an Army infantry lieutenant during Vietnam [and yet he still supports the draft!], said his stint in the military helps him appreciate the responsibility of serving on a draft board.

"If anybody is forced into service, it should be everybody. There shouldn't be too many exceptions," said Wright, who owns a business in the Strip District. He has two children, including a draft-age son. . . .

"If the draft comes up, we're all going to be scared," [Steven Williams] said. "But you have to have these structures in place as part of the national defense shield." . . .

"I'm a flag-waver," said Potter, a homemaker, mother and grandmother. "I think it's important for average people to participate in their government, and this is one way I choose to do that."

Imagine any newspaper today running a puff piece on the slave traders of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries--or perhaps those who are currently plying the trade in Africa and Asia. These people were (or are), after all, doing their part to help the economies of the countries in which their slaves were (or are) employed. Why shouldn't they be profiled cheerily, too?

Come to think of it, the people who sit on draft boards can't be the sharpest knives in the drawer. While they could be making money hand over fist trading slaves in the Sudan, for example, they're sitting back here in the U.S. doing it for free--and worse, paying Uncle Sam for the "privilege" of doing it!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:33 AM | Comments (287)

Coffee, coffee everywhere, but...

I’m a coffee fanatic. And where I live on California’s central coast is a paradise, dotted not only with plenty of Starbucks but with many independent, quaint, mom-and-pop coffee houses. Sitting with a book and a dark roast at one or another of these independent shops for an hour or so each morning has been my routine for a decade. And as you can imagine, with the amount of java I consume, I often need to use...well...the “facilities.”

Until last week, one of my favorite haunts always offered the use of its small employee restroom as a courtesy to its customers. No more. It seems the place was descended upon by a wheelchair-bound patron, armed with an attorney and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). He couldn’t fit his chair into the restroom and take his courtesy leak. Customer restroom privileges are now rescinded. Nobody takes a leak.

But one lawyer is very, very happy.

Posted by Wally Conger at 11:04 AM | Comments (244) | TrackBack

The Buckley Stops Here

Do you suppose even ol' Bill Buckley is feeling a bit estranged from the modern-day "conservative" movement? He's decided to give up his controlling interest in National Review, and in this interview with the New York Times, he adds this juicy tidbit:

"With the benefit of minute hindsight, Saddam Hussein wasn't the kind of extra-territorial menace that was assumed by the administration one year ago," Mr. Buckley said. "If I knew then what I know now about what kind of situation we would be in, I would have opposed the war."

As Marcus Epstein wrote over at the LewRockwell.com blog (whence I "stole" his link), "That's super, but why is it that he's a hero at NR, while those of us who were smart enough to realize that the war as the fraud that it was and is before we wasted billions of dollars and thousands of lives labeled 'unpatriotic conservatives' who have 'turned their back on their country'?"

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:44 AM | Comments (254)

June 25, 2004

Is the Tide Turning?

Jonah Goldberg at NationalReview.com finds this poll depressing, which must mean it's good news for the rest of us. Sure enough, it is:

"Most Americans now say that sending U.S. troops to Iraq was a mistake, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds. For the first time, a majority also says that the war there has made the nation less safe from terrorism."

Unfortunately, Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush campaign, is correct when he says: "The fact that people feel that way doesn't make them feel better about Kerry or worse about us." It really shouldn't make them feel better about Kerry, since he says he would have done the same thing Bush did, only differently; but it should make them feel worse about Bush. The fact that it doesn't does not bode well for our future.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:54 AM | Comments (234)

The Swiss Bank on Neutrality

Hooray for the Swiss!

They have wisely decided not to send troops to Iraq. The Swiss government said in a statement: "Iraqis might be led to believe that Switzerland had taken sides in the US-led war if Swiss soldiers were sent to protect the mission." Well, duh! Of course they would be! That would make Swiss soldiers and other Swiss nationals targets, and it would also destroy's Switzerland's long-standing neutrality.

For all the talk of how great our war presidents have been, from McKinley to Wilson to FDR to both Bushes, all you have to do is take a look at this site, which lists deaths in all major wars since 1898, to see which country has had the wiser, more caring leaders over the last 106 years. Total U.S. war deaths, including the current war, come to 893,616. Total Swiss deaths come to a big, fat zero.

I'll take any Swiss head of state, whoever he is, over any U.S. president any day of the week. How 'bout you?

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:05 AM | Comments (182)

Anticapitalist Drivel

Being a pro-market professor is not an easy life. Thomas DiLorenzo writes: "Two years ago I was on a faculty committee to choose the one book that incoming freshmen would be asked to read and discuss in discussion groups during freshman orientation. . . . The most passionate debates centered over two books that were favored by several members of the committee and which, it turns out, have become almost cult classics among the academic left. These are Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal, by Eric Schlosser and Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. Both are New York Times bestsellers and both are shockingly ignorant of the most elementary level of economic logic."

Posted by George F. Smith at 09:24 AM | Comments (128) | TrackBack

June 24, 2004

Your Right to Deflation

The Federal Reserve is a legal countfeiting monopoly that causes great damage to our lives. As Lew Rockwell explains, "Falling prices are a gift that the free market grants to all people, provided that the market's natural benevolence is not thwarted by central bankers and government officials."

Long ago, we had a government-manipulated gold standard. The solution is not to return to those days, but instead separate government from money altogether and have a genuine gold standard. Among other things, this would impose severe restrictions on what the state could get away with. It's unlikely we would have an obscenity like the Iraq invasion because government would be unable to create dollars from nothing to pay for it. Can you imagine the response Bush would get if he announced plans for an invasion as well as a $200 billion tax increase?

With honest money, we would have prosperity, less government, and far fewer wars. Does anyone care?

Posted by George F. Smith at 09:51 AM | Comments (117) | TrackBack

Statish Thinking

(by Nicholas Strakon)

I. Did you realize that Bill Clinton "created 22 million jobs" while he was chief
magistrate? Well, he did, if we're to believe Gloria Borger of CNBC and U.S. News & World Report, appearing June 20 on one of the Sunday-morning talk shows. (One assumes she was speaking of jobs here in the United State.)

Is there any way to understand Borger's premises as other than utterly and profoundly totalitarian? The most Clinton or any ruler could have done was lighten the dead hand of government enough to permit the people =actually working in the economy= to create 22 million jobs. (I cannot testify to the fact, of course.) But even if we accept the 22 million figure =in arguendo,= is it a net figure? How many jobs did Clinton simultaneously destroy or prevent from arising? What kinds of jobs were created? What kinds were destroyed? Which sections of the country were unjustly favored by the Clintonian largesse, and which disfavored? It is easy to jabber about "22 million" new jobs; it is not so easy to answer those questions.

And is Borger counting government jobs and jobs subsidized by the overnment? If so, that is plainly illegitimate. Government cannot create wealth; it can only steal it through robbery, extortion, and fraud. Every job paid for by the government reduces actual economic activity. That is because only the market can define economic activity; only the market =is= economic activity. At best, government sees human action through a scratched plastic glass, darkly.

Just as government establishes dystopia when it sets out to create utopia, it establishes a diseconomy when it sets out to imitate an economy.

By the way, Borger was appearing on Fox, the "conservative" network, when she delivered her "22 million" assertion. It went unchallenged.

---

II. Mike Perkins, editor of the Huntington (Ind.) Herald-Press, wrote a startling
column on May 30 about his town's response to conscription during Wilson's War ("Draft day, many summers ago," p. 3A). He observed: "The draft, which
became so unpopular during the Vietnam War era and has even been a political football in recent weeks amid calls to bolster troop strength in Iraq, was viewed in 1917 as a glorious opportunity for patriotic service."

Perkins quoted the story in the Huntington Press covering "draft day," July 20, 1917: "Selective conscription day in Huntington may properly be termed a patriotic holiday...."One young man who secured the first edition of The
Press spied his name at the first glance. He hastened to the place of business where he is lucratively employed and securing a large sheet of paper wrote
thereon: 'Honor Roll -- 363, [his name].' After which he proudly exhibited the extra edition to his fellow employees."

Those of us who are sensible of how far the Americans of our day have declined in their understanding must recognize how much had already been lost by 1917. If so many young men considered military service some kind of
"glorious opportunity," why didn't they all choose the number 1 for their personal "Honor Roll"? That is, why did they wait to be conscripted? Why didn't they all just rush out and enlist?

Could it be that they didn't find it "patriotic" enough to willingly assist the state in its mass slaughter? -- that in order to be complete "patriots" they had also
to become slaves? Or had they simply lost the ability to distinguish between freedom and slavery?

As for Wilson, if such impressive hordes of young men considered it so glorious to participate in his overseas adventure, why couldn't he just rely on volunteers for his cannon fodder and machine-gun meat?

Well, that question is the easy one -- for anyone who understands why our rulers work to establish totalitarianism: the total state is their total paradise. What is harder to understand is how totalitarianism had already managed to cripple the minds of so many ordinary people -- by 1917!

Reposted by permission from The Last Ditch at www.thornwalker.com/ditch © 2004 WTM Enterprises. All rights reserved.


Posted by Rob at 12:44 AM | Comments (170) | TrackBack

June 22, 2004

De-bamboozling the Public

In 1976 Murray Rothbard wrote about the need for revisionism, which he defines as the effort of "de-bamboozling" the public. Revisionism's noble task is "to penetrate the fog of lies and deception of the State and its Court Intellectuals, and to present to the public the true history of the motivation, the nature, and the consequences of State activity."

Where exactly does this lead us?

"The result of such a cool-eyed empirical look at the evidence, at the history of particular States in the modern world, is bound to be a shock for Americans raised on the foreign affairs mythology propounded by the Court Intellectuals of the media and of our educational system. Namely, that the major aggressor, the major imperialist and war-monger, in the nineteenth and down through the first half of the twentieth century, was Great Britain; and, further, that the United States signed on, during World War I, as a junior partner of the British Empire, only to replace it as the major imperial and war-mongering power after World War II."

Posted by George F. Smith at 07:46 PM | Comments (215) | TrackBack

June 21, 2004

Serving in Spite of the State

Suppose you need a ride to the supermarket because you don't have a car. You don't want to wait for the bus or try to carry several bags of groceries back on it. Licensed taxis (i.e., those who have paid their protection money to the state) are expensive. What do you do? You call a jitney, an unlicensed taxi, to take you. The jitney driver has lower overhead without having to pay all the license, inspection, and insurance charges the state requires of licensed taxis, and he has no protection from competition the way licensed drivers do, so he can therefore offer you the best service at the lowest price.

You might even consider this guy a hero, but guess who wouldn't: the state, of course. After all, the jitney driver isn't paying the state its protection money. The state, therefore, will cite and fine anyone driving a taxi without its approval.

Here in Pittsburgh, jitney drivers are tolerated and not even discouraged by the city, which has nothing to gain by shutting them down (since license fees go to the state). They provide a necessary service at a low cost, and they aren't forced to go anywhere there don't want to go, unlike licensed drivers. Many of them serve dangerous and poor neighborhoods, providing a much needed service.

Watch out for the government, though. Free enterprise is anathema to them unless they're getting a cut of it.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:12 PM | Comments (117)

Up Yours, NASA!

Three cheers for this morning's historic, first-time-ever. private manned space launch in Mojave, California, just two hours or so southeast of my house. Just goes to show that if any of us ever want the chance to travel into space, it'll be through PRIVATE means, a free market, and not the State.

This all brings to mind Victor Koman's wonderful novel of a few years ago, Kings of the High Frontier. The book is about a handful of entrepreneurs and dreamers shrugging off the government to pursue spaceflight on their own. You may still be able to get the book in hardcover, but it's also available as a cheap download. It's well worth your time.

Posted by Wally Conger at 02:27 PM | Comments (122) | TrackBack

One Nation, Under Bush, Invincible

Now we find out why the neocons are so big on the Pledge of Allegiance and its "under God" phrase. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a love of God and everything to do with a love of the State.

Writes Daniel Henninger at OpinionJournal.com:

The long historical truth is that God, whether He exists or not, is good for summoning national pride, communal bonds and the martial spirit--the qualities most necessary to ensuring the survival of the United States at its current level of pre-eminence. (If the U.S.'s current level of pre-eminence is what galls you most, stop reading.)

When in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance schoolchildren stand and say together that their one, indivisible, just and liberty-loving nation exists under God, they are admitting an organizing force in life other than their cute, little selves.

This follows Henninger's extolling the virtues of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," which is quite appropriate considering that the "Battle Hymn" likened Lincoln's brutal crushing of Southern independence to Christ's redeeming work on the cross, while Henninger obviously wants us to think of the war on Iraq in a similar light, as Bush doing God's work (if He exists) on earth.

For Henninger, God is just a tool to be used to further his goal of making everyone worship the State, at least when it's run by Republicans and is making war on evil Arabs. He further writes:

In 1992, the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in Sherman v. Community Consolidated School District--an "under God" Pledge of Allegiance case from Illinois--upheld the Pledge and made the national security argument in the plainest possible terms: "Patriotism is an effort by the state to promote its own survival, and along the way to teach those virtues that justify its survival. Public schools help to transmit those virtues and values."

There you have it: the Pledge of Allegiance is there to promote the survival of the State, and invoking God helps strenghten the Pledge, and thus the State's chances of survival.

Henninger closes:

This innocuous little Pledge and its two words, "under God," has become for school children the last link joining national purpose to God--a union that is this country's best, proven hope for ensuring national strength. When that link is finally broken, the U.S. will start to become, well, France--smart, sophisticated, agnostic and save for nuclear bombs, inexorably weak. That is one test case I'd as soon not try.

Better to keep reciting that pledge to the ominipotent State, enlisting God on its side, so that we can keep blowing other people to smithereens than to end up like the French, well armed but eager to avoid war. Those Christians who are most vocal in their support of the "under God" phrase in the Pledge ought to recognize that they are being used for purposes that are anything but Christian.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:34 AM | Comments (226)

June 17, 2004

Iraq War: Where's the LP?

While doing a few weeks’ catch-up on my reading, I came across Justin Raimondo’s April 28 column for Antiwar.com, “Neoconservatism Versus Libertarianism.” I recommend STR diehards read the article in full. But in the meantime, one of the questions Raimondo poses is, since both major political parties are essentially playing footsie over the Iraq debacle, why isn’t the so-called “Libertarian” Party taking a real leadership role in the antiwar effort?

“To read the LP News,” Raimondo writes, “you’d never know there was a war on. You’d never know that this has been the bloodiest month of the war so far, with the prospect of more looming as an immediate likelihood. In the literature and public pronouncements of the LP there is scant mention of the most important issue we are all facing, and that is the question of war and peace.”

At a time when American liberties are threatened by the Patriot Act and public opposition to the war is running high (more than 50%), the LP has “given the question of war and peace no more attention than they would the privatization of garbage collection or the abolition of local sales taxes,” writes Raimondo. As an example of the LP’s lack of antiwar commitment, he cites the party’s decision to invite warmonger and Bush defender Neal Boortz to speak at the recent LP National Convention.

Although no longer affiliated with the LP, Raimondo obviously still sees party politics as a viable freedom strategy. But if you strip away the political language, his closing remarks are of general value to this movement of ours:

“There is only one way forward for the libertarian movement, and that is as the catalyst of a mass-based, non-leftist antiwar movement, fiercely dedicated to the defense of civil liberties... We also have to begin to recruit from the Left as well as the Right. Young people today are not attracted to Marxism, but to anarchism of the left-wing variety. The question of how these young lefties are going to achieve a society that is at once property-less and State-less is a conundrum that ought to baffle them, if only it is brought to their attention. ...”

Posted by Wally Conger at 06:43 PM | Comments (220) | TrackBack

June 16, 2004

Southern Baptist Conventional Thinking

Well, it appears that the Southern Baptists are as much statists as everyone else, despite their vaunted conservatism. Today they voted down a resolution to encourage (not require) parents to remove their kids from government schools "because parents must decide." Meanwhile, they approved a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage because, apparently, states and localities must not decide. (There are good reasons to oppose gay marriage, but getting the government--especially the federal government--to intervene further in the institution of marriage rather than pushing to eliminate government licensing of marriage is the wrong way to go.) Furthermore, they allowed President Bush, mass murderer and liar extraordinaire, to speak at their meeting and commended him for supporting the amendment.

That's a shame. Apparently, loyalty to the GOP and the government trumps the Bible and common sense with these people. The Southern Baptists, like most other Americans, are perfectly conventional thinkers, unwilling to do anything but nibble around the edges of government. When one of the most theologically and politically conservative denominations in the country won't request that its members get their kids out of government indoctrination centers, you know we're in trouble.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:59 PM | Comments (248)

June 15, 2004

Training Future Tyrants

A feature article now appearing on the “Libertarian” Party’s website sings the praises of the Leadership Institute, a school located in the Washington, DC area for politicians and campaign leaders. The author, John Cox, attended a weeklong seminar recently for his son Tom, who’s now running for the Oregon House of Representatives as an LP candidate.

Writes John: “...thanks to the Leadership Institute, I now have a better grasp of the challenges my son’s campaign will face. And I have the names of a bunch of professionals that I might be able to call on for help.”

I’m sure it’s a relief to most of us here that such professional help is available to our young, aspiring despots of tomorrow.

By the way, Cox describes his son’s central campaign message as “holding the line on taxes and teaching the state to live within a budget. Further he’ll talk about how the state can deliver more and better services more efficiently.”

Sigh. Remember when libertarianism was about smashing the State, not helping it “deliver more and better services more efficiently”?

Posted by Wally Conger at 01:26 PM | Comments (229) | TrackBack

Guardsman, Protect Thyself

Reports KDKA Radio in Pittsburgh:

"After a 10-day training trip to Fort Indian Town Gap, several members of the Army National Guard's 128th Forward Support Battalion in Beechview returned to find their cars broken into. More than a dozen cars were left at the military parking lot at the Crane Avenue armory, many of which had their radios stolen."

We're supposed to trust these people to protect us from terrorists and foreign invaders, but they can't even protect their own cars from common thieves. Gee, I feel safer already.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 08:25 AM | Comments (98)

June 14, 2004

Even Liberals Understand It

Heard today on the Lynn Cullen show, whose hostess is an avowed liberal:

Caller: This president is not conservative.
Cullen: No, he's not. He is not conservative.

Now, if a liberal, who is playing to other liberals and should (one thinks) be doing her best to convince them that Bush is a wacko, right-wing extremist so they'll vote for Kerry, can figure out that Bush isn't conservative, what's keeping all those "conservatives" out there from recognizing it?

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:45 PM | Comments (193)

Two Peas in a Pod

Need more proof that the two parties are really one? Look no further than George W. Bush's gushing speech given at the unveiling of the Clintons' White House portraits today:

The years have done a lot to clarify the strengths of this man. As a candidate for any office, whether it be the state attorney general or the President, Bill Clinton showed incredible energy and great personal appeal. As chief executive, he showed a deep and far-ranging knowledge of public policy, a great compassion for people in need, and the forward-looking spirit the Americans like in a President. Bill Clinton could always see a better day ahead -- and Americans knew he was working hard to bring that day closer.

Over eight years, it was clear that Bill Clinton loved the job of the presidency. He filled this house with energy and joy. He's a man of enthusiasm and warmth, who could make a compelling case and effectively advance the causes that drew him to public service. ...

Mr. Rodham did have the joy of seeing his only daughter become America's First Lady. And I know he would not be surprised to see her as she is today, an elected United States Senator, and a woman greatly admired in our country. From the earliest days of her youth in Park Ridge, Illinois, Hillary Rodham impressed her family and friends as a person of great ability and serious purpose. At Maine Township High School South, at Wellesley College, and at Yale Law School, classmates saw her not just an achiever, but as a role model and as a leader. She inspires respect and loyalty from those who know her, and it was a good day in both their lives when they met at the library at Yale Law School Library.

Now, I realize that a certain amount of politeness is in order when conducting such ceremonies, but this is going just a wee bit overboard. Perhaps Bush has political motives in saying all this stuff--there are Democrat votes to win, after all--but I'm inclined to think he really means it. When it comes right down to it, how much difference is there between the Clinton policies and the Bush policies? How much difference is there between their prevaricative powers? How much between their respect for the Constitution and the rule of law?

(Notice, by the way, that Bush's definition of "compassion for people in need" is now clearly defined as "spending other people's money on government or charitable programs," or else he wouldn't refer to Clinton's "compassion," which is precisely that--as is Bush's.)

We need to get all the networks to change their "Decision '04" graphics to read "No Choice '04." Don't truth-in-advertising laws demand it?

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:36 PM | Comments (215)

An Icon, and Then He's Gone

John M. Glionna, an L.A. Times staff writer, recalls the 1989 Tinananmen Square protests and the image of a lone protestor facing down tanks. No one knows his name or what happened to him.

"Just after noon on June 5, 1989, the day after Chinese troops stormed the square to brutally crush a student political uprising [in Beijing], a solitary protester engaged in a modern-day David versus Goliath showdown: Clutching nothing but two shopping bags, he stood his ground before a column of oncoming tanks on the adjacent Avenue of Eternal Peace. . .

"No one in the country has ever seen the images. In fact, no ordinary Chinese beyond the protesters and soldiers involved even knows of the standoff. Even today, Chinese can't see the famous photograph, even on the Internet. Attempts to download the picture are blocked by the government."

Our government, fortuntately, would never block the downloading of politically-critical material.

Posted by George F. Smith at 01:02 PM | Comments (196) | TrackBack

June 11, 2004

G-8 Security

Statistics from the G-8 meeting on Sea Island and the way off-site media center in Savannah.

20,000 - Number of security personnel.
$35,000,000 - Cost of security.
350 - Number of protestors in Savannah and near Sea Island.
$ 100,000 - Cost of security per protestor.

These numbers are so hilarious in themselves that I don't have to make anything up.

Following a successful conclusion to security issues in Savannah, Hizzoner the Mayor suggested that the city take a page from G-8 security to reduce street crime. Basically, what we saw over the past three days was:

•1-2 automatic weapons-armed, cammie-dressed, sojer-boys/girls on every corner in the historic district.

•Innumerable Humvees.

•Coast Guard launches on the river, machine guns locked and loaded.

•Streets empty of tourists, restaurants empty of tourists, all stores almost empty or everybody. The overworked phrase, "ghost town," comes to mind.

•40 protestors in the park, surrounded by 100 journalists trying to interview them, surrounded by security personnel outnumbering either group.

•A few dozen protestors out for a walk, being faced down by lines of armor-clad, face-shielded, baton-tapping cops, not to mention Clydesdale-sized, armored steeds.

Yeah... For getting a taste of the future police state, the last few days has been invaluable.

Posted by at 09:10 AM | Comments (209) | TrackBack

June 10, 2004

Ninth Circuit Insanity Hearing Soon?

The Federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals just overruled everybody (SS Admin, Fed District Court) in granting Social Security survivor benefits to two children who were conceived ten months after their father's death.

Who are these creatures (Ninth Circuit, not the children) and what pods did they grow from?

How can someone even be a survivor if they weren't alive, not to mention unconceived, at the time of the death of the putative survived one?

It's rulings like this that make me want to climb the curtains and butter myself.

Posted by at 09:38 PM | Comments (221)

New Private Currency

I sent this story to my friend Patrick Chkoreff. It's about some UFO fans who devised a new currency (the galacto) to show extraterrestrials that trade between earthlings and ETs is possible. He responded:

"I assume these galacto coins are made out of some cheap pot metal.

I also assume that cheap pot metal is just as plentiful in distant galaxies as it is here.

I also assume that when an earthling offers an ET a galacto, the ET will ask "Why are you offering me pieces of cheap pot metal?"

The earthling will have no good answer, and will be unable to offer the ET anything more valuable, at which point the ET will bite off the earthling's head."

Posted by Rob at 07:16 PM | Comments (119) | TrackBack

One More on the Gipper

Seen and heard enough about Ronald Reagan this week? Well, even if you have, you should give Anthony Gregory's column on the subject a look.

I was thinking of writing something along these lines myself, but Anthony has pretty well said all that needs to be said about it. I'll only add to what he has written with what I see as a couple of very bad consequences of Reagan's ascension to the presidency vis a vis the conservative movement:

  1. It completed the wedding of conservatives to the Republican Party, to the point that most seem to believe the two are synonymous, regardless of how appalled they would be had a Democrat done the same things George W. Bush has done, for example.

  2. It proved that one could get away with left-wing policies as long as he put a right-wing veneer on them. Both George Bushes succeeded in getting elected by claiming to be conservatives and speaking of limited government, although W. has done so to a far lesser extent than his father and Reagan, and then governed as if they had run as Ted Kennedy. Bush still speaks of "knowing the limitations of government" every time he is about to announce some new government program, and the conservatives swallow it.

Need proof? I sent a copy of the column to a Republican hardliner friend of mine, whose response was that I should count him among the "vile followers" of Reagan, as Anthony describes them, so you know he's touched a nerve. Criticism of Republicans from the left can be ignored, but criticism from the right is simply beyond the pale.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:34 PM | Comments (130)

Mass ignorance

C-SPAN's Washington journal is a call-in show, with phone lines usually devoted to "Support Democrats," "Support Republicans," and "Support Others." [There is good reason for this split along political rather than geographic or other demographic lines, but it's not relevant to go into that now.]

The only thing more gut-churning than listening to the blind idolization of the Bush-worshippers is listening to the blind idolization of the Clinton-worshippers. It is as though the worshipped not only walked on water, but transformed said water to money and and other forms of goodies.

The only thing more spirit-crushing than listening to the virulent spewings of the Clinton-haters is listening to the virulent spewings of the Bush-haters. I never fail to wonder at how much hate these folks can hold inside themselves without permanently damaging themselves, physically, mentally, and spiritually.

While these groups of callers are not in the majority, there are enough of them to understand how easily Hitler manipulated huge crowds of Germans in the 1930s. These people are the manipulable.

But the most mind-numbing ventings come from those Americans who consistently display a total lack of knowledge of how a republic is supposed to work, no knowledge of what the purpose of government is, and complete and abysmal ignorance of the simplest laws of economics.

When I reflect on the fact that God is just, I fear for my country.

Posted by at 11:07 AM | Comments (160) | TrackBack

June 09, 2004

Ronald Reagan Day

The powers-that-be have determined they will make the arrival of Reagan's body here a memorable one for mourners and non-mourners alike in the D.C. area. I believe the deliberate blocking off of streets and intentional disruption of traffic patterns are the direct cause of the extra 105 minutes I spent sitting in traffic the past two days. Tomorrow, the nightmare continues.

Posted by Robert Jackson at 11:40 PM | Comments (218) | TrackBack

A Day Full of Lincoln

Yesterday I was in a shopping mall near the city that Lincoln burned to the ground when I saw a large poster on a wall that had a large picture of Lincoln on it. Below the picture were the words, "Failure, failure, failure, and then...." And then what? Success? The word "Persistence" was at the bottom. So as long as you have persistence, you too can overcome failure and go on to kill over 600,000 of your fellow Americans and enslave half the country.

On my way home, I heard this report on NPR about a speech Lincoln gave that supposedly proved that he opposed slavery. Words.

Then I flipped to another channel, where neocon Newt Gingrich was giving an interview about his latest Civil War novel. At the end of the interview, he was asked, as someone who had lived in Georgia, did he ever wonder if the South might have been better off if it had won the war? I smiled because I knew what was coming next. He said the obligatory respectful things about Lee and Stonewall Jackson, but then said it would have been a disaster for the country if Lincoln had failed, and that we enjoyed freedom as a result of the war.

Posted by Rob at 08:02 PM | Comments (230) | TrackBack

Some Sobran Thoughts on Anarchism

"My arrival (very recently)," writes Joseph Sobran, "at philosophical anarchism has disturbed some of my conservative and Christian friends. In fact, it surprises me, going as it does against my own inclinations."

Sobran goes on to detail his own transformation from good, state-worshipping youth to National Review-style conservative to libertarian to, finally, anarchist. Particularly interesting are his arguments that Christians should be anarchists. Here are a couple more choice paragraphs, but be sure to read the whole thing.

For most people, "anarchy" is a disturbing word, suggesting chaos, violence, antinomianism -- things they hope the state can control or prevent. The term "state," despite its bloody history, doesn't disturb them. Yet it's the state that is truly chaotic, because it means the rule of the strong and cunning. They imagine that anarchy would naturally terminate in the rule of thugs. But mere thugs can't assert a plausible *right* to rule. Only the state, with its propaganda apparatus, can do that. This is what "legitimacy" means. Anarchists obviously need a more seductive label.

"But what would you replace the state with?" The question reveals an inability to imagine human society without the state. Yet it would seem that an institution
that can take 200,000,000 lives within a century hardly needs to be "replaced."

(Link courtesy LewRockwell.com.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:31 AM | Comments (208)

June 08, 2004

Government Goof-Offs

The United States Post Office announced today that there will be “no regular mail or retail service” on Friday, June 11, as the brave, dedicated postal warriors will “honor the memory of former President Ronald Reagan by observing a National Day of Mourning.”

I suppose it’s a given that all US FedGov offices will find it in their heart to “sacrifice” a day of “service,” as well, to honor the dearly departed king, even though he has been out of power for over fifteen years.

Government employees share only one creative skill- finding new ways to not work and get paid for it. Somehow, an organization that has lost $6 billion since 1970, as well has holding $27 billion in unfunded pension obligations, can afford to pay their employees to do nothing. This last-minute-created holiday seems particularly idiotic in light of the fact that more than 75% of operating costs go to the service’s union workforce.

Isn’t this just more evidence that the supposed “Reagan Revolution” was a mirage?

Posted by Roger Young at 12:36 PM | Comments (222) | TrackBack

Superpower or Superdebtor?

Rep. Ron Paul writes:


Round and round we go, and we never seem to learn. Regime change plans, whether by CIA operations or by preemptive war, almost always go badly. American intervention abroad – installing the Shah of Iran in the fifties, killing Diem in South Vietnam in the sixties, helping Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the eighties, and propping up dictators in many Arab countries – has had serious repercussions for American interests including the loss of American life. . . .

For now foreign governments are willing to loan us the money needed to finance our current account deficit, and indirectly the cost of our worldwide military operations. But economic law eventually will limit our ability to live off others by credit creation. Eventually trust in the dollar will be diminished, if not destroyed.


Mind you, there is no conspiracy between the Fed and our foreign policy. The world's evil-doers must be destroyed at all costs.

Posted by George F. Smith at 10:06 AM | Comments (97) | TrackBack

June 06, 2004

The Madness of King George

Kurt Nimmo writes: "In this administration, you don't have to wear a turban or speak Farsi to be an enemy of the United States," says [a White House] aide. "All you have to do is disagree with the President."

Read the entire article here.

Posted by George F. Smith at 06:44 PM | Comments (203) | TrackBack

Squashing Radical Libertarianism

If anyone needs further proof that the so-called “Libertarian” Party’s purpose has long been to suck the radicalism out of our movement through compromise, look no further than the LP’s very own webpage (www.lp.org). Do a search for “radical” and see what pops up. One item will be Bill Winter’s “The Power of Incremental Proposals,” presented “for LP candidates who are concerned about the party’s ‘radical’ reputation.” Many voters and even, gulp, “political science experts and journalists,” he says, “argue that the Libertarian Party is too ideological and too extreme for Americans.”

Winter suggests the party adopt an incremental “First Step To Liberty” program, “less threatening to the typical voter.” This agenda “would move America closer to the libertarian society we all dream about — while tempering the charges of ivory-tower radicalism.” It consists of three “first steps” to liberty:

1. Freeze government spending — “without,” Winter says, “calling for a single ‘cut’ in spending.” Writes Winter, “Just think of the shock on the faces of your opponents in a debate when you say: ‘As a Libertarian, I think the government is the perfect size right now. Let’s keep it that way.’ Even better, let’s see them try to argue with that.”

2. Legalize marijuana — but only marijuana, at least for the time being.

3. Give Americans the option of choosing between Social Security or non-governmental savings accounts — without ending Social Security.

Winter concludes his proposed strategy by quoting that great freedom theorist, uh, General George Patton: “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

This piece first appeared on the site about a year ago. Seems the delegates at last month's LP presidential nominating convention took Winter's advice to heart.

Posted by Wally Conger at 02:13 PM | Comments (230) | TrackBack

June 04, 2004

Bush's Erratic Behavior Worries White House Aides

Reports Capitol Hill Blue:

President George W. Bush’s increasingly erratic behavior and wide mood swings has [sic] the halls of the West Wing buzzing lately as aides privately express growing concern over their leader’s state of mind.

In meetings with top aides and administration officials, the President goes from quoting the Bible in one breath to obscene tantrums against the media, Democrats and others that he classifies as “enemies of the state.”

Worried White House aides paint a portrait of a man on the edge, increasingly wary of those who disagree with him and paranoid of a public that no longer trusts his policies in Iraq or at home.

“It reminds me of the Nixon days,” says a longtime GOP political consultant with contacts in the White House. “Everybody is an enemy; everybody is out to get him. That’s the mood over there.”

If this report is accurate, this is truly scary stuff. It's also sad because it didn't have to happen. Might the GOP leadership convince Bush to refuse the nomination if this gets worse and becomes ever more public? We can only hope.

(Link courtesy Antiwar.com.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:43 PM | Comments (223)

The Relentless Pursuit of the Truth

Says Rush Limbaugh:

“Bush doesn't lie. He just doesn't, folks. That's one of the things that confounds the left. They may say he lied about weapons of mass destruction -- it was not a lie. The whole world thought that they were there, and most people think they're going to be found at some point.”

Sounds like the "Doctor of Democracy" has been writing his own prescriptions lately.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 11:24 AM | Comments (188)

Fighting Fat With Fatuousness

The Nanny State is hard at work, making sure our kids don't get too fat.

The Boston Globe reports:

"Students celebrating their birthdays this fall at the Chandler School in Duxbury can expect their classmates to sing 'Happy Birthday,' but cupcakes are out of the question.

"Concerned that the children are eating too much junk food, the Chandler School Council and the Parent Teacher Association are forbidding parents from bringing sweets to their child's classroom birthday party."

Meanwhile, according to Fox News:

"To combat childhood obesity, every Arkansas public school student this month will be receiving two report cards in the mail: one assessing them on math, science and social studies, and the other grading them on their weight.

"'We're going to know how many are overweight, how many are underweight, how many are normal weight,' said Margo Bushmiaer, health services coordinator for the Little Rock School District.

"As soon as next week, each parent will receive their child's ranking. The report cards also come with helpful health information, which aims to help parents make better meal choices for their kids, as well as reiterating the importance of exercise in everyone's life."

The Republican governor of Arkansas, naturally, defended this and other state "health" efforts on the usual basis: taxpayers have to foot the bill for the health-care costs incurred by the obese, smokers, etc.

Earth to Arkansas: The government has created one problem--socialized medicine--and now, rather than correct the problem by repealing the laws creating it, it seeks to control our lives further in order to "save us money." Naturally, this won't solve the problem, and may even create new problems, so we'll need more laws and programs to solve the problem(s) in the future. And on and on it goes.

Totalitarianism seldom arises in one fell swoop.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 10:58 AM | Comments (104)

Congress Prepares for Draft

S89 and HR163 are sitting in committee waiting to be acted on after the elections. This is the slave labor Universal National Service Act of 2003, which will draft men and women 18 - 26 for whatever purpose Big Brother (aka, the Council on Foreign Relations) desires.

"The American public just wants the war to go away," writes John Sutherland. "One thing that would get their attention (but not their votes) would be their children being sent off to die in foreign lands. Best not disturb the electorate until after November, seems to be the thinking. There are, after all, more important things than wars: getting your man into the White House, for example."

Posted by George F. Smith at 08:57 AM | Comments (214) | TrackBack

June 03, 2004

The Link That Wouldn't Die

NewsMax.com is reporting that, “newly appointed Iraq Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said in December that a document purported to be from Saddam's intelligence service that places lead 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Baghdad two months before the attacks was indeed "genuine."

"We are uncovering evidence all the time of Saddam's involvement with al-Qaeda," Allawi told the London Telegraph at the time. "But this is the most compelling piece of evidence that we have found so far. It shows that not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks."

Just because Atta was in Baghdad certainly isn’t proof that he met with Saddam. Guilt by geographic association would never hold up in court. However, Ahmad Chalabi did meet with the Bush regime. We know that for sure. Does that make Bush party to espionage, treason, and complicity with the "terrorist" government of Iran? Now that should hold up in any just court.
Using “Bush reasoning,” it’s time to invade and liberate the District.

Posted by Roger Young at 05:06 PM | Comments (186) | TrackBack

Going Down With His Leaky Ship?

"Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.

"Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak."

It speaks for itself. Read the whole article here. (Thanks to Antiwar.com for the link.)

Posted by Mike Tennant at 01:19 PM | Comments (216)

Ladies' Nights Barred in New Jersey

[New Jersey's] top civil rights official has ruled that taverns cannot offer discounts to women on "ladies nights," agreeing with a man who claimed such gender-based promotions discriminated against men. . . .

In his ruling Tuesday, J. Frank Vespa-Papaleo, director of the state Division on Civil Rights, rejected arguments by the nightclub that ladies nights were a legitimate promotion. Commercial interests do not override the "important social policy objective of eradicating discrimination," he ruled.

Yes, folks, we have truly arrived at the total state. Life, liberty, and property--of which commercial interests are part and parcel--must take a back seat to some bureaucrat's notions of the "important social policy objective of eradicating discrimination."

New Jersey isn't the only state suffering from this kind of government meddling. According to the article, judges in Pennsylvania and Iowa have already put the kibosh on ladies' nights. Fortunately, judges in Illinois and Washington have been kinder; but even then they have ruled in favor of ladies' nights only "because they do not discriminate against men but rather encourage women to attend," not because of property rights.

Perhaps if some judges started ruling senior citizen discounts illegal, we'd get some action to correct these injustices. The AARP doesn't sit idly by and let its membership get trampled.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:59 AM | Comments (107)

Milking the Government Cash Cow 101

Ernst & Young is now teaching American businesses how to get state governments to give them money in a presentation entitled "Turning Your State Government Relations Department from a Money Pit into a Cash Cow."

Naturally, state legislators responding to the story are acting completely shocked and outraged.

"Cash cow? You got that right," North Carolina state Republican Rep. Paul Stam told the Journal. "They look at [government] as just turning on the spigots." ...

The cash cow, said the Republican Stam, ultimately is the taxpayers.

"They play state legislators like violins," he told the Journal. "They're treating us like a scam."

No, really? You mean government isn't a scam? What other word better describes it? It takes from those without political connections to give to those with political connections. If that ain't a scam, I'm Tom Cruise.

Democratic state Rep. Paul Luebke told the Journal, "referring to government as a cash cow is a very cynical way to look at the 50 state governments."

"It doesn’t surprise me that [businesses] would come together to trade notes," he said. "But it does strike me as cynical that the hard-earned and reluctantly paid taxes are there for the pickin.'"

Oh, come off it! You know very well that you guys get into office by promising to give taxpayer dollars to certain people and stay in office by making good on those promises. Stop acting so self-righteous. Of course people look at government as a cash cow because that's exactly what it is--for those with the right connections (and big contributions).

Boy, they hate it when the truth gets out!

Posted by Mike Tennant at 09:30 AM | Comments (227)

June 02, 2004

Ask the White House and Get a Non-Answer

The White House Director of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, James Towey, actually took my question today on "Ask the White House." As expected, he didn't really address the issues raised, either, but used the question as an opportunity to promote the administration's policies.

Since I've submitted dozens of questions over a period of months and only two have been selected, and since both of those were used rather than answered, I think I'm going to give up. There's no point in helping the administration's propaganda department.

Anyway, here is my question, followed by Towey's non-response:

Mike, from Pittsburgh, PA writes:
The president said in his speech yesterday that he wants to "accomplish the social objective of having America become a hopeful place, and a loving place." This raises two questions:

1. Where in the Constitution is the federal government charged with seeing to it that America is a "hopeful" and "loving" place?

2. Why should Americans, already the most charitable people on the face of the earth, not feel insulted that the president believes that only through the federal government's spending of our money can America become--which implies that he doesn't believe it yet is--"a hopeful place, and a loving place"?

James Towey
The beautiful Preamble to the Constitution speaks of promoting the general welfare and ensuring domestic tranquility, so I think the President's efforts to challenge Americans to look at the places in our country where there is hopelessness and loneliness, and do something about it, is entirely appropriate. I think you make a good point, Mike, that government may not always be the best at delivering compassion - that's why the President supports the compassionate efforts of faith-based and community groups. He has supported legislation to put more tax incentives for charitable giving into law so that individuals would give more to charities, and not to government in the form of higher taxes, in order to help others.

Either he doesn't get it, which is quite possible since he's a bureaucrat who doesn't think like a normal person, or he doesn't want to get it. Either way, that was some answer. He didn't even bother with my other, tougher questions:

I guess the one he chose was the only one he thought he could B.S. his way around.

Posted by Mike Tennant at 04:00 PM | Comments (224)

June 01, 2004

Yelling "Treason!" Without Reason

Our old friend Alan Caruba at CNSNews.com is at it again. This time he's claiming that criticism of the (Republican) president during a time of war is "perilously close to" treason. He singles out four Democrats (since, apparently, all criticism comes from the left) for opprobrium: Nancy Pelosi, Ted Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore. There are plenty of bad things that could be said about this quartet, but calling them traitors for criticizing the president is not among them.

Caruba shows laughable ignorance (or is it convenient forgetfulness?) when responding to Pelosi's comments that Bush is lacking competence and went to war in Iraq "without adequate evidence." Caruba writes:

"Without adequate evidence? Saddam's invasion of Kuwait? The dozen United Nations resolutions? The gassing of the Kurds? The eight-year war with Iran? The widely held belief, including members of the Clinton administration, that Saddam had or was manufacturing weapons of mass destruction?"

Uh ... Mr. Caruba, may I remind you of the following:

Caruba needs to add one thing to the description of himself posted at the end of his article: "Republican Party toady."

Posted by Mike Tennant at 02:58 PM | Comments (220)

M3 Rise Signals Catastrophe Coming

News about the Fed bores most people, which is why they're shocked when financial calamity strikes. For those who aren't bored, note this from SafeHaven.com:


. . . the Federal Reserve has confirmed our Stock Market Crash forecast by raising the Money Supply (M-3) by crisis proportions, up another 46.8 billion this past week. What awful calamity do they see? Something is up. This is unprecedented, unheard-of pre-catastrophe M-3 expansion. M-3 is up an amount that we've never seen before without a crisis - $155 billion over the past 4 weeks, a $2.0 trillion annualized pace, a 22.2 percent annualized rate of growth!!! . . .

The Fed is deflating the value of the monetary base by a fifth! Why are they willing to do this? Wisdom says something bad is up - big time.


Greenspan's job is to forestall collapse until after Bush is re-elected. But the government's system of fiat money, controlled by its creature, the federal reserve, assures us that financial calamity is unavoidable.

Posted by George F. Smith at 10:49 AM | Comments (213) | TrackBack