Remember 9/11/2001!
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Remember 9/11/2001!
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July 24, 2003
The two evil sons of Saddam Hussein, the infamous former Islamo-socialist dictator of Iraq, have been killed in a fire fight with U.S. forces this week! Yes, Uday and Qusay Hussein are now finally dead and the Iraqi people are celebrating with much relief. Their bodies have been put on display for public scrutiny to set peoples' minds at ease. It is only a matter of time before Saddam himself will be found and dealt with.In the State of California -- a State crippled by corrupt politicians, environmentalist whackoes, and out-of-control welfare-state programs which have broken the budget of the State Government -- an unprecedented recall effort has been declared to be successful in forcing a special election to replace Gray Davis, the corrupt Democrat incumbent Governor, The election will be held on October 7. Count on Davis and his well-funded corrupt political machine to stop at nothing to keep him in office. There is talk that actor Arnold Schwarzenegger will run to replace the unpopular Davis. Almost anyone would be better as Governor, but with Davis and his politician friends already fighting to maintain power in Sacramento, this battle is far from won. Still, this unprecedented recall campaign gives hope to a State that's been increasingly reeling from too much government for many years.
Ann Coulter's brand new book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism is not set for release until the 24th but prepublication sales are already topping amazon.com's ranking at number 3 -- surpassing Hillary's politically spun memoirs! This is great news because Ann Coulter tells the truth and pulls no punches. In her previous book Slander and in her syndicated columns, she demolishes liberal-left myths, lies, and smears. From what I've heard the new book promises to set straight several issues, including the truth about Joe McCarthy and his fight to expose communist networks in the United States. Using information declassified from KGB files and other sources, Coulter blasts away the ugly "liberal" smears against this courageous U.S.Senator. Ann Coulter is blunt about exposing the intellectual dishonesty of the "Liberal" Establishment's coverup for and enabling of their communist brothers."The myth of 'McCarthyism' is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times," Coulter asserts. "Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie."
"Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals...
"McCarthy was not tilting at windmills. Soviet spies in the government were not a figment of right-wing imaginations. He was tilting at an authentic Communist conspiracy that had been laughed off by the Democratic Party. "
It looks as if a significant portion of the American people will be exposed to the truth, as the "liberal"-socialist media establishment can no longer use the "silent treatment" and just ignore such books as Coulter's and the new book by former Secret Service agent Gary Aldrich.
Coulter is scheduled to go on GOOD MORNING AMERICA and declare Trreason next Tuesday, according to network sources. But will she be allowed to speak without being interrupted by a plethoroa of "liberal"-left detractors seeking to discredit her? Typically, whenever a conservative or libertarian manages to get any TV air time at all, the deck is heavily stacked against them since they are almost invariably outnumbered and surrounded by left-wing snipers and loud mouths. On the other hand, Coulter is fully capable of taking care of herself even in such setup situations.
LINKS TO OTHER INTERESTING NEWS ITEMS
Prof. George Reisman's Capitalism Now Available on CD!
What's Wrong with the Senate's Medicare Drug Bill?
Forests and Trees Should Thank Us Humans for Living and Breathing
Donald Devine's Response to Reactions to his Memo of May 13th
Donald Devine's Original Memo on "Revitalizing Conservatism" (5/13/03)
Political Terminology: How to Properly Label the Far Left Today
Getting It Wrong: Robert J. Bidinotto Exposes Wm. F. Buckley's Most Recent Self-Serving Revisionism
Quickie-Clickie Voting Booth
June 19, 2003 HOORAY FOR THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS
ON REPEALING THE DEATH TAX!Conservatives and libertarains of good conscience should praise the U.S. House of Representatives for passing legislation which would repeal the federal taxes on the estates of dead people. Those leftists who believe that taxing often cash-poor farms and businesses -- after they have already been taxed before -- when they are passed to inheritors, somehow helps the "little guy" are very wrong-headed and fail to respect the property rights of the owners. Federal estate taxes bring in only about 1.4 percent of total revenues to the national government, yet "liberal" Democrats fight their repeal with tooth and nail, so wrapped up as they are in the politics of class envy.
Unfortunately, this libertarian reform is sure to be killed in the far more left-leaning U.S. Senate, where the Republican leadership tends to be me-too Demokrats who go along and get along rather than standing on principle.
Taxpayers Win!!! House Votes to Permanently Eliminate Death Tax
WHERE ARE THE WMDs?
We were told that one of the main reasons why Saddam's regime had to be overturned was the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction which, we were told, Western intelligence agencies indicated were being worked on in Iraq. Although biochem labs (which were almost certainly used for developing such horrible weapons) have been found in recently liberated Iraq, American and coalition forces have so far not uncovered any real "smoking gun" -- no actual chemical or biological weapons or materials for constructing nuclear bombs. The questions are flying. Were all those intelligence experts wrong about the presence of WMD in Iraq? Did the Bush Administration "hawks" lie or mislead the President and the American people about WMDs as a phony excuse to invade Iraq?
President Bush's Democrat political enemies are jumping on this (so far) embarrassing issue to use against Bush and the Republicans in the coming election campaigns. But Iraq is a huge country -- about the size of the State of California -- and there's a lot of sand in that desert to hide all sorts of stuff. Did Saddam hide his chemical and biological weapons somewhere in that vast desert? Or did he send the materials to Iran or Syria or France? As the sneak attacks on 9/11/01 seemed to indicate, there are holes in America's intelligence grid, and we may not know the answer to the question "Where are the WMD?" for months, even years to come. Iraq is too large a territory to dig up every square acre in search of the missing WMDs. Probably the best hope of finding evidence of WMDs -- assuming they do exist -- is to have either an Iraqi scientist or former official of Saddam's regime tell us where they are. How much co-operation can be expected from such characters is unknown. If no WMDs are found between now and the elections here in the U.S., the Democrats will be able to use this issue -- one of the few legitimate issues they can use -- against Bush and the Republicans. At this point, however, polls indicate that most Americans don't really care very much about the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, so even though the Dems can say "gotcha!" on this one, it may not translate into political gains for them next year. We'll see. Meanwhile, here are some interesting observations from Ken Pollock which helps to provide some perspective on all this:Ken Pollock on the Not-Yet-Found WMDs in (believe it or not) the NY Times
HOORAY FOR THE ITTY BITTY TAX CUT
-- IT'S BETTER THAN NONE AT ALL!
Although huge, real cuts are needed in both federal spending and taxation, President Bush signed into law (on Wednesday, May 28) what he himself had described as an "itty bitty tax cut" -- amounting to less than half of what he originally proposed -- but, considering the extreme partisan obstructionism and petty political posturing of the reactionary Senate Democrats, it is probably as good as we are likely to get for the time being. It is certainly better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick! Economist Bruce Bartlett assures us that this tax cut package is truly significant and is likely to help stimulate the economy and create job opportunities by permitting more capital funding to accumulate and flow to its natural market uses (see link below). Let's hope he's right. Far too many stupid people really believe that Bill Clinton, when he was President, balanced the federal budget and brought about good economic times! This is the propaganda they've been hearing originating from Terrie McAuliffe, James "Serpent Head" Carville, and other Clinton mouthpieces at the DNC and in the media. The Democrat Party line is that tax cuts must necessarily result in less revenue and therefore larger deficits -- based on static analysis. This ignores a growing body of historical evidence demonstrating that, if they are the right kind of tax cuts and are made deeply enough, the resulting increase in private savings, investments, and consumer spending can increase production, which in turn can increase rather than decrease revenues to government. This is what happened in the wake of the JFK and Reagan tax cuts, for example.Of course, taxes should be cut always and everywhere because people have a right to keep what they earn. Government almost always wastes the tax money it gets. Maximizing revenue to the government should not be the goal of cutting taxes. And both spending and taxes should be cut, although I would not hold the cutting of one hostage to the cutting of the other. And even though this tax cut is not nearly as large as we'd like to see, it is a hard-won triumph nevertheless. While some have been preoccupied with the war against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, other libertarians and conservatives kept focus on what could be done to encourage Congress (especially the Senate) to move off dead center and get some tax relief passed and now shar, that this reduction in tax theft represents. The new tax cut will allow people to keep more of what they earn and to save and invest it as they choose, stimulating the economy naturally by freeing up some desperately needed capital funding -- while buying us more time to achieve much greater and more durable victories in the future in the cause of freedom and free markets and American independence.
Meanwhile, the Democrats lamely attack the tax package as "benefiting only the rich" -- but that would have to mean that anyone earning over $24,000 is "rich" since only those earning less than that don't get any tax cuts. But, Rush Limbaugh and Neal Boortz ask the question: how can those who pay no income taxes get a tax cut or tax credit anyway? What the Democrats apparently want is redistributionist subsidies to those earning less than $24,000 -- and then just to call those subsidies "tax cuts"! Ignored is the fact that such "tax cut" subsidies have to come from . . . . taxpayers!
Of course, the whole propaganda line is to try to make Bush and the Republicans look bad for the upcoming elections. Democrat spin strategists Paul Begala, Terrie McAuliffe, James Carville, and George Stepanopoulos have been coordinating their "talking point" memos with their buddies at CNN, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and the other unofficial branches of the DNC.
The truth is that those of us who are unemployed or underemployed or who earn much less than "the rich" do benefit from tax cuts for others. We get the benefit of greater job opportunities and lower prices and a wider variety of goods and services made available by less money being diverted out of the economy into the bowels of Big Government. People need to abandon this wrong-headed idea that they will benefit more by making "the rich" pay more in taxes. A tax on anyone is, directly or indirectly, a tax on all. And taxes tend to destroy wealth and money-making opportunities, not create them. Taxes are bad. Tax cuts are good.
Tax Cut Great News for Retirement SecuritySausages and Tax-Cut Legislation by Bruce Bartlett
Report on The War Against Al Qaeda and Its Allies in TerrorismRich Lowry on the Iraqi Museum Sacking That Wasn't
Political Terminology: How to Properly Label the Far Left Today
Getting It Wrong: Robert J. Bidinotto Exposes Buckley's Self-Serving Revisionism
ROBERT SCHEER GIVES LEGIT
CONSPIRACY ANALYSTS A BAD NAMEAs someone who once worked closely with Gary Allen, author of None Dare Call It Conspiracy, I am certainly not opposed to exposing true conspiracies of corrupt practices and would-be monopolists, but bad conspiracy theories and unbacked stories made up by leftist cranks such as Robert Scheer tend to discredit legitimate conspiracy analysis by those sincerely seeking the truth. Libertarians and conservatives must be very careful to check the facts before accepting, in part or in whole, any conspiratorial tale -- especially if it comes from the Left with its own anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-U.S. military propaganda agenda. I know the temptation is sometimes strong to go along with such interpretations, especially since we have our own axes to grind against the real powers that be; but, we should assiduously avoid linking ourselves with the rapidly self-destroying and increasingly discredited left-wing writers and pundits. Above all, we must not let America's virtue of self-criticism degenerate into the vice of self-hatred or accept the spurious notion, promulgated by the Far Left, that all the evils in the world are caused by American Capitalism and White Middle Class Greed.
The Crackup and Total Loss of Credibility of Robert Scheer
May 21, 2003 Voicing the concerns of many conservatives and libertarians about an apparent waning of influence of the Right within the Bush Administration, former Reagan Administration official Donald Devine, who is now vice-chairman of the American Conservative Union, warns that any vision of a global American "empire" is not compatible with the American right-wing goal of limited constitutional government.DISSENT FROM THE RIGHT: WHAT WE WANT IS A CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, NOT AN EMPIRE Yes, given the realities of today's world, the U.S. must maintain a powerful military to defend its interests and to prevent power vacuums from being filled with ultrastatist threats to Americans' security. However, it would be a major strategic mistake for the U.S. to attempt to become a full-time policeman for the whole world -- and an even bigger mistake to place the enormous costs of any such global empire on the backs of the American taxpayers while allowing policies to be dictated, to any extent at al, by the corrupt leftists at the United Nations, currently mired in one of the stinkiest scandals of modern history. And, yes, certainly we want free trade -- freedom of Americans to buy cheap goods imported from other countries (at least those goods not clearly produced by slave labor) -- but most conservatives (and an increasing number of libertarians) are demanding that government assume its proper role in protecting the lives, liberties, and properties of American citizens by controlling our national borders to defend America first, rather than over-reaching by deploying our military resources all over the planet to solve other countries' problems. We should not stick our heads in the sand and pretend that the world outside of the U.S. does not exist, but neither should we try to assume the responsibilities of being world peacemaker if that means sacrificing our own national interests and freedoms to act as "globocop" for a socialistic "new world order" under UN control!
While I heartily agree with the general tone of Prof. Devine's memo, I disagree on the idea that National Review is or was the voice of real American conservatism (modern classical individualist/constitutionalist liberalism). I think that American Opinion magazine was much more consistently the voice of the American Right during the 1960s and 1970s and in the 1980s until it ceased publication in the Summer of 1985 (a sad day for the conservative movement in America since no other journal of news and commentary has risen since then to adequately fill the gap left by the death of American Opinion.)
Revitalizing Conservatism, a Memo from Donald Devine
Activists On Right Fear Waning Influence in Bush White House
"FIRST BOOKS" IN AN INTRODUCTION TO "LIBERTARIAN STUDIES," A BASIC ORIENTATION
In view of the plethora of left-leaning courses in colleges and universities today -- such as so-called Womens Studies, Black Studies, Chicano Studies, Gay Studies etc. -- which serve to promote the alleged concerns of the various special interest constituencies of the Democrat Party, I am suggesting that there should be a bit more ideological diversity on campus by the inclusion of a "Libertarian Studies" program, and I am attempting to put together a general outline and syllabus for such a course or courses, with a list of appropriate books as colateral readings or even possibly as texts. (I think libertarains could demand such a Libertarian Studies program on the grounds of ideoloigcal balance, even though we should be realistic in our expectations about seeing many colleges or universities actually adopt such a program or implement it satisfactorily. Perhaps such an alternative ideological course or program of courses will only be available through such venues as the Internet which are not controlled by the statists as American colleges and universities are today.)Concerning the book list, my idea was to have a good general "mix" which would include such prominent mainstay writers of the classical liberal/libertarian movement as Frederic Bastiat, Henry Hazlitt, Ludwig von Mises, F. A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, Leonard Read, and Robert LeFevre. One problem I encountered was that some of my own most favorite introductions to the freedom philosophy which I would love to include on this list of books (e.g., Libertarianism by John Hospers, the LP's first presidential candidate) are no longer available, having gone out of print years ago. I also wanted to include at least one book addressing the threat to liberty posed by the "environmentalist" craze and the false assumptions which underlie that organized attack on private property rights, but find it hard to decide which one book on that topic would be best to include. Also, it would be nice to have at least one broadside attacking the welfare state as such, although I suppose the Walter Williams book could be considred to fit that description.
If you can suggest others that I should add to this (already fairly long) list of "first books" on liberty, I'd very much appreciate your input.
The Law by Frederic Bastiat
The Incredible Bread Machine** by R. W. Grant
Economics In One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt
Showdown by Larry Elder
Planning for Freedom by Ludwig von Mises
Planned Chaos by Ludwig von Mises
Textbook of Americanism by Ayn Rand
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand
Free to Choose by Milton and Rose Friedman
The Ten Things You Cannot Say In America by Larry Elder
What Has Government Done To Our Money? Murray Rothbard
The Essential Ludwig von Mises by Murray Rothbard
The Road to Serfdom by F. A. Hayek
The Fatal Conceit by F. A. Hayek
Libertarianism, a Primer by David Boaz
Anything That's Peaceful by Leonard Read
Healing Our World by Mary Ruwart
Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell
Compassion versus Guilt & Other Essays* by Thomas Sowell
More Liberty Means Less Government by Walter Williams
Money and Freedom by Hans Sennholz
Ecoscam: False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse by Bailey
Restoring the American Dream by Robert Ringerewillers@Laissez-FaireRepublic.com
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*Possibly "out of print" but available as used
**Published by Fox & Wilkes, 1999
UPDATES ON RECENT NEWS Update on the Neal Boortz - Bill O'Reilly Fracas (scroll down)
FREE MARKETS, NOT EU SUBSIDIES, FUELED IRELAND'S DRAMATIC ECONOMIC RISEWhat set of policies makes for a successful economy for a nation in the long run? This question was answered over 200 years ago by Adam Smith in his monumental book The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776. (Yes, there were other economic writers who came before Smith and who came to similar conclusions, but it was Smith's comprehensive treatise that really put the field of economics "on the map" in the English-speaking world.) Adam Smith's work revealed that a nation's economic well-being was best achieved by political policies which assiduously and impartially protected private property rights, the freedom of people to enter into business ventures and contracts with few or no taxes and regulatory hoops through which to jump, and the freedom of a nation's consumers to buy products at the best terms they can find -- including goods imported from other countries. These fundamental truths and findings have been reaffirmed countless times since then by careful economic analysis by economists from David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill, and Frederic Bastiat to Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, F. A. Hayek, and George Reisman. But, it seems that lesson has to be relearned over and over as each generation seeks false political shortcuts to national wealth-building. Many Americans today -- especially the political leaders in the U.S. Senate -- could learn much from Ireland's example. They would do well to read Frederic Bastiat, Milton Friedman, Walter Williams, and Ludwig von Mises.
The dramatic success of the Irish economy over the past decade illustrates the wisdom of Adam Smith's prescriptions, and has resulted in Ireland being dubbed the "Celtic Tiger" -- a newly industrializing country alongside Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea as one of the most rapidly advancing economies in the world, according to a recent study, "Economic Freedom and Growth: The Case of the Celtic Tiger," made public by the CATO Institute.
Freer Markets Created a Pot of Gold In Ireland by Benjamin Powell
IRELAND & NEW ZEALAND NOW MORE FREE THAN THE U.S. ECONOMICALLY
The tremendous importance of economic freedom, i.e., the liberty to produce, own, consume, save, invest, and exchange goods and services without the interference of coercive taxes and government regulations, can hardly be underestimated. Economic freedom tends to produce general prosperity and is a necessary condition for all other kinds of liberty. And, although it may be difficult in the complex everyday world to quantity and measure the amount of economic freedom that exists in a nation and compare it to other countries, indices based on existing national policies do show a definite correlation between growing general prosperity and measures of economic freedom.
Below is a list of the highest-ranking countries in terms of economic freedom as measured by the Wall Street Journal/Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom:
1 Hong Kong
2 Singapore
3 New Zealand
4 Estonia
5 Ireland
6 Luxembourg
7 Netherlands
8 United States
9 Australia
10 Chile
11 United Kingdom
12 Denmark
13 Switzerland
14 Finland
15 Bahrain
16 CanadaThe CATO Institute has produced its own index of economic freedom, and its most free nations are listed as follows:
1 Hong Kong
2 Singapore
3 United States
4 United Kingdom
5 New Zealand
6 Switzerland
7 Ireland
8 Australia
9 Canada
10 Netherlands
11 Finland
12 Iceland
13 Denmark
14 Luxembourg
15 Austria
16 BelgiumIt's very important to point out that none of these countries are absolutely free or close to it. None has a pure policy of laissez faire, unfortunately. These top 15 or so countries are only relatively less meddlesome -- i.e., only less unfree economically compared to other countries whose governments are far worse. Also bear in mind that these and other indices which seek to measure relative economic freedom are at best only temporary snapshots which approximate reality. There is no guarantee that any given country will maintain its current policies over time; they may become more interventionist or they may opt to allow more freedom. According to both lists, Hong Kong is still the most free economy in the world, despite its having been formally taken over by Red China in 1997. How long that will be allowed to last is anybody's guess. Also, you will notice that these two systems of measurement do not always agree on which country belongs where in the ranking. They are based on somewhat different sets of measurements and sometimes rely on somewaht different sources of data. But, it would be wrong to dismiss these indices out of hand as totally unreliable. Despite their differences, there are some consistent findings in both that make sense. Both show Singapore, Ireland, and New Zealand as having either more economic freedom or about as much economiic freedom as the United States of America. In both indices, most of the first dozen or so of the most free countries actually have the same or almost the same "index" so that their particular individual ranking within that "most free" category is almost arbitrary. There are some countries, like Chile, which on the CATO index still ranked just below the first dozen or so of "most free" nations even though it increased in overall freedom greatly over the last 20 years after overthrowing Marxist dictator Salvadore Allende.
When matched with realistic per capita income figures, the increase in economic freedom as a result of decreased taxation and fewer regulations seems to have paid off in Ireland: In 1987 the Irish Republic's per capita income only came to about 63 percent of the United Kingdom's. But, from 1990 to 1995 Ireland's economy grew at more than 5 percent per year and from 1996 to 2000 it raced at more than 9 percent a year as a result of the momentum built up by relative economic freedom. By 2002, Ireland's $25,500 per capita income bests the United Kingdom's per capita average by $3,200!
Of course, we must always be careful and even suspicious of all mathematical averages and statistics because they may not be realistic or they may be interpreted wrongly and thus help misrepresent what is really happening in the real world -- but these figures actually do make sense in that they are consistent with what we already know and only add more evidence in favor of econmic freedom for consumers and producers as opposed to the wrong-headed beliefs of socialists and neo-mercantilists.
One reasonably may quibble over the specific methodologies or the particular parameters chosen by each or both of these systems of measuring relative economic freedom, but it seems to me one cannot in good conscience deny the obvious implications when they are used with what we know about the countries listed: sound national economic growth and prosperity tend to follow economic freedom and tend to be inversely proportional (in a crude sense at least) to the degree of government intervention (taxation, regulation, controls, trade barriers, etc.).
The closer a nation's government is made to adhere to a policy of laissez faire (a policy in which peaceful people are left alone to produce, trade, save, and invest without political interference, and in which each citizen's person and private property boundaries are protected from criminal violation, tresspass, theft, and other forms of coercion), the closer that country comes to having maximum economic freedom for its people. Conversely, the farther away a regime's policies are from laissez faire (i.e., the more truly socialistic it becomes), the more repressive it is and the fewer opportunities its people will have to better their lives.
LIBERTARIAN TALK RADIO PERSONALITY LARRY ELDER CONTEMPLATES RUN FOR ELECTIVE OFFICE; SWITCHES VOTER REGISTRATION TO REPUBLICAN PARTY...During his regular radio program today, broadcast from a gathering at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, Larry Elder announced his switch in voter registration to Republican in an apparent move to better position himself possibly to run for public office in the future, although he emphasizes that his views have not changed and that he remains a staunch small-l libertarian. While Larry has not made a definite decision yet, he indicated he was seriously looking at the possbility of running for the office of Governor of California, having criticized the diastrous record of incumbent Gray Davis, who was re-elected last year when Republican William Simon failed to get enough support from the voters to unseat the corrupt Democrat. Previous to this switch in party affiliation, Elder was registered as "Decline to State.:"
GOOD NEWS FOR THE U.S. = BAD NEWS FOR THE DEMOCRATS
The Democrat political hopefuls are desperately hoping for a devastating plunge in the U.S. economy as the 2004 elections approach, and that's one reason they are trying to block attempts by President Bush to cut taxes. But as more information emerges about Iraq and even the domestic economy, it appears the Democrats' wishes for disaster are not panning out. Bankrupt of workable ideas, the Left can only try to discredit its opponents by means of its politics of personal destruction, crafted by James Carville and George Steppanopoulos during the Clinton administration and honed to the art of the smear by their allies in the media. But, mainly, they have nothing positive to offer -- just more of the same policies which have proved so wrong-headed and counterproductive for the past severral decades.Everything the Left Said Was Wrong, Says Former Leftist
Good News for the U.S. is Bad News for the Dems
Majority of Americans Believes Bush Will Win Second Term
NEAL BOORTZ SCORES AGAINST BILL O'REILLY ON PRIVATE RIGHT TO ASSOCIATE AND DISCRIMINATE!
With blood vessels popping in his neck with emotion, populist Fox TV personality Bill O'Reilly screamed at his guest, "What part of We are all One don't you understand?" To which Neal Boortz asked, "What part of freedom of association do you not understand?" O'Reilly had criticized the Governor of Georgia for not doing anything about a group of students who had held a private prom in which no Blacks were invited. Boortz had been invited by O'Reilly to discuss/debate the issue on O'Reilly's Fox show Thursday -- which Boortz accepted. When Boortz suggested that O'Reilly is making this private party "prom" thing a major issue on his show -- even though it is not an issue anywhere else in the country -- because he is trying to suck up to minority special interests by trying to cover up for a racial joke O'Reilly told (in which he suggested a group of young Black kids were out in the parking lot stealing hub caps), O'Reilly exploded with rage and called Boortz a "vicious son of a bitch"!
Boortz has since suggested that a few of his listeners send O'Reilly some extra hub caps so he won't be so worried about getting them stolen. (Boortz's website can now be found at http://vicioussob.com as well as at its usual http://boortz.com URL)
My view? Boortz is obviously right and O'Reilly clearly wrong on this issue. People have a right to invite or not invite whomever they wish to their private parties.
Bill O'Reilly Loses Cool, Calls Neal Boortz a "Vicious Son of a B*tch"!
PRESIDENT BUSH CALLS FOR PUBLIC RALLY TO PRESS CONGRESS FOR TAX CUTS!
Although I have been critical of President Dubya for caving in to the "liberal" Democrats or left-wing influences, I have to give him "megakudos" for his call for the American people to put pressure on Congress -- especially the U.S. Senate -- to get off square zero and pass his proposed tax cut. Bush has disappointed and betrayed conservatives and libertarians on a number of important fronts, but in this call for action he seems finally to be moving in the right direction.My position is that tax cuts for anyone helps everyone, directly or indirectly, and Bush deserves credit and applause for proposing the end of the double taxation of dividends and for other cuts in the tax system. I say good for Dubya!
Of course, I would support much greater cuts in federal spending and taxes than even the Bush Administration is calling for, but Congress (again, especially the Senate) is still too far to the left, and too bogged down by Democrat (and some Republican) "liberal" obstructionists, to actually pass the kind of slashes in Big Government that we really need and that I envision. But, this is a step in the right direction. Let's hope it won't be a case of "too little, too late." You can depend on the left-leaning Democrats (and some Republicans) to do whatever they can to stop the tax cuts from going through, and their allies in the television network media will also portray the cuts as "only for the rich" or "on the backs of the poor" (which is ridiculous). Loathing President Bush's current popularity, and wanting desperatelay to get back into power, the national Democrats are hoping and wishing for an economic disaster to befall America so that they can blame Bush and use it as an issue against the Republicans in the next election campaign. The idea that people have a right to keep more of what they earn is a foreign idea to them and is the farthest thing from their minds, as they are the party of high taxes and more bureaucratic controls and dependency on government plunder. But mainly they don't want to see the economy revive, which would help make Bush look good and be a political disaster for them come election time. As the 2004 elections approach, look for the anti-Bush spin to accelerate with ferocity. The Golems want their Ring of Power back!
COLIN POWELL REACTS TO GINGRICH'S CRITICISMS
In a speech given at a meeting of the American Enterprise Institute on April 22, former congressman Newt Gingrich lambasted the State Department, saying that its Middle East policy ''will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory'' in the Iraq war. Just back this weekend from a trip that included a three-hour meeting in Damascus with President Bashar Assad, Powell said the special visit was called for by President Bush. In other words, in an attempt to deflect criticism away from himself, Powell was in effect saying, "Don't blame me; I was just doing what the President wanted. If you disagree with it, you are disagreeing with President Bush.". The meeting with Syria's Assad is explained as an attemt to enlist Syrian coopeeration in the war against terrorism, specifically to stop supporting certain Palestinian terror groups. What Powell had to promise the Syrian regime was not disclosed.Some suggest this Powell-Gingrich flap points up some serious foreign policy divisions within the GOP or even within the Bush Administration itself. The internal struggle over whose ideas will prevail in the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq has come to the surface despite efforts by President Bush to stop leaks and to present a united front to the public.
Powell, Rumsfeld Defend Syria Trip after Gingrich Blast
Newt Gingrich's Speech Critical of State Department's Middle East Policy
FOOD FIGHT AND CHAOS ERUPT AT THE UNITED NATIONS
With United Nations diplomats breaking into and looting the cafeteria of food and (especially) booze, these alleged "peacemakers" are showing their true character. Isn't it high time the U.S. got out of the U.N. -- or at the very least stop helping to fund this bunch of dangerous clowns and thugs with any more American taxpayer money?
LIBERTARIAN-CONSERVATIVE IN-YOUR-FACE RADIO TALK SHOW ON WEEKENDS ON KPLS!
For those of you in the southern Califonria area who, like me, are talk radio enthusiasts, you may be interested in this. I have run across a weekend radio program of which (because I seldom listened to radio on the weekends before now) I had not been aware.It is called In Your Face Radio, hosted by Mark Shoemaker, an attorney who specializes in defending private enterprise businessee against government harassment. Mark and announcer Mike entertain, inform, and discuss the issues of the day, especially as concerning those of us who live in California. They describe their activist-oriented program in the following way:
"IYF (In Your Face) Radio has established a reputation for both educating and entertaining its listeners. I.Y.F. is a provocative political talk show from a constitutionalist perspective. A little bit conservative, a little bit libertarian, Mark Shoemaker and Mike "The Announcer" present legal and historical perspectives you do not get on any other program. So fasten your seat belts, secure your trays, and put your seat In the full upright position! It's time for IYF Radio! "
The program comes on at 5 PM to 7 PM Saturday afternoons on 50-000-watt KPLS radio 830 KHz on your AM dial.
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May 1, 2003
CELEBRATING CAPITALISM ON MAY DAY
I spent May Day by celebrating the capitalist system. OKay -- so, I went shopping with Pam.Celebrating Capitalism on May Day by Edwin A. Locke
MESSAGE TO PRESIDENT BUSH & CONGRESS: DON'T WIMP OUT ON TAX CUTS!
How can it be that even though the "liberal"-left Democrats are in the minority in both houses of Congress, they can continue to keep a popular President and his majority party from getting their tax cuts passed? Why aren't the Republicans and President Bush using their "political capital" to appeal to the public on this and other key issues -- issues which have been pending in Congress because of obstructionist tactics by Tom Daschle and the Democrats? It is high time that public pressures be brought to bear against these statist obstructionists (not all of which are Democrats) to stop stalling and get on with long-needed reforms and repeals.
What do we want? We want the entire tax cut! When do we want it? Now!
We need much greater tax relief and truly serious cuts in federal spending -- especially the spending on the social welfare programs and taxpayer subsidies to corporations, both of which foster an unhealthy dependency on Big Government while weakening our economy as a whole. We need these tax and spending cuts not just to "stimulate the economy" as many Republicans put it, but because those who earn incomes and property by working, saving, and investing have a right to keep what they earn.
And, secondarily, since a tax on anyone hurts us all in the long run -- by depriving the economy of desperately needed capital funding, jobs, new products, higher wages, improved technologies, and more alternatives to choose from -- a tax cut for anyone helps everyone, directly or indirectly.
I realize that taxes are not going to go away overnight, but we must come to the realization that this barbaric practice of taxation -- forcibly confiscating part or all of a peaceful person's property or income for the funding of government programs -- is essentially the same as ordinary criminal thievery, only that it is committed on a much grander scale and is called legal by those who make and enforce the laws. Legal stealing by our "own" government is no less immoral and no less evil than ordinary criminal theft -- regardless of the "good intentions" or allegedly noble purposes such robbery may support. Can "good" ends justify immoral means? If so, then ANY amount of taxation or tyranny could be excused away as somehow acceptable for some allegedly noble cause, and there is no limit to government confiscation by that standard. But the nature of the end always pre-exists in the nature of the means, and the use of evil means will always tend to corrupt the consequences, no matter how "noble" the intentions or excuses might be.
If I put a mask on and poke a gun in your back and say, "Stick 'em up! Your money or your life!," you would think that I am a criminal -- a thug who parasitically leeches off the productivity of others -- and that I should be caught and segregated from peaceful people by putting me in jail. But, if I vote for a politician -- Mr. Gephardt or Mr. Daschle or Mr. Kerry or Mr. Kennedy -- who promises to use the power of the government's legal guns to take from you and then give to me (and others like me), then you no longer regard me as a loathsome criminal, but indeed you now see me as an honorable citizen -- a Voter, . . . a Democrat! (Or a "moderate" Republican.) I am now stealing legally instead of illegally. Is the act of robbery any less robbery if two or more engage in it together? If enough people join with me in voting for this collective thievery, we elect the politician to power in a democratic election, which has become little more than an advance auctioning off of stolen loot.
The government cannot give anything to anybody unless it steals it from somebody. (Voluntary contributions to government represent only a small fraction of its total revenues today.) Government uses the force of taxation to get the money it doles out. Yet, one of the basic reasons why government was set up in the first place was to protect peaceful people from being stolen from! Government is supposed to protect our rights of person and property from criminal violation, not join in the thievery itself. That's like the watchdog of the henhouse becoming one of the foxes and raiding it instead of protecting it from raids. Taxation may seem "expedient" to some -- but that doesn't make it morally right.
If politicians had to remind the voters that every time they promise to give them something "free" they are really promising to steal it from somebody in order to get it, maybe people would think twice before voting for the glib promise-them-anything power lusters. Or if government were constitutionally forbidden from taking from some to give to others, for any reason, then maybe the few legitimate functions of government eventually could be funded entirely by non-ceorcive revenue devices instead of the economically debilitating practice of taxation which now violates peoples' private proeprty rights and privacy every day.
By contrast, in the private sector of the market econlmy, we get the things we want by voluntarily paying prices for just the things we want and not buying the things we don't want. Nobody's rights are violated that way.
While I concede that we cannot get rid of all taxes overnight, I still insist the practice of taxation is fundamentally wrong. In the meantime, I suggest we cut taxes and government spending as deeply as we can so that people can keep more of what they earn, as is their right. We can find a better way.
Lady Godiva -- Medieval Tax Protestor?Rush Limbaugh Attacks "Idiot Senate Republicans" for Not Even Trying
MORE EVIDENCE OF FRENCH GOVERNMENT'S COLLUSION WITH SADDAM AGAINST THE U.S.This is no big surprise for those who have been observing the growth of French leftism and anti-Americanism, but still disappoints many Americans who have grown up since World War II thinking of the French as friends and allies.
France Sided with Saddam Against U.S., Says London Telegraph
The London Telegraph Reports More Proof Saddam Worked with Bin Laden
April 27, 200WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT THE POLARIZATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST "NEOCONSERVATIVES"?
Is a "neoconservative" (anti-Communist, anti-terrorist) foreign policy agenda a cover for just supporting Israel at American taxpayers' expense? Or, are left-wing anti-Jewish critics of Bush foreign policy just using the term "neoconservative" as a code word for "Jew"? You be the judge:
Has "Neo-Conservative" Become a Leftist Code Word To Bash Conservative Jews?
Podhoretz Confesses to "NeoCon (Jewish) Conspiracy"
Rusty Humphries Says Beware the Neo-Commies!
The tag "neoconservative" originally seemed to be directed only at a few former Democrats, mostly Jewish, who were intellectually honest enough to admit the reality of the threat posed by communism, socialism, and at least some aspects of the "liberal" welfare state, and so they moved away from the left side of the spectrum and moved rightward toward the more conservative/libertarian end of the spectrum, albeit perhaps not all the way.
While I never considered myself to be a "neo-conservative" and I am not Jewish, I believe the Left has been labeling Jews who converted to a more conservative or libertarian perspective as "neocons" to subtly smear them. The Left and some of their dupes (such as the Rockwellites) have turned the word "neocon" into a term of disparagement -- a negatively loaded term -- and use it against virtually anyone with whom they disagree. It is a sneaky version of the old argumentum ad hominem tactic And they are generally pretty indiscriminate whom they lump under that label. It is a means they hope will allow them to get away with ignoring or misrepresenting the actual beliefs or positions of particular individuals.
Instead of trying to put down or alienate those who move to the right (toward a more anti-communist, pro-American, pro-capitalist point of view), we on the right should be welcoming new converts and allies to the pro-freedom side of the political spectrum, whether they be Jewish, Black, Anglo, Iraqi, or even one-eyed Martians. To defeat the "liberal"-Left, we need all the help we can get. So, while I do not necessarily agree with the so-called "neoconseervatives" (Podhoretz, Moynihan, Kristol, et al) across the board (especially on some domestic issues and policies concerning the State of Israel), as a libertarian I can nevertheless find common ground with them on some fronts and welcome their efforts in support of a strong America -- which, in the long run, is the only way freedom and free markets are likely to be saved in a world in which we are surrounded by envious socialist regimes and radical Islamic enemies.
DEVELOPING MEGA-SCANDAL: UN Corruption Involving Billion$Kick over the rotten stump of the United Nations and you see a bunch of little creeps scurrying away from the light. It seems Kafi Annan, as well as French and Russian interests, has been enriching himself while having exclusive oversight of the UN's Oil-for-Food program. Allegedly set up to ease the hunger of Iraqi citizens suffering as a result of the official embargo against the regime of Saddam Hussein, the so-called "humanitarian" aid program has actually been turned into a very lucrative cash cow for Annan and his French and Russian cohorts. This greedy exploitation of the Iraqi people by French and Russian special interests dwarfs even last year's Enron scandal!
If enough of the American people can understand enough about this latest UN greedy mess, and grasp how big and how bad this really is, it would be a major blow to the UN's (undeserved) credibility and could be the beginning of the end of that incredibly corrupt Tower of Babel on the East River. I say up with American unilateral independence -- and down with the UN Screw World Order! Get US out of the United Nations now!
I am thankful for talk radio in getting this news out to the general public. God bless Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz, Larry Elder, and others in talk radio! Otherwise, there is a good possibility this story would just get buried by the Establishment (Democrat-controlled) media. Even the New York Times (in a piece by Claudia Rosett) has had to report at least part of the story, however, and conservatives and libertarians should not let it go away in the public consciousness.
Follow the Oil-For-Food Money Trail by william Saffire
UN Members On the Take from Saddam's Bribes
Was George Galloway, a British Labour Party stalwart opposed to the war against Saddam, getting money from Saddam Hussein? One may speculate: how many others? Is it any wonder Britain’s Labour Party was steadfast in its opposition to Britain’s participation in the war against Saddam?
Rush on Kafi Annan's UN Oil-For-Food Corruption
Rush on France's Surrender on Sanctions Against Iraq Today
LIBERAL WITCH HUNT TURNS AGAINST SANTORUM
The Democrats are at it again. They are trying to oust Republican Rick Santorum from his leadership role in the Senate like they did with Trent Lott. (Lott late last year disgraced himself, not by what he said about fellow Senator Strom Thurmond, but by groveling with multiple obsequious apologies to the special interests who were his political enemies -- a demonstration of the kind of evasion and appeasement he tended to engage in with Democrats while acting as Senate Majority Leader.) Santorum allegedly made some remarks about homosexual acts which led various "gay" special interest groups to demand his resignation from the Senate or for him to step down from his current chairmanship post. Of course, partisan cogressional Democrats eagerly piled on with their own publicly- issued demands for his ouster. Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry quickly issued a statement criticizing Santorum's comments and assailing the White House for remaining silent "while their chief lieutenants make divisive and hurtful comments that have no place in our politics."
The whole concerted campaign officially began with an Associated Press story, written by Lara Jakes Jordan, quoting Santorum as saying, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."
First, Santorum never used the word "gay" in his actual original statement. He was trying to make a point about how some legal scholars interpret an absolute right to privacy and the implications that one possible Supreme Court ruling could have concerning what laws States may pass. Yet by inserting the word "gay" (even parenthetically) the AP story writer was able to make it seem that Santorum was comparing homosexuality as a lifestyle to polygamy, incest, and adultery.
Almost before the ink on the story was dry, Democrat politicians and their allied homosexual activists were issuing press releases and interviews to their buddies in the news media, denouncing Santorum and calling for his resignation or for him to be demoted in authority within the Senate. The whole maneuver looks like it took place as spontaneously as the Rose Bowl Parade. Santorum issued a statement today that said he was misquoted and reiterated the conrtext of his remarks.
Pennsylvanian Rick Santorum is Chairman of the GOP Conference in the Senate -- third in the Republican Party's leadership hieerarchy, behind Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Assistant Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He is a key target of the Democrats, who have been stalling for time in the Senate to keep the Republicans from passing any meaningful tax relief or even to consider President Bush's judicial appointments. (Athough the Democrats are in the minority, they have been using fillibusters and other obstructionist tactics to forestall needed reforms and long overdue votes on court appointees. The Republican leadership, perhaps unaccustomed to being in the majority, slim though it is, has allowed the Dems to get away with these stonewalling tactics.)
If one reads the whole AP interview, it is clear from the context that Sen. Santorum's position concerning bedroom privacy is that the federal government has no jurisdiction when it comes to sodomy laws, and that (considering the Ninth and Tenth amendments) the people of each State or community should be left the responsibility of deciding whether to have or not have such laws. He was clearly reacting to a case currently pending before the Supreme Court, his position apparently being that it should not be a federal matter but should be left up to the people in each of the fifty States He told the Associated Press interviewer, "If New York doesn't want sodomy laws, if the people of New York want abortion, fine. I mean, I wouldn't agree with it, but that's their right. But I don't agree with the Supreme Court coming in."
Outside of Holywood, the Democrat Party's militant core activists, and their cohorts in the news media, Santorum's statements are not especially controversial. Most Americans probably share his pro-family views. And most conservatives believe (or should believe if they are real conservatives) that there are a whole raft of issues that do not come under Federal jurisdiction but which are reserved by the Tenth Amendment to the individual States or the people as individuals to deal with. But, the hue and cry of the Democrats, and their media colleagues, is designed to make it seem as if Santorum has committed some kind of egregious faux pas by expressing his personal judgements! (We have far too many people who believe they have a right to offend others while themselves having a right not to be offended by anything others may say in expressing their opinions, especially if those opinions make or imply moral judgements -- something that always makes moral relativists feel "threatened" even if there is no threat or use of physical violence or any question of using law and government to regulate their behavior.).
Well, it turns out that Lara Jakes Jordan, the reporter who wrote the story and quoted (or more likely deliberately misquoted?) Santorum, is the wife of John Kerry's presidential campaign manager!
Coincidence? I think not! It is also interesting that of all the politicians, it was Kerry whose office sent out the very first reaction denouncing Santorum for his allegedly offensive remarks. Can you say "setup" boys and girls? This is the kind of orchestrated pseudo-scandal that the left-liberal Democrat establishment has used in the past to smear anyone not in line with their statist agenda. We can only hope that Santorum has more cajones than Trent Lott had and, instead of trying to appease them, tell his partisan critics where they can stick it. Meanwhile, maybe the Associated Press should consider firing Lara Jakes Jordan as too biased or incompetent to remain in her sensitive position of interviewing politicians who belong to a political party which she opposes.
Sen. Santorum's "controversial" interview remarks in context
Santorum Won't Apologize; AP Reporter Has Kerry Ties
Recommended Readings on Other IssuesRush Limbaugh Blasts Lazy Senate Republicans for Wimping Out and Shirking Their Jobs
How Arabs Are Reacting to the Fall of Saddam Hussein to U.S. & Coalition Forces
Middle Ages Were Warmer than Today, Say Scientists
Right-Wing and Left-Wing Paranoia Compared
What A Libertarian Is -- and Is Not
Some Differences & Similarities Between Libertarians and American Conservatives
The False Alternative of Anarchism
April 21, 2003
BEWARE THE FALSE DOOMSDAY PROPHETS OF THE WATERMELON LEFT
As tomorrow is supposed to be "Earth Day" and the envirofascists can be expected to be out in force and receiving all sorts of free publicity by the television networks, it is well to remind ourselves that the "Global Warming" claims of these chicken littles that catastrophic "Global Warming" is being caused by industrial capitalism are completely unsubstantiated. Even a recent study by Harvard researchers confirms that climate change appears to be unrelated to man-made pollutants or modern industrial activity. The study, published in the journal Energy and Environment, essentially refutes claims of anti-industry environmental activists that today's global temperatures are unprecedentedly high and caused by human industry.
According to a report by the Science Correspondent of the London Telegraph, "The findings prove that the world experienced a Medieval Warm Period between the ninth and 14th centuries with global temperatures significantly higher even than today.
"They also confirm claims that a Little Ice Age set in around 1300, during which the world cooled dramatically. Since 1900, the world has begun to warm up again - but has still to reach the balmy temperatures of the Middle Ages.
"The timing of the end of the Little Ice Age is especially significant, as it implies that the records used by climate scientists date from a time when the Earth was relatively cold, thereby exaggerating the significance of today's temperature rise.
"According to the researchers, the evidence confirms suspicions that today's "unprecedented" temperatures are simply the result of examining temperature change over too short a period of time."
This new evidence also undermines gloom-and-doom predictions of disastrous consequences from higher global temperatures. Dr Philip Stott, the professor emeritus of bio-geography at the University of London, explained that "What has been forgotten in all the discussion about global warming is a proper sense of history. During the Medieval Warm Period, the world was warmer even than today, and history shows that it was a wonderful period of plenty for everyone."
By contrast, severe famines and economic collapse followed the onset of the Little Ice Age around 1300. Scott points out that, "When the temperature started to drop, harvests failed and England's vine industry died. It makes one wonder why there is so much fear of warmth."
It should be clear that there were no smokestack industries polluting the environment during the early Middle Ages. People were much closer to nature in those days, working from dawn to dusk in back-breaking drudgery just to survive, with production relying almost entirely on animal power and human muscle rather than machinery. Yet, the world was far warmer then than it is today. This should put to rest in any rational person's mind the ridiculous claims of such cult groups as Earth First and other modern Luddites that a natural apocalypse is fast approaching as Mother Nature's way of avenging herself from industrial growth and modern man.
No, my friend, the end is not nigh (Art Bell and Whitley Strieber to the contrary notwithstanding)! I tell you over and over again that I don't believe we're on the eve of destruction! (And if we were, it would not be because of industrial capitalism or the respect for private property rights which underlies that system; rather, it would be from just the opposite system -- socialism and anti-industry government regulations and taxation. The best way to deal with the real problems of pollution and to avoid any possible environmental catastrophe is by strengtheing instead of weakening private property rights and free-markets.)
Will these new findings -- which fly in the face of the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the official voice of the global-warming research establishment -- persuade the "greens" to cease their scare mongering and political lobbying against industrial growth? Probably not. Many of the most militant of the "greens" are really leftist "watermelons" -- green on the outside and red on the inside -- who use the environmental cause as a convenient emotional cover to front for their anti-capitalist agenda. But, the American people are increasingly seeing through the "environmentalist" green facade as the America-hating left-wing front offensive it is.
Middle Ages Were Warmer than Today, Say Scientists
Natural Atmospheric "Scrubbers" Found in Greater Abundance Than Previously Believed
IS THE BUSH-BASHING BY DEMOCRATS BACKFIRING ON THEM?
Leaders of the Democrat Party, from Dickie Gephardt and Nancy Pelosi to Teddy Kennedy and Tommy Daschle, have found their feet in their mouths as their partisan snipings against President Bush have backfired against them. The claims of the DNC, repeated by TV talking heads on script, that Bush has no "gravitas" are not playing well with the American people. An increasing number of Americans see Dubya, not as the stupid baffoon Democrats have sought to portray him, but as a very capable Commander in Chief at a time when that is what the country needs. Well, the Democrats see the handwriting on the wall. They now know that this Republican president is going to have a major victory to showcase. Bush 43 is presiding over the end of Saddam Hussein. He had to take action because of the previous administration's failure to take care of business when it came to national security and foreign policy. The hateful Bush-bashing has not worked. The President's poll numbers are high and increasing at the moment. Sooooo --- a new tactic is needed for the nay-saying Democrats to try to save face, and John Kerry has stepped up with a plan:Give Bush his due for getting rid of Saddam Hussein, but tell the American people that he is so crude that it will take a Democrat president and Congress to soothe relationships with our allies when the war is all over. This translates into giving the corrupt United Nations (i.e., France and Russia) a role in administering post-Saddam Iraq. Will people buy this makeshift partisan political gambit? We shall see.
MEANWHILE, WE HAVE OUR OWN (LEGITIMATE) RESERVATIONS ABOUT PRESIDENT BUSH TO DEAL WITH
I hope I won't be denounced as a "Bush basher" myself as I point out where he has caved to the Left and to the partisan Democrats unnecessarily instead of fighting for urgently needed conservative reforms and agenda items. As great as the sigh of relief I gave when Bush, and not Albert Gore, got elected President in 2000's close presidential race, those of us on the pro-freedom Right have come increasingly to be disappointed by President Bush. In at least a dozen or more instances, he has sided with his own political enemies or with the forces of greater statism instead of undoing some of the harm that the previous administration did to this country. As great as President Bush is as Commander in Chief compared to Bill Clinton, his record on domestic issues (and some foreign polkcy matters too) has been "mixed" at best, indicating the lack of a bedrock commitment on the part of the President to the principles of individual freedom, private property rights, free markets, and limited constitutional government.
He has gone out of his way to push for a government drug program for seniors, even though everyone knows that government involvement in medicine always makes things more bureaucratic and costly to the taxpayers. He has even favored expansion of Clinton's AmeriCorp scheme and has signed a highly flawed campaign fiannce reform bill into law. Our president has imposed high tariffs on American consumers of imported steel to try to placate West Virginia steelworkers, even though this special-interest steelworkers union continues to support the Democrat Party and not Bush and the Republicans, while complaining that their tariff subsidy should have been even higher!
We should also remember that President Bush caved in to the left-wing Democrats in endorsing and signing into law the biggest "education" spending bill in history -- even letting Teddy Kennedy write the legislation -- instead of using his constitutional veto threat. This will help insure that the educrat unions (who are part of the Democrat, not the Republican, constituency) who now control the public schools will strengthen and continue to maintain their stranglehold over the minds of millions of Aemrica's children. Subsidizing our political enemies with taxpayer money does not strike me as particularly bright -- and making deals with the Democrats, who seldom can be trusted to keep up their end of the agreement, is short-sighted.
President Bush has even come out in favor of certain forms of gun control -- betraying millions of peaceful American gun owners who helped elect him to the Oval Office -- even though the evidence is overwhelming that such laws only give an edge to the criminal element at the expense of the law-abiding citizen. Meanwhile, many Americans are becoming accutely aware of the problem of the invasion of illegal aliens and the lack of border control -- issues which President Bush refuses to address.
In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the obvious gaps in national security left by the incompetent Clinton administration, President Bush has seen fit not to replace George Tenant as head of CIA and many Clinton-era holdovers remain in the Executive Branch to this day. His initial choice of the highly controversial Henry Kissinger to head the investigation of the national security screwups that led to the failure to prevent the devastating 9/11 attacks shocked many of us to our core.
Most of us (at least initially) slept better knowing that Albert Gore is not the President in charge of responding to the terrorist attacks of 9/11/01. The American people feel that Bush 43 is on the job and that there are responsible adults in the White House now who have taken charge. Meanwhile, President Bush ignores the gaping hole in our national security represented by the on-going illegal entry into the United States of foreigners. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants, but illegal immigration, as a result of a lack of control over our national borders, has permitted terrorists and ordinary criminals (such as sniper John Lee Malvo) pose a threat to the person, liberty, and property of peaceful American citizens. The growing problem of illegal border crossings, especially along the southern border, is an issue that Bush has not only ignored politically, but his administration has actively sought to suppress efforts by American citizens to help curb the flow of illegals onto their properties. This issue isn't going away -- and Bush and the GOP will hurt themselves come election time if they don't take notice.
President Bush pushed through the so-called Patriots Act without allowing enough time for the details to be sufficiently debated or even for Congress to read through the dangerous bill. While certainly we need the Bush Administratin to repair the mess in our national security and military preparedness left by the previous Clinton gang, and terrorists must be stopped if possible, we need to look very carefully at any proposals which might involve giving up our priceless constitutional rights and individual liberties in the name of "fighting terrorism" (or waging a so-called "war on drugs"). And "Patriot II" -- from all the rumors I've heard about it -- will be even worse. At the very least, Americans should demand automatic sunset provisions for the Patriot Act. We need to declare victory in the war on terrorism as soon as possible and move on by a quick return to normal constitutional liberties an due process.
The problem is: how do we express our deep dissatisfactions and punish Bush for his leftward lurches and his caving in to the left-wing Democrats (like his father did before him) without aiding the Democrats and socialists and thereby hurting our own cause of less government and pushing the country further left? We don't want to return to the days when Daschle and the Democrats controlled Congress completely, and we don't want to see a Democrat become President because none of the possible Democrat contenders are even as good as what we have now in Bush 43. These days there are very few if any conservative Democrats anymore. The Democrat Party has become America's anti-American Welfare-State Socialist Party. Anybody who does not grasp that by now is either incredibly naive or has not been paying attention to what's been going on. But, what do we do? Voting "third party" (i.e., Libertarian Party or the Taxpayer's Party) as a protest against the Republicans is one possibility, but again we run the risk of hurting ourselves by helping the Democrats in so doing -- winding up with more Big Government statism and even less freedom as a result. We must choose our political races with care to avoid hurting conservative Republicans and wind up unwittingly helping "liberal" Republicans and hard-left Democrats.
(I was among those libertarians and conservatives who questioned the sensibility of the policy decision by some Libertarains in spending their scarce resources to run attack ads against conservative Congressman Bob Barr during last year's primary elections because he had been "very bad" on the one issue of the War on Drugs. While I certainly agree with the LP that the War on Drugs is a major enemy of private property rights and American freedom, and while I deplore Congressman Barr's support of the failed schemes of government drug prohibitionism, I am not a single-issue Libertarian and believe one has to look at the whole picture rather than narrow-mindedly focusing only on one vote or program. If one actually examines Barr's views and voting history, one discovers that his overall voting record was far less statist (and far more libertarian-oriented) than the vast majority of members of the House of Representatives. In fact, Rep. Barr was probably second only to Congressman Ron Paul of Texas in his overall voting record from a purely libertarian standard. On most issues, Barr was an ally of freedom rather than an enemy. The irony is that to the extent that the LP's anti-Barr ads had any impact at all on the election, they tended to help Barr's more statist opponents and could have resulted in helping to replace an effective ally of freedom and free markets (overall) with someone who is less consistently pro-freedom in that imporant official government seat. That strategy didn't make too much sense to many of us.)
If we can target "liberal" and "moderate" Republicans as well as Democrats (while avoiding damage to libertarian and conservative Republicans), we will have a much better chance of someday achieving a Conservative-Libertarian coalition which could outweigh the "liberal" Democrat-Socialist voting bloc in Congress, especially in the U.S. Senate. And then some real slashing of Big Government could take place! (But don't look for any dramatic action to sweep away megastatism overnight unless and until such a coalition could have a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress. The Democrats crave power like Golem and they won't let it go without a major fight. They can always use fillibusters and other tactics to obstruct long-needed changes from passing intact.)
I don't have any easy solution except to point out that we need more pressure from the Right (conservatives, libertarians, constitutionalists, patriots) on Congress and the President to do the right things and refrain from doing the wrong things. The well-funded "Liberal" Establishment propaganda outlets (in addition to their usual TV networks and other media) and statist lobbies are constantly pressing for their high-tax, big-spending agendas and schemes to surrender U.S. independence to international political bodies such as the UN. We must take the time to communicate with Congress regularly and frequently, not just by voting in elections every two or four years. We must lobby for less government and more individual freedom in order to counteract the constant pressure from the Left on Capitol Hill. If there is enough grassroots pressure, politicians who want to stay in office will respond accordingly.
We cannot just sit back and assume the Republicans are going to do the right thing. All too often they have shown that they won't do the right things left to their own. They need to have their feet put to the fire with pressure from the Right to counteract the ever-present Beltway pressures from the Left.
We can work with Republican poliicains and help them work for a better, stronger, and freer America and a more peaceful world. We do not know how long the Republicans will remain in the majority in Congress. If the Democrats regain power, our opporutnity will be gone. The Democrat leadership is committed to Big Government tyranny all the way. With the right kind of persuasive communications from those of us on the pro-freedom side of the spectrum, the Republicans will respond. But it is going to take a powerful grass-roots effort to show them that the people do care and that we haven't just given up to impotent cynicism. What the Democrats and the Socialists would love is for those on the pro-freedom Right to buy into some phony (leftist-originated) conspiracy theory about how the world works which has as its bottom line the cynical attitude that there are no real choices politically and that resistance is futile -- so don't even try. The other side would love for us to just give up and retire from the field, leaving it to them by default. They want you to believe that the growth of Big Government and socialism is somehow inevitable and therefore cannot be stopped much less reversed. Nothing could be further from the truth. The only thing inevitable about socialism and Democrat "liberalism" (welfare-stae fascism) is their failure and their moral bankruptcy.
A DAY FOR CELEBRATING!Today is a day to celebrate in my opinion, but not everyone is happy.
I know people among the cult followers of Rockwell, Raimondo, Garis et al who have always praised free-market economist Walter Williams as a true libertarian who tells it as it is. But when Dr. Williams supported the Bush Administration's military action to overthrow the Stalinist regime of Saddam Hussein, I heard some of these same camp followers of those who call themselves "paleos" suddenly come out with the claim that Williams is not a "real" libertarian, but only a conservative or even a dreaded "neoconservative" (i.e., essentially anyone the "paleos" disagree with)! So, we are asked to believe that true libertarians like Walter Williams, Neal Boortz, John Hospers, and Larry Elder are not "real" libertarians -- but that leftists Gore Vidal and Alexander Cockburn are? Puh-lease! What's wrong with this picture? Are they fronting for Democrat Party or other left-wing interests?
I had one guy try to tell me that Saddam Hussein was a "sovereign" who had the right to be left alone. Baloney! Saddam is not a sovereign nation at all. He was a ruthless dictator who committed countless attrocities against hundreds of thousands of peaceful people and who lost any right to be left alone long ago! This is basic Lockean natural rights principles, people! Saddam also posed a threat to world peace and American security, and I for one am glad he is gone.
I continue to be aware of the dangers to American liberty that any military action or crisis poses, and I certainly think we must do all we can to keep the emergency powers invoked to fight terrorism from becoming a permanent fixture in the American culture which chronically will violate the rights of peaceful American citizens. There are parts of the so-called Patriots Act which are far too dangerous to keep on the books if the liberties of peaceful Americans are to be maintained. We must demand at some point a victory over terrorism and sunset those dangerous emergency powers and agencies at least by the end of 2004 if not before. Moves by the Bush Administration or by the Democrats to make these special powers permanent must be strongly resisted and reversed by conservatives and libertarians.
But, having said that, I see no reason not to celebrate whenever a hard-core statist tyranny is toppled and replaced (hopefully) by something far less coercive of human rights. It is a step in the right direction, at least for the moment.
One very statist dictator down! It is a day for celebration and pride.
Meanwhile, now is the time that conservatives and libertarians ought to make their voices heard in Congress and to the President to make him reconsider his pledge (probably to Tony Blair) to allow the United Nations (i.e., France, Germany, and Russia) to play a "vital role" in administering the post-Saddam political system in Iraq. That would be winning the war and losing the victory. The UN would establish a European-style socialist regime in Iraq. What the Iraqis need is freedom and capitalism. To the extent that Iraq's cultural foundations can support it, we should encourage the Iraqis to try to establish a system of limited constitutional government based on a recognition of, respect for, and protection of private property boundaries and individual rights of peaceful citizens under an impartial rule of law. True privatization must take place. This will not be an easy task, but allowing the statist United Nations a say in setting up Iraq's political system is like FDR giving Berlin to the Soviets after World War II. That would be a betrayal of the Iraqi people as well as those who fought for and died in this war of liberation.
SOME WINNERS AND LOSERS
People who are happier these days:
The Iraqi people
The vast majority of Americans
Those who use gasolenePeople who are unhappy these days:
Tom Daschle
Nancy Pelosi
Ted Kennedy
Hillary Clinton
John Kerry
Jacques Chirac
Vladimir Putin
Anti-capitalist, anti-American left-wing "peace" demonstrators
Peter Arnett (who, like Jane Fonda, is on the other side against U.S. victory)
Llewellen Rockwell & Justin Raimondo
TV networks ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, NPR & others of the Establishment "liberal" media elite
Reactionary left-wing college professors
The Socialist Workers Party
Barbra Streisand, Alec Baldwin & other rich Hollywood America hatersHow Arabs Are Reacting to the Fall of Saddam Hussein to U.S. & Coalition Forces
July
2003 and earlier
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