Liberty Maven

The Republican Party is more or less in shambles. It is the political equivalent of New Orleans post-Katrina. All of the tired old neo-conservatives are scrambling around trying to make sense of the disaster but “making sense” has never been a ubiquitous neo-conservative trait. Finding the next GOP “leader” is quite easy. It’s hard to step anywhere in DC without having to wipe Red state leadership off the bottom of your shoe. Just about every Republican you bump into these days is trying to use political muscle to be the next Barry Goldwater or Ronald Reagan. All these attempts will likely fail.

The real problem with the GOP is the lack of activist and faithful followers. When everyone is trying to be a leader, who is left to do the following? The GOP is a city where every building is a comedy club holding an open mic night all on the same evening. The only people in the audience are Democrats laughing out of pity. Well, they are bleeding hearts after all.

The Republican Party doesn’t need new leadership. It needs old-style leadership, very old-style leadership. Newt Gingrich with a makeover is still neo-con Newt. A kinder gentler Rush Limbaugh? I thought the GOP was against drugs? And please don’t let me go down the lipstick on a pig avenue again regarding Sarah Palin. What a giant heaping pile of leadership!

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Ron Paul appeared for another interview on Fox Business News earlier this evening. He hit on the insanity of the latest and greatest budget deficit and his belief that inflation is coming. Here are a few choice quotes:

On the deficit:

“I’m not a bit surprised. In fact I think it’s going to be bigger than 1.8″

“Sometimes I just think they are delirious!”

“We are liquidating debt.”

The host then plays a clip of Ron Paul questioning Bernanke from last week and asks Paul for a reaction to the clip. Watch it below for his answer.

Jeff Cherry is Ron Paul’s 2010 Republican primary opponent. He represents precisely the kind Republican values that were just soundly defeated by Barack Obama. Cherry is a neo-conservative. He is a poster boy for all that is wrong with the Republican Party today. It turns out he’s also not quite the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to campaign strategy.

Cherry put up a web site attempting to trash Ron Paul, but one page on the site could easily be a page designed by the Paul campaign against Cherry. Perhaps the only exception would be that the design of the page is completely unpolished and unprofessional looking.

Here are a few of the things that Cherry thinks are horrible things that Ron Paul believes in, from http://www.doyouknowronpaul.com/

1. Wants to get rid of the Federal Reserve and return to the Gold Standard (see note below)
2. Wants to get rid of the Department of Education
3. Wants to get rid of the IRS
4. Voted against and does not support the Patriot Act.
5. Voted against the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act

Surely there are Ron Paul haters within the GOP that are smarter than this? Or probably not.

NOTE: Ron Paul does not advocate returning to the “Gold Standard”. He wants to permit competing currencies which can be backed by something tangible like gold, silver, or other commodities. These currencies could compete with the fiat dollars floating around. This is a gradual approach toward sound money and away from the fiat system we have now. This is not your great-grandparent’s version of the gold standard.

Whatever happened to the idea that it’s patriotic to stand up for one’s rights?

What happened to the concept of free speech, and the freedom of expression?

What’s happening in our country?

A driver in Louisiana was detained for having a “Don’t Tread on Me” bumper sticker on his car.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” — 10th Amendment, U.S. Constitution

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

* Government was supposed to be local, close to the people
* Federal government was supposed to be small compared to the combined states
* The 10th Amendment limits the federal government to 20 functions, leaving all other matters to the states and the people. To see the list of these functions, go to DownsizeDC.org’s Enumerated Powers Act campaign
Then, click on the “Talking Points” tab.

It’s bad enough that Congress has exceeded its constitutional limits. It’s potentially worse that they now fund the majority of state spending too. Funding usually means control, so the consequences are huge . . .

* Federal control is usually dictated by bureaucrats, not your elected representatives
* These bureaucrats often use federal aid to “bribe” your local governments to do things they would prefer to NOT do

But it gets worse. Many states require a balanced budget. Federal funding allows states to skirt these limits. Essentially, because the feds are always running huge deficits, the states are getting the federal government to do their borrowing for them.

Worst of all, federal funding centralizes decision making, magnifying the harm caused by bad policies. Bad laws in California don’t impact Arizona, but mistakes made by federal politicians harm everyone. And boy, Congress sure makes a lot of mistakes. For instance . . .

* A poorly written federal law regulating lead content in products has had vast, unintended consequences, removing safe products from the shelves, threatening small businesses with bankruptcy, and raising costs for low income families.
* And just last week, in our Dispatch “Congress could mess up a train wreck,” we told you about a federal law that has led the paper industry to use more fossil fuels, even though the law’s supposed purpose was to use less

These are hardly isolated examples. We could go on for pages listing others. And the more our government centralizes at the federal level, the more numerous and dangerous the examples will become.

Now, we say this mainly for the benefit of our many new members . . .

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I’m amazed and encouraged by the recent uptick in news stories about legalizing pot. Call it pot, marijuana, hemp or what have you, the basic issue is the same. While I agree that we should decriminalize this incredible plant that can be used for numerous industrial, commercial and medicinal uses, I’m discouraged by two points coming from the strongest supporters for legalization. These are:

1. Tax it
2. Keep ‘harder’ drugs illegal

This is a losing position and I’ll tell you why. On the issue of taxation, wouldn’t it be OK if there was one thing in this world that the government didn’t tax? I mean, do some fat cat politicians in Washington really deserve a slice of every bit of productive activity in this country? The income that a person uses to buy any item in America has already been taxed multiple times – through corporate taxes, payroll taxes, income taxes, medicaid and social security taxes and the list goes on and on. What makes people think that the government needs any more money from us?

Also, assuming that it was legalized and taxed, why wouldn’t people still buy it off the streets at a discount, tax-free? Assuming an 8% minimum tax, which is the sales tax rate in New York, why wouldn’t people who already ‘get it from a friend’ continue to do so? In fact, I think it’s safe to assume that an 8% tax is probably much lower than what the government would actually institute. Tobacco manufacturers could be counted on to lobby government to make sure that marijuana taxes were as high or higher than tobacco taxes to make sure they didn’t loose further business to a cheaper (and more healthy) alternative.

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Michael Maresco pedaled across America in late 2007 spreading Ron Paul’s message of liberty to everyone who crossed his path. I spent those months following his effort on his site, RonPaulRiders.com. I warmly recall a video he shot POV-style while on his bike singing our National Anthem. He may hate me for linking to it, but here it is.

Fast-forward to 2009 and Michael is about to embark on another bike ride. This time he’s pedaling from the Statue of Liberty to Alcatraz as a warning to all about America’s trajectory from freedom to fascism. It is dubbed the Ride for Honesty.

Michael introduces his ride using one of my own favorite quotes of all time by Calvin Coolidge in a post on the new site, LibertyRider.com:

This time, in addition to casual encounters, and in response to the recent DHS Documents deeming peace-loving political activists as potential threats, I will be canvassing Sheriffs and Governors; presenting them with educational materials about our movement, providing background for sensible r3VOLutionary solutions to the problems we face as a nation. The packs will include: “The Revolution – A Manifesto”, by Congressman Ron Paul. “The County Sheriff – America’s last Hope”, by Sheriff Richard Mack. And a DVD of the speech, “The Powers of the Purse and Sword” by Dr. Edwin Vieira.

In doing so, I hope to build rapport and spark honest discussion, locally, about our great country’s apparent slide into some bizarre new form of fascism. To symbolize this, I am riding from The Statue of Liberty to Alcatraz; Freedom to Fascism. It is a grim goal to envision, a heavy to topic to carry. But, must. be. done. As Dr. Ron Paul said, July 10, 2003 on the floor of Congress, “Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.”

Awakening the drowsy, energizing the awake, those are things I’m good at. Navigating the road, and targeting a message, are things I have a wealth of experience in. Putting them together in this trip is a natural. Following the advice of Calvin Coolidge, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”, I’m pressing on.

We will be following his effort here at Liberty Maven, and we encourage all of our readers to participate in assisting Michael in this proud endeavor for liberty.

Please donate a few (or more) of your Federal Reserve Notes to the cause. He is going to publicly track his expenses on his web site. Any amount you can give will help him pedal toward his goal and spread the message that needs spreading now more than ever. For more ways to help please check out LibertyRider.com. His adventure begins on May 24th.

Check out the first press release regarding the ride and help spread the word.

Press on Michael, press on!

Ron Paul appeared on Fox Business News today to discuss the release of the Bank “Stress” test results. He calls the tests propaganda and a pretense for more central economic planning.

To me this seems like just more smoke and mirrors by the Obama administration to try to drum up support for using more tax payer money to prop up bad banks. How nice it is for them that right when these results get released the stock market is doing better and the main stream business news outlets are falling all over themselves acting like we are on the brink of an economic recovery. I heard an “economist” on TV yesterday make the claim that the bottom is in.

I hope the bottom is in, but the bottom for stocks doesn’t necessarily mean the bottom of the housing market and the overall economy. For instance did you know that the government does not include housing in the CPI number? Housing is a consumption good. If it were included the CPI would be at a 5% decline year over year right now.

We are supposed to accept the “truth” from the very organization that benefits from lying to us. Perception is not reality when the government is involved. We get smokescreen after smokescreen.

But I digress… Watch Ron Paul below. Note that the video cuts off abruptly at the end, but it ended right after. Thanks to MinnesotaChris for the video.

To my delight, Congressman Charles Dent has co-signed Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve

by Jake Towne, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published Thursday, May 7, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6400.html

A couple days ago I published an open letter to my representative to support Ron Paul’s HR 1207 bill to audit the Federal Reserve after contacting him multiple times over the past two months.  I am thrilled to report that Congressman Charles Dent has now co-signed the bill! As I reported here “STATUS REPORT: Ron Paul’s Audit the FED Act, HR 1207“, additional co-signers for a bill does not move it any closer to a House floor vote, but it is one more additional vote that should be cast in its favor if the bill makes it to a vote.

Bloomberg’s Freedom of Information Act request was denied by the FED last year.  The FED declined to disclose how they used $2 trillion dollars in open market operations that they executed outside of Congressional authority. Congress has no clue how the FED used the money either since that is not how the FED works.

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“Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people” – Henry Kissinger

Our food freedom is under attack! HR 759 has eclipsed HR 875 as a danger to America’s small farmers. Currently in committee (and more likely to pass), NOW is the time to act to stop this threat to our freedom to buy, grow and eat real foods. A vote is expected by Memorial day.

Do your own research:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-759
http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h759/show
http://www.naturalnews.com/026114.html

Contact your reps:
http://www.congress.org/congressorg/officials/congress

Contact your reps and local newspapers:
http://www.usalone.net/cgi-bin/oen.cgi?qnum=7499

In case you missed it, here’s what you should know about HR 875 – the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009:

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HR 1207 UPDATE: Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill is up to 134 co-sponsors!! This is HUGE, and shows how much our support actually CAN make a difference!

Details Here:
http://www.breakthematrix.com/index.php?q=node/34437