Quote of the Day: The Constitution was based upon the fact the federal government had exceedingly limited powers. It was only allowed to do eighteen very limited things — the enumerated powers, period. And everything else belonged to the states and the individuals to regulate. – Peter McWilliams
A personal message from Jim Babka . . .
Best-selling author Peter McWilliams died ten years ago today, June 14, 2000.
I remember when I heard the news. I can still feel the sickness and anger that I felt that day.
I didn’t know Peter personally, but I admired him. Some of my colleagues were good friends or acquaintances of his. [Read his story further down below].
Peter was an eloquent champion of limited government and personal freedom. But his life was cut short by the War on Drugs. The federal government denied him the medication he needed to live and thrive.
Most of them are, more or less, accusing the Judge of selling out by having guests such as Sarah Palin and Dick Armey on his debut show. I thought the show was excellent and just illustrated the point I was trying to make in my recent article, “Rand Paul is the purple pill“.
The Judge used his debut show to bring together various factions to find some common ground on the issues. How fitting it was to see Rand Paul sitting between Ron Paul and Sarah Palin on the show. I’m not sure if this seating arrangement was purpose-driven, but it certainly seemed like it could have been deliberate. Rand Paul represents the “coming together” of these factions into a more effective liberty-driven whole.
No, Sarah Palin is certainly not as close to perfect on liberty as Ron Paul, and Rand Paul is somewhere in-between. That in-between is the pathway Judge Napolitano attempted to cultivate in the show. I thought he was quite successful in that endeavor.
However, I’m miffed by one aspect of the show. The Judge chose not to end the show with his usual tag line, “Stay Free… America!”
Instead, he ended with, “So long… America!”
Hmm.. do you think he’s trying to tell us something?
What if there was a third choice for reality-seekers? Something other than the red pill or the blue pill. What if there was a purple pill? The purple pill is the gateway drug to liberty for those that aren’t quite ready to have an ice-cold-water-on-the-face wake-up call. It is a soothing alarm clock that gradually opens eyes to the truth. Rand Paul is the purple pill.
He already has his foot in the libertarian door thanks to his father, Ron Paul. This gives him legitimacy and support from many of his father’s more libertarian-minded supporters. Yet he softens what many Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh conservatives would call the crazy edges of his father. Ron Paul is a true red pill. There is no doubt about that.
Rand represents someone conservatives, Republicans, and even neo-conservatives can be comfortable supporting without wounding their own interventionist-minded pride. This becomes a problem for the more steadfast libertarians among the Ron Paul faithful who demand an A+ on the libertarian purity test.
Following Rand Paul’s radio interview earlier this week, Sean Hannity had him in studio for a TV interview last night. As usual, Rand knocked it out of the park, demonstrating perfectly why he won the primary and has won support from libertarians, independents, and conservatives.
A new U.S. Senate bill would grant the president far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of or shut down portions of the Internet.
I wish this surprised me. I wish I didn’t just nod and say, “of course”, when I read this.
It appears that “national security” ranks right up there with the Constitution’s Commerce Clause as the top two excuses given by the U.S. government to bend you over and forcibly extract freedom from your nether-region.
Apparently, our elected masters aren’t happy with just killing humans in no-win wars. Now they want to be able to “kill” the Internet, whatever that means.
The idea of an Internet “kill switch” that the president could flip is not new. A draft Senate proposal that CNET obtained in August allowed the White House to “declare a cybersecurity emergency,” and another from senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.V.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) would have explicitly given the government the power to “order the disconnection” of certain networks or Web sites.
How can anyone support something like this? Apparently it’s something to “laud” and “commend”.
On Thursday, both senators lauded Lieberman’s bill, which is formally titled the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act, or PCNAA. Rockefeller said “I commend” the drafters of the PCNAA. Collins went further, signing up as a co-sponsor and saying at a press conference that “we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government realizes the importance of protecting our cyber resources.”
I’d much rather our lawmakers laud, commend, and follow the Constitution. You know, that document that they swore an oath to defend, but apparently is now so dangerous that it must come with a warning label.
I hope for a timely mass awakening before the alarm clock sounds signifying the end of freedom. Remember, there is no snooze button on this alarm clock.
When lawmakers think it is perfectly fine to propose liberty-sucking bills such as this isn’t it time to realize that they firmly believe this is their world and we just live in it?
Make no mistake. It is not us and them.
It is us or them.
The strategy is threefold: nullify, repeal, and vote them out.
The Senate will vote TODAY on resolution S.J. Res. 26. Passage of this resolution would overrule the EPA’s self-proclaimed power to regulate Greenhouse Gases.
You can find background on this issue in these Downsizer-Dispatches:
Keep in mind that we’re not taking a position on climate science. We simply believe the EPA has no constitutional authority to regulate greenhouse gases without specific legislation from Congress. In addition, the EPA’s proposed regulations violate the intent of the Clean Air Act at the cost of harming the economy. Finally, as the letter below shows, CO2 emissions are already falling, without government involvement!
It seems a small publishing company called Wilder publishing has been putting warning labels on their reprints of the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and the Federalist Papers:
Apparently the warning label is causing quite a stir. Just check all the scathing reviews over at Amazon.com. This is a great opportunity to allow the free market to work: all those who are offended by this idiocy will boycott and/or speak out about the publishing company, and their sales will take a hit.
Penn Jillette is a favorite amongst many libertarians and atheists. Here he discusses why there should be more politicians like Rand Paul, even if you disagree with him.
by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
In the arc of history, all great powers have their day. Even confining our glance to the modern era, countries such as Spain, France, and Great Britain all had periods of unrivalled power across the world stage. Today, the United States reigns as the world’s sole superpower – but the wheel of fortune is turning. The US is being credibly challenged by rising powers in the developing world, like India and China. It is a process that will have huge implications for investors over the coming years.
In the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Empire and the privatization of communist China, commercial trade opened up on a worldwide basis. Exporters in America and Europe (the West) cheered at the promise of vast numbers of potential consumers in these new markets. What few realized was that these markets were populated by people who had been denied upward mobility for decades and were ready and eager to work hard for small gains in prosperity.
In the battle between the developed and the emerging, the first round went to the West, as our major companies exported heavy equipment, including aircraft and construction equipment, mostly to emerging governments.
Liberty Maven
by John Browne, Senior Market Strategist, Euro Pacific Capital
Loading ...
