A few years ago I spent the 3 hours necessary to watch a BBC documentary/mini-series called “The Power of Nightmares”. I found it fascinating as it explored the symbiotic relationship between American neo-conservatives and terrorist groups like al-Qaeda. You can watch the entire series online at archive.org. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this topic.
In it we learn that neo-conservatives philosophy is based on Machiavellianism. It’s the elitist mentality that neo-cons know what is good for all citizens and can morally (in their eyes) use all means necessary to reach that perceived good. We also learn that the roots of neo-conservatism come from the left.
Now that Usama bin Laden nightmare is dead the neo-conservatives need a new nightmare to justify the continued global war on terror. At first they tried to spread general fear about a retaliatory strike. This is a real and genuine fear; however, it isn’t quite enough for them. They need a face of terror–a single person. Initial indications are this new face of terror will be Usama’s 20 year old son Hamza. He already has a nickname, “The Crown Prince of Terror” as evidenced in this recent article from The Telegraph:
Hamza, thought to be the youngest of the Saudi-born warlord’s sons, has been described as the “crown prince of terror”. He featured on an extremist website to mark the third anniversary of the July 7 London bombings in which 52 people died. He read a poem called for “destruction” of America, Britain, France and Denmark.
Intelligence agencies believe he was being groomed as a possible future leader of al-Qaeda.
He was implicated in the assassination of moderate Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
Well, it didn’t take them very long did it? Hopefully it won’t take 10 years, billions of dollars, and countless lives, to find bin Laden 2.0. No doubt we will begin hearing about how the son is even more evil than the parent was.
In any case, I long for the day when our troops can come home from all over the world and we can expend our resources on true defense and better intelligence-gathering rather than the expensive nation-sitting we do now.
Ron Paul is on fire. That is my opinion of his performance in this first GOP debate. Of course, I’m biased. Feel free to make your own judgement after watching the entire debate below. There were a few stellar moments from Ron Paul, including his answer when asked about legalizing drugs, and his answer about being the “Founding Father” of the Tea Party movement regarding Michele Bachmann.
I don’t agree with a lot of what Herman Cain says, but I have to admit he has charisma that will give him a lot of support. Expect the other candidates to start attacking him if his poll numbers go up. I think they will.
Gary Johnson did very well with a few odd moments. If I’m looking at him through social-con or neo-con eyes voting for him would likely be impossible. He did come off as a very honest “make the hard choices” candidate. Sort of like Cain without the charisma.
Pawlenty seems to be channeling John McCain a bit too much and Santorum just comes off as angry. Both seem to be going after the George W. Bush voting block; however small that is these days.
Following Bin Laden’s death, the scenes of celebration in America were the equivalent of the losing team in the Super Bowl celebrating like they just won the game. As Radley Balko points out, Bin Laden has already won. And all the proof we need is recognizing that we are far less free and further in debt today than we were on September 10th, 2001. Balko writes:
In The Looming Tower, the Pulitzer-winning history of al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11, author Lawrence Wright lays out how Osama bin Laden’s motivation for the attacks that he planned in the 1990s, and then the September 11 attacks, was to draw the U.S. and the West into a prolonged war—an actual war in Afghanistan, and a broader global war with Islam.
Osama got both. And we gave him a prolonged war in Iraq to boot. By the end of Obama’s first term, we’ll probably top 6,000 dead U.S. troops in those two wars, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans. The cost for both wars is also now well over $1 trillion.
We have also fundamentally altered who we are. A partial, off-the-top-of-my-head list of how we’ve changed since September 11 . . .
We’ve sent terrorist suspects to “black sites” to be detained without trial and tortured.
We’ve turned terrorist suspects over to other regimes, knowing that they’d be tortured.
In those cases when our government later learned it got the wrong guy, federal officials not only refused to apologize or compensate him, they went to court to argue he should be barred from using our courts to seek justice, and that the details of his abduction, torture, and detainment should be kept secret.
We’ve abducted and imprisoned dozens, perhaps hundreds of men in Guantanamo who turned out to have been innocent. Again, the government felt no obligation to do right by them.
Last Friday, several functions of the Federal State nearly shut down as Democrats and Republicans fought over things like tax funding for abortion providers. It’s the usual con game . . .
In other words, the politicians are still pretending to fight a “Culture War.” But are the people following their lead? I think not.
It seems to me that times have changed. People are waking up. They’re becoming harder to manipulate. As the letter below indicates, the real Culture War isn’t the one being portrayed by the institutional media. It’s not the conservatives against the liberals; it’s the politicians against YOU.
Quote of the Day: “Most American interventions come from two closely related childish fantasies: first, that one side in a tribal war is all good and the other all bad; and second, that the weaker tribe are the ‘underdogs’ and therefore the good guys. Just look at those two ideas and you’ll see that they’re a series of disasters waiting to happen.” – Gary Brecher
The “library records” provision of the so-called Patriot Act could also be known as the “gun records” provision, because it also allows the FBI to seize the forms you use to buy guns.
This infamous provision, Section 215, is a direct assault on your Fourth Amendment rights because it allows the FBI to obtain personal information about you, without a warrant and without your knowledge.
Section 215 is set to expire in May, along with two other provisions. But Congress will probably renew these provisions unless it hears from YOU.
Last week Donald Rumsfeld went on the Opie and Anthony radio show to promote his new book, “”. It was an odd interview to begin with. Opie and Anthony are not known for their hard-hitting political interviews, but rather, numerous fart and sex jokes. Comedian Louis C.K. was in studio during the interview, and decided to ask Donald Rumsfeld a humorous question. You can listen to the interview here:
Compare that interview with the rather hard-hitting tough journalistic interview Judge Andrew Napolitano did last night with The other Donald:
And here is the Judge after the interview, saying that Rumsfeld described the interview as the “toughest” he’s had. I’m thinking he wishes he’d rather be asked if he’s a lizard by Louis CK than be interviewed by the Judge again.
What do we do when DC politicians violate the Constitution with impunity? Thomas Jefferson had an answer. In 1798 he wrote that “whensoever” the Federal State “assumes undelegated powers,” that a “nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.” And . . .
Nullification is happening right now!
* Just last week, the Idaho House and the North Dakota Senate passed a Health Care Nullification Act. Nine other states are considering the same.
* Multiple states have passed firearms freedom acts, with more coming soon.
All across the country, the various states are saying “enough” to the Leviathan State in DC!
DownsizeDC.org, Inc. is supporting the Tenth Amendment Center’s 2011 Nullify Now! tour to educate and activate on behalf of this Constitutional tactic
Liberty Maven
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