Liberty Maven

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

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Why this is important

Statism is the belief that politicians and bureaucrats should have broad powers to use force against citizens. In its most virulent forms Statism killed more people in the 20th Century alone than all of the individual non-governmental murderers in the history of the world, COMBINED!

Professor R.J. Rummel estimates the total murderous death-toll of Statism at about 170 million people!

Not even the Black Death of the Middle Ages, or the Flu epidemic of 1918, can approach these numbers, even if you combine the totals from those two epidemics and reduce the estimate for the total number of murders committed by governments.

But the terrible statistics for Statist murder still only tell part of the story. We must add to them the statistics for the mass theft, imprisonment, and torture committed by governments against innocent people. These measurements of State criminality are even more vast, so much so that they are literally incalculable.

The State, and the belief-system that fosters its criminality — Statism — are the great scourges of human existence, against which no other source of death and destruction can remotely compare.

Of course, in reaction to all of these blood-curdling facts the fool argues that such things could never happen in this country. The same foolish belief was held by people in Russia, Germany, China, Cambodia, and a hundred other places, before such things DID happen in those countries. But such naivety is also exposed by one other crucial fact . . .

Murderous and violent crimes by the State have already been committed by our government, on a massive scale. A partial list would include . . .
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Here is yet another story about those who are supposed to serve and protect, harassing and abusing instead. One wonders how often these events occur but never rise to “Rodney King” proportions.

At least Ryan McCain’s story (included below) ends well. My Brother-in-law was in a similar situation recently. His pickup truck broke down, he fixed it on the side of the road, and to test it out drove a bit and turned down a gravel road. When he turned around 3 police cars screeched into view, cops jumped out, guns drawn yelling. Apparently they thought he had stolen his own car. Of course, checking the registration didn’t stop them from taking him to the station before releasing him. This story, the Steve Beirfeldt/TSA story, the one included below, and countless others make me believe that these are not just isolated incidents. They are a disturbing trend.

Ryan McCain shared the following “isolated incident”:

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“The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, imprisoned Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize winner

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published Friday, May 1, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article6368.html

WASHINGTON, DC – In January, I wrote an Austrian economic proof that the Obama stimulus plan would fail, I noted that one of the many symptoms would be inevitable, unstoppable corruption. Well, I suppose it’s no surprise to any American that corruption in our government is already widespread. And it’s pretty sad to see the mainstream media freak out over a case of the flu. As fellow columnist Jonathan Cymberknopf writes in “Swine flu make for great ratings“, 36,000 died due to influenza in 2008, so there is no need for a mass freak out. (And yes, there is a possibility that it could become serious. A small possibility.)

After returning to the USA last month, I found that, perhaps paradoxically, the best news is being reported on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, a comedy show. Check out the “Your Government NOT at Work” excerpt from the April 28 episode 07:45 to 12:00. Stewart outlines a scandal involving my former Congresswoman, Jane Harman, of California. My residence used to lie in Harman’s district, she failed to reply to a single one of my attempts to write or be heard.  I contacted her over one hundred times over two years without reply, but perhaps she was busy covering up.  In Harman’s defense, she would like to release all of her wiretapped conversations to the public.

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Ron Paul completely annihilated Stephen Baldwin over legalizing drugs tonight on CNN’s Larry King with Joy Behar filling in for Larry. Baldwin’s feeble attempt at supporting keeping drugs illegal were the same old trite things we’ve been hearing for years that have been refuted time and time again.

Not surprisingly, Ron Paul truly schooled him and the audience on why the drug war is horrid, marijuana should be legal, and he did it with a smile.

I loved the fact that Behar allowed Ron Paul to speak. In fact she allowed him to speak much more than Baldwin. Perhaps it was because Baldwin had nothing new to say.

Ron Paul’s appearance and words on this show should be played in court in any federal non-violent drug case, and there’s no way anyone would side with the prosecution. That is unless that person was lying to himself (or herself).

Watch Ron Paul break it down for the defense below.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “The idea that people lose their property but are never charged and never get it back, that’s theft as far as I’m concerned.” — Texas State Senator John Whitmire

Subject: Highway Robbery

If you happen to travel through east Texas, avoid Tenaha, especially if you’re African American. The Tenaha police may stop you and rob you, without even charging you with a crime. They even took $4,000 from a great-grandmother.

Tenaha, a town of 1,000, has used its robbery proceeds to build a new police station, and buy a second police car to extend its legal crime wave. But perhaps it’s unfair to single out Tenaha. Police departments all over America are doing the same thing, committing not only robbery, but also acts of terrorism.

Apparently, no one is safe. Just ask Cheye Calvo, the Mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland . . .

County police mistakenly targeted the Calvo home as a marijuana drop-off point. Police invaded the home, bound the mayor’s mother-in-law, and shot the family’s dogs. The Calvo’s were cleared of all wrongdoing, but the police won’t admit it made any mistakes.

Radley Balko reports that the use of SWAT teams and no-knock raids has soared, even when there’s no evidence that a targeted home poses any threat. These aggressive raids allow police to surprise the suspect and find as much valuable property to seize as quickly as possible.

Law enforcement agencies then auction off this property and spend the money on themselves, even when the victims they robbed are never convicted of any crime. Instead, the victims must prove that they are NOT guilty of a crime.

Proving a negative is almost impossible. That’s why innocence is presumed in free societies, and the state bears the burden of proving guilt. Civil asset forfeiture turn this principle on its head. It even forces victims to prove that their property was never used in a crime.

This means that most seized property is never returned, even to people who are completely innocent.

The asset forfeiture laws give police a huge incentive to steal as much as possible. They also create a conflict-of-interest. Police make more money seizing the proceeds of drug sales than by preventing drug sales. This contradicts the supposed purpose of drug prohibition.

But it gets worse . . .

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Acts of piracy whether committed by Somalian nationals in desperation or by nation-states like the United States are still acts of piracy!

by Jake, the Champion of the Constitution
Originally published Tuesday, January 27, 2009 at http://www.nolanchart.com/article5898.html

Well, technically I suppose if committed by the US it could be called privateering.  (photo)

I am sure that most are familiar with the Somalian pirates, who have taken over quite a few merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden over the past few years with the aid of a few assault rifles and motorboats.  These criminals are mostly concerned with obtaining a ransom, and have kept ship crews and cargo hostage for fairly lengthy periods of time.  I am under the general impression that these pirates are more concerned with their ransom booty and do not really intend to take their hostages’ lives.

What some may not know is that Blackwater, an American private mercenary and security firm is preparing to start a new “business” in protecting Gulf of Aden ships from these rascals.  That should bloody the waters a bit, but probably few would claim that these pirates are anything but armed robbers.

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D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

Quote of the Day: “All great truths began as blasphemies.” — George Bernard Shaw, Annajanska, 1919

Subject: Mexican Civil War could spill over into U.S.

You’re not hearing about it yet, but a civil war is raging in Mexico — between drug lords and the government. The Mexican government deployed 36,000 troops to fight this war in 2006, but the problem is getting worse. Here are the disconcerting results . . .

* There have been more kidnappings in Mexico than Iraq! 1,000 have been officially reported, but human rights groups estimate the real number at 3,000.

* Despite high-profile arrests but the bloodshed has doubled from 2007 to 2008, with between 5,300 and 5,700 dead in the past year from attacks related to the drug trade.

* The city of Ciudad Juárez ended the year with 1,600 of those deaths

Now this violence is threatening to spill across our border!

* The violence is so bad in Ciudad Juárez that the mayor and other elected officials have moved to El Paso, Texas, and commute to work from there.

* In October, Hidalgo County, Texas officials issued fully automatic weapons to deputies patrolling the river in the Rio Grande Valley. Sheriff Lupe Trevino has authorized his deputies to return fire across the border if smugglers or other criminals take aim at them.

* According to the Dallas Morning News, “A U.S. intelligence official based along the Texas border (has) warned that U.S. officials, American businessmen and journalists will ‘become targets.’”

* Mexican gangs have begun to expand their operations into several states, including some in the northern tier, such as Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota.

* Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has ordered plans for a “surge” of civilian and perhaps even military law enforcement. Even Chertoff concedes that his plan could cause the bloodshed to spill over into our country.

Why is this happening, and how can we stop it?

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I’ve long held that just about every U.S. President and U.S. Congressman deserve to be hanged (or at least some sort of punishment) for violating their oaths of office.

Upon entering office, U.S. Presidents must pledge:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Similarly, members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives must affirm:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

If our public servants aren’t held to their oaths, then the oaths are rendered meaningless.

In similar fashion, Bruce Fein has opined in the San Francisco Chronicle, that the actions of President Bush and Vice President Cheney have violated the Constitution in a variety of ways, and indeed deserve censure.  Here’s a piece of what Fein had to say:

By wielding the threat of international terrorism, the Bush-Cheney team put the nation on a permanent war footing – the first time in history that war has been undertaken against a tactic. They maintained that the entire post-9/11 world is an active battlefield where United States military force may be used to kill suspected members of al Qaeda irrespective of international boundaries.

They claimed executive privilege and state secrets to conduct secret government – thereby circumventing political and legal accountability. This included directives to former White House officials Karl Rove and Harriet Miers to flout congressional subpoenas for testimony. They detained hundreds of people (including American citizens) as enemy combatants without accusation or trial. They authorized torture (waterboarding and extraordinary rendition), abductions, secret prisons and illegal surveillance of American citizens.

Like its immediate predecessors, the 110th Congress eagerly yielded its authorities – even the power of the purse – to the president. The Iraqi War Resolution, the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Act, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amendments, and the declination to hold Rove in contempt of Congress were emblematic.

If left unrebuked, the Bush-Cheney usurpations of power will become part of the constitutional firmament and risk creating a safe harbor for future presidential abuses. Every member of Congress, moreover, is required to take an oath to “support (the) Constitution” pursuant to Article VI. There is no corresponding oath to support the Republican or Democratic parties or to subordinate the Constitution in the name of political harmony. Censure would be no novelty.

Read the whole article.

Economist John R. Lott is a senior research scientist at University of Maryland, College Park with a Ph. D in economics from UCLA who has written well-known books such as Freedomnomics, More Guns, Less Crime, The Bias Against Guns, and Straight Shooting: Firearms, Economics and Public Policy. As such, he is a well-known supporter of our right to own and freely carry firearms.

Also a contributor to the Fox News Forums, he has written another brilliant piece discussing the attacks in Mumbai, New York Giant’s receiver Plaxico Burress, and the ill-advised (and unconstitutional) gun-control legislation that has harmed us as a society:

Banning guns is in the news. India practically bans guns, but that didn’t stop the horrific Muslim terrorist attacks this last week.

A football player concerned for his safety violates New York City’s tough gun control regulations by carrying a concealed handgun, and people call for everything from banning NFL players from carrying guns to demanding that the athlete serve many years in jail.

When police can’t promise to protect law-abiding citizens such Plaxico Burress or the victims in India, why don’t we allow people the right to protect themselves?

Where is the sympathy or debate in either case over letting people defend themselves? Given that the terrorists smuggled their machine guns in with them, would anyone argue that India’s extremely strict gun licensing and artificially high prices for guns helped prevent the terrorist attacks? In fact, the reverse is more likely the case.

Would Plaxico Burress, the New York Giant’s receiver who was arrested yesterday, really have been safer just trusting the police to protect him?

Continue reading the article here.