Liberty Maven

Quote of the Day: “Right now, China, the government, can disconnect parts of its internet, in the case of war, we need to have that here too.” — Senator Joe Lieberman

The “Internet kill switch” bill was promoted by Senators Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins in the last Congress. The bill would have granted President Obama the power to shut down much of the Internet in the event of a “cybersecurity emergency.”

The good news is that Congress adjourned before passing it.

The bad news is that, on the very same day Egypt’s dictator Hosni Mubarak imposed an Internet blackout on his country, Collins announced her intention to re-introduce the bill.

But as the letter below indicates, giving the President this power is extremely dangerous and won’t protect us from cybersecurity attacks.

Please tell Congress to defeat this bill using DownsizeDC.org’s Hands Off the Internet campaign.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

The Internet managed to revolutionize our lives without the involvement of busy-body politicians. Instead, the Internet is entirely regulated by non-State institutions, incentives, and rules. These free market forms of regulation actually work, unlike most State regulations. The politicians find this hard to tolerate, so they’re constantly looking for excuses to meddle.

That’s why DownsizeDC.org is introducing our Hands Off the Internet campaign.

If you like what the free market version of the Internet has done for you, then please take action to protect it from interference by The State.

In the coming weeks and months we’ll use this campaign to address specific issues. But Congress should also be told right now where you stand on the issue as a whole. That’s why we’re asking you to send a letter to your Representative and your two Senators telling them that you value Internet freedom.

The hard-wired letter says . . .

Please oppose any attempts to undermine Internet freedom.

You may borrow from or copy these additional remarks, or write something of your own . . . Read More »

Unless Congress acts to fix their mistake, a paperwork tsunami will drown every business, including yours, and all of your favorite organizations, including Downsize DC.

This coming tsunami is the new requirement that every business must fill out 1099s forms for every company with which it spends more than $600. This new burden was a provision of the Obamacare bill.

Everyone hates it. Both parties CLAIM they want to repeal it, but they can’t agree about where to fit it in their tight schedule, or whether or not to “pay” for the lost revenue with spending cuts elsewhere.

Well, they SHOULD cut spending. But let’s be clear: There’s NO revenue loss to contemplate. The 1099 requirement will cut into profits. That would mean less, not more revenue for our bloated government.

Please tell Congress to stop delaying and to please repeal the 1099 requirement immediately.

You may borrow from or copy this letter . . . Read More »

Quote of the Day: “Are Mr. Weiner and Chairman Bernanke also going to agree to print on every dollar the reasonable expectation that its value will be eroded by inflation?” — Ira Stoll, writing about Representative Weiner’s anti-gold witch hunt

Representative Anthony Weiner, a Democrat from New York, plans to hold Congressional hearings to investigate gold dealers who advertise on TV.

Is it a coincidence that these gold dealers just happen to advertise on shows like Glenn Beck that tend to oppose Democratic polices? Of course not. This hearing is clearly intended to intimidate. Representative Weiner wants to chill speech for a partisan purpose. But it get’s worse . . .

Weiner is also proposing legislation that would require gold companies to disclose “the reasonable resale value of items being sold (so that the companies) would no longer be able to hide behind false promises of profitability.” This makes it perfectly clear that Mr. Weiner has no idea how a free market works.

Prices rise and fall. No future price can be guaranteed by anyone for anything. Imagine what would happen if, for instance, Mr. Weiner’s idea was applied to the stock market, or . . . to the future price of government bonds?

Would people like Representative Weiner go to prison if the government’s promises about the future value of its bonds turned out to be overly optimistic? Of course not. But this is exactly how he wants to treat gold dealers.

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Tomorrow is June 28th and there are two events every liberty-lover should be participating in.

First up, is the first money bomb for Rand Paul’s General election campaign. Pledge here and donate tomorrow (or beginning at midnight tonight) here. He’s going to need a significant amount of money to defend the attacks that are now coming at him from national progressives and Obamatons.

Next, it is the official release day for Tom Woods’ latest and perhaps greatest book entitled, “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century“. I consider his previous book “Meltdown” one of the best economics books I’ve ever read. Given Woods’ track record his new book will be mind-opening to those willing to give it a read. The book and Tom were recently featured on Glenn Beck’s TV show about Hayek’s “The Road to Serfdom” (see the video below).

So that’s my To-Do list for Monday, June 28th, 2010. I hope it is yours as well.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=57C327D079811600

Throughout the course of modern history, the cyclical nature of government has always been to expand itself, corrupt itself, and to subsequently be replaced by a new regime or government which makes the same predictable mistakes as the last. Corruption and immorality, while rampant in government today, are hardly new: the Emperor Nero of Rome and Cleopatra of Egypt were noted for assassinations of family members, for instance.

However, it is generally thought by most in society that corruption need not be a direct function of power, but rather an unfortunate coincidence of these systems of power over a period of time. As part of his best-selling Road to Serfdom (which has gained renewed interest in light of its recent feature on television pundit Glenn Beck’s show), Nobel Prize winner F.A. Hayek sought to discredit this notion of coincidence in a chapter he entitled “Why the Worst Get on Top.” In his own words, Hayek initiates the discussion in this way:

“It is the belief that the most repellant features of the totalitarian regimes are due to the historical accident that they were established by groups of blackguards and thugs … Why should it not be possible that the same sort of system, if it be necessary to achieve important ends, be run by decent people for the good of the community as a whole? … [Yet] There are strong reasons for believing that what to us appear the worst features of the existing totalitarian systems are not accidental by-products but phenomena which totalitarianism is certain sooner or later to produce.”

Those “strong reasons” were the substance of a chapter whose message can give pause to even the most well-intentioned of progressives in today’s political climate: perhaps the expansion and concentration of power attracts those who would plunder the population and take advantage of the weak in society, rather than those who would use such power for any perceived benefit. Specifically, Hayek noted three crucial points that lead socialist regimes into the hands of ruthless totalitarian dictators as a predictable consequence.

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by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit from the Economic Collapse

During the 1990s, inflationary Federal Reserve policy fueled a tech stock bubble. When that bubble burst, the Fed inflated a larger one in real estate. Now that the real estate bubble has burst, the Fed is inflating the biggest bubble of them all – a bubble in government. While the earlier booms at least provided the illusion of prosperity and some fun while they lasted, the government bubble will cripple the economy and deliver widespread misery to the vast majority of Americans.

Of course, there will be winners in the government bubble, at least for a while. As was the case with the stock and real estate bubbles, plenty of money will be made by the well-connected and parasitic classes. Government employees will continue to enjoy pay raises at our expense, as will anyone benefiting from the new wave of subsidies, such as Wall Street investment bankers, financial speculators, and those working in health care or education.

These gains will come at the expense of the taxpayers who foot the bill and the consumers who face higher prices. As government grows, it deprives the private sector of the resources it needs to survive and grow. The result is a lower overall standard of living. Not only are government jobs less productive than private sector jobs, but bureaucratic interference actually makes the remaining private sector jobs less efficient as well.

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“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Originally published March 22, 2010 at http://towneforcongress.com/economy/freedom-from-fascism-1

Recent events not only with the current healthcare bill, but also on the economic front are waking up more and more Americans to the sad truth that the federal government is out of control. A fascist state is quickly developing in America, one of the few rare places in the history of the planet where “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was not an unattainable dream but instead a mission statement. I first fully graspedwhere the misguided actions and ideology of the Republocrats would lead America during the Banker Bailout of 2008, and I returned home to fight against the Establishment by running for United States Congress as soon as I could.

Now when I use the term “fascism” in this piece, I do not mean its typical connotation with physical brutality, murder, and torture – though this is the easily recognizable final product. Fascism by Benito Mussolini’s originally intended economic meaning was symbolized by the “fasces” – bound sticks used as a totem for state power in ancient Rome. Here are my definitions – which by and large agree with most literature – for four socioeconomic systems:     Read More »

The U.S. Department of Education was established on May 4, 1980 with its primary objective being to “[assure] access to equal educational opportunity for every individual,” as well as to improve educational quality across America. One of the largest arguments for the creation of a federal department, however, was to coordinate the federal loan programs set forth in LBJ’s “Great Society” program. Johnson proudly signed the Higher Education Act of 1965 into law, proclaiming that the loan programs would “swing open a new door for the young people of America” by making higher education more affordable.

Flash forward several decades from these grand government schemes and these proclamations seem dubious at best. The average cost of attendance at a public university has increased from $950 per year in 1965 to $2,165 in 1980 to $11,034 in 2007 – to say that the federal loan program has failed to make college a more attainable goal for lower-class families would be an understatement. This rising cost spiral has been discussed at length elsewhere, however; the other issues inherent in the federal micromanagement of education are less often mentioned and are perhaps of more importance in our society.

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While conservatives like Glenn Beck bemoan the progressive “killing me softly” approach to transforming America into a socialist-fascist city state there are at least two other phenomena that are working toward that same end. Both of them come from the Right side of the aisle. All three together create  a blueprint for the demise of America as our Founders knew it.

The evil triumvirate killing machine aimed at America is made up of:

1. The progressive agenda.
2. Bipartisanship.
3. The so-called “war on terror”.

Ever since Obama’s inauguration we’ve all become hyper-aware of the progressive agenda thanks to commentators like Glenn Beck. The progressives don’t even want the Constitution to be a “god-damned piece of paper“. That would mean it actually exists to them. They’d much rather it never have existed. Sure, Obama is a “constitutional scholar”, but all the evidence suggests he only studied the constitution in order to figure out methods to betray it.

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