Liberty Maven

In one of the more interesting exchanges in last night’s GOP Debate on FOX News, Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann found some time to disagree with each other. Without checking on the facts of what each said, one could walk away believing something that was just not true. Which candidate lied? Here is your answer from “FACT CHECK” via the AP:

MICHELE BACHMANN: “We have an IAEA report that just recently came out that said literally Iran is within just months of being able to obtain that (a nuclear) weapon.”
RON PAUL: “There is no U.N. report that said that. It’s totally wrong, what you just said.”
Bachmann: “It’s the IAEA report.”
THE FACTS: As Paul said, the report of the International Atomic Energy Agency does not state that Iran is within months of having nuclear arms. The U.N. agency report does suggest that Iran conducted secret experiments whose sole purpose is the development of nuclear weapons but did not put a time frame on when Iran might succeed in building a bomb, and it made no final conclusion on Tehran’s intent.
Bachmann also erred by arguing that Iran has “stated they will use it (a nuclear weapon) against the United States.”
Iran vehemently rejects that it is developing a nuclear bomb, let alone that it plans to drop one on the U.S.

Yes, unsurprisingly it was Michelle Bachmann who lied or I guess if you are a supporter of hers, “stretched the truth”. Bachmann also appears to have lied about what is in the Iranian Constitution, claiming it “states unequivocally” to stretch “jihad across the world”. Well, unless the Wikipedia interpretation of the Iranian Constitution is wrong I see no mention of “jihad” or “caliphate”. In fact, it directly mentions foreign policy in section X, saying in part:

Article 152 The foreign policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran is based upon the rejection of all forms of domination, both the exertion of it and submission to it, the preservation of the independence of the country in all respects and its territorial integrity, the defence of the rights of all Muslims, non-alignment with respect to the hegemonic superpowers, and the maintenance of mutually peaceful relations with all non-belligerent States.

There is certainly no “unequivocal” mention of jihad against the world. Hopefully voters will see through Bachmann’s and Santorum’s melodramatic horse-hockey.

Here are all of Ron Paul’s moments in the debate, totaling over 18 minutes:

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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.

America is NOT the government, its workers, their unions, or career bureaucrats. It’s the people who go to work every day to make the money that supports their families and pays the taxes that keep the government going. THAT is America.

America is NOT the politicians, their aides, or their cadre of ‘experts’. It’s the people who dutifully show up every election to put their two cents in at the ballot box. THAT is America.

America is NOT the laws that are passed day after day after day. It’s the people who live their lives the best way they can, who don’t kill, cheat, rob and who go through life cheerfully following the two words that keep this country together: honesty and fairness. THAT is America.

America is NOT the news media. It’s the people who go out of their way to inform themselves on issues of the day and simply won’t accept whatever is printed or televised before them. They refuse to let people they don’t know make up their minds for them and more and more inconveniently question what our politicians and courts are doing to this country. THAT is America.

America is an idea, a concept, a conclusion held together by the sheer will of its people. THAT is America.

Long may her flag fly.

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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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.

UPDATE: CATO discussed this craziness in a recent post on their blog as well.

The following is an educational service of the Downsize DC Foundation.

As we said yesterday, millions of Americans believe . . .

We need the government to regulate business people, otherwise they will run wild, laying waste to the environment, and selling us bad food, bad drugs, and harmful products.

One big reason people believe this is because they attended government schools and were taught about a famous book, “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair’s book supposedly demonstrated that . . .

* Once upon a time, before government regulation, meat packing plants were endangering Americans with poison food
* The motivation for this poisoning was profits.

But here’s what most people don’t know . . .

* “The Jungle” was a novel, not a factual report
* Most of what Sinclair wrote was pure fiction, un-connected to reality

This is your chance to learn the truth.

“The Jungle” was intended to dramatize working conditions, NOT food safety. In fact, Sinclair’s fictional claims about food safety were limited to a mere 12 pages, but these pages got all the attention, leading Sinclair to later write, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.” (Source: Gabriel Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967, p. 103.)

Sinclair’s novel caused a sensation, and led to Congressional investigations, even though many politicians were skeptical of Sinclair. For instance, here’s what President Theodore Roosevelt wrote about him in July 1906 (even though he shared Sinclair’s distrust of big business):

“I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth.” (Source: letter to William Allen White, July 31, 1906, from “The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt,” 8 vols, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951-54, vol. 5, p. 340.)

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Rand Paul has an opinion piece in Saturday’s Bowling Green Daily News where he attempts (and succeeds) to properly clarify his remarks on the Civil Rights Act that were mis-construed by so many following his landslide primary victory. He writes:

I am unlike many folks who run for office. I am an idealist. When I read history I side with abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglas who fought for 30 years to end slavery and to integrate public transportation in the free North in the 1840s. I see our failure to end slavery for decade after decade as a failure of weak-kneed politicians.

I cheer the abolitionist Lysander Spooner, who argued that slavery was unconstitutional 20 years before the Civil War. I cheer Lerone Bennet when he argues that the right of habeas corpus guaranteed in the Constitution should have derailed slavery long before the Civil War.

Only when the brave idealists, the abolitionists, finally provoked the weak-kneed politicians into action, did the emancipation proclamation come about. Our body politic has enough pragmatists, we need a few idealists.

Segregation ended only after a great and momentous uprising by idealists like Martin Luther King Jr., who provoked weak-kneed politicians to action.

In 2010, there are battles that need to be fought, and they have nothing to do with race or discrimination, but rather the rights of people to be free from a nanny state.

Read the entire piece here.

Michael Scheuer is not one to mince words when it comes to his writing, speaking, or beliefs. This article demonstrates it perfectly. This is a must read.

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Maddow and the Obamas: Killers of hope, spurs of rebellion

The attacks by MSNBC’s extremist Rachel Maddow on Rand Paul clarify a good deal for me. Ms. Maddow’s position is based on a sort of warmed over version of the 1920s’ Bloomsbury ideology: effete, secular, socialist, pacifistic, elitist, and libertine. The ideology is shared by her fellow MSNBC extremists Olberman and Matthews and by Mr. Obama and his acolytes. Anyone disagreeing with her and them is not just wrong but perverse, racist, badly educated, antiquarian, and could only come from the scum of the earth. What passes for political thought and philosophy among MSNBC’s neo-Bloomsbury extremists and team Obama reminds one of cheeses and flowers — those that stink the most, last the longest.

But, to be honest, MSNBC’s extremists and the Obamaites are not much different from Republicans in being arrogant elitists who regard Americans as ignorant rubes who are unaware of what is best for themselves and their country. What do we hear from the Republicans: they talk anti-abortion, do-nothing; talk controlling borders, do nothing; talk debt reduction, spend more; talk energy self-sufficiency, kiss the Saudis’ butt; talk support for the troops, get more killed in useless wars; talk about America’s independence, and lap up humiliation from Israel and Mexico.

Ms. Maddow-of-Bloomsbury, then, represents both parties in the sense that they both are telling Americans: “Trust us. We know what is best for you. Vote for us, shut up, and go home and watch television.”

Please read the rest…

Someone at CNN is going to get fired. Jesse Ventura was the guest host of Larry King Live earlier tonight. He had Ron Paul on the show along with some others for the entire hour. They discussed several issues of the day including the retirement of Justice Stevens, Bart Stupak, and the general state of America today.

Paul suggested Judge Andrew Napolitano as a potential replacement for Justice Stevens. He then uses his ample time to discuss the future direction of America should be toward libertarianism. He argues that libertarian ideas can bring together the Progressives and the Constitutional Conservatives. It was quite an interesting discussion. Check it out below. The video is in 5 parts.

httpvp://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=20F79F4A3CE456BC

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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