Last week the Campaign For Liberty sponsored a a foreign policy debate between Bruce Fein and conservative radio talk show host Jeff Kuhner. Fein has recently released a book published by the Campaign for Liberty called “American Empire: Before the Fall“.
Please take some time to watch video of the debate embedded below. It truly demonstrates the dividing line between non-intervention and intervention. Both Fein and Kuhner provide excellent arguments, however I feel that Fein missed an opportunity to point out a serious flaw in Kuhner’s interventionist logic.
First, Kuhner does not dispute and therefore admits Fein’s assertion that the war on terror is a perpetual war. Later, Kuhner cites putting the Japanese in interment camps during WWII was a necessary and temporary evil. He argues that during times of war we must be willing to sacrifice some of our liberties so that we can be more free down the road once the fighting is over.
Fein could have jumped on this point by asking Kuhner the following question:
If we are in a perpetual war aren’t the civil liberties sacrifices we are making also permanent?
Equating the war on terror with WWII is like saying Coca-cola and orange soda taste the same. I bet Kuhner and his interventionist peers would be unhappy if they ordered a Coke and were brought orange soda instead.
RNC Chairman, Michael Steele, made some comments that riled his fellow neo-conservatives regarding the war in Afghanistan. It riled them so much that many of them are playing the part of the Red Queen in Tim Burton’s, “Alice in Wonderland”. They are yelling, “Off with his head!”
William Kristol and Redstate.com’s, Erick Erickson are among those calling for Steele’s resignation. Here is what Steele said that drew their ire:
“Keep in mind again, for our federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing,” Steele said. “This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.”
“It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be in Afghanistan,” Steele said, referring to Obama’s insistence during the presidential campaign that the U.S. should be focused on Afghanistan instead of Iraq.
“Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? All right, because everyone who has tried, over a thousand years of history, has failed. And there are reasons for that. There are other ways to engage in Afghanistan.”
First of all, these remarks seem quite benign to me, especially since Steele clearly does not want to bring the troops home. He just disagrees with the method by which the war is being fought. However, it also seems to me that he’s going a bit Ron Paul here. He did pick up a copy of Paul’s “End the Fed” at CPAC earlier this year. Perhaps that is what his fellow neo-conservatives hear in his words. We all know how much they despise the truth, er… I mean, Ron Paul.
Obama campaigned on “Yes, We can!”, but he’s governing on “Yes, You Will.”
He’s so similar to George W. Bush, and in some cases worse (drone bombing fetish?), on foreign policy that I expect to hear him start mis-pronouncing the word “nuclear” any day now.
He, like his fellow progressives, believes government is the solution to all the problems of the world. Will it take someone hurling a shoe at him to wake him up to the fact that the government doesn’t have such a great track record when it comes to solutions? That probably wouldn’t work. He’d just accuse the shoe-thrower of being a Right-wing extremist and/or a Tea Party racist and/or a domestic terrorist and/or a misguided soul who has been brain-washed by “my opponents” to believe that government is the problem.
Then he may calm down a bit and suggest that perhaps he just needs to explain things better so the stupid peasants that live around his DC castle and beyond understand that the proper role of government is to be involved in every aspect of their lives.
For instance, let’s investigate the health welfare individual mandate.
“Nullify, Repeal, and Vote them out”, should be the rallying cry for Americans and it makes a nice campaign slogan for state representatives as well. I just received Tom Woods’ new book, “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century“, in the mail. I haven’t read it yet, but it promises to be another classic. I’m guessing Tom Woods will cover, in his new book, some of what I’m about to discuss below.
There appears to be a de-facto nullification movement brewing in the United States. There are three main areas fueling this:
The National ID card or Real ID
Marijuana legalization/decriminalization
The health care mandate
The federal government demanded the states implement a national ID card. Back then they called it the REAL ID. These days they call it PASS ID and have attempted to make it more acceptable to the states. The states successfully thwarted implementation of original REAL ID by passing state legislation refusing to comply with the federal mandate. As of October of 2009, 25 states have passed laws refusing implementation of REAL ID in their state. This is the modern form of nullification. This is the model. Hopefully, PASS ID meets the same fate.
Several states have passed laws permitting marijuana for medicinal use and several are considering outright legalization. This goes directly against the federal laws against marijuana. This could become the next de-facto nullification, similar to REAL ID, if things continue down this path.
Opposing the new health care mandate is nullification in its infantile stages. Several state Attorneys General have filed suit on grounds that the health care mandate is unconstitutional. Virginia has passed a law exempting its citizens from the mandate.
You won’t hear many people within the debate on the above actually call what they are doing, “nullification”, but the net effect is the same. This idea of de-facto nullification appears to be the most effective and realistic method to oppose over-reaching federal government unconstitutional laws in our time. I expect to explore these ideas in more depth in Woods’ book and in my future writing.
Also, check out the upcoming “Nullify Now!” tour. Tom Woods, Jack Hunter, Jim Babka, and others are scheduled to speak.
See below for a “must see” Tom Woods interview given by a “Zombie” about his new book.
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.
There are many gigantic horses’ hindquarters milling about in Washington DC trying to figure out ways to save us from ourselves. I have to say though that Joe Lieberman is the biggest of them all.
Earlier, I wrote of his bill to give the president the power to shutdown the Internet in the event of a “cyber-attack”. Here he attempts to assuage the public by crying, but “it’s for national security!”:
And yes… the climax of his argument is that having the power to shutdown the Internet has worked so well for China that it should be done in the United States.
Joe, if you like China so much, just go there and leave us freedom-lovers the hell alone.
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.
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.
Ok, not really, but the more I see the Left and the media jump on every little thing Rand Paul says, the more I wonder, do they really think this stuff works?
Also, just to be clear, I do not believe Jack Conway likes to kill puppies and use their bones to pick his teeth.
Today, once again the media and the Left is trying to create controversy where there is none. Rand Paul, like his father, and many people in the United States believe we should repeal birthright citizenship. Yes, that is the big story today that is making the granola less crunchy for progressives.
I’m curious if this will stop once they realize it is not hurting Rand Paul’s effort to be Kentucky’s next U.S. Senator? In fact, it could be helping him as more and more people realize this is just more partisan subterfuge. The Left is doing its very best to unite through irritation. It is certainly conceivable that normally divided libertarians, independents, Republicans, and conservatives see a common enemy when these attacks persist. Even Mark Levin, who is no friend of the Pauls, has come to Rand Paul’s defense.
Allow me to repeat, Jack Conway probably doesn’t really like to kill babies and use their bones to pick his teeth, but he certainly has some policies that should, at the very least, strike fear into the hearts of Americans.
Liberty Maven
” at CPAC earlier this year. Perhaps that is what his fellow neo-conservatives hear in his words. We all know how much they despise the truth, er… I mean, Ron Paul.
“, in the mail. I haven’t read it yet, but it promises to be another classic. I’m guessing Tom Woods will cover, in his new book, some of what I’m about to discuss below.
” 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 “
” (see the video below).
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