What is it about Ron Paul that inspires such extremes? Such maddening support on the one hand, and such fear and loathing on the other? I can give the answer in one word: Soul.

The essential soul of a human being is by definition free. The idea that men are free as determined by God is a concept that is foreign to most men. This is because most men want to control others, to take away their freedom. This is usually referred to as the drive for power. The drive for power is antithetical to freedom because power means the ability to control others. There is only one legitimate thing that power can and should be used for, whether it be military, legislative, or executive power. That is, to legalize freedom.

Ron Paul doesn’t want to be President to “give” me freedom. He doesn’t own my freedom and he didn’t give it to me. The only reason Ron Paul wants to be President is to stop punishing people for using their freedom that is rightfully theirs. He wants no power. This is clear to anyone who listens to him speak.

Read it all.

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.

When asked about recent Economic Nobel Prize winner, Paul Krugman’s Keynesian worldview. Paul shakes his head, laughs, and half-jokes that he prays every night that Krugman’s ideas would just disappear.

Me too Dr. Paul. Me too.

Then, again, you may have crossed over into that Zombieland of voting in which you can’t seem to get enough of the heady stuff. While the former state is normal, here’s how to tell if you’ve really had too much politics for the season and are badly in need of a vacation or at least electroshock therapy:

1) You know Sarah Palin’s dog’s favorite color.
2) You can recite the Hatch Act from memory.
3) You call polling companies and beg to be polled.
4) You can’t wait for TV shows to end so you can start enjoying the campaign commercials.
5) You’ve come to believe that Rand Paul is a type of gold coin.
6) You can spell Ben Bernanke’s name forward AND backwards.
7) Your shirt has color-coded campaign buttons with Republicans on the right side, Democrats on the left, and Libertarians down the middle.
You agree with every political view no matter who holds it yet become irritated when someone refuses to have an opinion.
9) Your Favorites menu on your computer browser is full of campaign websites.
10) You can’t be reached on the Internet because your e-mail account is glutted with campaign spam.
11) You’ve got a space reserved in front of the early voting place so that you can get there before midnight.
12) You’ve got a tattoo of your favorite candidate on your shoulder and you were the tattoo artist.
13) You’ve painted half your car red and the other half blue.
14) You invite campaign flyer distributors into your house for coffee and cookies and to have a heart-to-heart.
15) You’ve removed the heads from your bobblehead collection and replaced them with leading candidates.
16) You straighten up campaign signs at intersections.
17) Your alarm clock has campaign ads to awaken you.
18) You call radio talk shows just to hear them breathe.
19) Instead of Fantasy Football, you play Fantasy Politics.
20) Your friends avoid you because all you want to talk about is the latest polling numbers.
21) When you dream, it’s of filling out your ballot.
22) Your iPod is full of recorded campaign speeches.
23) You’re disappointed when, after the phone rings, it’s only your mother calling and not a pre-recorded message from a local candidate.
24) You burned out your TIVO recording late-night political shows.
25) Your car has so many campaign stickers on it, it makes two miles less per gallon.

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.

There appears to be a de-facto nullification movement brewing in the United States. There are three main areas fueling this:

1. The National ID card or Real ID
2. Marijuana legalization/decriminalization
3. 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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrcM5exDxcc

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

I expect he may whisper to himself considering how I ended up politically, “My god, what have I created?”

I took the golden rule and ran with it.

A few years after I learned of the golden rule, I received an inflatable boat for my birthday. We lived in a community with a beach on one of the inlets of the Chesapeake Bay. A friend and I grabbed my new boat, ran down to the beach, put it in the water, and hopped in. It was a very windy day.

The current was so strong it immediately whisked us far from shore. No matter how we paddled, the oars were of no use. So, being the fearless kids we were, we began crying our eyes out. Eventually, we were “saved” by the local fire department’s rescue boat, but only after an older kid swam out to us and began pulling us toward the shore.

During all of the commotion a large number of onlookers gathered on the rickety dock to witness the event. The rescue boat accidentally rammed the dock while bringing us to safety. The dock teetered and nearly collapsed which would have sent about 30 people into the strong currents of the water.

The headline in the local newspaper could have easily read:

Rescue boat drowns 30 while saving 2

I often think of the rather brave older kid who was in the process of saving us before the local rescue boat got involved. In appreciation for his efforts I gave him the inflatable boat I had just received for my birthday.

He would have delivered us safely to shore had the government… er uh.. rescue boat not intervened.

This traumatic event could explain a bit why I’m now a non-interventionist.

The world could find lasting peace by following the golden rule.

Practicing non-intervention would be a good start down that path.

Oh, and by the way, for the 16,000,000th time, they don’t attack us because we are free!

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.

1. The person/party perceived as “strong” will be desired by the greatest number in society. By “strong,” Hayek means “able to make action quickly”; most opportunities for expansions of government power or regime changes happen due to a discontented, impatient populace. Typically, the largest group in society is the one which is in such a position to affect change in their direction; but (a) the largest group is the one that is least original and independent due to their lack of education and/or intelligence; (b) a potential dictator can most easily convert those who are docile and gullible from outside this group, further weakening the constituents who bring a leader to power; and (c) it is easier to unify people in a negative program (hatred of an enemy or envy of the rich) than any positive course.

2. All collectivist programs serve a limited group by nature. Collectivism (the opposite of individualism) groups people and treats those groups as one coherent entity. Since socialists regard capital as belonging to the nation, rather than belonging to humanity, the totalitarian program will serve the ruling elite as its advantaged “collective.” From the opposite perspective, the individuals in such a collectivist society – which, Hayek is clear, all centrally planned economies are indeed collectivist – feel inferior to those in the groups that are advantaged by the state, and will join the group if they feel that membership will confer superiority over outsiders. Consequently, these individuals are free of the many moral restraints that they feel when acting on their own behalf, because they need only act on behalf of the group (the party in power). These are the people who are naturally in position to receive leadership assignments in the party.

The most important corollary to the distinction between collectivist and individualist society is that in order to achieve the “ends” in central planning, the would-be leaders must create centralized power, which infinitely heightens that power. Hayek explicitly states that the competitive (i.e. free market) system is the only system designed to minimize, by decentralization, the power exercised by man over man.

3. Collectivist morals contrast with individualist morals. Collectivist “morals” view the ends as the only noble goals, whereas individual ethics teaches us that ‘the end justifying the means’ is the denial of all morals. Anyone in a position within the elite/ruling class must be willing to do things which are “bad” on an individual level, but good for the nation as a whole. As such, these positions attract people who are largely immoral in the individual sense to begin with.

Hayek’s three-pronged approach demonstrates why “the worst getting on top” is systematic and inevitable, rather than subject to random chance – in a socialist or communist system. However, Hayek’s analysis ends there: an effective argument against the specific form of government which he was combating in Serfdom (published in 1944 at the height of WWII), but an argument that stayed within that realm. Applying the argument against centralized power in the form of idealistic socialist/communist states ignores the bigger picture, which can be traced throughout the history of government and politics: Centralized power is, in and of itself, an attraction to the worst elements of society, regardless of the political system in which it is contained.

In his influential work Common Sense, Thomas Paine echoes Hayek’s unspoken theme, applying the corrupting influence of concentrated state power to the monarchy of England while appealing for independence:

“Sir William Meredith calls [England] a republic; but in its present state it is unworthy of the name, because the corrupt influence of the crown, by having all the places in its disposal, hath so effectually swallowed up the power, and eaten out the virtue of the house of commons … Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.”

Here, again, Paine conflates the power with the specific political system and ruling class with which he is familiar. A monarchy, being a system with a highly visible leader entrusted with the power of the state, is similarly affected by the influence of power as Hayek’s examples of Germany and Italy so many years later.

Today in America, we face a government that utilizes collectivism perhaps to a greater extent than did Hayek’s totalitarian Germany. We face a government which taxes us to a far greater extent than did Paine’s English crown. We face a government which has sold our rights to the highest bidding lobbyist, a government which creates laws and agencies at the whim of its bureaucratic agents regardless of its Constitutional authority to do so. And despite the best efforts of the Founders to diffuse and limit the powers of the state in America, we find ourselves facing a state with one of the most concentrated centers of power in the world: Washington, DC, the Mecca of corporatists, statists, and fascists alike. This, despite the American form of government being a republic.

Perhaps, as Paine once remarked about England, “it is unworthy of the name.” Or perhaps no entity should be trusted with the myriad duties which our government now claims as its responsibility.

Libertarian Rand Paul, Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate from Kentucky, shocked many conservatives when he refused to give full-throated support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act criminalized public sector racial discrimination, and struck down laws that required discrimination and segregation. But it went much further. It outlawed racial discrimination by private actors such as restaurant and hotel owners who refused to serve blacks.

National Review’s Rich Lowry, for example, wrote: “[T]he Civil Rights Act was the last spasm of the Civil War. The South had frustrated the imposition of black civil rights during Reconstruction in a low-grade insurgency that successfully rumbled on into the 1960s. Black civil rights weren’t going to be vindicated any time soon, absent the application of federal power again … I’m sympathetic to libertarianism, but it sometimes has a weakness for theoretical exercises removed from reality.”

This sounds like a white, guilt-ridden rationalization to justify an abandonment of principle. And it has real world, not merely “theoretical,” consequences. For one thing, it encourages grievance-driven race-based identity politics — and invites special-interest legislation to protect all manner of niche groups perceived as having been “held down by The Man.” It is in these waters that professional victim seekers and exploiters like the Rev. Al Sharpton, race and gender “advocacy groups,” and the Democratic Party do their fishing.

Read the rest here including this great quote:

“The consequences of government coercion are more harmful than the certainty that some will use their freedom in ways that offend.”

A shining example of a major party with phony principles is the “defense” of civil rights in America by the Democrats. You see, the Democrats want to protect civil rights. Countless party leaders have spoken out in outrage over the discrimination against minority groups. The Democrats of today support the right of marriage for all people, regardless of their sexuality. They want equal pay and equal opportunity for people of all backgrounds when it comes to employment or housing. In fact, according to their website: “Democrats will fight to end discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, national origin, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, and disability in every corner of our country, because that’s the America we believe in.” Few Americans would argue with the underlying principle: equal opportunity for all, and discrimination against none.

However, the same Democratic Party that wants equality of opportunity in marriage or the workforce would willfully overlook that equality when it comes to other choices that individuals might make. The philosophical principle of equal opportunity must necessarily mean free choice, lest it be inconsistent and hypocritical. Freedom to pursue the job that we want or the familial structure that we are most comfortable with must mean the freedom to choose what foods or drinks that we want to consume, or the freedom to decide manner in which we defend our own property, or the freedom to select the most appropriate form of health insurance for our families (even if it means no health insurance at all). As it turns out, though, the party that champions civil rights actually defends just a small subset of rights – those which will rally its base, scream injustice, and are not uncomfortable to defend.

A prominent and current front for the assault on American civil liberties by the liberal left is the epidemic of restaurant smoking bans that have swept through the country. Presently, 38 states have imposed smoking bans in restaurants or bars, with the number on the rise. The indoor smoking bans have been a predominantly Democratic issue: California became the first state to enact such a ban in 1995, and the practice spread next to the liberal bastions of Delaware (2002), New York (2003), and Connecticut (2003). Among states who have refused to implement such bans are Republican strongholds: Texas, Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Kentucky.

The angle you’ll never hear from the left, of course, is that the protection of the personal choices of smokers and restaurant owners are just as fundamental to the concept of freedom as the protection of the personal choices of homosexuals. Who is government to force a restaurant owner into banning a practice that might make his customers happier? Furthermore, in the absence of such legislation, aren’t non-smokers who wish to breathe easier perfectly capable of patronizing an establishment where the owner, and not the government, bans the practice?

When it comes to your right to consume substances, though, the smoking ban is just the latest in a line of ever-expanding government prohibitions on the choices of non-violent Americans. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, one of the most prolific Democrats of the past century, signed the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 into law, leading the way for the permanent criminalization of the drug. After Ronald Reagan created the Office of National Drug Control Policy in 1988, Democrat Bill Clinton one-upped him by making the director a Cabinet-level position five years later. And, although current president Barack Obama downgraded the office from its Cabinet perch, Joe Biden criticized the Bush administration in his introduction of the new “Drug Czar,” stating that he was “a little disappointed the last eight years it hasn’t gotten the attention that it should have gotten.”

This seldom-mentioned front of personal liberty is, in fact, perpetually berated by liberal politicians in new, creative ways. Congress recently took up a proposal to implement a federal tax on soda, an idea that first came from Democrat David Paterson when he proposed such a tax as governor of New York. New York City, one of the most liberal populaces in the nation, currently imposes a draconian trans-fat ban city-wide, and recently held discussion on a bill that would ban the use of salt in restaurants as well. All of these measures are blatant violations of civil liberties: the implication that individuals do not own their own bodies or that they must be protected by a paternalistic government from making bad decisions is as absurd as it is frightening.

Nor do the Democrats seem to be bothered with protecting the property rights of Americans. In the highly publicized Supreme Court case of Kelo v. New London in 2005, the 5-4 decision went in favor of the City of New London, CT to take the homes of city residents in order to build a tourist and shopping haven that would entice tax revenues. Of the 3 Supreme Court justices who were nominated by Democratic presidents, all 3 voted to uphold the blatant violation of property rights, justified by the “eminent domain” clause in the Constitution that was implemented specifically to restrict the government’s authority to take land, not to enhance or enable it. In response to the outrage caused by this decision, the case prompted 42 states to pass legislation which restricted the ability to invoke eminent domain for private use; of the 8 states which did not reinforce the property rights of their citizens, 7 of them had Democratic governors.

As of today, the lots taken from those citizens sit empty, unused by the government that unjustly stole it and providing no benefit, public or private, to anyone. Furthermore, the case represented a situation where the left, sympathetic in their rhetoric towards the poor, took from the poor to give to the wealthy developers and Pfizer, a large pharmaceutical. As Judge Andrew Napolitano explains in his New York Times bestseller, Lies the Government Told You:

“In Kelo, Uncle Sam is saying that the government can take away your land, simply because it doesn’t value the way you use it. Kelo also gives the government an easy target, by allowing the government to infringe unduly upon the rights of poor people. Many of these people worked very hard to buy these homes, to achieve their own version of the American Dream. Who is the government to take it away?”

Simply put, the leadership of the Democratic Party in recent history has stood for their own version of rights, primarily because they don’t understand what rights are. The right to own property, speak freely, and make our own personal decisions are not granted to us by the government – individuals are born with these abilities inherent to them. Mainstream Democrats have been hoodwinked into thinking that the “equality” their leaders speak of is the meaningful equality of opportunity that prevails in a moral society, while they have in fact been granting favors to certain groups – non-smokers, property owners, gun owners, and others – with the intent of equalizing wealth rather than opportunity.

If only the other major party were doing any better…

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