By Nathan Barton

Good morning: it has truly been said that war is the health of the state, and today’s headlines prove it.  Here are a few examples of the stupidity of government and its wars.

War on Some Drugs: There is a right way to do things, and a good many wrong ways to do them: government almost inevitably chooses the wrong way(s) to do something.  Consider, for example, this last week’s “legalization”  of marijuana for recreational use in Washington State, one of the more “progressive” states of the Fifty, but one in which voters nearly TWO years ago voted to legalize the selling, purchase, ownership, and consumption of cannabis. People are not happy:  first it took so long.  Colorado did it in just over a year (and still didn’t do it right).  Second, only a very few shops have been allowed to open, and apparently even fewer growing operations, while individuals are NOT allowed to grow their own.  Third, the restrictions and requirements, together with an insane tax set-up, make the stuff very expensive, especially when compared to the cheaper stuff available from elsewhere.  And fourth, instead of reducing the demand for the still illegal stuff (homegrown, local sellers, imported, etc.), the system is so cumbersome that it PROMOTES ignoring the law even more than in the past.  Why?  Because government MUST have control and MUST steal more and more money and MUST know everything possible.  Washington State demonstrates that the War on Some Drugs is not over, just mutating into a new form.  The Drug War Carol, volume two, is being written.

The Border Patrol has suspended transfers of illegal migrants to San Diego, after more than a week of protests by locals in Marietta, and increasing threats by everyone from thuggish sheriffs to Congressmen and Senators, including flat-out claims that the First Amendment didn’t apply when it interfered with the operation.  For NOW, as with Bunkerville, Nevada, the opposition seems to have won.  Of course, many “lovers of liberty” apparently agree with the authorities that these people should be transferred and then released.

It is a theme I keep harping on: too many people who are “lovers of liberty” and trying to fight against the media and government to restore freedom are their own enemies because they say stupid, exaggerated things and make claims that cannot be justified.  Consider a recent headline, “70 million allegedly starve in the streets without government welfare” concerning how many Americans get “government entitlements.”  Despite Freedom Outpost’s claim, no government or statist (or liberal or Tranzi) source claims this:  they are simply exaggerating some statements about the 68 million people who get SOME kind of government payment, which includes earned pensions, “earned” social security, and everything else except contract payments and salaries and wages paid by Uncle Sam.  It is a claim easily shown to be wrong, but also likely to anger those who DID work (even if for the wrong cause) and those who DO believe that it is “their money” that they are getting back in Social Security, without any reason to anger them, and failing to take an opportunity to teach them the truth.  This way lies failure, when organs like Freedom Outpost not only just preach to the choir but also seem to do their best to disgust and alienate that choir.

Report: Confusion hampered Navy Yard shooting response: There was a lack of coordination between base command and security and D.C. police. But of course, the report says NOTHING about the bizarre and evil situation in which a military installation is a gun-free zone and sailors and marines have no way to defend themselves against a madman.  Report details killer’s rampage at Washington Navy Yard: In 82 pages, D.C. police recount the passage of 69 minutes from Aaron Alexis’s first shot until he was killed.  The supposed solutions are just more of the same blindness and refusal to accept the reality of self-defense.

India’s lazy bureaucrats get wake-up call: The new prime minister tells country’s famously slow and cumbersome “Babudom” that it’s time to change.  What I really fear is that this will mean more and more Indian Raj bureaucrats will emigrate to the United States, as many thousands already have, and join the civil service at the federal, state, and even local level, bringing their traditions of “slow and cumbersome” NON-service with them.

Fight in Gaza has no clear winners, but one big loser: Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has become a bystander as hard-liners consolidate power.  Each new crop of leaders is more “hard-line” than the last, of course.  Whatever evil Israel can be accused of (and there is much), it pales in comparison to the evil that Muslim leaders in Gaza and the West Bank cause their own people and other peoples.  Abbas, like Arafat and Nasser before him, is both a war criminal and a general murdering, conspiring thug who has been as bad for his own people as for Israel (if not worse), but sadly those who come after him (like ISIS/the Caliphate in Syria and Mesopotamia) are worse.

In Mexico, activists struggle to loosen gun laws, according to a WaPo story.  Despite some of the toughest firearm restrictions in the hemisphere, Mexico is awash in weapons.  Of course, this means that the criminals (both in and out of uniform, known and unknown to be Cartel) are armed and most of the law-abiding, peaceful people are NOT – especially those preyed upon by the first two groups.

A survey released a few days ago found that confidence in all three branches of government has fallen. Again. In fact, confidence in the Supreme Court is now at a record low of 30% and confidence in Congress is also at a record low — dropping still further from lows over the past several years to a sad 7%.  Confidence in the Fuehrer/White House, meanwhile, is at a six-year low (29%), which is difficult to fathom, given everything: how can it possibly be that high.  Gallup also asked about “freedom.” In 2006, 91% of the people surveyed were satisfied with their level of freedom. But by 2013, that number had dropped to 79%.  Again, I do not understand how it is so high, and has only dropped off a mere 12 percent in that eight-year period. Obviously, P.T. Barnum’s dictum about fooling people still holds true.

Mama’s Note: I suspect that the problem with the “level of freedom” poll is that the perception of “freedom” is so clouded. Just what do most of those polled mean by “freedom?” I seriously doubt most of them understand non-aggression, self ownership and self responsibility. All too often, “freedom” is having and doing whatever you want, at someone else’s expense…