By Nathan Barton

In Golden, Colorado (west of Denver) it turns out that the Postal Investigation Service has been recording the license plates and faces of drivers and passengers doing business at the US Post Office (80401) for at least three months, and possibly longer.  What fun! I am sure that the USPS is glad to do what NSA and other agencies do all the time to us.  Big Brother lives!

Mama’s Note: I wonder why… probably a silly question, but I can’t imagine what they thought this would gain for them. Guess they don’t really need any reason to be both foolish and evil.

The insatiable appetite or greed of the FedGov was made obvious today (again): $1,185,613,000,000:  Federal Taxes Hit Record Through February; Gov’t Still Runs $386B Deficit.  Imagine: 1.2 TRILLION stolen from Taxpayers.  Inflation-adjusted federal tax revenues hit a record $1,185,613,000,000 in the first five months of fiscal 2015, but the federal government still ran a $386,537,000,000 deficit during that time, according to the latest Monthly Treasury Statement.  $400 BILLION in borrowing!  1 out of every 4 dollars spent. $5000 PER man, woman and child stolen (now or later) and spent by DC.  In FIVE months.

What is going on?  As I see more and more condemnation of Putin’s Russia in the media and Congress and among libertarians, I find that the reports are very mixed.  Obviously biased but countering the narrative coming from DC (including those thug-minions of the Fuehrer like Kerry, and that evil witch running in 2016), I find this appeal – not necessarily something that will find a good reception in its targeted audience – An appeal from Russia to Germany.  Much of what the two articles discuss can be supported by information found on-line, and it smells more and more like the stench around the Caliphate and US involvement with that evil.  For half a decade, I and many other Americans maintained a defense against Soviet evil in Germany, but the withdrawal of Russian forces to the east was strong evidence that the old Soviet ways were ending.  I am not saying that Russian leaders can be trusted (any more than American “leaders” are), but when comparing Russian and Ukrainian leaders and issues and situations, even withOUT totally despising the Fuehrer and Kerry and Clinton and the rest of the DC FedGov cabal, it seems that we need to realize that what is happening is NOT the same as Stalin or even Gorbachev’s Russia.

Mama’s Note: And now, suddenly, Putin has seemingly dropped out of the picture. Always makes one wonder what’s going on when that happens.

A woman in Florida has been told to honor the contract that she and her child’s father made, regarding how to care for their child, and – shock – when she went to court to get out of it, the judge told her to either follow the contract (which she had voluntarily signed understanding what was required) or “go to jail.” Even most libertarians would agree that this is a legitimate action on the part of a state court. Minarchists would tell us that is a “legitimate” power of government.  Anarchists might argue that the court should be a private one and not a state court.  Right?  Except – the contract involved the circumcision of a male child.  Oh NO!!!!  All the sudden, the sanctity of a written contract MUST be denied, as everyone KNOWS that circumcision is GENITAL MUTILATION and therefore EVIL and HARMFUL AGGRESSION!!!!  And so a half-dozen or so commentaries weep mightily about how bad this is and how evil the court is to enforce this, and how the father has NO authority or “right” to force the mother to do this.

Sorry, but I guess I don’t buy it.  Of course, I don’t buy the idea that traditional circumcision of males is either (a) evil (b) aggression, or (c) not a medical procedure about which there is some controversy but which many medical authorities consider a wise health-care action for parents to take.  And I realize that I will never convince 99% of those who find it so evil otherwise.  But I do question the consistency of so-called libertarians who have argued that it is legitimate to have and enforce contracts for such things as assistance in suicide or actually selling yourself into slavery but to claim that this practice is so evil that anyone even attempting to get someone to honor their agreement makes the person a vile statist.

Mama’s Note: First, the whole legal situation of those people makes me scratch my head. Why was there ever such a “contract?” How do we know the mother had any real idea what she was agreeing to? A contract signed under duress, or by a person incompetent to carry it out, is not a rational or valid contract.

I happen to see male genital mutilation in pretty much the same way I do female mutilation, to start with. Seems like people could decide to have that done to themselves when they got old enough to choose. Bet you bundles nobody would choose to do it to themselves. Parents don’t own the children, but hold their self authority in trust until they are old enough to take responsibility for themselves. It’s a complex question at best, and the “courts” most certainly can’t even begin to adequately address it.

I and my company (and family) train and test people to be “certified” flaggers on construction projects for highways: we teach them how to control traffic: be safe, protect motorists and workers, and follow the rules of the road.  It isn’t hard: usually a four-hour class is more than enough to teach them the basics and go out and do the work.  We do this in several different states, so the problem in New Hampshire hits home.  In that state, home of the Free State Project, all work on highways must first be reviewed by a police agency (often the state police (another evil concept)) and the police chief can decide whether a standard flagger (who makes between $10 and $20/hour) can do the traffic control OR whether it must be done by a uniformed police officer (at a cost of $50/hour plus “overhead” of another $25/hour).  Well, the legislature is getting around to trying to change this, because that ridiculous cost gets passed on to taxpayers (for road projects) and customers (for all the various utilities and surveying projects that are done on the roads of New Hampshire).  But of COURSE the police unions and bosses – especially those small towns that benefit from all that “free” income – are objecting.  Surprised?

A step in the right direction?  Oklahoma House OKs ending state marriage licenses.  Sick of seeing state after state having votes of the people overturned by a single judge, at least one state is finally taking action to cut to the heart of the matter: the “state” has NO authority to define or regulate marriage.  I don’t think this will make it through the Senate or the Governor’s office, but it IS a start:  the institution of marriage (whether you are religious or not) far predates ANY state or government institution, and in the past here in America it was NOT a part of government: the English Common Law as well as most AmerInd and other law and custom leaves it as either a “private” contract or a religious institution.  And there are still at least nine states that “recognize” the so-called “common law” marriage as well as “statutory” marriage (and in reality more, when you look at how the other states that do not “recognize” common law marriage define common law.  I am currently working on a political-religious article on this topic, so will refrain from more comment here in my normal news commentary.

Also in Oklahoma: The University of Oklahoma and many people are desperate to punish those frat boys for their vile racist remarks.  But Scott Greenfield at his Simple Justice blog summarizes the situation: “These SAE boys don’t deserve the protection of the First Amendment, any more than the neo-Nazi’s in Skokie did. But we don’t do it for them. We do it for us.” I do not disagree that the song is disgusting and the attitude of these thuggish frat boys is deplorable, but either we HAVE free speech, or we do NOT.  And protecting free speech is SPECIFICALLY to protect speech that we find objectionable.