In with the new, same as the old

Posted on 2017-11-22 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Dictator of Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia and then Rhodesia) Robert Mugabe, after more than a week of crisis, has resigned after ruling the southern African nation with an iron fist for 37 years, according to the Guardian.

Large numbers of people celebrated his resignation, effective immediately.  Although at one time Zimbabwe had a significant minority of European-descended people, today it is 99%+ black. Despite Mugabe’s stature as their liberator from white colonialism, they had had enough. Mugabe has (officially, at least) won every election ever held (and they’ve had a lot in 37 years). Everyone dutifully voted for Massa, time and again.  But ultimately, he ran out of things (and people) to loot to keep the people happy, and especially to keep his bully boys happy.

No doubt, now that he has been forced to “resign” (or “retire”) he will quickly leave the country and enjoy the ill-gotten gains he has surely squirreled away in Switzerland or even just South Africa, against this rainy day.  It is hard to feel sorry for the “father of his country” who has been rejected by his country. Continue reading →

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Thanksgiving 2017

Posted on 2017-11-21 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Day after tomorrow (as I write this) is Thanksgiving Day in the Fifty States.  Other nations have such a festival or ceremony or holiday.  (For example, Canada has, since the 1930s, observed Thanksgiving on a Monday in October. Since 1957, that has been the 2nd Monday – many people associate it with Columbus Day in the Fifty States, but there is no such official tie.)  But the American celebration is … different. In many ways.

My family has always considered Thanksgiving to be the major family holiday, as we do not celebrate holidays for religious reasons, and so neither Easter nor Christmas is that significant.  This year, for various reasons, my family will not be able to get together physically for the holiday, but will still remember and observe it, enjoying the technology that makes it possible to get together without being in one place physically.

We do not see “thanksgiving” as some generic, vague “be thankful” for what we have, as schools and government and media have pushed for decades.  We are politically incorrect and give thanks always to God our Creator, and to family and friends and neighbors (whether friends or not!) for what they have done for us. Continue reading →

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The Answers

Posted on 2017-11-20 by MamaLiberty

By MamaLiberty

Just this morning I was talking with another freedom blogger about our mutual writer’s block – the fact that we’ve said what we had to say for years and years, yet so few seem to agree or even contribute to the discussion.

But the answers to the problems in the world remain the same: self ownership/governance, personal responsibility, voluntary association. Along with recognition that no non-voluntary government has any legitimate authority to exist, let alone control the population. Theft, assault, murder and rape are crimes, not government options.

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Are we headed that way? Or is this the last we might be seeing of that light in the rear view mirror?

What do you think?

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Of Frogs and Universities

Posted on 2017-11-18 by MamaLiberty

By Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D.

Over the past half century or so there have been unprecedented changes in higher education which most exquisitely are explained by The Frog Theory. Per Wikipedia, The Frog Theory goes as follows: If a frog is put suddenly into boiling water, it will jump out, but if the frog is put in tepid water which is then brought to a boil slowly, it will not perceive the danger and will be cooked to death. Higher education in America today has been most thoroughly cooked to death.

When I entered ultra-liberal Antioch College in 1957 we were encouraged to read, listen to, explore and debate a wide range of points of view. To this day I remember one course on Modern Political Ideologies where I read both The Communist Manifesto as well as The Blue Book of the then secret and far right John Birch Society. I don’t recall ever hearing the words “free speech zone” nor recall any protests against invited speakers.

Because I believe in the value of the traditional liberal arts, I have spent my entire adult life teaching. Sadly, the freedom and the light to explore the life of the mind that I enjoyed as an undergraduate has been extinguished on virtually all campuses today. Continue reading →

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The color of politics

Posted on 2017-11-17 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Reality is a difficult concept for many people to grasp. And those who are “reality challenged” seem to be on the increase, these days.

One of the areas where this seems to be a particular problem is in the area of “clean elections” and “corrupt politics.” Many people apparently sincerely believe that we can end corruption in politics and ensure clean elections. That we can reduce and ultimately eliminate improper influence of all kinds and have honest and open elections.

They are wrong. History shows that political and business elections are inevitably dirty. That politics is not just corrupt, but corrupts people very fast and… in Acton’s words, ultimately absolutely.

One of the ways in which the political activists think that they can clean up elections and politics involves “undue influence” by OTHER political activists and politics.

Almost inevitably, such attempts to crack down on this undue influence involve mere trifles, like curtailing or outright prohibiting free speech and other basic, G-d-given human rights. Continue reading →

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Dealing with predators

Posted on 2017-11-16 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

The lists get longer and longer – the predators – sexual predators – are being outed and (for the most part) condemned, even expelled from various and sundry events and organizations.

On the political side (just in the Fifty States), both admitted (or convicted) and accused include:

William Jefferson Clinton (Dem)

George Herbert Walker Bush (former GOP)

Judge Roy Moore (GOP)

Don Shooter (Arizona state legislator, GOP)

Dan Schoen (Minnesota state legislator, DFL)

Donald Trump (GOP)

Barney Frank (Dem)

Tim Murphy (GOP)

Members of Congress (unnamed as yet, one GOP, one DEM) Continue reading →

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Who owns space?

Posted on 2017-11-14 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

“The Next Big Future” has an article which both castigates government (NASA) in particular, and then demonstrates an unhealthy and irrational faith in government as well as a weird claim of dependence on government, all in a very brief article. Apparently the article originally comes from or is based on some government flack, and is not necessarily Brian Wang’s opinion, even though it is under his byline.  But Brian does not challenge it.

As republished by Freedom’s Phoenix, the article states (correctly) that NASA wasted billions on developing the Space Launch System (SLS), supposed to replace the long-dead Space Shuttles with expendable (throw-away) heavy-lift rockets.  In essence, 1950s technology, examples of which litter the bottom of Earth’s oceans with trillions of (2017) dollars of thrown-away missiles.  A waste of money and manhours that is second only to the waste due to war.  Waste which might have been necessary to send the first Sputnik, Explorer, or Mercury into orbit, but today is needless and even immoral – not that the vast trillions of dollars and rubles and pounds and euros, etc. stolen from taxpayers in 60 years of spaceflight is not. Continue reading →

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Welfare – the alternative

Posted on 2017-11-13 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Today, it seems that more and more of government resources here in the Fifty States – federal, state, tribal, and local – go to providing welfare.  Although the statistics seem to say otherwise, the cost of helping people with the costs of food, housing, utilities, and more goes up and up.

This has been the case for more than half a century, with the proclamation of the Great Society back in the 1960s.  That was when the FedGov got deeply involved: much like the old Southern story of the Tar Baby.  In for a dime, in for a dollar, after decades.  (Actually, more like “in for a million, in for multiple billions!” I guess.) But for decades before that, way back to the Great Depression in the 1920s and 1930s, we know that more and more of the expenditures of local and state governments were spent to “alleviate poverty” and “help the poor.” Indeed, we can see the growth of the welfare state all the way back to the 1910s.

But it wasn’t always this way.  Once upon a time, government spent very little on any sort of welfare, and definitely not on providing welfare for women, children, the disabled, the unemployed and others.  No, it wasn’t that such things did not exist in the past; as Jesus told His disciples, “the poor you will always have with you.” Continue reading →

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Another centenary remembrance

Posted on 2017-11-12 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

I failed to finish this article in time for MamaLiberty to post it on the 7th, which was the 100th Anniversary of the infamous “October Revolution.” (This was so-called because at the time, Russia still used the old calendar and its dates were off more than a month from the rest of the world.) This revolution in post-Czarist Russia, was when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks (Communists) began their rise to power.  It was the beginning of a nightmare which lasted until 1991.  And which legacy of blood and terror remains with us to this day.

But that was indeed the 100th anniversary of the most massive effort to impose totalitarian socialism on a huge segment of humanity in history.  The October Revolution was NOT against the Czarist (Imperial) monarchy; but rather against a nominally democratic government which had replaced the monarchy, and tried to continue to fight the Germans and Austrians (as allies of the Brits and French) in the Great War (1914-1918), which we now call the First World War. Continue reading →

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Deadly highway epidemic? Only a runner-up

Posted on 2017-11-11 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

A recent email from a highway safety group provided this chart of “The 10 Worst Epidemics In History” a few days ago.

Rank Epidemic Period In History Estimated Number of Deaths
1 Plague of Justinian 541-542 100,000,000
2 Black Plague 1346-1350 50,000,000
3 HIV/AIDS 1960-present 39,000,000
4 1918 Flu (Spanish Flu) 1918-1920 20,000,000
5 Modern Plague 1894-1903 10,000,000
6 Asian Flu 1957-1958 2,000,000
7 Sixth Cholera Pandemic 1899-1923 1,500,000
8 Russian Flu 1889-1890 1,000,000
9 Hong Kong Flu 1968-1969 1,000,000
10 Fifth Cholera Pandemic 1881-1896 981,899

Continue reading →

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