Environists, media, and lies

Posted on 2016-12-31 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Author’s Note: For those readers who may not be familiar with it, the term “environist” is a derisive term I use for so-called “environmentalists” because it is clear that the breed in general has no brains: no MENTAL effort is involved on their part. I did not coin the term, but Angie Many of the now-defunct print-newspaper, the Black Hills Loggers’ News, did so back in the 1990s.

Like the mainstream media, the environist movement lies constantly. The media has the (invalid) excuse that since real-world events are too complex and difficult to describe, let alone comprehend, then they must “edit” reality. And therefore, they have their equivalent of “poetic license,” and that for certain values, black IS white. Continue reading →

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A very happy New Year

Posted on 2016-12-30 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

It is, of course, all artificial – man made. Arbitrary. There is no reason to have a new year begin on 1 January – indeed, it used to begin on 1 March, according to many people, back before the last major calendar “reform.”

But still, we seem to build our lives around it. The earth orbits the sun, and we’ve decided (here in Western Civilization, at least), that our calendar starts all over again.

So, a very happy new year to all, and may 2017 be better than 2016 – and different. For my family and many of our friends and relatives, 2016 was a tough year. For the world and the Fifty States, it was a tough year as well. For liberty – well, liberty took a lot of hits in 2016. And even if things COULD have been worse, they were definitely bad enough. Continue reading →

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Camel in the tent #2: “Public Schools”

Posted on 2016-12-30 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Author’s Note: This is the second in a series of commentaries on specific items which have contributed to the destruction of our liberties here in the Fifty States. There are many, which are often ignored as we deal with “big things” like the Income Tax, the Federal Reserve, and the various gun control laws.

As with Driver’s Licenses, so are “Public Schools” destructive of human liberty. And their history is a bad one.

Years ago, I followed Marshall Fritz‘s terminology calling the “Public Schools” what they really are: “government-run, tax-funded” (GRTF) schools, or going even more extremist and calling them government-ruined, theft-funded schools (still GRTF). Today, sadly, many “Private Schools” are also tax funded and so controlled by regulation that even though they are privately-owned and supposedly independent, in reality they are just as much GRTF. In part this is due to the mindset of their governing boards, their administrators, their faculty, and especially, the parents. Today, more than ever, public schools are run by governments, and NOT just local “school board” government, but state and especially FedGov. Congress dictates certain things, but more importantly, allows the US Department of Education virtually total autonomy in deciding what to force down the throats of states and local school districts. Continue reading →

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King Congress the Cowardly

Posted on 2016-12-29 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

I call it “Barton’s Theory of Organizational Personality,” and first developed it as a young (but experienced) 1st Lieutenant with six years of college, two years of industrial work, and three years of military active duty behind me. “The “personality” (atmosphere, mores, motives, internal and external interactions) of any organization (military, government, business, or private), once established, will not change unless there is a virtually complete replacement of all personnel and loss of all historical identity.” I saw it in units I served in and with, in companies I worked for and with, schools, other government agencies, churches, and in history. Unless there is a massive, catastrophic change in personnel (not just the leadership) and all records of past behavior and events are lost, an organization just will not change the way it treats its employees, owners, managers, customers/clients, vendors, and competitors. An organization CAN change very slowly (over years and decades) through decay and deterioration, but even that is a legacy of its personality: a defect which may take a very long time to fully destroy the organization.

Nowhere is that easier to see than in the United States Congress, and especially in the Senate. Continue reading →

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Population growth, economics, freedom, and religion

Posted on 2016-12-28 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

One of the interesting news items last week was that Utah’s population crossed the 3.0 million mark as it became the nation’s fastest-growing state over the last year. Its population increased 2.0 percent to 3.1 million from July 1, 2015, to July 1, 2016, according to U.S. Census Bureau national and state population estimates released on Wednesday, 20 December. It was reported that states in the South and West continued to lead in population growth. In 2016, 37.9 percent of the nation’s population lived in the South and 23.7 percent lived in the West. Following Utah, Nevada (2.0 percent), Idaho (1.8 percent), Florida (1.8 percent) and Washington (1.8 percent) saw the largest percentage increases in population. North Dakota, which had been the fastest-growing state for the previous four years, mostly from people moving into the state, fell out of the top ten in growth due to a net outflow of migrants to other parts of the country. Its growth slowed from 2.3 percent in the previous year to 0.1 percent.

The Fifty States’ population grew by 0.7 percent to 323.1 million. The population of voting-age residents, adults age 18 and over, grew to 249.5 million, making up 77.2 percent of the population in 2016, an increase of 0.9 percent from 2015 (247.3 million). Eight states lost population between July 1, 2015, and July 1, 2016, including Pennsylvania, New York and Wyoming, all three of which had grown the previous year. Illinois lost more people than any other state (-37,508).

Mama’s Note: Don’t know about the others, but the population of Wyoming has always been fluid: up with the boom times and down with the bust that always follows. Those of us who live here all the time are quite happy to see the transients come, and often just as glad to see them leave. Most of the rare actual, aggressive crime is committed by transients of one sort or another. Continue reading →

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States and the FedGov

Posted on 2016-12-28 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Well, the election is almost over: the House and Senate must officially view and accept the Electoral College’s vote on 6 January, but there is no reason not to assume that Trump will be credited with the 304 votes he received, well over the 270 majority needed.

The machinations of everyone from a college professor at Harvard to a turkey who played POTUS on the small screen, and all kinds of other people that MIGHT have amounted to 2% of the population have failed. Ah, well, it just clears the way for their betters – all members of the elite and not just a few – to try and stage a successful coup against Massa Trump.

Several of these Trumpophobes (Trumphobes?) cited the illustrious Alexander Hamilton about the Electoral College, so this next quote strikes me as interesting:

“The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.”
— Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) American statesman, Secretary of the Treasury Continue reading →

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A fond farewell to Thomas Sowell

Posted on 2016-12-28 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Thomas Sowell, a libertarian (if not fully free-market anarchist) today announced his retirement from writing political commentary after 25 years. He is 86, and it is very much understandable, if disappointing, to those who (like myself) have learned and been encouraged to think and explore and stand up for liberty by his writings and his example. He is one of a unique group of thinkers and writers, and his presence will very much be missed. He is labeled by most as a “Conservative,” but I have found his writings to be far more that of a lover of liberty than a political conservative. Like many of us, he has moved more to the top of the Nolan chart as he matured.

As example of Dr. Sowell’s wisdom can be seen in another of his last columns and the points he makes about how the world has deteriorated in the eight-plus decades of his life: deterioration a direct result of government.

Mama’s Note: Make that non-voluntary government. Continue reading →

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Holiday Greetings

Posted on 2016-12-25 by MamaLiberty

By MamaLiberty

I seriously hesitate to add “happy” to any greeting these days. With all of the hate, anger, attacks, deadly envy and hypocrisy in every “news” item these days, except for the silly, sentimental and denial of reality in some of them, there doesn’t seem to be much room for true peace, joy and happiness in a great many hearts around the country.

Do you pursue happiness by spending too much, eating too much, drinking too much? Is there any peace or joy in arguments over which overlord will swing the whip the next four years? Is there any contentment in being told that Al Gore (or anyone else) knows what’s best for you, and if the powers that be have to kill you to enforce that, it’s just too bad?

Are you tired of the precious snowflake PC insanity YET? I sure am…

How do you pursue happiness? Do you think that other people can and must “make you happy?” What brings you peace? Joy? Is that your responsibility, or do you expect others to provide that?

Are you content with who you are, what you have? If not, why not?

Those of us in NE Wyoming are having a blizzard for the holiday. I’ll be snowed in for several days. With a little planning and some effort, I’m all set with a nice fire, plenty to eat, and a beautiful corgi to be my companion. As long as the electric flows and the phone works, I’ll be content indeed. And I’ll get along if they fail, at least for a while.

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The World Turned Upside Down

Posted on 2016-12-23 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Who said this?

“If we don’t take action and hold President-elect Trump accountable, in one fell swoop, the federal government could damage state economies, and discourage entrepreneurship—placing some of our innovators behind bars, all while eroding states’ rights.”

You are not to be faulted if you think that HAD to be some right-wing GOP or minarchist libertarian type, right? “The FedGov is bad; states’ rights are good. Economies and free enterprise are important.

But you’d be wrong. Because the subject is marijuana and the expectation that Attorney General-Nominee Jeff Sessions will come down hard on pot. And the person saying this is the hard-core statist and liberal/Tranzi Representative Jared Polis, Democrat from Colorado, according to Politico. That’s right: a left-wing Democrat. Continue reading →

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Creeping totalitarianism

Posted on 2016-12-22 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

I recently received three political quotes across my desktop. They are worth sharing.

“You don’t have to scratch liberalism very deeply to find socialism underneath, nor socialism to find authoritarianism underneath.” — Don Luskin, (1954 -) American columnist

“It has been well said that really up-to-date liberals do not care what people do, as long as it is compulsory.”
— George Will (1941-) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

“The Radical Centre seem to have the same obsession with control that the fascists and communists had, but unlike them, it is control for control’s sake rather than in the service of some clear ideology … They do not seek the triumph of Volk or the dictatorship of the proletariat, they just seek to replace all social interactions with politically mediated interactions. They seek to regulate everything via a total state that … just wants a world in which nothing whatsoever is private, everything is political. Their symbol is not the Hammer and Sickle or the Swastika, it is the CCTV camera.”
— Perry de Havilland, British founder of Samizdata (still kicking, and I don’t know when he was born.) Continue reading →

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