Winter Solstice

Posted on 2016-12-21 by MamaLiberty

By MamaLiberty

First light here at 6:20AM. I always watch the sun come up, finding it a perfect time for contemplation and reflection on life, and my life in particular.

This morning I was remembering some of the things I learned in my 14 years of hospice nursing. I remember so clearly the late December visit to a young family suffering the impending loss of a 40 year old father of two, breadwinner and much beloved husband.

I was privileged to be there, trying to give some measure of comfort to that small family. There was very little to say, nothing that would begin to ease the heartbreak and loss they all stared in the face. Even the two young boys seemed to understand and were exceptionally quiet and still as their father took his last terrible breaths. He died of congestive heart failure, one of the more cruel and terrible ways to live, and worse ways to die.

Administering the drugs via a nebulizer, since he was long past being able to swallow, I adjusted the dose frequently in an attempt to keep him from suffering, and turned it off when the end had finally come.

And then, after I’d made the calls to the doctor, the coroner and the mortuary, I sat with the little family around the bed. His wife continued to hold his hand, as she had done for days, and the grandmother took the children to put them to bed. It was nearly 6:30AM, and I realized that it was the day of the winter solstice.

Looking out the window, I saw the first light, and was struck with the awesome fact that life and light and the potential for future happiness was the constant, especially in the face of death and loss. And that was reinforced when the wife came to me after the mortuary had gone, taking her husband’s body away. She thanked me for all I had done, all the hospice team had done, to help them cope and live and hope.

With tears in our eyes, we shared a hug, and I went out into the cold, clear morning to do it all over again with another family, another patient, another day…

Bless you all on this morning of hope, renewed joy and never ending promise.

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Baker’s Dozen (TM) things that government fears

Posted on 2016-12-21 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Baker’s Dozen ™ Things that Government Fears

1. People who can reason and absorb and analyze information. Their intelligence and rationality make them a threat to government, as they are less likely to respond to propaganda and even may respond to threats by not bowing down.

2. People who are able to make decisions and accept responsibility for those decisions. Government seeks “clients” – people who are unable or unwilling to act on their own, and want to be told what to do and to be protected from their own faults, vices, and failures. And the more people who make their own decisions and are responsible, the fewer people there are who are likely to be criminals and parasites which the government can use to justify its powers.

3. The truth. Truth is not just the first casualty in war, but in politics and the legislative and bureaucratic process. Government assumes (usually rightly) that if the truth gets out about it, its activities, its motives, and its results, that people will turn against it. Continue reading →

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Have a Little Freedom with Your Religion

Posted on 2016-12-20 by MamaLiberty

This essay is from the Christmas 1997 issue of the Loompanics Unlimited catalog. As someone who values things of the spirit–but who got stuck with skepticism when religions were being handed out–I say hooray for Freedonianism! –Claire Wolfe

Have a Little Freedom with Your Religion
By Thomas Ingersoll More

Hey, where have all the churches gone? The government’s rampaging mad with power lust, and the churches are off running bingo games or something. Has anybody heard any protests from the Methodists, the Catholics, or even the redoubtable Mormons, lately?
Why should we expect the churches to protest? We know they’ve done more than their own share of freedom trampling. Torquemada and Cotton Mather wouldn’t exactly be ideal candidates for the Libertarian Party, even if they weren’t busy being dead.

But when governments have gotten out of control, churches have also historically been among the first to oppose them. In America, from pre-revolutionary days, through the fight against slavery, to the modern civil rights movement, churches were in the vanguard in the battle against oppression. Maybe they just resented the competition. But by God, they’ve spoken out.

Not today, though. Unh uh. No sir.

I’ll tell you where the churches are. They’re out covering their butts. Continue reading →

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Sand in the gas tank?

Posted on 2016-12-18 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Bad as sand in the gears is, traditionally sand in the gas tank – the fuel supply – is a lot worse. Although there are those who debunk this claim, together with the idea of sugar in the fuel and water in the fuel, I’ve seen the results in years past, of sand poured into a gasoline tank. At a minimum, the engine stops working and requires major work to take it apart enough to clean out the fine particles – that are still too large for the tight tolerances in even older engines, to say nothing of modern ones.

And this seems to be what the Tranzis are working towards, as far as society and liberty and the economy are concerned. No longer content to just create problems and enjoy the results of messing with us, so that we will turn to them for bogus solutions, they up the ante. Or perhaps that has been their plan all along: at a certain point going beyond just making things like the free market and self-governing difficult and inefficient, instead causing the entire system and systems to break down, to come to a grinding halt. Continue reading →

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Was he right?

Posted on 2016-12-17 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Do you have any idea who said this? “You can’t be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.”

I guess I can sorta agree with this, but I’d rather state it more simply to make it true: “You can’t be for government, taxes, and bureaucracy and still be for people.”

By the way, it was Ronald Reagan, the closest person we’ve had to a conservative, vaguely “libertarian” occupant of the White House since… maybe Warren G Harding. But not VERY close, any more than Harding could be considered such – except in comparison to the other  people we’ve saddled ourselves with in nearly a century: FDR, Ike, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and the rest.

Still, he was right (in this quote) as far as he went: government doesn’t CARE about regular people: “the little guy.” And government’s natural process is to get bigger: bigger taxes, bigger bureaucracy, bigger courts and bigger gains in power and wealth for the politicians and the connected “elite.” Does it come as any surprise that the Census Bureau just reported that the four wealthiest counties in the Fifty States are in the DC Area? (CNS News) Continue reading →

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Sand in the gears, sand in the tank?

Posted on 2016-12-16 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

The free market is a thing of incredible complexity and benefit, and indeed a thing of beauty. Although not consciously designed by anyone (except, perhaps, for God Himself), yet operated and fine-tuned and managed by millions if not billions of people around the world, each acting on two impulses: their own self-interest, and their love for their fellow man (the second impulse, though not required for the free market, nevertheless makes it function much better).

The free market has been around since Cain first traded some of his veggies and grain for some of Abel’s meat and hides (or wool). It has grown steadily more complex and more essential to our survival as the world population has grown and spread to the four corners of the world. And as our technology has expanded it has grown not just more complex but more beneficial: Continue reading →

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Spreading nonsense

Posted on 2016-12-15 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Like the farmers who operate dairies and confined feeder operations have to do with some of the byproducts of their animal husbandry, so apparently the Foundation for Economic Education seems to betray its purpose by spreading a similar product in a recent article. The article is supposed to be asking the question “could the market really end meat?” but seems instead to be a paean to the “wonders” of veggie burgers, trying to lead us to believe that it is only a matter of time and that the market has already determined that meat for human consumption is already going away.

Now, I admit that FEE just reposted this article, written by an economics professor at George Mason University in Virginia for his blog. As well known as GMU is for its understanding and support of free market economics and liberty, this guy just doesn’t seem to be either up to their usual academic standards OR to be concerned about free markets and liberty – such as the right of individuals (consumers) to decide what and what not to buy. Continue reading →

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The enormous cruelty of modern government.

Posted on 2016-12-15 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

The story of a man recently denied clemency by the murdering thug still infesting 1600 PA is told by MSN together with brief mentions of other people in similar circumstances.

Apparently part of the tyrant’s “legacy” is his “pardon” of more than 1,000 people for various crimes, of which at least a good number are non-violent drug offenders. This is, as always, self-serving on his part. As is typical of most politicians, the entire business of pardons and clemency is an exercise demonstrating their glory by being so merciful in their enormous (and of course, fully-justified) power. One more way for these parasites to polish their egos.

The man in the article has a life sentence without parole for a “crime” which is now legal in Colorado, Washington state, and other states. The story details his sad tale, and his current condition.

What the media does NOT point out (not much, at least) is that this man is one of hundreds of thousands of people in similar circumstances, treated with enormous cruelty by governments which are supposed to PROTECT their liberties and defend them against the abuse and tyranny which they are undergoing. Continue reading →

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Donald Trump, military dictator (or: Dick Daring, boy reporter)

Posted on 2016-12-14 by MamaLiberty

By Vin Suprynowicz

(Full article at Vin’s blog here. Long, lots of stuff covered, and some we won’t agree on. Over all, an excellent read. Trump is not perfect, by any means, and is not “libertarian” no matter how one stretches it. But he’s also not Lincoln. Read the whole thing as let us know what you think! ML )

It took a pretty bullish personality type to stand there and weather the shame-a-thon orchestrated by the perverts Clinton and Podesta, who made the mistake of assuming the Donald would behave like one of their own simpering pajama boys, collapsing in a heap of tears and apologies, instead of standing tall, driving through, drawing 30,000 fans to his twice-a-day pep rallies — sometimes exceeding the populations of the towns in which they were held.

Arrogance can be at least partially forgiven in a man who — unlike Hillary Clinton — has a lot of accomplishments to be arrogant about. It also helps when the oratory doesn’t sound completely memorized.

I’ll tell you what really concerns today’s globalist, open-borders, “Oh no! Global warming! I’m mellltinnng” gang: It’s the fact that Trump is interviewing and winnowing down and seeking out leaders, not hand-holders who will coddle and sympathize with career paper-pushers who try to explain to them why nothing can be accomplished, but people who actually have a track record of suffering no whiners and getting things done.

THAT’S what worries them.

(Read the rest here.)

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Camel in the tent #1: Driver’s Licenses

Posted on 2016-12-14 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Author’s Note: Hopefully the first 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.

Driver’s Licenses are destructive of human liberty. The history of driver’s licenses is a bad one.

I thought I knew a little bit about the history of drivers licenses here in the US, but found (on-line) sources that I assume are correct – although there is some disagreement in the sources. It is worse than I thought. Continue reading →

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