Fear

Posted on 2016-05-11 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-19B, By Nathan Barton

Our British cousins live in fear. Or so it seems from some recent news items. The Commentator reports on a poll in the Daily Telegraph regarding “private bills” voters want to get members of Parliament to introduce, with a very strong showing for the repeal of the handgun ban enacted after the Dunblaine killings in 1997, nearly 20 years ago, which attempted to disarm Her Majesty’s subjects in the British Isles. I wouldn’t hold my breath on Commons doing the smart thing, no matter how many Brits die because they cannot defend themselves against those who ignore the law. (I could not actually find the Daily Telegraph article, but assume that the Commentator is accurately reporting this.) Britons long ago took the wrong path, away from liberty and freedom to dependence and socialism and a herd mentality. This isn’t going to change because of a poll and a “private bill.” Continue reading →

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Disasters and the Response of Lovers of Liberty

Posted on 2016-05-08 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-19A  by Nathan Barton

This incident should be of great interest and closely watched by a whole raft of folks. A massive wildfire has forced evacuation of Fort McMurray, Alberta, as reported by CBS News. “The entire population of the Canadian oil sands city of Fort McMurray, Alberta, has been ordered to evacuate as a wildfire whipped by winds engulfed homes and sent ash raining down on residents. More than 80,000 residents have been ordered to flee after an earlier order that had applied to almost 30,000 people, mostly on the city’s south side, was extended to tens of thousands more as flames continued to make their way into the city Tuesday. Residents were panicked. Highway 63 is the only road out of the city and flames jumped the road.” I attended a Homeland Security conference (read, Emergency Management) and this was a topic of interest during the conference this week. Continue reading →

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Inventions and government

Posted on 2016-05-07 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian commentary #16-18D By Nathan Barton

We live in an era in which the great age of invention, which lasted 300 years, may be slowing to a stop, largely due to government controls and regulations and a pathetic desire to be free of risk and to control everything.

Start with this latest: Freedom Net Daily headlined this “US FDA announces plan to expropriate vaping industry on Big Tobacco’s behalf”  The Orange County Register reports, “The federal government on Thursday announced sweeping new regulations for electronic cigarettes that could upend the multibillion-dollar industry and for the first time require e-cigarette makers to submit their products for a safety review. Before brands are allowed to stay in the market, regulators would have to check the ingredients, design and flavor of the fast-growing devices, which have found a foothold with teenagers. [and MANY adults]… The rules issued by the Food and Drug Administration would also extend long-standing restrictions on traditional cigarettes to a host of other products, including e-cigarettes, hookah, pipe tobacco and nicotine gels. Minors would be banned from buying the products.” Continue reading →

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Watershed moment: Politics 2016

Posted on 2016-05-05 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-18C by Nathan Barton

The race to select a new Massa for the next 8 years had a major development, as we all know.

Now that Cruz and Kasich have bailed out, after getting drubbed YET AGAIN by The Donald, the GOP is panicking, certain that the Mainstream Media is right and Clinton will do to Trump what Nixon did to McGovern in 1972 (McGovern only took one state, and it wasn’t even his HOME state).  So they are going to either (a) HELP Clinton by voting for her, (b) HELP Clinton by staying home, (c) HELP Clinton by encouraging everyone else to stay home or vote for her, or (d) HELP Clinton by fielding a third-party candidate and voting and getting everyone they can to vote for it.  You notice, I am sure, the common factor in all of these.  Now, this strikes me as incredibly stupid: they BELIEVE the MSM?  Or is it that they WANT to believe because they are afraid that Trump is going to tear down their meat house if he gets into office? At least for now, he is trashing the NeoCons AND the RINOs AND the so-called religious right (or at least its leadership).  And they are stupid in that they believe that the GOP could really survive ANY of these alternatives? Continue reading →

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Thanks for government – not

Posted on 2016-05-04 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-18B, By Nathan Barton

It has been a while since I commented on a whole raft of news items of interest to lovers of liberty. So here are a few, reminding us of government’s faults.

The Nazgul are getting bolder, and the worst is yet to come. In Las Angles, a Federal Judge has ordered woman to unlock iPhone with her fingerprint, according to Engadget. “It’s still not perfectly clear whether or not law enforcement can force you to unlock your phone with your fingerprint, but an LA court isn’t waiting to find out: for the first time in a federal case, a judge has ordered a person to unlock her smartphone using her digits. The FBI obtained a warrant requiring that identity theft suspect Paytsar Bkhchadzhyan unlock her iPhone through Touch ID just 45 minutes after her arrest. While it’s not certain what the FBI was looking for, Bkhchadzhyan eventually pleaded no contest to the charge.” Next up, will cops and courts OFFICIALLY allow torture or even mutiliation: cut the thumb off to use the fingerprint? Or generate an artificial fingerprint from that fingerprint machine when they arrest you? (Ink? Nope, not any more: digital in more and more places. Be prepared.)

Mama’s Note: Each new technology can be unlocked by the next… there is no such thing as 100% security. Locking a phone in hopes of privacy is not going to be effective. If you have things you want to remain private, put them on a thumb drive, encrypted. Then hide the little devices creatively. But there is still no 100% guarantee of anything. Continue reading →

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The true scope of taking by the State

Posted on 2016-05-03 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-18A By Nathan Barton

When we hear about the state “taking something,” most people do NOT put together the reality: it is stealing. Let’s talk about that a bit.

I don’t particularly care for most of Timothy J. Taylor’s writing.  No it is NOT because he is an attorney (although that does give me pause), nor because of that neat beard of his, nor his excellent command of English.  It is because all too often he goes to extremes and he jumps to conclusions regarding the motives of people, and puts people into pigeonholes: makes us into “groups” instead of the individuals we are, and which most libertarians understand.  But in his most recent posting in Authority!, Statists Take and Don’t Compensate, besides his usual lumping together of people in groups, he has another error.  He doesn’t take the matter FAR enough. (But I do give him credit for taking up the matter at all (pun intended).) Continue reading →

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Oozing Sleaze — Secretary Clinton Surges Onward and Upward

Posted on 2016-05-01 by MamaLiberty

By Gordon E. Finley, Ph.D.

The left-of-center main stream media — which believes that it is entitled to foist the next president of the United States on a gullible public — has been bullying Senator Sanders and his supporters to get out of the race and let Secretary Clinton’s “barrier” coalition of African-Americans, other non-whites, and radical feminists take the Democratic Party nomination.

Even though yet another of Secretary Clinton’s Big Lies was exposed on the morning of the most recent primaries — “Women’s Soccer Plays a Phony Pay Game” (4/26/16) — it had no impact.  Despite the best efforts of The Wall Street Journal, that evening Secretary Clinton prevailed in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and Delaware losing only Rhode Island to The Old White Man from Vermont. Continue reading →

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Theatre of the Absurd?

Posted on 2016-05-01 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-17E, by Nathan Barton

Government SHOULD be a weekly comedy show on some cable channel, sorta like the old “There Oughta Be A Law” comic strip.  It’s just that what is so funny (to some) often is sheer misery and terror to those targeted by the minions of the law.

Consider this incident in Houston, as reported by KTRK (ABC 13 Eyewitness News), who recognized it (amazing: mainstream media!) as the lunacy that it is.  13-year-old eighth grader Danesiah Neal, at Fort Bend Independent School District’s Christa McAuliffe Middle School, was trying to buy lunch using a $2 bill given to her by her grandmother when she was stopped by the cops. “I went to the lunch line and they said my $2 bill was fake,” Danesiah told Ted Oberg Investigates. “They gave it to the police. Then they sent me to the police office. A police officer said I could be in big trouble.” Yeah, third-degree felony trouble. And that’s just one of eight counterfeiting charges investigated against high- and middle-school students at Fort Bend ISD since the 2013-2014 school year. And more than forty in the Houston area in the last two years: most of them minorities.  She should have tried to pass one of those Clinton or Obummer $3 bills. Continue reading →

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North Korea out to get us all? Or just someone out to get our money and our liberty?

Posted on 2016-04-29 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-17D by Nathan Barton

Really?  Is this serious or just scaremongering?  World Net Daily is screaming about two North Korean satellites that are “now in orbit over the US” and pose an immediate and dangerous threat of generating an electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) which could shut down vital electronics across a wide span of the Fifty States – indeed much of North America.  It is obvious that little thought has really been given to writing this scare-piece, which is short on facts and analysis and long on emotion. Continue reading →

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What Price? For What?

Posted on 2016-04-27 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-17C By Nathan Barton

A correspondent recently sent me this picture, together with the usual glorification of “our solders” as being heroes making great sacrifices for “our freedom” and “for America.”  I’ll spare you the appeals to emotion and patriotism and pride.

But the article DID make an important point: “We see lots of pictures of wounded male veterans, but women vets get wounded and maimed too.” Continue reading →

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