Signs of the Times – And Infection

Posted on 2016-02-04 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-05C 04 February 2016 by Nathan Barton

Are we recognizing the signs of the times? Is society really winding down in much of the world, or are we just getting ready for a massive change in attitude and action? Today’s stories make me wonder.

Although crime rates overall in the Fifty States are declining as gun ownership and other factors have their effect, urban areas are still NOT exactly law-abiding places, as their conditions worsen. Situational awareness is critical, especially in danger areas like inner cities. The Blaze reports how a man became an example of why some of us prefer concealed carry over open carry of a self-defense weapon: two black males knocked this man down in broad daylight and stole his pistol out of the holster on his belt. Come on! Pay attention to what you and the people around you are doing!

Mama’s Note: While open carry would obviously be a potential problem in bad urban areas, where the person is alone and surrounded by such predators, the same would be true whether he was carrying or not in all reality. It just doesn’t make the news. So the fact remains that this does NOT happen in a great many other places where open carry is acceptable and unremarkable. If these gun grabs were happening here in Wyoming, or Arizona, etc., it might be relevant to open carry… but it just doesn’t happen here. And yes, situational awareness is vital, as is the old rule: Don’t go stupid places, with stupid people and do stupid things. This prevents a lot of bad things from happening; theft of one’s gun being a very minor part of it. Continue reading →

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Technology and Old-Fashioned Ways

Posted on 2016-02-02 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-05B By Nathan Barton

I am a very strong believer in human creativity and science: real, theoretical and practical science, not the Soviet-style political (politically tainted) science we find in government agencies, universities, and “foundations” associated with government. I am not alone in this. Many free-market anarchists and even many libertarians share this idea, so I constantly investigate news about new discoveries (or rediscoveries) and inventions. Let’s look at a couple, first off.

Mama’s Note: The only way that science and the economy can be free of political contamination is for there to be no involuntary, centralized government controlling people and their property. There are things we can do to help encourage honest science in the meantime, but it will always be less than ideal until there truly is a free market. Continue reading →

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Killing around the world: Is there a solution?

Posted on 2016-02-01 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-05A 01 February 2016 By Nathan Barton

It appears that Boko Haram is “modernizing.” Many so-called “christian” groups have supplemented or replaced their Sunday worship with worship on Saturdays, apparently to reach the “unchurched.” According to the Charlotte Observer Nigerian officials say 86 dead in a Boko Haram attack on Saturday, instead of the traditional Sunday slaughters. “A survivor hidden in a tree says he watched Boko Haram extremists firebomb huts and heard the screams of children burning to death, among 86 people officials say died in the latest attack by Nigeria’s homegrown Islamic extremists. Scores of charred corpses and bodies with bullet wounds littered the streets from Saturday night’s attack on Dalori village and two nearby camps housing 25,000 refugees, according to survivors and soldiers at the scene just 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Maiduguri, the birthplace of Boko Haram and the biggest city in Nigeria’s northeast.” It seems pretty clear that the victims and those with them were unable to defend themselves, either because they did not have the motivation, the training, or the tools (weapons), and based on the one-sided killing, it appears that the troops and police presumably just three miles away failed to respond to carry out their “duties” to protect the innocent from violent attack. No word on exactly what religious or other group was attacked this time. But I think it safe to say that these people (or their parents) seem to put their faith wrongly in the state. Indeed, another story, from Anadolu Agency, reports that Nigeria’s leader has released a Muslim general accused of murdering hundreds of detainees in 2014, instead of fightin Boko Haram. He was supposedly in charge of fighting against Boko Haram, and apparently part of his effort was to deny civilian targets to Boko Haram by having the army kill them instead. Nice to have a government and army that can be trusted like that, eh? Continue reading →

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Oregon and the Continuing Saga of Cops Killing

Posted on 2016-01-30 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-04D 30 January 2016 by Nathan Barton

Blood has now been shed in the Mahlour Standoff, this week. Freedom’s Phoenix, published a personal account from Stewart Rhodes (Oathkeepers) on the situation and people involved in the FBI killing of a rancher, Lavoy Finicum. The Rhodes article mostly talked about the fate of many in the occupation of the FWS building who left, some of whom were lied to by the FBI and are now in government custody.

It was reported by mainstream media news on Thursday that Lavoy had been reaching into a pocket in which the FBI claimed to have found a loaded pistol.

It is clear that in the eyes of most people, the occupation has failed and all who participated are enemies of the state, traitors, and criminals. Although with seemingly less bloodshed and destruction than Ruby Ridge and Waco, it has resulted in violence and death. And with little or no indication of any good results: certainly no change in the policies which the occupiers claim to have been protesting against. Continue reading →

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As The World Turns, So Does The Stomach

Posted on 2016-01-29 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary, 29 Jan 2016, #16-04C  By Nathan Barton

The Wall Street Journal tells us that “Some Migrants in Germany Want to Go Home”. There are no official statistics on migrants leaving Germany on their own accord, but Germany’s immigration office keeps statistics of migrants leaving Germany through some programs which covers travel costs for people who prove they can’t pay for their own trip back. In 2015, a total of 37,220 people left Germany voluntarily through such programs, up from 13,574 in 2014. Most were people from Balkan countries, but the number of Iraqis who left quadrupled in the same period to 724. But Syrians currently aren’t eligible for support to return to Syria because of the security situation. But some still try on their own, or at least to neighboring countries such as Turkey or Jordan, where many Syrians had sought refuge before moving on to Germany. On government official said, “It regularly happens that people disappear. Many are ashamed to admit they made the wrong decision to come here.” Continue reading →

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Taxes and Other Insanity!

Posted on 2016-01-25 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary #16-04B, 25 JAN 2016 By Nathan Barton

What business does the “justice system” have deciding what is, and what is not, a potato chip (called a potato crisp in the UK)? Apparently, every bit when taxes are at stake. The BBC records that the Brit’s High Court has decided that Pringles (no matter what flavor) are NOT potato chips: they are not at least 50% potatoes, are an “unnatural shape and color” and are sold in a can not a bag. Scott, who sent this to me, described it accurately as “Freakazoid.” Definitely. It just proves the insanity of tax systems. Continue reading →

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What we must remember in 2016: Politicians Lie, A Rant

Posted on 2016-01-25 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

As we watch and listen to the politicians, from the dozen or so presidential candidates still left or emerging (Trump, Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Paul, Sanders, Clinton, Biden, McAfee, Johnson, etc.) to the people running for General Assembly or other Legislature and even to tribal and local government offices, we need to remember: politicians lie.  It does not matter WHICH party they are affiliated with, WHICH political philosophy they espouse.  They lie: usually deliberately and sometimes by mistake or error.

Eight years ago, the man now sitting in DC said: “”I take the Constitution very seriously. The biggest problems that we’re facing right now have to do with George Bush trying to bring more and more power into the executive branch and not go through Congress at all. And that’s what I intend to reverse when I’m president of the United States of America.”

Yet, the last seven years saw this man and his minions bring, and try to bring, MORE power into the White House than at any other time in history, issue MORE executive orders, ignore MORE legally-passed laws, attack MORE parts of the Constitution and bill of rights, even launch MORE drone attacks and kill MORE innocents in the Greater Middle East than did Bush in his full eight years, or any other president, no matter how progressive. Continue reading →

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More Islamic wars

Posted on 2016-01-24 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary, 24JAN16, #16-04A By Nathan Barton

It is dangerous to be a Muslim, I think. No, not so much here in the Fifty States, as in the Ummah, the Dar-Al’Islam, the lands of “peace.” A couple of stories here, the first from the Killeen Daily Herald, which tells us that in Cameroon, a teenage suicide bomber killed four at a mosque. “A Cameroon official says a 14-year-old suicide bomber has attacked a mosque in Cameroon’s north, killing at least four people. Governor Midjiyawa Bakari said Monday that the boy came early into a town in the Mayo Tsanaga Division in Cameroon’s far north and blew himself up during morning prayers.” I wonder just what the sin of the Muslims in the mosque was that merited their killing? And why another Muslim, the boy, would consider himself Allah’s tool of vengeance? Continue reading →

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Liberty and Money, Money and Liberty (A Rant)

Posted on 2016-01-23 by TPOL Nathan

by Nathan Barton

Liberty Tree Quotes recently had some quotes relating to liberty and money. These in turn should make us think about what we say and do.

First, we have this quote from Ayn Rand: “Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns—or dollars. Take your choice — there is no other — and your time is running out.” The quote comes from Atlas Shrugged. It is sometimes used to support claims that being a libertarian (or an objectivist) is incompatible with Christianity. While there may be ways in which Objectivism is not in sync with Christianity (or some versions thereof), those who try to use this misquote and misremember Scripture. It is the “love of money” which Paul identifies as the “root of all kinds of evil.” Ayn’s point is very much in keeping with the concept of christian life as taught by Jesus Himself and by Paul: voluntary interaction versus coercion. Continue reading →

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“It’s for the children:” Excuse for Tyranny (#16-03E)

Posted on 2016-01-22 by TPOL Nathan

Libertarian Commentary, 22 January 2016, #16-03E By Nathan Barton

Children are the excuse for so much tyranny; a good deal of this is because those who are in power themselves never really grew up.

2016, the year of the REAL battle over guns in this nation? There is a lot to say for that. Consider what World Net Daily reported on Saturday, that the State of Oklahoma has published and is enforcing rules that say that foster parents may not own firearms, and that people who own firearms may not be foster parents. The entire business makes no sense except that it is one more way to disarm peaceful (and law-abiding) people. Oklahoma! And of course, it is an easy sell: It’s for the chilluns.

Mama’s Note: One big factor that is ignored all too often is the fact that the “foster parents” involved are receiving taxpayer (stolen) funds for their services. They are, in essence, government employees. That doesn’t mean they should be disarmed, of course, but they do have a choice in the matter. They can stop accepting stolen goods and go on with their lives if they wish. Continue reading →

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