Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-02A

Posted on 2014-01-07 by TPOL Nathan

Stupid government
IRS Seeks to Shut Down Free Speech Again
(One News Now)

Nathan: Fully in the spirit of the immoral and unconstitutional Johnson Amendment against churches. Once more we have to point out, the purpose of the IRS (like MOST government agencies) is NOT, say again, NOT to provide services, such as getting revenue – the primary purpose is CONTROL and POWER.  This proposal is unlikely to get issued in this form.

Mama’s Note: Of course, neither revenue NOR control are valid reasons for their existence.

Self-defense NOT
DC: Tow Truck Driver Kills Hold-up Artist
(Washington Post)

Nathan: This was NOT self-defense, people, say again after me, THIS WAS NOT SELF DEFENSE.  This was revenge.  The tow truck driver was no longer in danger, and killing the robber was STUPID.  If people cannot learn the difference, they will find themselves given the same lack of mercy, sooner or later.

Panic and Stupid People
36 Signs the Media is lying to you about Fukushima radiation and West Coast US
(TheTruthWins.com)

Nathan: Actually Godzilla is sign #37, but no one has spotted him yet.

Seriously, we know the media lies, but in this case the people that are telling you that the media is lying are lying just as much or more.  I found this story by Michael Snyder reprinted on several websites, including those which have been pretty good in the past about vetting stories.  And they clearly failed on this one, although there were comments (some, but not many) that pointed out that the 36 signs did NOT and do NOT make sense; that much of the information reported is exaggerated or is making claims that the data used to make claims are NOT supported.  This is scaremongering, and even a basic understanding of health physics and general physics, with careful reading and comparison, will help you see it for what it is: panic.  For example, the claim is that 300 tons of radioactive water per day is being dumped into the Pacific.  That sounds like a LOT, but that amounts to a grand total of 0.93 cubic feet per second – significantly less than needed to water a 60-acre field.  The Pacific Ocean is estimated at 714 million cubic kilometers, or 714,000,000,000 cubic meters, and a cubic meter is about 35 cubic feet, so 24,990,000,000,000 cubic feet.  So even almost three years of spilling water (1,000 days) means that 80,352,000 cubic feet of water in that time, which is 0.00000322 or less than one part per million.  The claims by sailors (now mysteriously up to 71 from 51 reported just two weeks ago) just don’t match the facts.  Other more supportable explanations of sealife and avian die-offs make much more sense.  In short, these people are countering the lies from government and government-supported big business (and what else is new) with more lies, and NOT the truth.  Let us not exchange one set of lying power-mad scumbags for another set of lying fanatic power-mad scumbags.

Mama’s Note: Amen, and the bold emphasis above is mine.

DHS Thuggery
‘JFK Customs destroyed 11 of my instruments’
December 31, 2013 by Norman Lebrecht 206 Comments
A Canadian citizen, based in New York and with a green card employment permit, Boujemaa was flying home from Marrakech, Morocco, when his baggage was opened by Customs at JFK. ‘I told them I had these instruments for many years and flew with them in and out,’ he said. ‘There were 11 instruments in all. They told me they were agricultural products and they had to be destroyed. There was nothing I could do. The ney flute can be made with bamboo. Is that agricultural?’

Nathan: Well, this guy may be a good musician, but a biologist he ain’t.  Sorry, Mr. Boujemaa, but bamboo IS an agricultural product.  Millions of tons of which are imported into the US each year. And NOT something that justifies this kind of insane, psychotic, power-mad behavior.  No doubt this is one reason that they are so hyped about keeping  air travelers unarmed.  These people are (literally, sometimes) the kind who pull milk out of babies’ mouths, steal their toys and their candy, and grope old women and underage children.  They are the kind of people who belong in “halfway” houses permanently, where they can’t molest good people.  The kind that give NAMBLA a “good name.”

Nazgul – Theft by government
Budget Cuts Imperil Federal Court System, Roberts Says
(New York Times) By ADAM LIPTAK
Budget cuts have imperiled the ability of the federal court system to deliver prompt justice and to protect the public, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote on Tuesday in his annual report on the state of the federal judiciary.

Nathan: Brings a laugh, huh?  Prompt justice?  Maybe for sequoias and turtles.  Protect the public?  From the benefits and pleasures of liberty, maybe.  Budget cuts?  Now I really am rolling around laughing:  they are only getting an increase in their budget of 8% instead of 10% (That is a “2%” cut for them), only getting a payroll increase of 2% instead of 4%?  Only getting 20 new, luxurious, marble-floored courthouses instead of 40?  Gee, they might have to buy robes that only cost $1000 instead of $1200?  And we let this man make legal decisions?

A couple of stories from last week, to comment on:

Home front
Chicago teen kills and beheads, mutilates boyfriend as “Christmas present” to aunt
(CBS Chicago)

Nathan: I know his crime: killing his victim with a hammer, cutting off the head, cutting off the nose and ears and gouging out the eyes, then calling 911 to boast about it, sounds like a standard Islamic honor killing or jihad against enemies of Islam.  But no, he apparently is NOT Muslim.  He is, after all, celebrating Christmas, and that is verboten in Islam.  And his victim/intended victim was not his daughter, his sister, or his mother.  And apparently he did not scream Allahuakbar!  No, this was apparently a normal, run-of-the-mill psychotic wannabe mass murderer, who is likely to always be a menace to others, and has the morals and point of view of a rabid pit bull who has been totally ruined.   This being Chicago, he had to obey the law and didn’t use a gun: he had to use a hammer. (I am sure the City Council will close that loophole in murder weapons soon enough.)  If there were a Coventry into which he could be dropped to swim or die, it would be a blessing.  But his public defender wanted to get him released on bond…

Mama’s Note: The most fitting and moral outcome for any lethal attack is the death or mortal injury of the perpetrator at the hands of his/her intended victim. The real tragedy in cases like this is that the victims are so incredibly helpless, both physically and otherwise.

Culture wars: Killing babies
Record 87 Surgical Abortion Clinics Close in 2013 – Total Drops 73% from 1991 High
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: But the ones that remain are bigger and “better” and RU-248 and other drugs are being used (and pushed) more and more for killing babies.

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Crude Oil and Common Sense (Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-01B)

Posted on 2014-01-03 by TPOL Nathan

Home front – Accidents and more
ND: Train collision sets oil cars ablaze
(Chicago Tribune) “A BNSF train carrying crude oil in North Dakota collided with another train on Monday, setting off a series of explosions that left at least 10 cars ablaze, the latest in a string of incidents that have raised alarms over growing oil-by-rail traffic. Local residents heard five powerful explosions just a mile outside of the small town of Casselton after a westbound train carrying soybeans derailed, and an eastbound 104-car train hauling crude oil ran into it just after 2 p.m. CST, local officials said. There were no reports of any injuries.” (12/30/13)

Nathan: This is the third “significant incident” within a short while.  I figure that it will trigger still more and more panic – because that is what the mainstream media love to do.  A friend (Tim) sent me the following editorial earlier this week, discussing the issue.

Tribune editorial: Transporting Bakken crude needs review
(Bismarck Tribune) Is Bakken sweet crude more volatile than typical crude oil? If so, do additional precautions need to be taken in transporting Bakken crude from well head to refinery?  The questions need answering.  Certainly, no one wants to be responsible for a derailment, explosion and fireball like the one in July in Lac Megantic, Quebec, in which 42 people were killed. Apparently, the tanker cars in the train were carrying mislabeled Bakken crude. Another oil train derailment in Alabama in November also resulted in a powerful explosion, again the cargo was Bakken crude. Fortunately, no one was killed in the Alabama incident.  The investigator for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada working on the Lac Megantic explosion describes the Bakken crude tested from the tankers there to be closer to gasoline than typical crude. It’s a finding that Beach Fire Chief Dan Buchholz agrees with in general.

Nathan: To me, this seems like nothing but yet another attempt to provide excuses for not developing the Bakken play, and extract the trillions of barrels of oil and gas which seem to be located there in North and South Dakota, Montana, and up into Saskatchewan and Manitoba.  As I pointed out previously, this “difference” is NOT something new.

Apparently, the people who are dealing with this issue are not familiar with the history of oil production in the United States, based on their “surprise” about Bakken sweet.  For decades, crude oil produced in the Permian Basin – the famous “West Texas Intermediate” was a very light, sweet oil which COULD be burned in the gasoline-powered engines of the 1930s – 1960s, with the possible need to add lead the the “white gasoline” which came directly from the well-head with a very simple filter.  It was “highly volatile” and additional precautions had to be taken with the handling and transport – techniques which apparently have been lost in the last two generations.

Labeling is always a problem, but it is impossible to come up with fifty different labels for fifty different types of crude oil.  Oil flowing from wells in the Permian Basin (West Texas) is DIFFERENT than oil flowing from fields in central Kansas, or Pennsylvania, or the Powder River Basin in Wyoming or the Overthrust Belt in Utah.  You cannot provide sufficient information to tell firefighters and first responders ALL the information some board or commission or armchair expert in DC or Ottawa thinks that they need, or even what the firefighters themselves might want to have.  It is no different than dealing with the various concentrations of another common chemical, like hydrochloric or nitric acid, or for that matter, the difference in various “grades” or blends of wheat flour!  But when you want an excuse to get more power, or to increase fees, or to prevent something from being done, this is perfect.  It is, indeed, the same tactic that got the Keystone XL Pipeline put on hold, because they could come up with some small differences, invent or lie about things (like the temperature to which certain types of crude oil must be heated to be pumped in pipelines) and then went hogwild.  We’ve seen it happen with manmade global warming, we’ve seen it happen with asbestos and lead paint and gun control.  And it will keep happening until people demand that it stop and take action to deny power to the idiots who do these kinds of things.

It is interesting, and perhaps important to point out that this sort of nonsense, this “Chicken Little” or “Cry Wolf” sort of behavior has been going on a VERY long time (I think that the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” was originally a fable from about the time of Plato.) and so we will always have it with us.  It existed when people invented the railroad, nearly 200 years ago (Oh, people will die if they travel that fast; the noisy contraptions will make all the farm animals die or spoil their milk or become maddened; the train will set the forests on fire!).  It happened 130 or so years ago, when the automobile was being developed and deployed (Oh, people will die if they travel that fast, the noisy contraptions will destroy city life and kill crops, people can’t control them well enough, they are unsafe).  And SOME of these claims were true, but people – voluntarily, privately (for the most part), and intelligently worked around or solved the problems.

It is easier today than ever before in history to check out the facts as claimed by the hysterical news media and spouted by the people who want nothing to change and fear change.  Sadly, it seems that it is very difficult to get most people to look things up on-line or in the library or by talking to people who really ARE expert because they work with and solve problems in that field every day.  Yes, there is a lot out on the Worldwide Web that is bogus – especially found on the websites of the mainstream media, special-interest groups, and government.  But the truth is also available, and cross-checks much better than the lies, exaggerations, and distortions.

But knowing it is NOT the real problem.  The real problem is that we have surrendered so much of our lives and society and economy to the “elites” whether it is the celebrities (particularly those in the media and other entertainment industries) or to the fanatics (whether sports or religious or social or environist or peace or war), or to the governments. The only way that common sense can again be followed in these United States, and the world, is when we take away the power we have so foolishly given to every institution from a Home Owners Association and a Township Board clean to Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the UN General Assembly, and everything in between.  When we stop living our lives for and at the whim of other humans.

Enough is enough.

Mama’s Note: Amen!

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Computer Privacy – Warning: Danger (Libertarian Commentary on the News, #14-01A)

Posted on 2014-01-02 by TPOL Nathan

Nathan: We have long accepted that NSA, like TSA, DEA, FBI, ATF, and other alphabet Federal agencies have gone rogue, not just ignoring but denying the Constitution and (long before Congress explicitly stated it in the latest NDAA) treating virtually ALL Americans (individuals, organizations, and countries) as hostile (“enemies”) to the United States government.  It seems that every week, we have more revelations of EXACTLY how deep their claws are into us.  We have much to thank people like Snowden and Assange and their organizations, and allies, for this.  Events like the Chaos Computer Congress this week in Hamburg allow communications and coordination (mostly in the form of sharing data) between those and tens of thousands of unknown people who are waging a deep and secret war against the tyranny which is growing ever stronger, and the powers that be who think that victory is near, thanks to the very technologies and tactics we are discovering.

Free speech/Privacy – Tyranny and NSA Thuggery
Snowden disclosure: NSA uses Windows error messages to spy
(Daily Mail [UK]) “Error messages that pop up on Windows computers could enable the National Security Agency to spy on PC users, according to a report. The error messages appear when a Windows programme stops working or ‘freezes’ and a computer user can choose to send an error report to Microsoft to highlight the problem, which is designed to help Microsoft engineers improve their products and fix bugs. However, conscientious computer users might be sending reports to the NSA as well as the tech giant, a report by German magazine Der Spiegel suggests. News that the reports are being sent to the controversial organisation’s top hacking unit, the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) division, come from the latest leaked documents from Edward Snowden …” (12/31/13)

Nathan: Fun, huh?  Just read on!

Free speech/Privacy – Tyranny and NSA Thuggery
New malware roosting place: Inside your SD Card?
(CNet News)  “Security researchers have found a way to hack SD Cards, the most common form of flash-memory cards used to store data mobile phones and digital cameras, and run software that intercepts data. Andrew ‘bunnie’ Huang and Sean ‘xobs’ Cross disclosed the approach Sunday in a blog post and talk at the Chaos Computer Congress (30C3). With the attack, a person could run malicious software on the memory card itself. That’s because the cards have tiny built-in computers called microcontrollers that are used to oversee the details of data storage.” (12/30/13)

Nathan: These two stories MUST warn hundreds of millions of us that the communications we depend on DAILY, and the equipment that we use DAILY, is perverted to the use of evil men and women who consider us nothing but dirt, who treat us as slaves and animals, and who believe that we exist only to serve them and their kind.  They, of course, do not depend on themselves to gather and use this knowledge, but instead have trusted people, still dirt and slaves, but elevated to trustee status to interface and rule over us and punish or kill us, whether for the reason that the elite have or because they have been told otherwise and have bought into fairy tales and myths.  Data, knowledge, is power:  the more they know about us, the easier it is to control us.  But the same is true in the opposite directly.  The more this hidden war is revealed, the more we can fight it, the deeper we must dig.  And the more we must protect ourselves.

Of course, this is critical because of stupidity like this:

Nazgul – NSA Thuggery
Federal judge: Constitution irrelevant, NSA spying legal because TERRORISTS!
(USA Today)”A federal judge ruled on Friday that the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of millions of Americans’ telephone and Internet records is legal and a critical component of the country’s effort to combat the threat of terrorism. The decision by U.S. District Judge William Pauley contrasts with a ruling earlier this month by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon and increases the likelihood that the issue will go before the U.S. Supreme Court.” (12/27/13)

Nathan: This is “old news” but we need to look at it in the light of what else has been revealed this week.  “War is the health of the state,” is clearly something this judge agrees with. Another may not, and so two unelected Nazgul (why two, and not eight? because it is likely to be a 5-4 decision, or maybe a 6-3 decision in the Supreme Court) will get to decided whether to again ignore the dead letter called the Constitution in exchange for accepting a false-front hologram that people pretend to be “in force.”  NSA spying on 99.9% of the world (including the US) is NOT a matter of “survival” of the Union (if it were still alive) or of the nation.  The nation will survive without that – and frankly, is unlikely to survive WITH it.  None of these things, if forbidden, will turn the Constitution into a ‘suicide pact,’ because of the power of the state – and even if we rolled it back all the way to the Articles of Confederation, with only the State Constitutions identifying and protecting our God-given freedoms and liberties as free people, the wisdom of cooperation and “mind your own business” would allow us to live free and prosper.  Americans – Americans who are really free – do NOT need the nanny state or an all-powerful Federal government to live well, to enjoy the freedoms we once did enjoy, or to have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Mama’s Note: The myth that any “state,” at any level, however formed, can ever actually protect free people is the first problem. Such a state might choose to “protect” the subjects, as a shepherd protects his sheep… but it will always be for the benefit of the shepherd, not necessarily the sheep. The wool and meat will continue to be gathered into his barns.

Until individuals accept the truth that no “state” has, nor can be given, any legitimate power to protect them… that they must govern and protect themselves in all things, they will continue to have overlords and masters of one kind or another. No person, nor group of persons, for ANY reason, has legitimate authority to govern or control the life or property of another person.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-52A: Ending the year #1

Posted on 2014-01-02 by TPOL Nathan

Culture wars: Religion and the media
Republicans growing more skeptical about evolution
(Washington Post) When it comes to increasing partisanship in the United States, it seems no issue is immune. And that includes evolution.  A new Pew Research Center poll shows a widening political gap over theories about how humans came to be, with Republicans growing increasingly skeptical about the idea that humans evolved over time. Read full article >>

Nathan: IF, of course, government was (a) not involved in education, and (b) not pushing their agenda of humanism, de-facto atheism (except of course, State = God), and a general attack on religion, there would not be a “political” gap.  And there ARE a few Democrats who do not believe in evolution.  Of course, another important aspect is that people can look around and see people and society DEVOLVING – breaking down – and they ask, “and we supposedly evolved to more intelligence, more civilization?  Give me a break!” Of course, the WaPo sees this as just one more way to demonize the GOP: to present anyone who does not agree with them as hicks and ignoramuses, anti-science, anti-human, and just mean.

Mama’s Note: One of the problems in such screeds is the idea that large groups of people with SOME similar ideas, beliefs or goals must necessarily share all of them. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Many individuals and their voluntary associates are “devolving,” absolutely. Other individuals, however, are learning and growing, evolving toward their best potential. And some people seem to have died already, just not having the courtesy to fall down so they can be properly buried. They wear all sorts of labels, and sometimes more than one.

Theft by government – Crash of 2009
Americans Still Driving Less Than They Did In 2000
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Gas locally is selling for about $3.12 (near the national average), Diesel about $3.85 a gallon – in January of 2007 it was $2.12 for gasoline (gasbuddy.com; no Diesel info available).  Gee, I wonder why we are still driving less than before the Crash of 2009?  Actually, demand for gas dropped so quickly in 2008 (after HE “won” the election) that price dropped to almost $1.65 a gallon, or about HALF of what it is today.  Meanwhile, although Federal tax on gasoline did not go up, most state taxes and many local taxes DID go up.  Thousands of stations have closed, car prices have jumped, other travel costs have jumped, and individual American’s income has stagnated – not counting the millions of unemployed (estimated at as high as 30%).  Gee, you figure that we can’t afford to just go for a drive any more?  Just run into town for a single item?  But no, they are typically government-stupid.

World Wars – Stupid government
And The Country Posing The Greatest Threat to Peace as 2013 Ends is …
(CNSNews.com) … as 2013 ends a global poll finds that the country seen as representing the greatest threat to peace today is … the United States. Not only did the U.S. top the list with an aggregate of 24 percent, but the runner-up threat country, Pakistan, was way behind at eight percent. China was third at six percent, followed by North Korea, Iran and Israel at five percent each. The survey of opinions across 65 countries by pollster Win/Gallup International … Paradoxically, just because people view the U.S. as the biggest threat doesn’t necessarily mean they wouldn’t like to move there if they could.  The pollsters also asked, “If there were no barriers to living in any country of the world, which country would you like to live in?” Some countries where the U.S.-as-greatest-threat view holds strong are also those where America would be a prized destination as a new home country. .. American respondents named Iran as the greatest threat to peace (20 percent), followed by Afghanistan (14 percent). North Korea (13 percent) – and the U.S. itself (13 percent). – See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/and-country-posing-greatest-threat-peace-2013-ends#sthash.MVqXmwLt.dpuf

Nathan: They DID ask Americans: one in seven of us see the truth that the US has become little more than a bully, a corrupt and sadistic cop on the world beat!  And apparently a lot of people don’t like us, but want to BE us.  Not too much a shock: who wants to be threatened, but how many people are willing to be able to make the threats!  Also, they know that in more than six decades, the one place that doesn’t really get torn up in one of America’s (or anyone else’s wars) is America itself.  Two big attacks in 2001 still are not much compared to business as usual.  So it really isn’t that much a paradox.  And all of us who see the FedGov as a threat to peace (internally and externally) have very good reason to believe that is the case, the way the nation has behaved in the last fourteen years (and more) is a very strong argument.

Congress in action – Islamic wars: North African front
Intelligence Committee Members Dispute NYT Assertion That al-Qaeda Had No Role in Benghazi Attack
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Uh-oh!  They are in deep doodoo: the NYT will come out against them, reveal all their sordid little secrets, and tell people to stop making campaign contributions to them.  Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch, of course, but doesn’t make it right.  And of course, for once this committee seems to have the right of it: and are right in rejecting another attempt to rewrite history.

Islamic wars: Afghan Front – Politics 2013
Afghanistan war more unpopular than Vietnam
(Washington Post)  Public opposition to the war in Afghanistan has hit a new high and is now well above even opposition to the war in Vietnam, according to a new poll.  The CNN/Opinion Research poll shows just 17 percent of Americans support the effort, while 82 percent oppose it.

Nathan: One big difference between 1975 and 2013 is that “democracy” (or a republic) doesn’t matter anymore.  Congress and the White House have no reason to listen, really, to the voters and whether they oppose or support the nasty things the government does.  So they can keep sending Americans to kill and be killed for worthless (or nonexistent) objectives, while refusing to do the things that NEED to be done, in Afghanistan or Mesopotamia or Detroit or Denver or Delta.  (And refusing to allow anyone ELSE to do them.)  Just as the first thing the Allies did after conquering Germany in 1945 was eliminate National Socialism (Nazi-ism) (and not just the “radical” or “extreme” elements like the SS or the Gestapo), so should have been done in Afghanistan and Iraq: eliminate the root and trunk of the evil: Islam.  Not just the radical Taliban or Al Quada, but the whole evil mess and system: the imams and the other clerics should have been treated just like the Gauleiters and the party secretaries: given a choice of repudiating the religion, imprisonment, or death.  Of course, that was not done.  Not even what was done to the Ost Zone, post Reunification in 1993 was done.  Instead, the source of the evil continues to exist.  And America becomes evil in basically square-dancing with Islam there.

Mama’s Note: What in the world makes such destruction the prerogative of the US government? How can anyone grant the US government the power and “authority” to destroy anything in Iraq or Afghanistan, then object when that same government destroys whatever it pleases anywhere else – including in the US. Can’t have it both ways.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-51C: Islamic Evil (still with us)

Posted on 2014-01-01 by TPOL Nathan

Islamic war: Central African Front – Evil
Nigeria:  Islamists justify killings
(680 News, via Freedom Outpost) An Islamic extremist leader in northeastern Nigeria says the bloody insurgency will continue because Allah says they must decapitate and mutilate. In a video newly released Saturday, Abubakar Shekau claims responsibility for the Dec. 20 attack on a tank battalion barracks and says his men would have eaten their enemies, but Allah forbids cannibalism. Witnesses said insurgents put soldiers to flight and set the complex ablaze before they were driven off by a jetfighter.

Nathan: The Boko Haram use the following passages from the Koran to justify their murderous activities, which were finally condemned last month as ‘terrorism” by the US Administration, after several years of vicious attacks.

Qur’an (5:33) – “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His messenger and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides…”

Qur’an (8:12) – “Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): “I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them.”

Nathan: Contrast this with the Bible, especially the New Testament.  But even when God ordered the destruction of nations and the death of the people, it was not specified HOW this was to be done – and even stoning was done only after specific legal proceedings (for those who care, the New Testament removed those powers and punishments:  as christians, we are not given any power of punishment of unbelievers or even those who “wage war against us” except the power of self-defense against attack.  I suppose the Boko Haram are at least “somewhat” civilized: they do not eat the bodies of their enemies.  Unlike their fellow Islamists in wartorn Syria (next story):

Islamic wars: Syrian front – Evil
Syria: Disease associated with Cannabalism appears
(Shoebat.com) It’s called Kuru, an extremely rare disease which virtually became extinct after extinguishing cannibalism in Papua New Guinea. Amazingly Kuru has now been found in 8 to 20 people, out of all places, in war-torn Syria, and the only way it could have come about, doctors confirmed, is through cannibalism and the consumption of human brain, as first reported by Arabian news source Zaman al-Wasal and substantiated by Orient News Television.Two of the infected were sent from Syria to a hosptial in Ghazi Antab in Turkey for further examination to only be transferred to another hospital in Germany. One of the two already died, since Kuru is 100% fatal. Kuru is contagious and has symptoms of skin ulcers and worms, and according to a piece on the New York Times, Kuru is a very rare disease. It is caused by an infectious protein (prion) found in contaminated human brain tissue.

Nathan: Sick enough yet?  Enough reason that I (and many others) refer to Islam as a death cult, as evil as any Moloch worshippers burning babies (or abortionists killing babies) or Azteca priests carving the hearts out of their victims on the pyramids?  HOW many Islamic voices have you heard condemning this?  How many apologists for Islam have you heard saying, “this is evil, this is wrong, this is not Islam?”  Except the one guy in Nigeria (previous story) who says Allah does not permit cannibalism?  And even he did not speak out about Syrian evils.  Of course, there is at least SOME evidence of cannibalism, as well as child sacrifice and the killing of slaves to accompany their dead masters to paradise in ancient Syria’s various civilizations.  Are these “rebels” just reverting to ancestral practices?  Apparently, Islamic authorities and their fellows are not opposing it.  Which makes even modern people, so condemning of God’s instructions to Israel during the conquest of Canaan, a bit more understanding about why whole peoples and nations were to be wiped out.  But governments and people tend to be rather stupid about such things.

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-51B: Crash of 2009 still with us

Posted on 2014-01-01 by TPOL Nathan

Crash of 2009-Congress in Action – Theft by government
Democrats Say Pass Extension of Unemployment Benefits First; Pay Later
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Of course, many (most?) GOP types have this attitude as well: why worry about paying for something until you absolutely have to?  Meanwhile, stick it to the “wealthy” and “corporations” and future generations.  Meanwhile, extension of unemployment benefits might be “compassionate” but it will continue to drag on the economy: people have less incentive to do something when someone else is paying the bills.  Of course, the illogic of Congress – its inability to reason – is well-known.  But even some usually reasoning (and reasonable) conservative-bordering-on-minarchist commentators can’t seem to wrap their heads around this, as the next stories and their scary headlines show.

Mama’s Note: I doubt many of the truly wealthy, or large corporations are footing much of the bill. Instead, they are lined up to take as much subsidy as possible, no different than the old “welfare queens.” The problem is that almost everyone, at every economic level, has lived a long time with credit, subsidies and seriously distorted tax incentives as normal business practice, rather than savings, wealth creation and anything close to a free market. Government, and the skewed economy, destroyed millions of jobs and business opportunities over the last fifty years, and most of those now unemployed see little or no chance to find any sort of job. Electronics and automation will very soon replace all of the “burger flipper” jobs, and the noose will tighten. So, it is perfectly understandable why so many are in a panic at the end of the “unemployment benefit.” They don’t see any other real options.

Crash of 2009 – Stupid people (2 stories)
Breaking Point?  Anger grows as Unemployment Benefits Cut
(Bloomberg, via Freedom Outpost) And now extended unemployment benefits have been cut off for1.3 million unemployed Americans, and it is being projected that a total of 5 million unemployed Americans will lose their benefits by the end of 2014. In addition … 47 million Americans recently had their food stamp benefits reduced. The conditions for a “perfect storm” are certainly being created. So how much longer will it be until we see all of this anger and frustration boil over in the streets of our major cities? Is America about to reach a breaking point?

1.3 Million Americans lose unemployment benefits
(CNN via Freedom Outpost) Long-term unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans expired Saturday after Congress failed to pass an extension. Reinstating those benefits is expected to be one of the first priorities for congressional Democrats in the new year. “Extending unemployment insurance is the right thing to do for millions of Americans who are trying to support their families,” Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a statement Saturday. “What makes matters worse, the loss of benefits comes just a few days after the holidays.” CNN

Nathan: Both stories are as much commentary as news, because the reporters/commentators are fearful that this anger (or what is supposed to be anger) is going to boil over into flash mob attacks on WalMart and KMart and riots in the streets.  One does at least point out the futility of the three-month extension.  IF their visions (nightmares) of street riots and looting were real, I suppose an extension to the end of March would mean less fighting in really bad weather conditions in much of the country.  And less reason for mortgage companies (the “banksters”) and utilities (mostly owned “by the people,” that is, government) to evict people or turn off their services.  At this point, it is probably futile to point out that a lot of people know that this sort of thing is NOT sustainable for very long, and if it crashes (instead of ending with an upswing in a hag-ridden economy), the consequences would be far worse than not extending the benefits.

Crash of 2009 – Government lies
6 million Americans Unemployed; 15% of Youth
(ABC News/Daily News) Right now, there are approximately 6 million Americans in the 16 to 24-year-old age group that are not in school and that are not working either. What that means is that we have an alarmingly high number of very frustrated young people that do not have anything better to do than to cause trouble. In some of our largest cities this has become a massive problem. In fact, quite a few major U.S. cities actually have more than 100,000 “idle youth” living in them… Just look at some of the nation’s largest cities. Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and Riverside, Calif., all have more than 100,000 idle youth, the Opportunity Nation report found.

Nathan: As people look at the potential for society to collapse, and for canceling or reducing welfare benefits as an excuse, these numbers loom large in their mind.  A LOT of young people: easily riled and easily led into stupid actions, are roaming the big cities.  Even 1-2% of them can create massive problems.  Some point to recent disturbances (600 people in a movie parking lot, 400 people around a mall) as the beginning of the end.  In winter?  At the same time, it shows that government is not solving the problems, just lying about them.  And government CANNOT solve the problems; only people can, working together voluntarily to produce, sell, and buy.

Hoplophobes and hoploclasts – Stupid people tricks
Pennsylvania – State Trooper has gun on-duty but not allowed off-duty
(Penn Live via Freedom Outpost) Pennsylvania State Trooper Michael L. Keyes is in an odd situation. When on duty, he can carry a gun. Yet while off duty, he is barred by law from possessing any firearms, because seven years ago he suffered from deep depression, repeatedly tried to kill himself by taking drugs and was involuntarily committed for mental health treatment. Keyes’ latest attempt to be allowed to have a gun all the time was rejected this week by the state Superior Court. That court upheld an earlier ruling by Perry County Senior Judge Keith B. Quigley that Keyes’ involuntary mental health commitment constitutes an unsurmountable legal barrier to his ability to possess a gun while off duty.

Nathan: So wrong in so many ways.  The reason given is federal law, yet it seems the Commonwealth is violating federal law to let him carry on duty.  But since he is “cured” it would seem that it makes no sense to keep him from having a weapon! (Of course, we already knew the federal law is stupid.)  Even a Jack-booted Thug (and PA state troopers are literally jackbooted!) has God-given rights to defend himself and others – and yes, a God-given right to be stupid and kill himself. But gun control isn’t about guns, it is about control.  So these courts “uphold” the law and do stupid things.  It is a God-given right for the judge and the Congress to be stupid, but NOT on our dime.  And we wonder why people are frustrated and disturbed!

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Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-51A: Abominations at year end

Posted on 2013-12-30 by TPOL Nathan

Abominable Act (ObummerCare) – The “messiah”
President Enrolls in Cheapest ‘Bronze’ Plan But Won’t Use It; No Subsidy
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Seems that since HE has enrolled in his own program, that the White House should be forced to cut millions a year from the budget by dismantling the entire White House medical office.  Space for wounded soldiers can be made available by having HIM go to Washington’s general hospitals (there is one in the old “Barbeque Zone” north of the White House, as I recall) instead of using Walter Reed, which surely is not in this Bronze Plan.  Of course, the “Bronze Plan” with its huge out-of-pocket costs and maximum limits on coverage is a joke, according to most people.  I suppose that the government will pay this guy’s out-of-pocket costs.  What a joke – and the joke’s on us!

Politics 2013, 2014, 2016 – Culture wars
Huckabee: Most Christians Would Rather Be ‘For Something’ Than ‘Against Something’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Another of Huckabee’s slaps against the Duck Dynasty people, apparently.  According to other stories, he is definitely seeking the 2016 presidential nomination to win the White House, but his actions right now show he will be no different in the most important ways from what we have now and have had in the past.  He wants to avoid “offending” Log Cabin Republicans and other homosexual “moderates” and “conservatives,” but he also is showing the long-term (400+ years) Baptist antipathy towards churches of Christ such as the Robertson’s White’s Ferry Road Church of Christ in West Monroe, Louisiana.  I am surprised he has not used some of the old slurs, like calling them Campbellites and members of a cult.  Hukabee, like many GOP “moderates” who claim to be “conservative” does not like people who are independent, value their liberty, and are willing to speak their mind regardless of financial or social consequences.  In particular, he will not support them in 2014 campaigns.

As to his “theology” – if you are FOR SOMETHING, then that means, inevitably, that you are against a WHOLE lot of “SOMETHINGS.”  There is no way around it.  You can tap dance all you want, but if you claim to be a “Christian” and therefore “for Christ,” then you must be AGAINST Islam and Judaism, and people who have morality that is not the standard which the Christ taught.  But politicians pretend to be stupid, and his status as a preacher is a whole lot less important to him than his status as a politician.

Congress in Action – Abominable Act (ObummerCare)
Pelosi on Obamacare: ‘It’s a Glorious Thing’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: No doubt it is, from her point of view: a whole sixth of the world’s largest economy, and millions of people under micro-control by governments at all levels. Merely the fact that Nancy Pelosi is going overboard about it is a strong indicator that it is worse than ever.

New religions: Environists – Economy 2013 and beyond
Transporting Bakken crude needs reviewTribune editorial
(Bismarck Tribune editorial) Is Bakken sweet crude more volatile than typical crude oil? If so, do additional precautions need to be taken in transporting Bakken crude from well head to refinery?  The questions need answering.

Nathan: Thanks to Tim for this one! This may be the start of yet ANOTHER campaign against the production (“exploitation”) of the huge Bakkan play of the Dakotas and Montana..  “This stuff is too dangerous to transport; we must leave it in the ground.”  And pretend that “Peak Oil” really does exist, along with Global Warming and Evolution and presidents who don’t lie.

The story goes on to talk about how the Bakken oil is more like gasoline than “normal” crude and how it may have caused two big railroad fires – never mind that the CAUSE of the railroad accidents, which led to fires burning crude oil being transported – was human error, as is usually the case. Apparently, the people who are dealing with this issue are not familiar with the history of oil production in the United States, based on their “surprise” about Bakken sweet.  For decades, crude oil produced in the Permian Basin – the famous “West Texas Intermediate” was a very light, sweet oil which COULD be burned in the gasoline-powered engines of the 1930s – 1960s, with the possible need to add lead the the “white gasoline” which came directly from the well-head with a very simple filter.  It was “highly volatile” and additional precautions had to be taken with the handling and transport – techniques which apparently have been lost in the last two generations.  If we could haul that stuff from Wink and Odessa and Andrews and Crane back in the 30’s and 40’s, surely we can haul the stuff from Williston and Newtown and Plentywood to the coasts as well.  IF we aren’t hampered by stupid government facilitating the problem would not be anything but a minor bump.

TSA thuggery – Home front
Airport Security in US is Joke
(AOL/Huffington Post) “Checking luggage is very nice, it looks great, taking away the breast milk of the mother of a one month old baby, that looks great,” said Rafi Sela, the president of A.R. Challenges, a transportation consulting firm based in Israel. “It does nothing for security. It’s just a show.”

Nathan: TSA of course, has excuses for why the Israeli (or other systems) won’t work and why they HAVE to do it in as degrading a way as possible, because Sela and others do not understand (or at least don’t say it out loud) – it is not about security of the plane flights, it is all about the control and the domination that TSA thugs and others can have.  The problem is, there is a limit to the stupidity of the terrorists.  Sela says “two seconds” even for stupid terrorists.  So five seconds for the even more stupid false-flag attackers?  That is the second point that Sela misses: they WANT there to be more successful attacks to justify MORE power and control and money for TSA and the other official-pirate agencies, or so it seems.

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Food Stamp Lies

Posted on 2013-12-27 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

Once more, I read news about how the SNAP (Food Stamps) cuts which started in November are nothing but a Congressional War on the Poor, and will cause millions of Americans to – if not starve – lose food security and go hungry.

A Reuters blog stated this:’ Congressional Republicans seem hell-bent on denying the most disadvantaged among us healthcare, unemployment benefits and, perhaps worst of all, food stamps, from which the House of Representatives slashed $40 billion last month. Elizabeth Drew, writing in Rolling Stone, calls it “The Republicans’ War on the Poor.”’

Wow!  That is a lot?  How much is SNAP costing the US government, and therefore, US taxpayers?  Well, a little searching on-line found the official US government website that told me how much: in FY2013 (last Oct to this October) $76.0703 billion was spent providing assistance to 47,636,000 people; an average of $133.08 per person per month.  Wow Again!  40 billion cut would drop that to only $36 billion: less than HALF!

Then I started looking.  That would mean that the SNAP/Food Stamp Program would STILL spend more than it cost the last year of George W Bush’s administration: in FY 2008 (which ended the month before the election), $34.6 billion was spent.  In just FIVE years, the amount of FEDERAL food assistance (well, direct assistance: this doesn’t include school breakfasts or lunches, doesn’t include state or local or church or food bank or other charitable spending, and doesn’t include the money my wife and I use to buy food for my elderly, senile relative); in just FIVE years, it more than doubled.  Still, the Congress (blame the GOP of course) is Scrooge-squared to do this.  How evil!

This sounds horrific!  Then I ran across some OTHER articles – and no, not published by those purveyors of pornographic pro-capitalist propaganda like the Cato Institute and Washington Times and Independence Institute and LewRockwell.org.  Published by that great, pro-government, pro-liberal, pro-welfare USA Today newspaper, which said: The actual cut was 39.5 billion OVER TEN YEARS, with about 4.5 billion the first year and declining each year after that!  So!  That means (go back to that government website and calculate: The 76 billion in 2013 gets cut to 71.5 billion in 2014.  That means that the program is cut DRASTICALLY to 2011 levels (71.8 billion).  Insane!  Hideous!  Horrific!  Skeletons of the starved will be found in the streets and in their cardboard shacks under railroad bridges!

This “drastic cut” will mean that a family of four on SNAP will get only $632 a month, instead of $668, a drop of $36 per month, or about $1.16 per day.  Imagine ONLY $632 per month for food for a family of four.  Even with inflation, that seems to be a WHOLE LOT of money to me: a whole lot more than MY family of four spends for groceries each month.  But that website explains “The cuts are especially painful in light of the inadequacy of existing benefit levels.”  Huh?

Let us look at it another way:  Aluminum now sells at the local metal place for about 60 cents a pound.  There are 25 cans to the pound, so to get 60 pounds ($36) of aluminum, you need to collect 1500 cans.  Sounds like a lot, until you realize just how many cans people buy and throw away, and how many you can find today on the roadside ditches and public trashcans of a typical American city.  That is an average of 50 cans – just over 4 12-packs, a day.  Hard work?  Yeah, unless you really need that additional 36 bucks for food.

OR you could learn to cook something as simple as beans – a 15-ounce can of precooked pinto beans (Kuners) runs about a buck; a 10-pound bag of pinto (or anasazi) beans (from Dove Creek, CO Adobe Milling) costs five bucks, and makes the equivalent of 30-40 cans of beans:  a cut in costs of 6:1. (30 cans at a buck each divided by 5).  A 10-ounce can of processed chicken runs three bucks (on sale), a five-pound  package of already-disassembled chicken costs about ten bucks, but makes the equivalent of 8 cans, a cut in costs of about 2.4:1. (80 oz at $10 versus 80 oz at $24).  Similar savings on dozens of home-cooked versus store-bought foods, and you don’t need to go out and collect aluminum cans.

OR you could decide that your family only needs TWO cell phones (for the adults) and NOT for all four of you, at $50/month/cell phone (Denver rates with tax).  $100/month.  (Unless you are getting “commod” or “Obama” phones, of course.)  Or you might have to – gasp! give up cable TV.  Or NOT get that 50-inch television.  Americans are the most incredibly wealthy poor people on the planet, and in history.

$36 lost might be a hardship, but hardly an insurmountable one.  Even at half minimum wage, that is all of eight hours of work.  Grunt work, under the table work, but WORK.

Excuse me, people, but WHAT gives?!?  Why do we let these people get away with these lies?  Why do we let them shame us into accepting that we are greedy Scrooges who OBVIOUSLY hate poor people?

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“Hostile to the United States” Part B: Internal countries, organizations, and individuals

Posted on 2013-12-27 by TPOL Nathan

By Nathan Barton

In my first segment, I discussed the 2013 NDAA and its language allowing gathering of information (spying) from external countries, organizations, and individual hostile to the United States now or in the past.  It seems to include a good 90 percent of the countries on the planet, and many tens of thousands of organizations and billions of individuals in those countries.  It includes virtually every nation now identified as an “Ally” by the United States, and most of the rest of the world. But what about internally?

The NDAA does not distinguish between external and internal “countries, organizations, and individuals” in its authority.  What, then, does that include? In the first segment, I talked about American Indian (AmerInd) nations  (sometimes, disrespectfully called “native American nations”).  These nations, legally called “dependent domestic nations” (an oxymoron) since 1831, have been largely hostile to the US government, whether accepting the “protection” and “guardianship” of the federal government or not.  (There are a few exceptions, of course, as I mentioned.  The Shoshone, the Crow, and a few others have not actually gone to war against the United States or one of the States, but certainly many of their actions can be considered “hostile” in the past and today. But internal hostility is far from limited to 310 AmerInd nations (and reservations) scattered from Point Barrow to the Everglades, and the two or three million enrolled (and non-enrolled) members of those nations.

Let us look at some others and get the magnitude.  Remember, the NDAA applies to “countries” and “organizations” and “individuals.” The easiest to deal with is the old Confederate States of America:  the eleven states which actually seceded and formed a new government.  Clearly today recognized as a “country” of four years duration, except possibly by the Courts of the United States.  Theoretically, those original states no longer exist: they were replaced by NEW entities which were readmitted to the Union during Reconstruction.  And obviously, almost 150 years later, there are no individuals which were part of or served that country still living.  Organizations?  Both the SCV (Sons of Confederate Veterans) and UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy) as well as many other organizations, were established by and for the support of individuals who were hostile – and therefore, the organizations can be considered hostile.  Millions of Americans have been members or are now so. But there is more:  although the states were extinguished, there were and are many municipalities which existed in 1861 and supported secession and were NOT “dissolved.”  I do not count counties (pun intended) because counties are considered units of state government.

And we must remember that the movement of 1860-1861 was not the ONLY secession movement organized and hostile to the US government.  We know that in the early 19th century (1810s and 1820s) that several of the New England states were hostile to DC and proposed or planned secession, although they did not actually do so.  We know that during the War between the States, a planned “Northwest Rebellion” led by Democrats was very much hostile to the Lincoln government, planning to split off Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.  Successors of those states, or the actual states themselves, still exist. In more modern times, we have the Alaska Independence movement, we have the various attempts to reestablish a new Texas Republic, and we have similar attempts to separate Vermont, New Hampshire, Wyoming, and elsewhere.

None of these are actually the state governments themselves, but organizations within them, which are hostile.  But many of the states themselves ARE hostile, some on a continuing basis, or have BEEN hostile to the US government, ranging from anti-desegregation states (Arkansas and Louisiana come to mind) to anti-Spanish-American War, anti-Philippine Annexation, anti-Vietnam War, anti-seatbelt, anti-drinking age, and all sorts of other kinds of and reasons for opposition to the dictates and actions of Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court.  Indeed, maybe ANY states in which the people, legislature, or representatives in majority EVER were opposed (“hostile to”) ANY action of the US government can be on that list.  Hard to think of even one of the fifty which would not be in that category.

As for other organizations, well, internal organizations?  The list is even larger.  Let us start with the anti-ratification/anti-Federalist organizations of the 1780s and move forward, to include virtually every political group from the Republican Party and the Grand Old Army (Union veterans) to the Communist Party USA( and its hundreds of splinters) and Young Americans for Freedom to the SLA and Black Panthers (New and Old).  And let us not forget the religious groups, including the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints.  Even the League of Women Voters has been hostile to DC now and then.  And do not forget private business – even if in public ownership.  That leads us to individuals.

What constitutes “hostile?”  It appears, based on the way the government in DC – the “messiah” and his minions, and the raving of Congress and its staff, and the decisions of the Supreme Court and all its downstream courts, that any disagreement, including  minor ones, with the federal government, in which ANY action is threatened or encouraged,  can be considered “hostile” to the US government.

Did you question your tax bill?  Try to avoid or reduce or – gasp – evade taxes?  Did you disagree with the NPS closing your favorite restaurant or necking place? Did you cut off a US government plated vehicle?  Did you discourage someone from enlisting?  Did you argue with the extension agent on which crops to plant?  Did you complain because your school tried to follow federal guidelines and stopped serving french fries, or stopped singing “Here Comes Santa Claus” for the winter concert?

All of these actions are hostile: the NDAA apparently “gives” authority to the NSA, FBI, BATFE, DEA, USDA, FDA, PHS, IHS, FHWA, FCC, and two dozen additional agencies to be selected to read your e-mail, listen to your phone calls, record your television watching habits and browsing history, check your spelling on your documents on- or off-line, and use GPS to record your trips to the grocery store and the pawn shop and the church building.

If not now, then later.  How much later?  Did you hang around that seventeen-year-old girl too much when you were nineteen in college, thirty years ago?  Fair game: there is no statute of limitations for NSA to “investigate” and collect data.  Did you collect signatures to get Goldwater on the ballot in your home state in 1964?  Did you pick up a numbers ticket from Greasy Joe Luciano’s racket in Pittsfield, MA, in 1982?  (Talk about organizations hostile to the US government: the Mob, the Mafia, Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and friends of George McGovern AND GG Liddy all fit in that group.)

I am SURE that somewhere, someplace, somehow in America’s fifty states and dozen territories there are people who were NEVER and are not NOW hostile to the United States – and also over the age of five.  But like Abraham in Sodom and Gomorrah, it might be difficult to find TEN really quickly.  Certainly no American sailor, airman, marine or soldier who ever looked at, and cussed their pay statement, can be considered to have never been hostile.  With this wording, even the “messiah’s” Consort herself, Queen-bee Michelle, might have been hostile, because she said “this is the first time I’ve been proud of my country” as an adult.

The bottom line is this:  Congress has constantly given and will and does continue to give the various secret police entities (“intelligence community”) a blank check to gather information on anyone, anywhere, anytime – essentially in the entire world.  That such power is clearly unconstitutional and in violation of every moral principle accepted by Americans for ten generations is a worthless argument against it.  They have the power, and they not only make the rules, but ignore the very rules they make.  When they write things like this, it is little more than arrogance on their part: see, we will do whatever we want to, and you can’t stop us.  It is force: not the open, brute force of the whip, the mailed fist, the pistol or Taser or shock baton, but still force:  intimidation and threats and constant pressure are the tools of violence, always backed up by sheer force.

Which brings us to the point of both parts of this article.  You and I and virtually everyone, every organization, and every country on this planet have been deemed hostile to the United States government.  It is already collecting information in every possible way and awaiting the right opportunity to take action on that information against you, your contact, your neighbors and friends and family.

So, what will you do about it?

Posted in Nathan's Rants | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Libertarian Commentary on the News, #13-50B: Stupid, corrupt government

Posted on 2013-12-25 by TPOL Nathan

Nathan: This may be my last posting for this week, but check back anyway!  Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!

Stupid (corrupt) government
‘Zero Dark Thirty’ leak investigators now target of leak probe
(McClatchy DC) More than two years after sensitive information about theOsama bin Laden raid was disclosed to Hollywood filmmakers, Pentagon and CIA investigations haven’t publicly held anyone accountable despite internal findings that the leakers were former CIA Director Leon Panetta and the Defense Department’s top intelligence official. Instead, the Pentagon Inspector General’s Office is working to root out who might have disclosed the findings on Panetta and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers to a nonprofit watchdog group and to McClatchy.

Mama’s Note: The whole government has sprung so many leaks… maybe it will bleed to death pretty soon. Investigating each other at least diverts a little of their attention, I guess.

Nathan: Yes, once upon a time, Virginia, IGs were involved in rooting out corruption in military units and government organizations, not uncovering people who blew the whistle ABOUT corruption.  But times have changed, haven’t they?  The government must protect itself from those evil people who believe that government is to serve the people (and NOT for lunch) and that honesty in government is a valued quality and not a defect in the system.  There is always, of course, a real fear that the whistleblowers and leakers in government agencies are really double-agents, trying to create a situation that will discredit the watchdog groups and political opposition.  And it is also very difficult to draw the line between just blowing the whistle and actively attacking and destroying the ability of the agency to function.  Such attack and destruction is not necessarily offensive in nature, as it can be purely defensive.  But the stakes are raised significantly and the risks to all involved increase.  Such revelations can (or at least have, elsewhere in the past) lead to a complete collapse of the agencies – and even to open revolt.

Culture wars: “homosexual marriage”
Federal Judge: Right to Same-Sex Marriage Is ‘Deeply Rooted in Nation’s History and Implicit in The Concept of Ordered Liberty’
(CNSNews.com) Utah: The judge argued that the Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1791, and the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, are the two provisions of the Constitution that have guaranteed the “existing right” of a man to marry another man or a woman to marry another woman. – See more here.

Nathan: Another headline reads “Judge Strikes Down Traditional Utah Marriage Laws, Calls Them Irrational.”  This is just a week since a judge declared Anti-Polygamy laws in Utah (put there on demand of the US Congress 120 years ago) also unconstitutional. Are the lawyers for the LDS in Salt Lake kicking themselves for not claiming this argument way back then? The logic here for the most part escapes me. If this idea was applied across the board, then tens of thousands of laws at the state and federal level (and hundreds of thousands at the local level) would instantly have to go away.  But there is another more telling point overlooked. Can politicians OR judges at ANY level totally redefine a plain English word?  For centuries, “Marriage” has meant a man and a woman, and when you trace the word to its equivalent in Anglo-Saxon, German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, that definition has been in existence for millennia: probably at least 5,000 years.  If what this judge is saying is that any two people have a right to contract for some sort of bond or partnership and call it “marriage,” then why do any two people not have a right to contract for ANYthing and have it deemed legal, whether it is a contract for medical services (regardless of “licensing”) or for sale/purchase of recreational drugs, or for procuring murder services, or whatever else.  And at the same time, this judge apparently says that Congress or a legislature has the power to define a tail as a leg so that all dogs are five-legged.  To define truth as lies, war as peace, and liberty as tyranny.  If this principle canNOT be applied across the board, then WHAT authority is there for limiting it just to marriage – or just to “homosexual marriage between two persons” – why can it not apply between three or four or eight or ten?  Looney-style gang marriages?  700-woman harems?  Two, three, four or more men sharing a single woman?  Islamic-style “temporary marriages of convenience” to “protect public morals?” (That is a hoot.)  And why does not a right to contract whatsoever we will (the “open liberty” clause) not trump laws about felons owning guns or requiring background checks or Jonestown style suicide pacts or selling organs?

Mama’s Note: Seems obvious that the real problem is government involvement in the private lives of individuals, across the board, for any reason. A person can define “marriage” any way they please, obviously, and it only becomes a problem in trying to communicate to others who define it otherwise. Not a government concern, if there even is such a thing. A person can have as many five legged dogs as he can feed without resorting to theft… Nobody else’s business as long as they don’t keep the neighbors up at night with their barking, I suppose.  But then, that would be a matter of negotiation with the neighbors and still no business of any government.

The “messiah” – African collapse
Obama Tells Congress He ‘May Take Further Action’ in Turbulent South Sudan
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Oh “HE” may take further action.  What about the (former) powers of Congress – look, not even Kim or Chavez could claim this kind of power.  South Sudan is a mess and US troops are making it more of a mess. We have already taken casualties (no KIA yet, or at least none reported) and all we are doing is meddling in the internal affairs of two supposedly sovereign nations.  If we really wanted to help, we’d buy and donate some of those Korean War M-1s and M-1 carbines and ammo to the families threatened by the thugs from all sides.  But of course, that would be EVIL because we are allowing civilians to be armed.

Mama’s Note: The more this evil, imperial want-to-be god talks, the worse it gets. What was that old phrase about pride going before a fall? The fall of this one should be epic.

Abominable Act (ObummerCare)
Krauthammer: ‘Huge Gov’t Bailout’ of Health Insurance Industry at End of 2014
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Is there going to be a US government by the end of 2014, anyway?  Of course, with a solid Democratic (and Tranzi) Congress “behind” him, perhaps “HE” might just go ahead and draft all of the medical personnel into the Public Health Service, issue them uniforms, and make them work for a “reasonable” pay scale.  And nationalize all the companies that run and operate medical facilities, especially those that are city and county and state government owned and operated.  Single payer, single provider: a government monopoly of health care, just like a government monopoly of force and delivery of first class mail.  There, wouldn’t life be simpler?  Congress could just delegate everything to “HIM” and “HE” could dictate everything: what drugs are allowed, what procedures are allowed for what people, what the costs are, how much they get paid, and all the rest!  Bailout?  No, TAKEOVER!

Mama’s Note: And as if that wouldn’t be bad enough, I fully expect a full out “war” on any kind of alternative medicine and a witch hunt for professionals who refuse to join the chain gangs. It won’t happen all at once, of course, but gradually as any actual care deteriorates and the entitled masses scream for government to “do something.” They have no idea how terrible it will be when the only “health care” available is performed by the same sort of people as they see at the DMV.

The “messiah”
Obamacare Problems Tighten Key Senate Races
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: One more reason for “HIM” to just take over.  Let us go back to traditional ways, and do it by decree (Executive Order).  By the power vested in me by God and Mother Earth, as President of the Americans, I hereby appoint the following individuals for the positions as indicated:

Senior Senator for Alabama, Marie Antoinette Carter, Junior Senator for Alabama, Louis Bourbon Wallace; Senior Senator for Arkansas, John Jay Rockefeller VIX, Junior Senator for Arkansas, Chelsea Clinton Mezvinsky; and so on.

Appoint them for life, of course, since that is a condition very easily changed when the government (read: POTA) has a monopoly on violence.  No need for “can no one rid me of this meddlesome priest” – just push a button and a drone, assassin, or local cop takes care of the problem.

The “Messiah”
Obama Took More Vacation on Average Than Private-Sector Workers 20 Yrs on Job
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Of course, “HE” is the anointed “President of the Americans” so he deserves it.  And (as I point out below) these media and political types believe that he must be judged as the unique, irreplaceable, superhuman and mythic hero that he is: not just above the law, but creating the law.

Mama’s Note: “Vacation,” my tush. Say, Mr. President, bet you can’t swim out to that little reef there. (What was that music for “Jaws” again?) Tee hee…

Abominable Act (ObummerCare) – Politics 2014
Schumer: ‘Number 1 Issue in 2014 Election Is Not Going to Be Obamacare…’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Hmm.  Does Schumer figure that there won’t be any elections, either?  Which echoes my thoughts about just getting rid of these foolish, wasteful, elections.

Mama’s Note: Once again I have to insist that there is absolutely no danger of the “elections” being eliminated. The belief that ordinary people can direct, control or even influence the government by electing “representatives” and so forth is the main fiction that keeps government in power. Most people do believe that government at every level automatically has the legitimate authority to control their lives, and that voting is the way they participate in that control. Both are very powerful myths, and extremely useful to the “rulers.”

Obummercare itself may well not be an “issue” by then, but the meltdown of health care in reality will certainly be one of them. By then it ought to be very clear to most people that having “insurance” is meaningless all by itself, regardless of who pays for it.

The “messiah”
Sen. Manchin: ‘Just Not in the President’s Nature to Pal Around’
(CNSNews.com)

Nathan: Well, we can hardly expect him to slum with inferiors, can we?  And we know that he just doesn’t get along with Elizabeth Windsor, because of her track record.  (After all, many people say he was born as her subject, 53 years ago, when she was still learning her job as queen.)  And he just isn’t worthy to hang out with REAL kings like those guys in Saudi Arabia, by his own admission.  Seriously, the “messiah” is already being treated like some superhuman demigod by these people; he can’t be judged on the same level as the rest of us.

Mama’s Note: Sure, but he’s not immune to flirting with well stacked Nordic blonds at funerals. Did you see those photos? If looks could kill, Moochelle would have wiped them both out right then and there. I wonder what the blond got out of the deal, actually. That could not have been popular with the folks back home.

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