At last – common gun law found unconstitutional

Posted on 2023-05-13 by TPOL Nathan

Many of us have known and stated for years that federal gun laws (and many others) were unconstitutional. It does NOT take a constitutional lawyer to see that any law that restricts the freedom of 18-20 year olds is a direct and blatant violation of equal protection under the law.

As reported by the Washington Examiner – and amazingly, dozens of mainstream media outlets, including state-affiliated NPR – a federal judge in the State of Virginia has issued a 71-page ruling demeaning that the federal prohibition is unconstitutional – and therefore null and void.

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Oklahoma crazy?

Posted on 2023-05-12 by TPOL Nathan

Last week, the governor of Oklahoma vetoed State funding for the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the State’s local Public Broadcasting System (PBS) affiliate. According to the story, he had multiple reasons. His major one is the more and more strident indoctrination of LGBTQ+ themes aimed at children. But there were others: he believes the need for state-supported broadcast media (beginning in 1957) is no longer needed or justified in today’s world of internet, a really diverse media control (as compared to just three national TV networks then), and a need to save money.

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“Incompetence is the main attribute of government”

Posted on 2023-05-11 by TPOL Nathan

Our commentary headline is a quote from the estimable Paul Craig Roberts in his brief recent commentary pointing out that – political and bureaucratic proclamations to the contrary – the destruction of San Francisco’s First Republic Bank is not the end of the banking crisis.

A crisis fostered by government. Yes, TPOL realizes that the Federal Reserve is technically not a government entity, is theoretically owned by the member banks, and all that Creature from Jekyll Island stuff. The reality? It is part of the federal tyranny we live under.

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Is California a bad neighbor?

Posted on 2023-05-10 by TPOL Nathan

A recent news story featured in Freedom’s Phoenix tells how people along the lower Colorado River in western Arizona are angry about Californians dumping hazardous waste in a couple of their landfills, instead of disposing of the waste in California (where it comes from).

The story is exaggerated: there are at least 660,000 pounds of waste containing some heavy metals and other hazardous materials that is reported. Sounds like a lot, until you realize that is just 330 tons: or what just 13 or 14 semi-trucks would haul if it were sand and gravel. And while they point out that under California law, stricter than either Arizona or federal law, much of the waste isn’t considered hazardous, they also do not point out that California’s laws and regulations are not just stricter than other law, their laws are ridiculously strict and represent “science by election” more often than not?

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Too bad: you’re Dutch

Posted on 2023-05-09 by TPOL Nathan

A few years back, several of us here at TPOL had the opportunity to work with a number of Boer farmers. In Eastern Colorado, of all places.

The Boers, of course, are descendants of Dutch settlers in what is now Sued Afrika: better known today as Afrikaaners in part for how their dialect of Dutch has drifted in almost 400 years. Many of them, like British colonials in the 1600s and 1700s, and Australian “immigrants” in the 1700s and 1800s, fled from persecution in the Netherlands (as British-American and British-Australians fled from Britain). Or were “transported” as criminals.

Today, we see that potential again, as the EU authorizes/orders the Dutch government to forcibly buy out 3,000 Dutch farmers and eliminate their livestock production, together with milk and cheese and everything else. Why? To prevent/reverse air pollution, or so we are told. Indeed, Her Majesty’s Netherlands government is determined to slash the country’s livestock population by 30% — to meet European Union targets for nitrogen-oxide pollution.

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Texan hypocrisy on display

Posted on 2023-05-08 by TPOL Nathan

I happened across the MSN news story this afternoon. Even MSN called it shocking news: a Texan House committee passed a bill on an 8-5 vote that will raise the age in which people are “allowed” to purchase “AR15-style” semi-automatic rifles from 18-21.

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When the church meetinghouse was the center of our communities

Posted on 2023-05-06 by TPOL Nathan

Today, especially since the Pandemic Panic, government both in the States and across the planet has expanded into more and more areas of human life. Not only that, but governments actively seek to take control of and provide more and more services. There is often little pushback against this, which is the perfect opportunity for government to grow larger and more powerful while private and cooperative, voluntary efforts are dwindling away.

It has been nearly a decade since Anthony Bradley’s excellent article was published by the Acton Institute, and worth revisiting now. We here at TPOL have added [additional discussion in brackets].

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Too many jobs? Too few people?

Posted on 2023-05-05 by TPOL Nathan

This came across our screen desktop from a correspondent, and seems to match what was broadcast on various shows on 2 May 2023. We cleaned it up some, but otherwise verbatim:

‘You’re telling me we’ve got too many jobs in the country?’: Sen. Josh Hawley tears into Biden’s Interior Secretary Deb Haaland for saying U.S. has ‘a lot of jobs’ – as he claims ‘over 3 million jobs have gone to China’ in recent years.
Hawley slammed Biden’s ‘radical climate agenda’ during a hearing Tuesday [when he] criticized Interior Secretary Haaland for saying there are ‘too many’ U.S. jobs for blue collar workers to fill. Republicans argue more natural resource production and mining should happen domestically to provide jobs, up [increase?] competition and decrease reliance on China.

‘Why should those things for millions of Americans be sacrificed in favor of your agenda for radical climate agenda?’

‘I know that there’s like 1.9 jobs for every American in the country right now. So I know there’s a lot of jobs –’ Haaland responded, but was cut off by the Missouri Republican senator.

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. You’re telling me we’ve got too many jobs in the country?’ Hawley scoffed with a sarcastic chuckle.

‘Well, I’m saying that we don’t have enough people,’ Haaland clarified. ‘That’s why we are having a hard time finding folks to work at our Department.’

Hawley wasn’t buying it. ‘You’re telling me we have too many jobs for blue collar workers?’ he questioned. ‘Have you seen the number of jobs we have lost in this country to China in the last 20 years?’

US Senate committee hearing, 01 May 2023
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Transgender, now transabled?

Posted on 2023-05-04 by TPOL Nathan

As lovers of liberty, we do very much support the God-given (if not God-approved) right for people to do whatever they want with their lives. And that includes their bodies. It is their choice, so long as they do not aggress (physically, including financially) against others in doing so. However silly, foolish, or stupid their decision and action is.

However, none of us here at TPOL see the liberty extending to forcing anyone else to do something.

Examples? Provide teaching and training without that provision being voluntary and for which the provider is paid. Ditto for medical care. And for food and clothing and shelter.

Now let us look at one current issue and see how that works out.

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Economic turmoil? Is there a “liberty” solution?

Posted on 2023-05-03 by TPOL Nathan

In the last five weeks we have four of the nation’s (and world’s) largest banks collapse. It doesn’t matter what terms the governments and the financial communities use – they collapsed. Every year – every month – there are bank failures, but for the most part these are small, local or regional banks. The impact is as hard on individual shareholders, bondholders and accountholders, but the big collapses have a much greater impact. (Obviously.) There is a macro-economic impact on the national and world economy when billions and billions of dollars seemingly dissolve into the air.

The banking crisis is far from over, as is not just clear to the financial pundits and experts (except those who shill for the FedGov and the political parties and transnational entities). It is clear to anyone who watches the streets and towns they drive through, the people trying to keep their businesses run, and those who patronize grocery stores. We don’t see the root causes, but we see the effects in exploding interest rates, rapidly rising prices, empty store shelves, delays in getting parts and services done, and a constant drumbeat of increasing taxes and spending by governments. Today’s decision by the Fed to again raise interest rates will just worsen the crisis.

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