About Soldiers in Germany

Why do we still have soldiers in Germany? I suppose that I understand Okinawa--as a springboard in case of trouble in Korea, but we spend billions to keep soldiers in Germany. Really?

As long as we've got Hasselhoff, we don't have to worry.

About Pandering

Why do the politicians who want to put "Main Street" first think that doing so requires funneling money and power into East Capitol Street?

About Slavery and Abortion

Abraham Lincoln said, "If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong," and I agree with his sentiment. I should note, however, that I disagree with many of Lincoln's political assertions. Yet the above quote is not political. It is a moral statement recognizing that anyone appealing to justice and human rights must be against slavery.

In modern times, we simply know that slavery is wrong. Few, however, can express why.

In a nutshell: The institution of slavery was an established system of legally sanctioned inequality. When you take another man's liberty, you take his life. When you make a man your property, his property is made yours. Therefore, slavery violates the sacred principles that established this republic: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Those who defended slavery from its critics appealed not to what slavery did to enslaved men and women, but to the "benefits" of slavery--race control, and the economic health of slave owners. If slavery were abolished, then blacks could roam the country freely! If slavery were abolished, then much of the South's economic capital would simply vanish into thin air!

These concerns were real. There is no doubting that slavery both kept blacks under control and propped up the South's economy. White men and women throughout the country feared the social equality that might follow black mobility, and economic interests in the South (e.g. planters) and the North (e.g. textile mills) relied upon slave labor. Ending slavery would set blacks free and threaten the cotton supply. Of this there is no disputing.

Nonetheless, slavery was wrong, and there's no appealing to the inconvenience of abolition. Abolition hurt many, but slavery hurt more and deeper.

The same is true with abortion. If abortion is not wrong, then nothing is wrong. Abortion stops a heartbeat. It kills. There is no denying it. Saying that a fetus is not a person is as feeble an argument as saying that blacks are not persons.

The abolition of abortion will be inconvenient to many. It will put some women in uncomfortable positions. It will be costly to some women, families, and the state (which will certainly be called upon to care for unwanted babies).

But it doesn't matter.

Abolishing slavery ruined the planter class, but we are better as a people for it. No man has the right to build his wealth in such a way. Abolishing abortion will also have its costs, but they are worth it. No one has the right to kill another person simply because that person is an inconvenience.

About the Perils of Socialism (See Venezuela and Its Stalin: Hugo Chavez)

Read the whole article, but if you haven't time, these excerpts should suffice:

In Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000.

...the climb in homicides in the past decade as unprecedented in Venezuelan history; the number of homicides last year was more than three times higher than when Mr. Chávez was elected in 1998.

Venezuela is struggling with a decade-long surge in homicides, with about 118,541 since President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999.

So you're more than three times more likely to die violently in Venezuela (a country at "peace" but suffering under a socialist dictatorship) than in Iraq. Did you catch that? It's safer to live in Baghdad than in Caracas.

This is not unprecedented. More Russian's died from Stalin and Marxism than from Hitler's war machine (and the wermacht killed 20,000,000!). In China, Mao has a similar record of killing more of his people than the Japanese did during WWII, and all in the name of progress.

The list goes on, and the lesson is clear. Socialism is deadly--often deadlier even than war.

About So-Called "Drug Violence" in Mexico

Add a comment to this post if you agree with me that the violence along the Mexican boarder (and elsewhere in Mexico) is the result not of drugs but of the drug war.

What caused the St. Valentine's Day Massacre? It wasn't alcohol. It was prohibition.

About Obama As a Machiavellian.

Read this interesting article from former vice-presidential candidate Wayne Allen Root on the possibility that Obama is purposefully screwing things up.

About a Bad Defense

As Bolivian forces descended upon the wounded mass murderer Ernesto "Che" Guevara, he who sent so many to their deaths begged, "Don't shoot. I am Che Guevara and worth more to you alive than dead." I always found it an ironic plea, as if to say "Don't shoot me. I'm the guy who would have murdered you and your entire family."

Similarly (well, only kinda, but still), the Obama administration recently sacked a USDA bigwig for confessing that she had discriminated against white farmers. It seems to me that this is a bit more complicated than it initially seems.

However, it's this comment that she makes in her defense that bugs me:

I was telling the story of how working with him helped me to see the issue is not about race," she said. "It's about those who have versus those who do not have.

Am I missing something, or is she defending herself by saying that she's not racist anymore because now she's a Marxist?

"Don't shoot--I'm Che!"

About the Post Office Rate Hike

Hey, have any of you DB's who voted for Obama because you thought that government could solve the problems of this country even once considered how badly the federal government understands even the most simple tenets of economics?

To wit, the Post Office is in trouble. While private delivery companies like FedEx and UPS make profits, the USPS is constantly in the red.

So the feds pull out the big brains. More likely than not, within the next year or so, you'll see an end to Saturday deliveries from the U.S. postal service. That's great. Demand for your service goes down, so make your service even worse than before.

Brilliant!

Also, be on the watch for price increases. While every private company in the world understands that higher prices lead to a decrease in demand, the federal government plans on increasing its prices in order to make up for the loss of demand. That higher prices will lead to even less demand has not occurred to them.

Barack Obama: Your apostles say you are a genius, and yet you cannot read the writing on the wall. You are the epitome of the blind leading the blind.

At least Ray Charles could carry a damn tune.

Hail Caesar--Oops, I Mean Hail to the Chief

The NYT reports that Obama intends to force BP "to create an escrow account reserving billions of dollars to compensate businesses and individuals if the company does not do so on its own."

Yes, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, "The president will use his legal authority to compel them."

Hmm. Since the president has no legal authority to do so, I guess Gibbs meant to say the president will use illegal or unconstitutional authority to compel them.

Folks, it doesn't matter if you sympathize with the intent of what Obama's trying to do here. The powers he is assuming are the powers of a dictator, not a president. If we keep letting him and other federal officials slide, we will find ourselves in a bad situation.

Capital Punishment In Utah (and Everywhere Else) Sucks

As Utah prepares use a firing squad to execute a convicted murderer, many critics speak to the barbaric nature of the method.

Really? Is the injection of poisons that first paralyze the muscles (so that they cannot writhe in pain) and second arrest the respiratory and circulatory systems so much more humane?

How "painless" would lethal injection appear if the first poisons did not render the victim's muscles immobile?

I'm not trying to excuse execution by firing squad. I'm trying to refute the notion that there is any way to murder a man humanely.

How is the lawful execution of a convicted murderer inhumane?

The answer is simple. The only moral excuse for intentionally killing another man is out of self-defense or the defense of another innocent party.

By the time that the state carries out capital punishment, there is no threat to anyone. The bad guy is in custody and under wraps.

Justifying the execution on the grounds that the bad guy might escape would similarly justify me killing anyone on the street because anyone might at anytime might decide to kill me.

That dude in the suit might have had a gun that he might have drawn and fired at me.

Remember When Obama Promised to End the War and Bring the Troops Home?

Remember when Obama and his people chanted "Yes we can"? Remember how he promised to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay? Remember this and Ron Paul's response? (HT2 Robert Murphy).

Disingenuous Reactions to Rand Paul Comments on the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Now that Rand Paul is one step closer to the Senate, all of the media establishment (as if from nowhere) seems concerned with his ideas. However, their the media's sudden interest in Paul is disingenuous. Headlines are misleading, hoping (and probably knowing) that many folks will simply skim them on Google News and form an opinion without reading the article or further inquiring into the matter.

msnbc's headline and article "Paul admits political slip in civil rights remarks: Kentucky Republican Senate hopeful faces storm after questioning '64 law" (when did journalists stop capitalizing words in titles?) immediately implies (by the headline) that Paul spoke out against the act, but manages to make him look like a politician desperately trying to backtrack by opening the article with

In the wake of Rand Paul’s comments on MSNBC’s "Rachel Maddow Show" Wednesday night questioning provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Kentucky Republican Senate nominee said Thursday he supported the law and would not favor its repeal.

So what exactly did Paul say? According to the same article:

In his 15-minute interview with Maddow, Paul repeatedly declined or sidestepped opportunities to endorse the provisions of the 1964 law which require hotels, restaurants, and other businesses to accept all customers without discriminating on the basis of race or ethnicity.

He repeated several times that he opposes racial discrimination. “I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form, I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race,” he said. At the end of the interview, Paul added, “I don’t believe that any private property (owner) should discriminate either.”

But he did not say whether he supported using federal law to enforce non-discrimination in privately owned businesses. He said “had I been around” in 1964 “I would have tried to modify that.”

He also said the debate over the civil right law’s limits on rights of private property owners “is still a valid discussion.”

So Paul repeatedly condemns racial discrimination, but he's obviously for repealing the Civil Right Act because "he did not say whether he supported using federal law to enforce non-discrimination in privately owned businesses" because he is wary of limiting property owners' rights?

He's for repealing the act because he did not say that he loved it? Or is it because he said that he "would have tried to modify" it? Since when does "modify" mean abolish?

Left out of the msnbc interview is this clarifying excerpt from the interview:

I`m not in favor of any discrimination of any form. I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race," Paul responded. "What about freedom of speech? Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking? I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that`s one of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn`t mean we approve of it. [source]

And yet the media is posting headlines like this gem from theAssociated Press "Ky. Senate candidate questions Civil Rights Act"

Or this one from dallasvoice.com "Rand Paul would turn back civil rights."

What's so ridiculous is that the media doesn't (because it can't) assail Paul for his opinions on race and racial discrimination. It attacks him for having a consistent belief in freedom, property rights, and federalism/limited government.

The real lesson is this: If you think that we've got too much freedom, that property rights are old hat, and that the federal government isn't strong or intrusive enough, then Rand Paul is certainly your enemy.

________________

Even if the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were to be repealed, which companies do you think would revive Jim Crow style policies?

Seriously.

Even the Drug Czar Knows that the War on Drugs Is a Failure

All quotes are from this article.

Here I abridge things a bit, make a few of my own points and ask a few questions:

According to U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, "In the grand scheme, it [the drug war] has not been successful. Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified."

Taking exception, former drug czar John P. Walters said:

To say that all the things that have been done in the war on drugs haven't made any difference is ridiculous. It destroys everything we've done. It's saying all the people involved in law enforcement, treatment and prevention have been wasting their time. It's saying all these people's work is misguided.

So what really bothers Walters is simply admitting failure. That's about it. Let's continue spending billions each year, and let's sacrifice thousands of more lives each year. Just don't you dare ask us to admit that we failed to accomplish our objectives!

When President Nixon first declared a "War on Drugs" he spent $100 million. Under Obama's administration, the federal government will spend in excess of $15.1 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that amounts to 31 times more spending. So let's ask a couple of important questions: Is drug use down 31 times? Is there 31 times less violence? Are we 31 times better off in any way?

Of course we aren't. So what are we getting for our money?

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found that the United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs [Insert sarcasm-laden gasp]. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

- $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico - and the violence along with it.

- $33 billion in marketing "Just Say No"-style messages to America's youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have "risen steadily" since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

- $49 billion for law enforcement along America's borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

- $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

- $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse - "an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction" - cost the United States $215 billion a year.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.

"Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use," Miron said, "but it's costing the public a fortune."

The rest of the article discusses how Obama pays lip service to treating drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal one, but it points out that he's spending twice as much on the criminal justice side.

Oh, and it ends with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano suggesting the equivalent to drug use is just so bad that we just have to do something!

Even if something doesn't work and costs an awful lot in money and lives lost?

I guess so.

Racism is Racism

This article blew me away.

In a supposed attempt to reduce the achievement gap between black and white students, Mike Madison, principal of an Ann Arbor elementary school, arranged a special field trip in which some kids met with and listened to a presentation from a successful African-American rocket scientist.

And how might this reduce the achievement gap between black and white students? That's easy. Madison (himself an African-American) reasoned that this would get kids more interested in math and science, so he decided to exclude all white students from the field trip.

That's right. He hoped that black scores would go up and white scores would either go down, stay the same, or at least not go up as much. How else do you reduce the gap?

Of course, that's not Madison's stated reason. According to him, "[I]t gave the [black] kids an opportunity to see this type of achievement is possible for even them."

But why forbid white students from attending? If all students had been in attendance, the black students will still have seen a successful black man. Every benefit cited by Madison would have still been valid. The only difference is that white students would have benefited too.

There can be no reason for excluding the white students other than that the principal did not want them to benefit from the field trip.

Assailed by parents, Madison rose to his own defense, saying

The intent of our field trip was not to segregate or exclude students as has been reported, but rather to address the societal issues, roadblocks and challenges that our African American children will face as they pursue a successful academic education here in our community.

And yet he sought to accomplish this intent by segregating and excluding students. He basically said to black students, "You are black, so you get to go." And to white students, "You are white, so you do not get to go."

If you have trouble seeing the blatant racism at play in this scenario, try reversing the races. Imagine a white principal arranging an enrichment activity that he hoped desperately would lead to measurable improvement in achievement scores. Now imagine that white principal arranging the activity for white students only. If it helps you to picture it in the South back in the 1950s-60s, then go ahead. Also, while you're at it, imagine the principal's defenders dressed in white sheets.

Just remember that this crap is happening in Michigan as we speak, and it's promoters wear shirts and ties and vote democrat.

Faustian Politics

Supporters of Obamacare, you have sold your soul. But at what price? Who will save your soul?

Socialism is theft, and more people have been killed directly and indirectly by socialism than by HIV.

And yet no one speaks to the social justice of AIDS.

It's almost possible (but not quite) to forgive the ignorant for their support of the socialistic measures of the Obama administration. However, the educated who know better--including Obama himself--cannot, must not be forgiven. They are the vilest sort who peddle in evil for their own benefit.

They are a blight, nay a curse upon us.

The worst of it is that when the piper comes for his due, it is our children--not the men and women responsible for the debt--who must pay him.

An Ubi Sunt On Obama's Health Care Victory

There comes a point when working within the system to change the system becomes futile, and something more must be done.

Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Washington, et alia knew it.

Thoreau, Brown, Gandhi, and King knew it.

Ubi sunt? Where are they now?

I feel abandoned and alone, like a man lost in the desert searching for water, pleading for rain, but dying in the sand despite my efforts.

None are ignored faster or shunned more vigorously than those who speak even a kernel of the truth. Plato saw it in his Allegory of the Cave. Thoreau observed it in "Civil Disobedience."

The only innocent man since Adam before the Fall--and no less than the Son of God Himself--was nailed to a dogwood cross and left to die amongst thieves.

Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Washington, et alia were pronounced traitors and faced certain death in defeat. It was Franklin who, upon the signing of the Declaration of Independence, said something close to "Now we must hang together, or assuredly we will hang separately."

A man who spoke of peace and justice was murdered at a motel in Memphis.

And yet Jesus, while he wished that the cup might pass him over, stood and accepted his fate for the good that it would bring mankind.

And yet Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams signed the Declaration of Independence; and Washington led a ragtag, underfunded, under-equipped, and under-trained army in opposition to the world's most powerful military.

And yet King, who saw the promised land but knew that he wouldn't get there, marched and spoke out in the heart of Dixie.

They risked all, and some lost all; but they stood for ideals that mattered and did not with them perish.

We have no such men active today. We are not a broken society. A broken society can be repaired.

We are a rotten society, and we have only the rubbish heap for which to look forward.

This health care bill will hopefully be a bridge too far for congress and the executive administration. Let's say enough to the symbolic protests. It's time to up the ante.

Also Untitled

Building upon my earlier post, true reform will commence once people realize that the government is the worst reformer of them all. Its interest is always in the status quo, and it only ventures away from the status quo when doing so enhances its power.

Your real enemy does not have a colored face, speak a strange language, and practice a different religion.

Your real enemy looks like you, talks like you, and says "God bless you," while he does his best to bring Hell upon you.

Untitled

It's not enough for the democrats' health care plans to fail. We must somehow rebuke the entire notion of the state as a caregiver, safety-net, etc. There can be no valid compromise on this issue. The government must get out of where it does not belong.

One fine day, people will look around them and realize that the government belongs nowhere.

Until then, it will remain a mortal foe.

An Anti-Statist Rant

It seems to me that both Republicans and Democrats campaign on promises to cure all that ails society. For this reason, most people vote either Republican or Democrat.

How's that going? I mean, in regards to curing society's ails?

Did the New Deal end the business cycle?

Did the Great Society end poverty?

These were both products of the democratic party's ideology. How did they turn out?

Remember the Contract With America?

What about reductions in the cost and scope of government?

These were what republicans promised. How did they turn out?

I understand if you're still as stubborn as a mule as to suggest that governments can do some good if properly led. I mean, that's what you learned in schools (funded by the government).

But you have no excuse if you stand in line with democrats and republicans. They are liars, and they are thieves. Look only history in the post-Civil War era for proof.

So what's to be done? If the theory of popular sovereignty holds, then it's up to YOU to demand change. If not, then things will get worse and worse until those who finally do force a change will be so desperate that they will bring into existence something actually worse than what proceeded it, as the Russians did when the Tsar abdicated.

Think about it. For the first time in their history, the Russian people had a chance for a representative government (Kerensky's Duma), but they turned instead to to Bolsheviks.

Tsars are bad. There's no getting around that. No man should have absolute power. And yet, when the Tsar was killed, he was replaced by Lenin, and then Lenin was replaced with Stalin...

How many so-called Tsars (usually spelled "Czars") does Obama have? Too many, if he even has one. So we have the choice of abolishing such nonsense or embracing the epitome of statism (as the Russians did).

I am not optimistic about what my neighbors will choose.

In the end, Jefferson was right, and we now have everything that Hamilton wanted--and it is now leading to its natural conclusion.

Do you recall the Constitution and its Bill of Rights?

"When I was a boy..."