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January3rd
Heritage Foundation: Drop Those Independent Thoughts, Citizen
Tom Woods
The Heritage Foundation, as usual, is trying to rein in all non-establishment thinking, which is popping up all over the place these days. Its New Year's Resolutions for Conservatives basically amount to this: if you still have any conservative instincts left, drop them and become a neoconservative already.
Of course you should not consider nullification, since CNN won't like that. The post then proceeds as if I hadn't answered Heritage's arguments on this already here and here or as if people couldn't simply get to my fairly comprehensive "Nullification: Answering the Objections" via Google.
If there's a law you consider unconstitutional and outrageous, why, you should "encourage the repeal of the law or wait and see what mood Justice Anthony Kennedy will be in next June when the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of Obamacare." Well, that sounds like a super strategy. I'm sure it'll be just as successful as everything else conservatives have tried over the past century to limit the federal government.
It's also exactly the opposite of what Thomas Jefferson said to do in such a situation, which may be why Jefferson is The Man Who Wasn't There at Heritage.org.
Then we get the little lecture on "isolationism," the left-wing smear term intended to shut down all discussion of the bipartisan foreign-policy consensus to which the supposedly brave, conventional-wisdom-bucking Heritage Foundation avidly subscribes.
Very interesting that a think-tank as prominent as Heritage, which promotes only the most exquisitely conventional, establishment-friendly thoughts, feels the need to go after these issues in particular. Are people straying from the neocon plantation? Are things spinning out of Heritage's control? Let's hope so.
http://www.tomwoods.com/blog/heritage-foundation-drop-those-independent-thoughts-citizen/
" Jamaat ul-Fuqra, known in the U.S. as "Muslims of America," has purchased or leased hundreds of acres of property – from New York to California – in which the leader, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, boasts of conducting "the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare."-WND
http://www.wnd.com/2012/01/381953/
35 terror training camps now operating inside U.S.
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WASHINGTON – A radical jihadist group responsible for nearly 50 attacks on American soil is operating 35 terrorist training camps across the nation, but the U.S. government refuses to include the organization on the State Department's list of foreign terrorists.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra, known in the U.S. as "Muslims of America," has purchased or leased hundreds of acres of property – from New York to California – in which the leader, Sheikh Mubarak Gilani, boasts of conducting "the most advanced training courses in Islamic military warfare."
In a recruitment video captured from Gilani's "Soldiers of Allah," he states in English: "We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America."
Though Gilani and his organization is suspected of committing assassinations and firebombings inside the U.S., and is also suspected of the beheading murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, the terrorist camps spread through the country continue to expand in numbers and population.
A documentary called "Homegrown Jihad: Terrorist Training Camps Around the U.S." provides compelling evidence of how "Muslims of America" operates with impunity inside the U.S. In the video, producers visited some camps, attempted to visit others and interviewed neighbors and local police officials. It also include excerpts of the "Muslims of America" recruitment video.
The recruitment video shows American converts to Islam being instructed in the operation of AK-47 rifles, rocket launchers and machine guns and C4 explosives. It provides instruction in how to kidnap Americans, kill them and how to conduct sabotage and subversive operations.
Jamaat ul-Fuqra's attacks on American soil range from bombings to murder to plots to blow up U.S. landmarks. A 2006 Department of Justice report states Jamaat ul-Fuqra "has more than 35 suspected communes and more than 3,000 members spread across the United States, all in support of one goal: the purification of Islam through violence." In 2005, the Department of Homeland Security predicted the group would continue to carry out attacks in the U.S.
"Act like you are his friend. Then kill him," says Gilani in the recruitment video, explaining how to handle American "infidels."
Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was attempting to interview Jamaat ul-Fuqra's leader, Gilani, in 2002 when he was kidnapped and later beheaded. One year later, Iyman Faris, member of both Jamaat ul-Fuqra and al-Qaida, pleaded guilty in federal court to a plot to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
Gilani was at one time in Pakistani custody for the abduction of Pearl. Intelligence sources also suggest a link between Jamaat ul Fuqra and Richard Reid, the infamous "shoe bomber" who attempted to ignite explosives aboard a Paris-to-Miami passenger flight Dec. 22, 2001.
"What we are witnessing here is kind of a brand-new form of terrorism," says FBI Special Agent Jody Weis in the documentary. "These home-grown terrorists can prove to be as dangerous as any known group, if not more so,"
As WND reported, a covert visit to a Jamaat ul-Fuqra encampment in upstate New York by the Northeast Intelligence Network found neighboring residents deeply concerned about military-style training taking place there but frustrated by the lack of attention from federal authorities.
"HOMEGROWN JIHAD" Trailer from John Eagle on Vimeo.
Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization, has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat ul-Fuqra. The organization operates communes of primarily black, American-born Muslims throughout the U.S. The investigation confirmed members commonly use aliases and intentional spelling variations of their names and routinely deny the existence of Jamaat ul-Fuqra.
The group openly recruits through various social service organizations in the U.S., including the prison system. Members live in compounds where they agree to abide by the laws of Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which are considered to be above local, state and federal authority.
U.S. authorities have probed the group for charges ranging from links to al-Qaida to laundering and funneling money into Pakistan for terrorist activities. The organization supports various terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and Kashmir, and Gilani himself is linked directly to Hamas and Hezbollah.
Gilani's American headquarters is in Hancock, N.Y., where training is provided to recruits who are later sent to Pakistan for more jihadist paramilitary training, according to law enforcement authorities.
A Justice Department report to law enforcement agencies, prepared in 2006, provides a glimpse into how long Jamaat ul-Fuqra or "Muslims of America" has been operating inside the U.S.: "Over the past two decades, a terrorist group known as Jamaat ul-Fuqra, or 'Community of the Impoverished,' has been linked to multiple murders, bombings and various other felonies throughout the United States and Canada."
Gilani's "communes" are described by law enforcement as "classically structured terrorist cells."
Seven of the compounds have been identified as training facilities: Marion, Alabama; Commerce, Georgia; Macon, Georgia; Talihina, Oklahoma; York County, South Carolina; Dover, Tennessee and Red House, Virginia. Other compounds are located in California, Colorado, Texas, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan and West Virginia.
You are now without excuse: See the terrorist training camps in the U.S. with your own eyes. See excerpts of the recruitment video by "Muslims of America" aka Jamaat ul-Fuqra. See "Homegrown Jihad: Terrorist Training Camps Around the U.S." with your own eyes.
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Eight States Raise Minimum Wage
Posted January 03, 2012
"Low-wage earners have a little more to celebrate this new year, at least in eight states. In those states, 2012 means a higher minimum wage, under laws that peg the wage floor to inflation. The increase makes Washington the first state to set its minimum wage higher than $9 an hour." ( Christian Science Monitor)
Unemployment or a degraded work environment is something to celebrate?
Pursuit of Happiness
Minimum Wage, Maximum Folly
Why Do Economists Support Minimum Wage Increases when They Know Better?
Walter E. Williams
March 2007 • Volume: 57 • Issue: 2 •
The big Associated Press story for last October 11 was that "More than 650 economists, including five winners of the Nobel Prize for economics, called Wednesday for an increase in the minimum wage, saying the value of the last increase, in 1997, has been 'fully eroded.' " Among these economists were Nobel laureates such as Kenneth Arrow of Stanford University, Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Solow of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University, and Clive Granger of the University of California, San Diego, who said that the real value of today's federal minimum wage is less than it has been at any time since 1951.
Their statement went on to say, "We believe that a modest increase in the minimum wage would improve the well-being of low-wage workers and would not have the adverse effects that critics have claimed." Moreover they asserted, "The minimum wage is also an important tool in fighting poverty." These and other assertions amount to what might be seen as examples of economic malpractice.
While there is a debate over the magnitude of the effects, the weight of research by academic scholars points to the conclusion that unemployment for some population groups is directly related to legal minimum wages. The unemployment effects of the minimum-wage law are felt disproportionately by nonwhites. A 1976 survey by the American Economic Association found that 90 percent of its members agreed that increasing the minimum wage raises unemployment among young and unskilled workers. It was followed by another survey, in 1990, which found that 80 percent of economists agreed with the statement that increases in the minimum wage cause unemployment among the youth and low-skilled. Furthermore, whenever one wants to find a broad consensus in almost any science, one should investigate what is said in its introductory and intermediate college textbooks. By this standard, in economics there is broad agreement that the minimum wage causes unemployment among low-skilled workers.
The reasoning for this unemployment effect is quite simple. If Congress got its way, the current minimum wage is $5.85 an hour. The hourly wage is not the only cost of hiring a worker. There are also legally mandated fringe benefits such as employer payments for Social Security, Medicare, unemployment compensation, and worker-compensation programs at federal and state levels. These mandated benefits may run as high as 30 percent of the hourly wage. This makes the minimum hourly cost borne by the employer close to $8 an hour. Put oneself in the place of an employer and ask: Does it make sense for me to hire a worker who is so unfortunate as to have skills enabling him to produce $4 worth of value per hour when he is going to cost me $8 an hour? Most employers would see doing so a losing economic proposition and not hire such a worker. Thus the minimum wage discriminates against the employment of the least-skilled workers. In our society, the least-skilled workers tend to be teenagers, particularly black teenagers.
I am embarrassed that so many members of my profession are willing to argue that the price of something does not affect the quantity taken of it. To use the jargon of our profession, the implication of their argument is that the demand curve for low-skilled labor has zero elasticity. I propose a test. Ask one of the 650 economists for a yes or no answer to the question of whether the demand curve for low-skilled labor has zero elasticity, or for that matter whether any good or service has a zero-elastic demand curve. I am hoping he will say no. But if no is the answer, ask how it can be said that increases in the minimum wage have no effect. He might respond that modest increases in the minimum wage would produce little or no unemployment effect. In other words, the demand curve has zero elasticity for relatively small increases in the minimum wage. Then ask whether he knows that demand curves are more elastic in the long run. That is, while employers might not respond immediately to higher wages, in the long run they will find substitutes such as automation, change production techniques, or relocate to a lower-wage country.
The most ludicrous part of the statement by the 650 economists is "The minimum wage is also an important tool in fighting poverty." This assertion does not even pass the smell test. There are miserably poor people in the Sudan, Bangladesh, Ethiopia , and many other places around the globe. Would any of these economists propose that the solution to world poverty is a high-enough minimum wage? Whether it is Ethiopia or the United States, poverty is not so much a result of being underpaid as being underproductive. Congress can legislate that a worker be paid a certain amount. Congress cannot legislate that a worker be more productive and cannot legislate that a particular employer hire a particular worker.
There is another effect of legally mandated wages that often goes unappreciated. It can be seen in a couple of statements supporting the minimum wage. For example: "There is no job reservation left in the building industry, and in the circumstances I support the rate [minimum wage] for the job as the second best way of protecting our white artisans." "A year later," wrote G. M. E. Leistner and W. J. Breytenbach in The Black Worker of South Africa, "[the same person just quoted] stated that he would be prepared to allow black artisans into the industry provided that minimum wages were raised from Rand 1,40 to at least Rand 2,00 per hour and if the rate-for-the-job [equal pay for equal work] was strictly enforced."
Preferred Tool of Racists
Both statements were made by the secretary of South Africa's avowedly racist Building Workers' Union, Gert Beetge. Why would South Africa's racist unions support minimum wages for blacks? The answer is easy. Mandated wages are one of the most effective means of pricing one's competition out of the market, and historically, mandated wages have been one of the most effective tools in the arsenal of racists everywhere. I am not arguing that those 650 fellow economists of mine have the same intentions as a racist South African union, but the intentions behind a policy may have little or nothing to do with the effects of that policy.
My hypothesis for this otherwise inexplicable behavior is not that my fellow economists are untrained in the effects of minimum wages. My hypothesis is that they know that most workers earn more than the minimum wage. They also know that even the worker earning the minimum wage does not earn it for long. Therefore, increases in the minimum wage will negatively affect only a small portion of the workforce. Moreover, they know that not having a job does not mean starvation, at least not in America. Welfare is a substitute for not being in the job market. Thus supporting the minimum wage might be their attempt to appear compassionate. Seemingly uncompassionate people like me do not make it onto the brie, tofu, and champagne circuit.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-pursuit-of-happiness-minimum-wage-maximum-folly/
January 3, 2012
The trouble with my uncle, Rick Santorum
By John Garver
Published: 2:00 PM 01/03/2012
If you want another big-government politician who supports the status quo to run our country, you should vote for my uncle, Rick Santorum. America is based on a strong belief in individual liberty. My uncle's interventionist policies, both domestic and foreign, stem from his irrational fear of freedom not working.
It is not the government's job to dictate to individuals how they must live. The Constitution was designed to protect individual liberty. My Uncle Rick cannot fathom a society in which people cooperate and work with each other freely. When Republicans were spending so much money under President Bush, my uncle was right there along with them as a senator. The reason we have so much debt is not only because of Democrats, but also because of big- spending Republicans like my Uncle Rick.
It is because of this inability of status quo politicians to recognize the importance of our individual liberties that I have been drawn to Ron Paul. Unlike my uncle, he does not believe that the American people are incapable of forming decisions. He believes that an individual is more powerful than any group (a notion our founding fathers also believed in).
Another important reason I support Ron Paul is his position on foreign policy. He is the only candidate willing to bring our troops home, not only from the Middle East, but from around the world.
Ron Paul seems to be the only candidate trying to win the election for a reason other than simply winning the election.
This year, I'll vote for an honest change in our government. I'll vote for real hope. I'll vote for a real leader. This year, I will vote for Ron Paul.
John Garver is a 19-year-old student at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. John is a strong supporter of Ron Paul despite his love for family member Rick Santorum.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/01/03/the-trouble-with-my-uncle-rick-santorum/#ixzz1iS75ZGDF
"Philosophically, both liberals and conservatives believe it is a legitimate role of government to take money from people through the taxing process and dole it out to other people. That's the essence of socialism. "
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Statist Attacks on Ron Paul
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The most fascinating aspect of Ron Paul's presidential campaign is how it is revealing the real nature of the battle facing our country. It is not a battle between left and right, as we have all been taught, but rather between libertarianism and statism.
From the first grade on up, we've all been inculcated with the notion that there are fundamental philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives. As they're growing up, people go through all sorts of contortions deciding whether to be a liberal or a conservative and just assume that they are diametrically opposed to each other.
Or course, the mainstream press plays into this charade. When a liberal marries a conservative, the media exclaims, "Oh, my gosh, they're going to be arguing with each other all the time."
But as we are now seeing with the attacks on Ron Paul, there is no fundamental disagreement between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. The attacks that conservatives are making on Ron Paul are ones that could be wholeheartedly embraced by liberals, and vice versa.
Ron Paul's campaign is exposing a decades-long charade. Or to be more precise, his libertarian positions are showing the American people the statism to which both conservatives and liberals have become committed over the decades.
The fact is that conservatives and liberals have become the premier exponents of statism in America. Sure, there are variations among them, especially with their multitudinous reform plans. But at the core, they are fundamentally in agreement with each other.
Philosophically, both liberals and conservatives believe it is a legitimate role of government to take money from people through the taxing process and dole it out to other people. That's the essence of socialism.
Thus, when conservatives love to call President Obama a socialist, they also want to play the pretend game, pretending that they, on the other hand, are "free enterprise."
Oh?
If that's the case, then why do conservatives ardently support such socialist programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education grants, corporate bailouts, and foreign aid to dictators? Sure, they might call for repealing Obamacare, but have you ever heard them call for ending Medicare and Medicaid?
It's because conservatives are socialists, just like Obama is. They have been for decades.
Conservatives have just been living the life of the lie, repeating ad infinitum, ad nauseam their favorite mantra, "free enterprise, private property, and limited government." They've been pretending, to their children, to liberals, and to themselves, that they oppose socialism and favor free enterprise, even while supporting the fundamental precepts of the welfare state, which is founded on socialist principles.
By and large, they've gotten away with it. But along came libertarians, who exposed the life of the lie that conservatives were living by opposing all those socialist programs, including Social Security. That scared the dickens out of conservatives. Those darned libertarians were really and truly committed to the principles of free markets, private property, and limited government. And they were calling out conservatives for their support of statism. How dare them?
What to do? One strategy was to ignore the libertarians. Another was to block them from the political process with ballot barriers, such as petitioning requirements and campaign contribution limits. Another was to marginalize them by referring to them as fringe.
But as the old adage holds, truth will out. For the past several decades, libertarians just keep advancing libertarian principles and opposing the statism of both conservatives and liberals. We just kept speaking our truth and spreading the word.
Consider the drug war, a war that has long been embraced by both conservatives and liberals. Not surprisingly, they're now both attacking Ron Paul and libertarians for wanting to end this immoral, failed, and destructive war.
How do conservatives reconcile their support of the drug war with their purported support of "free enterprise, private property, and limited government" and their purported opposition to paternalism? They can't, and they know it. Under genuine principles of freedom and free markets, people have the right to ingest any substance they want and to buy, sell, and possess anything they want.
How do conservatives justify their support of the drug war? In the same way that liberals justify their failed, decades-old war on poverty by exclaiming, "Please judge us by our good intentions, not by the actual consequences of our policies."
Look at liberals. They say they oppose racism and favor civil liberties. How do they reconcile that position with their decades-long support of the drug war? They can't, and they know it. The drug war is most racist government program since segregation, and it has provided the excuse for the most massive infringement on civil liberties, until the war on terrorism came along, another war embraced by both liberals and conservatives.
Look at foreign policy. Both liberals and conservatives now embrace the role of the U.S. government as a worldwide military empire and the concept of foreign interventionism. They're both furious that people are gravitating to a libertarian political campaign, one that opposes wars of aggression, undeclared wars, invasions, occupations, sanctions, embargoes, assassination, torture, military detention, indefinite detention, kangaroo tribunals, and all the other things that are normally associated with totalitarian regimes.
Consider the monetary system. Both liberals and conservatives remain deeply committed to a system based on irredeemable paper money and a Federal Reserve System that is nothing more than a system of socialist central planning in the monetary sphere. It is only libertarians who advocate sound money and a free-market monetary system. That scares statists to death, especially given that would mean the end of out-of-control federal spending, debt, and inflation.
Ron Paul's campaign is showing what we libertarians have said for years: There isn't a dime's worth of difference between liberals and conservatives. They are both statist to the core. They are statist when it comes to foreign policy. They are statist when it comes to domestic policy.
The battle between liberals and conservatives is over control. Who is going to get to control the levers of power of the welfare-warfare state? Who's going to get the appointments? Who's going to get the money?
The reason that libertarians are such a threat to these people is that we're committed to dismantling the welfare-warfare state that they fighting to control.
The good news is that a growing number of Americans are obviously discovering the truth. You see genuine liberals gravitating to Paul's campaign because they place a high value on civil liberties and a foreign policy based on trade, friendship, and diplomacy rather than one based on militarism, empire, and interventionism. Some of them are even discovering that liberalism was once based on the principles of free enterprise rather than the principles of socialism.
By the same token, you see conservatives gravitating to Paul's campaign because they place a high value on economic liberty rather than on socialism. Some of them are even discovering that conservatism was once based on a foreign policy of trade, friendship, and diplomacy rather than one based on militarism, empire, and interventionism.
And you also see independent-minded voters gravitating toward libertarianism, people who are discovering that America's woes are rooted in statism and that the solution lies in libertarianism in freedom, free markets, and a limited-government constitutional republic.
The Ron Paul phenomenon obviously has statists scared to death. "We can't afford to ignore the libertarians any longer. We're losing too many people from the statist cause," they're thinking to themselves. "We've got to go on the attack, at once."
And their attacks, in principle, are the same, whether written by a liberal or a conservative. At their core, they constitute a fundamental defense of statism and a desperate attack on freedom.
What's exciting is that as the attacks on Ron Paul increase, more and more people are discovering and becoming attracted to libertarianism.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-01-03.asp
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Statist Attacks on Ron Paul
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The most fascinating aspect of Ron Paul's presidential campaign is how it is revealing the real nature of the battle facing our country. It is not a battle between left and right, as we have all been taught, but rather between libertarianism and statism.
From the first grade on up, we've all been inculcated with the notion that there are fundamental philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives. As they're growing up, people go through all sorts of contortions deciding whether to be a liberal or a conservative and just assume that they are diametrically opposed to each other.
Or course, the mainstream press plays into this charade. When a liberal marries a conservative, the media exclaims, "Oh, my gosh, they're going to be arguing with each other all the time."
But as we are now seeing with the attacks on Ron Paul, there is no fundamental disagreement between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. The attacks that conservatives are making on Ron Paul are ones that could be wholeheartedly embraced by liberals, and vice versa.
Ron Paul's campaign is exposing a decades-long charade. Or to be more precise, his libertarian positions are showing the American people the statism to which both conservatives and liberals have become committed over the decades.
The fact is that conservatives and liberals have become the premier exponents of statism in America. Sure, there are variations among them, especially with their multitudinous reform plans. But at the core, they are fundamentally in agreement with each other.
Philosophically, both liberals and conservatives believe it is a legitimate role of government to take money from people through the taxing process and dole it out to other people. That's the essence of socialism.
Thus, when conservatives love to call President Obama a socialist, they also want to play the pretend game, pretending that they, on the other hand, are "free enterprise."
Oh?
If that's the case, then why do conservatives ardently support such socialist programs as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education grants, corporate bailouts, and foreign aid to dictators? Sure, they might call for repealing Obamacare, but have you ever heard them call for ending Medicare and Medicaid?
It's because conservatives are socialists, just like Obama is. They have been for decades.
Conservatives have just been living the life of the lie, repeating ad infinitum, ad nauseam their favorite mantra, "free enterprise, private property, and limited government." They've been pretending, to their children, to liberals, and to themselves, that they oppose socialism and favor free enterprise, even while supporting the fundamental precepts of the welfare state, which is founded on socialist principles.
By and large, they've gotten away with it. But along came libertarians, who exposed the life of the lie that conservatives were living by opposing all those socialist programs, including Social Security. That scared the dickens out of conservatives. Those darned libertarians were really and truly committed to the principles of free markets, private property, and limited government. And they were calling out conservatives for their support of statism. How dare them?
What to do? One strategy was to ignore the libertarians. Another was to block them from the political process with ballot barriers, such as petitioning requirements and campaign contribution limits. Another was to marginalize them by referring to them as fringe.
But as the old adage holds, truth will out. For the past several decades, libertarians just keep advancing libertarian principles and opposing the statism of both conservatives and liberals. We just kept speaking our truth and spreading the word.
Consider the drug war, a war that has long been embraced by both conservatives and liberals. Not surprisingly, they're now both attacking Ron Paul and libertarians for wanting to end this immoral, failed, and destructive war.
How do conservatives reconcile their support of the drug war with their purported support of "free enterprise, private property, and limited government" and their purported opposition to paternalism? They can't, and they know it. Under genuine principles of freedom and free markets, people have the right to ingest any substance they want and to buy, sell, and possess anything they want.
How do conservatives justify their support of the drug war? In the same way that liberals justify their failed, decades-old war on poverty by exclaiming, "Please judge us by our good intentions, not by the actual consequences of our policies."
Look at liberals. They say they oppose racism and favor civil liberties. How do they reconcile that position with their decades-long support of the drug war? They can't, and they know it. The drug war is most racist government program since segregation, and it has provided the excuse for the most massive infringement on civil liberties, until the war on terrorism came along, another war embraced by both liberals and conservatives.
Look at foreign policy. Both liberals and conservatives now embrace the role of the U.S. government as a worldwide military empire and the concept of foreign interventionism. They're both furious that people are gravitating to a libertarian political campaign, one that opposes wars of aggression, undeclared wars, invasions, occupations, sanctions, embargoes, assassination, torture, military detention, indefinite detention, kangaroo tribunals, and all the other things that are normally associated with totalitarian regimes.
Consider the monetary system. Both liberals and conservatives remain deeply committed to a system based on irredeemable paper money and a Federal Reserve System that is nothing more than a system of socialist central planning in the monetary sphere. It is only libertarians who advocate sound money and a free-market monetary system. That scares statists to death, especially given that would mean the end of out-of-control federal spending, debt, and inflation.
Ron Paul's campaign is showing what we libertarians have said for years: There isn't a dime's worth of difference between liberals and conservatives. They are both statist to the core. They are statist when it comes to foreign policy. They are statist when it comes to domestic policy.
The battle between liberals and conservatives is over control. Who is going to get to control the levers of power of the welfare-warfare state? Who's going to get the appointments? Who's going to get the money?
The reason that libertarians are such a threat to these people is that we're committed to dismantling the welfare-warfare state that they fighting to control.
The good news is that a growing number of Americans are obviously discovering the truth. You see genuine liberals gravitating to Paul's campaign because they place a high value on civil liberties and a foreign policy based on trade, friendship, and diplomacy rather than one based on militarism, empire, and interventionism. Some of them are even discovering that liberalism was once based on the principles of free enterprise rather than the principles of socialism.
By the same token, you see conservatives gravitating to Paul's campaign because they place a high value on economic liberty rather than on socialism. Some of them are even discovering that conservatism was once based on a foreign policy of trade, friendship, and diplomacy rather than one based on militarism, empire, and interventionism.
And you also see independent-minded voters gravitating toward libertarianism, people who are discovering that America's woes are rooted in statism and that the solution lies in libertarianism in freedom, free markets, and a limited-government constitutional republic.
The Ron Paul phenomenon obviously has statists scared to death. "We can't afford to ignore the libertarians any longer. We're losing too many people from the statist cause," they're thinking to themselves. "We've got to go on the attack, at once."
And their attacks, in principle, are the same, whether written by a liberal or a conservative. At their core, they constitute a fundamental defense of statism and a desperate attack on freedom.
What's exciting is that as the attacks on Ron Paul increase, more and more people are discovering and becoming attracted to libertarianism.
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-01-03.asp
January 03, 2012
Cutting Troops in a Time of War?
In a recent conversation about the pending cuts to the number of Active Duty Troops, a reader asked, "but with the end of the War in Iraq, aren't these 'overflow' Soldiers unnecessary?" (I'm paraphrasing.) The base of the discussion is that the current Administration is cutting 49,000 Soldiers from the Active duty Army. The question is whether this is a responsible thing to do, while we continue our War in Afghanistan, or if the end of the War in Iraq, and the Administration's plan to "end" the War in Afghanistan means that these Troops are no longer needed and hence can be thrown into the unemployment lines.
Some would argue that these aren't wars at all, that the Administration calls them "Overseas Contingency Operations," but to the Troops on the Ground, getting shot at, political correctness does not translate into a change of reality. Nevertheless, we've been at war for 10 years, and one would think that we've increased the size of Our Military since the attacks of 9/11/01. And we did, by a little bit, sorta, but most of the increase in Troops serving every day of the week has been by activating units and members of the National Guard and Reserves. Other shortfalls in manning were filled by sending in Air Force or Navy Troops to back-fill the Army and Marines, in ground operations, in places that Navy and Air Force personnel wouldn't normally be assigned.
Why did that happen? Well, initially, the Bush Administration did not believe that we would need a long term presence in either Iraq or Afghanistan. The original plan was to get in, defeat the enemy, and get out, leaving the two Nations with a new government, elected by the people, to figure out their own role in the world. It was part of his political platform to avoid "Nation Building," that his predecessor was known for in places like Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, and Somalia. By the time the Administration came around to the realization that without the stability of an effective government, the countries would fall into civil war, that decades of oppression had left these two Nations with a lack of leaders that understood effective government, the political climate in the US had changed from unilateral support following 9/11, to bitter partisan bickering. There was no political will to add Troops to the Military.
The National Guard and Reserves were designed as a force to be ready to step up in the short term to balance a smaller Active Duty force. During World War II, there were "National Guard" Troops who served their entire enlistments on Active Duty, but there was also a draft to fill every set of boots the factories could produce. Post-9/11 the National Guard and Reserves were put into regular rotation, sometimes back-filling US missions in Bosnia or Kosovo or the Sinai normally filled by Active Duty Troops, so those Troops could be assigned combat duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. And sometimes being ordered to the Combat Zones themselves. The Reserve forces proved themselves, even when placed in command of Active Duty Troops.
Though politicians on the left side of the aisle said the Troops were stretched too thin to support the Petraeus Plan in Iraq in 2007, i.e. "The Surge," the President did not request and Congress did not approve significantly more billets to the Active Duty rolls. Nevertheless, by this point in the Wars, it was clear to everyone that it wasn't going to be a short war, though none were actually saying that out loud. The Military was still smaller than it was when Clinton was inaugurated, in peacetime. It was still based on Clinton's policy of a fighting a 1+1 war, i.e. that if the United States found itself in two wars, it could fight and win one, and not lose the other one, until the forces of the first were applied to it, to win it.
When America found itself in two wars, it should have added Troops to the Army and Marines. Had this been a Naval War, that would have added a new component, but Iraq has only a little coast, and Afghanistan has none. Aside from aircraft carrier based aviation, there was little role for the Navy. And due to Air Superiority, the Air Force's role was primarily transportation and Ground Attack/Ground Forces Support. These wars were primarily an Army Mission, which the Marines also did well. It was Ground Combat.
So, when new billets were added to the Army and Marines, they were taken away from the Air Force and Navy. In fact, despite the additions to the Army and Marines, and Coast Guard post 9/11, the total size of the Military had still shrunk from 2005 to 2007. (See table 1.06, DoD below)
But the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars were also two very different wars. The Taliban government in Afghanistan was defeated quickly by Special Operations, supported by Air Force Bombers, whereas the Ba'athist government of Saddam's Iraq was defeated by Conventional Forces, Tank Divisions, and Infantry, supported by Air Force Bombers and Fighters. Afghanistan could not have been more perfect for an Unconventional (Special Operations) War. The Iraq War included more Special Operations Warriors than did the Afghanistan War, but it was a Conventional War, with SF and SeALs working special missions, rather than as the main force.
The aspect of Nation Building was so far out of the mix, that the manual had to be re-written, before it could be implemented. In fact the concept of Counter-Insurgency or COIN goes so far beyond Nation Building, that it has to be considered a component of it. Bush avoided the term itself though, because he had campaigned against it. General Petraeus' new manual incorporated the realities on the ground, including those currently being proven by other Commanders of various levels of command. COIN was developed as a total package, recognizing the need to secure villages, with locals that had a stake in it, to develop local economies, and teach good governance to leaders, as well as literacy to their kids. It drew on the abilities of Soldiers, as well as the few civilians willing to risk a combat zone to make a difference.
As of 30 Sep 2009, The Army had 44,000 Troops in support of Afghanistan and 111,000 in support of Iraq, including Reserves and National Guard, and including those stationed in places like Kuwait and Qatar. Nearly 1/4th of the Navy was at sea, leaving 230,000 to repair and prepare their ships, and train to be or advance as Sailors. The Marines had sent 6,581 along with them, around the world. They had sent 11,700 to Iraq and 10,700 to Afghanistan.
We still had 52,658 Troops stationed in Germany, 9,199 in the UK, and 35,965 in Japan. The number stationed in South Korea was not available, though the Korea War is officially not over, and today tensions are high. Another 126,979 were "undistributed" meaning that DoD wasn't going to tell the enemy (and hence us) exactly where they were, whether out of sensitivity for the host country politics (think Pakistan), or specific dangers of the enemy (think North Korea) in targeting them.
In 1990, we had 250,000 Troops in Germany alone. In 2009, we had 262,793 Troops stationed abroad (minus those accounted for in Combat Zones). Worldwide, we had 1,418,542 Active Duty Troops
But we had shrunk the authorized strength of the Guard and Reserve Forces as well, from 1.17 Million in 1990 to 873,207 in 2000, and further to 836,256 in 2007. Deploying every few years had taken a toll on them. Since some units had been unable to recruit sufficient numbers, they had reduced the number of units, and hence the slots. In 2009, the Obama Administration ordered another 20,000 Soldiers removed from the National Guard alone.
As we move forward, we have a smaller force, both Active Duty and Reserves than we did on 9/11/01, much smaller, even before the Obama cuts. So no, we should not be cutting 49,000 Soldiers from the Active Duty military, but particularly not after having already cut 20,000 from the Army National Guard in 2009. Though we may have 50,000 fewer Troops deployed to Iraq than we did in August 2010, we still have 100,000 more deployed to Afghanistan than we did in 2001, and missions to places like South Korea, the Philippines, and the Sinai Peninsula remain, or have increased since 2001, as have counter-Piracy missions, and the African Command was not even a part of the mission until post 9/11.
If the Military were "big enough," we wouldn't have had 87,525 Guard and Reserve Troops on Active Duty as of 27 Dec 2011.
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January 2, 2012, - 3:54 pm
HUH? Obama Pays $5 Milln Plus to Imams Who Praise Killing US Soldiers in Afghanistan
How do you fight extremists on behalf of America? You fund them to spread the extremism and forget about the America part. At least that's the Obama way. And it continues. Yes, it's the new year on the calendar, but the behavior is same ol', same ol' with Barack Hussein Obama and his crew of dhimmis. Millions of your tax dollars are being spent in Pakistan to try to "unteach" extremism and turn people against jihad (by funding people who actually teach jihad – YAY!).
Huh??? Obama's "Moderate" Imams Get $5 Million Plus to Say Jihad Against US Soldiers in Afghanistan Justified
What these dummies clearly don't understand is that to do that, you need them to leave Islam, which preaches all these things–the extremism and jihad which are part and parcel of Islam–and at its heart–and cannot be separated out from it. And while the authorities at the State Department wasting your money on these silly DVDs know this, they won't dare admit that because that would admit that the problem is Islam, stupid.
Oh, and I almost forgot the BEST part! The money is going to "moderate" Muslim clerics to teach their people that jihad against American soldiers in Afghanistan is A-OK! This is brilliant. Obama's U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan said so.
Sultan Mehmood Gujar was a solid supporter of Islamist militants fighting in Pakistan, Afghanistan and India and even donated money to them, until he attended an innovative 40-day lecture series by a moderate cleric aimed at countering violent extremism.
The course, given to the public at an Islamic school in a hotbed of militancy in Pakistan, had a profound effect on the 46-year-old property dealer, convincing him the militants were wrong to claim they were waging holy war, or jihad, justified by the Quran, the religion's holy book.
"I was shocked to discover that what the militants were doing was against Islam," said Gujar, sitting on the floor at the madrasa in Okara city where the lectures were delivered. "Now I call them terrorists, not jihadis."
PUH-LEEZE. Does anyone believe that this jihadist didn't know what his religious leaders and their muhajideen were doing? And, suddenly, a lightbulb went on because of a magical lecture series paid for by the United States? If that's how it happened, he's either an incredible dummy and naif, or a complete anomaly. These people who support this crap know exactly who they are supporting and that it's their religious duty. Anyone who says otherwise is lying to them about Islam. Oh, and this "moderate cleric"–I wonder if he'll openly condemn Hezbollah and HAMAS and the Taliban. Don't bet on it. Thus, he's only "moderate" insofar as the "moderate" Muslims are the ones who cheer on the Muslims who actually perpetrate the terrorism. But read on, because he's not exactly being taught that jihad isn't okay. In fact, courtesy of U.S. tax dollars, he's being taught that jihad against American soldiers in Afghanistan is a great thing!
Fazal ur Rehman, the cleric who runs the 400-student madrasa, recorded each of the 2-hour lectures he and others gave this past summer and would like to distribute the DVDs to reach a wider audience. But he lacks the money.
The U.S. has created a new unit in Pakistan that aims to leverage such grassroots efforts by working with local moderates to counter violent extremism — the first of its kind set up by an American embassy anywhere in the world, according to U.S. officials here. The existence of the unit has never before been reported.
Yup, your tax dollars are probably going to fund yet more HAMAS/Hezbollah-supporting cretins, who will change very little of anything. Again, the problem with Islam is . . . Islam. It's not that someone is misunderstanding the "real" Islam. It's that they DO understand and follow the real Islam.
Rehman and other clerics attempting to challenge extremism in Pakistan recently met with U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter in Islamabad, though the 50-year-old Rehman says he has not yet received support from the Americans.
Oh, don't you worry. They'll get it very, very soon. Anything to support this BS that Islam was hijacked by terrorists rather than the reality, which is that terrorists were hijacked by Islam.
The U.S. chose Pakistan as the site for its new venture because it is home to a vast network of Islamist militants who have been fighting U.S.-led troops in neighboring Afghanistan for over a decade and have even organized attacks on American soil.
The three-person unit in the U.S. Embassy public affairs section was established in July. It plans to work with local partners, including moderate religious leaders, to project their counter-extremist messages and push back against the militants' extensive propaganda machine, said U.S. officials.
It will use TV shows, documentaries, radio programs and posters. It also intends to ramp up exchange programs for religious leaders and public outreach to conservative Muslims who previously had little contact with American officials.
Oh, please. We've tried this a gazillion times before, always with abject failure. We've done Paki Sesame Street. We've done Al-Hurra and Radio Sawa. We've done the giving out candy and building roads BS. Has any of that stopped a single jihadist from blowing up U.S. troops or setting fire to Mumbai hotels and killing Jews at the Chabad House? This won't work, either. Again, the problem is not "extremist" Islam or this BS concept of "Islamists." The prob is Islam, stupid.
"There are a lot of courageous voices speaking out against extremism here in Pakistan," said Tom Miller, head of public affairs at the U.S. Embassy. "Our job is to find out how we can amplify those narratives."
Hilarious. The "courageous" voices are the ones who say, "Ahmed, don't let your son, Omar, set the bomb off. He has such a bright future. He should get an education and become a doctor so he can fund Faisal down the street and his whole contingent and send them all to 72 revirginized in paradise."
The unit is just now ramping up operations, said officials. It was funded with an initial budget of $5 million that officials hope will grow. Officials declined to provide details on specific programs they are funding or plan to fund, for fear that publicly acknowledging U.S. involvement would discredit their partners.
Um, it'll be a lot more than $5 million. How much you wanna bet that a good chunk of that will end up financing terrorists and their clerics?
Also, the militants are likely to strike back, as indicated by a recent trip the U.S. ambassador made to a madrasa in Faisalabad city to attend a meeting of moderate religious leaders who denounced suicide bombings and other forms of violence.
Militants responded the next day by calling the Muslim cleric who hosted the event, Yasin Zafar, and warning he could be killed. The call was from a member of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, widely believed to be a front group for Lashkar-e-Taiba, an anti-India militant organization, said Zafar.
"I was taunted for becoming a U.S. supporter," said Zafar. "I was told that I should be cautious because I may have provoked the Taliban."
Are we providing 24-hour security and bodyguards for these people as their whole towns come after them like the jihadist mobs that they are? If not, then fuhgedaboudit. Oh, and he's not so much of a "U.S. supporter, " as you'll see below. Unless, the SS were U.S.-supporters, too.
The ambassador's visit to the 900-student Jaamia Salafia was unusual because the madrasa teaches a puritanical strain of Islam followed by some Pakistani militant organizations, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, although Zafar said he does not support the group.
Ah, so his school teaches the most extreme strains of Islam in common with LeT, and yet he's our "moderate" Muslim. Yup, just as I said. Not so moderate at all. No surprise because, um, Jaamia Salafia (which means "comprehensive puritanical Islam"), the very name of the school, says it's a salafist, extremist place. Hellooooo…? That might have been a slight hint, but not to brain-cell-challenged Obamaniks. And just terrif that our U.S. Ambassador pays an official visit to honor this extremist Western-hating dogma. Hey, maybe he should visit a Klan meeting (or Ron Paul campaign headquarters, same thing) so that we can honor "moderate" Klansman David Duke, too.
The meeting's participants railed against American drone strikes, which are very unpopular in Pakistan, said Zafar.
Wow, sounds like this "moderate Muslim" pro-America stuff is a HUUUUGE success! And here's the MONEY QUOTE:
Islamic clerics who have met with the U.S. ambassador recently expressed hope they could steer Pakistanis away from militancy by explaining when holy war is justified. . . .
Zafar, the cleric who hosted the ambassador, said the insurgencies inside Pakistan and in the Indian-ruled part of Kashmir were unjustified. But he backs the Taliban's fight against U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, a common sentiment inside Pakistan.
"Afghanistan was invaded, and the Taliban are waging jihad to protect their homeland, their freedom and their rights, so I recognize that as jihad," said Zafar.
(Emphasis added.) Frickin' hilarious. We're funding this guy who says it's okay for the Taliban to blow up U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan while they are building roads for these ingrates' fellow co-religionists there. Oh, and by the way, ya know when else holy war is justified? Whenever and wherever we find those evil Jews! Yes, this is where you taxes are going.
Happy New Year, suckers!
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The Greatness of Ron Paul
By introducing moral imagination to the foreign-policy conversation, the Republican candidate is doing the nation an important service.
By Robert Wright
Jan 3 2012, 5:59 PM ET
A dispute has broken out among fans of Ron Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy about whether he's a strategic liability. Paul, says Kevin Drum, is such a "toxic, far-right, crackpot messenger" that "the only thing he's accomplishing is to make non-interventionism even more of a fringe view in American politics than it already is."
It's certainly true that Paul's hawkish critics are using his weirder ideas and checkered past to try and make non-interventionism synonymous with creepiness. But, whatever their success, Paul is making one contribution to the foreign policy debate that could have enduring value.
It doesn't lie in the substance of his foreign policy views (which I'm largely but not wholly in sympathy with) but in the way he explains them. Paul routinely performs a simple thought experiment: He tries to imagine how the world looks to people other than Americans.
This is such a radical departure from the prevailing American mindset that some of Paul's critics see it as more evidence of his weirdness. A video montage meant to discredit him shows him taking the perspective of Iran. After observing that Israel and America and China have nukes, he asks about Iranians, "Why wouldn't it be natural that they'd want a weapon? Internationally they'd be given more respect."
Can somebody explain to me why this is such a crazy conjecture about Iranian motivation? Wouldn't it be reasonable for Iranian leaders, having seen what happened to nukeless Saddam Hussein and nukeless Muammar Qaddafi, to conclude that maybe having a nuclear weapon would get them more respectful treatment?
Paul's error is clear: He's departed from approved Republican-presidential-candidate talking points, according to which the only explanation for an Iranian nuclear program is a desire to destroy Israel. (Even Jon Huntsman, supposedly one of the more sensible Republicans on foreign policy, seems to be a slave to the talking points: It's the Huntsman campaign that created the video montage in question!)
A favorite Paul pedagogical device is to analogize foreign situations to American ones. A campaign ad promoted by a Paul-supporting super PAC begins by asking us to imagine Russian or Chinese troops in Texas. The point is that this is how our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan look to locals.
I've long thought that the biggest single problem in the world is the failure of "moral imagination"--the inability or unwillingness of people to see things from the perspective of people in circumstances different from their own. Especially incendiary is the failure to extend moral imagination across national, religious, or ethnic borders.
If a lack of moral imagination is indeed the core problem with America's foreign policy, and Ron Paul is unique among presidential candidates in trying to fight it, I think you have to say he's doing something great, notwithstanding the many non-great and opposite-of-great things about him (and notwithstanding the fact that he has in the past failed to extend moral imagination across all possible borders).
Paul's hawkish detractors may succeed in using him to taint a non-interventionist foreign policy. Even so, if in the meanwhile Paul gets enough people exercising their moral imaginations, maybe doves will get the last laugh.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/01/the-greatness-of-ron-paul/250827/
Fearing the Constitution's return, the Washington Post launches a panicky, sophomoric attack on Dr. Paul
By mike | Published: January 3, 2012
Living in Northern Virginia a person gets use to the Washington Post's clear preference for an all-powerful federal government that ignores the Constitution. In terms of presidential candidates, this means the Post will support candidates who cover the maintain-the-status-quo political spectrum from the Democrats' far left to reliably liberal country-club Republicans, like George H. W. Bush and that former-president's unelectable clone Mit Romney. The Post has, for example, savaged Speaker Gingrich at every turn in his campaign. More recently, however, the Post has turned its fire on Dr. Ron Paul, running a negative front-page story on Sunday (1 January 2011) and an amazingly hysterical and panicky column by Michael Gerson Monday morning (2 January 2011). The Post's editors cannot stand the thought of a president who will not keep the power and spending of the federal government growing, and so has decided that Speaker Gingrich and Dr. Paul must be destroyed because they are the enemies of what the Post defines as the "American way," centralized federal power, relentless interventionism, constant wars, and bankruptcy.
Speaker Gingrich has defenders in the mainstream media, but few defend Dr. Paul, despite his growing grass-roots support across the country, and so I thought I would give it a shot. The New Year's Day article in the Post mentioned above can be countered by the derisive laughter it deserves. The article criticized Dr. Paul because his message was not colored by the "American optimism" used by other Republican candidates and President Obama. Apparently the august editors of the Post want to return to the "don't worry, be happy" attitude that helped to get America into the disastrous situation its faces today. At base, the Post's critique of Dr. Paul's campaign rhetoric is not that it is negative, but rather that is true.
Is Dr. Paul wrong about coming U.S. bankruptcy; the looming possibility of a second, deeper recession; the madness of the federal government campaigning for secular democracy across the Muslim world and thereby empowering Islamists; the Treasury pumping billions of wasted dollars into the already dead-on-its-feet Euro Zone; the corruption of the Congress and the U.S. electoral process by foreign lobbies and deep-pocketed campaign contributors; the expanding readiness of both parties to limit rights guaranteed by the 1st and 2nd Amendments; the inability of the U.S. military to win wars by destroying America's enemies; court decisions that prevent state governments from defending their citizens, even though the federal government has abdicated that role; a bipartisan ruling elite that has involved Americans in numerous wars in which no U.S. interest is at stake; a Congress that has for 40 years failed to move the country toward energy self-sufficiency because it is owned by oil companies, foreign governments, and is scared to death of environmental fanatics, etc. etc. etc.?
Of course not. Dr. Paul is right on all these counts. His serious, worried, and warning demeanor is absolutely appropriate to the disaster the Democrats and most Republicans have wrought, but want to hide and smile about until the presidential election. Smiles and foolish optimism are hardly the correct response to important debates in a republic that is not far from its death throes. A photograph of most of the Republican candidates and Obama and his lieutenants would merit the caption: "Be optimistic and keep smiling, America's enemies love idiots."
Monday's Post OpEd by Michael Gerson is entitled "Ron Paul's Poison Pill" and it is a juvenile and panic-stricken performance by a major voice of country-club Republicanism. Apparently sensing that Dr. Paul's concerns and manifestly appropriate worries about America's future are shared by an increasing number of American voters especially young voters Mr. Gerson shriekingly paints Dr. Paul as a racist and a devotee of Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy; an abettor of the Holocaust and so implicitly an anti-Semite; an isolationist who sins by wanting to protect America first, last, and always; a bigot ready to reverse the Civil Rights Act; and a blame-America-firster. Mr. Gerson's essay reminds one of a high-school sophomore's vitriolic, first-try at journalism that slips past the teacher who serves as the editor of the school's paper.
And why does Dr. Paul merit these calumnies? Because Mr. Gerson and the Republican establishment he speaks for do not want to debate the dire problems America faces at home and abroad because such a debate would show there is not a nickel's worth of difference between most Republicans and Obama's Democrats, and that both parties are equally responsible for the near in-extremis condition of America's economy, finances, and foreign policy.
Mr. Gerson's OpEd makes it clear that most Republicans, like most Democrats, regard any resistance to more unnecessary bipartisan wars and endless and war-causing democracy-mongering interventionism as "isolationism"; opposition to unlimited federal government power as racist and neo-Confederate; support for fiscal responsibility to avoid national bankruptcy as a "lack of compassion"; and any questioning of the bipartisan elite's definition of reality as it has been shaped and inculcated for several generations by the federal government's Department of Education and their ill-educated operatives in the teacher's unions as an antediluvian response by a man who refuses to see that that the federal government knows what is best for him better than he does. In essence, Mr. Gerson, on behalf of both parties, is telling Dr. Paul, his supporters, and all voters to shut up, go home, watch TV, and let the bipartisan political elite decide what is best for all Americans and their country. The proper response to this outrageous and anti-American arrogance is to suggest that Mr. Gerson and the elitists for whom he speaks should be collectively sent to hell.
Let me close by noting that I while I support Dr. Paul in the areas of foreign policy, fiscal conservatism, and a return to constitutionalism, I am a traditional conservative and not a libertarian. I cringe at, rebel against, and am willing to denounce many Libertarian views of events in American history, views which I regard as ahistorical, unrealistic, and, at times, just silly. I particularly oppose the Libertarian's view of Abraham Lincoln. But their view of Lincoln is precisely that: their view. And they are perfectly entitled to it.
Those of us who are not Libertarians and yet support Dr. Paul and those numbers are rising might best explain our support and affection for him by quoting the Libertarians' favorite bete noire. "Many free countries have lost their liberty and ours may lose hers," Abraham Lincoln once said, "but if she shall, be it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to desert her, but that I never deserted her." Of the many things one can say about Dr. Paul, the one that cannot be contested is that he never deserted America and its constitution as have so many of his peers for office, power, and wealth. He can wear that plume with pride and the thanks of all Americans.
http://non-intervention.com/1021/fearing-the-constitutions-return-the-washington-post-launches-a-panicky-sophomoric-attack-on-dr-paul/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ben <
Interestingly, Dick Morris considers Ron Paul the most "radical liberal left-wing"
candidate running. That the fascist Dick Morris hates and fears Dr. Paul should
help him (Paul) in his quest to become America's next President.
Comments?
~ Ben
Why Dick Morris Fears Ron Paul
by Robert Ringer
Link: http://lewrockwell.com/orig11/ringer3.1.1.html
It's been quite humorous watching Dick Morris switch modes – from dismissing
Ron Paul as a nut and a crackpot to hysterically warning people how
dangerous he is. In one of his recent lunch videos, Morris ranted nonstop
about Paul, going so far as to say, "He is the most radical, liberal
candidate running." Then, on The O'Reilly Factor, Morris said, "I think that
he is absolutely the most liberal, radical, left-wing person to run for
president in the United States in the last fifty years."
Strange, because I've known Ron Paul for more than thirty years, and I see
him as one of the purist conservatives in Washington – and certainly the
most conservative person in the current field of Republican candidates. I'm
talking about true conservatism, which Ronald Reagan accurately described
when he said, "The very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."
So what, specifically, does Morris not like about Ron Paul? For starters, he
says that Paul "has this crazy idea about returning to the gold standard."
Hmm … I never thought of a return to sound money as being a crazy idea. With
all due respect, Dick, I think I'll stick with Hayek and Von Mises on that
one.
Other Ron Paul sins, according to Morris, include his desire to:
Get rid of the Fed.
Legalize drugs. (Sorry, pseudo-conservatives, but the unpleasant reality is
that the war on drugs has caused even more violence than did the war on
alcohol.)
Stay out of other countries' affairs (which would make it possible to slash
our military budget without weakening our national defense).
Repeal the Patriot Act, which would reduce government's ability to snoop on
American citizens.
Morris even claimed that Ron Paul favors abortion on demand, paid for by the
government. Now that's one I've never heard before. Paul has always been
adamantly pro-life and, further, he believes that the issue of abortion
comes under the auspices of the states, not the federal government.
So why is Morris so worried about a guy he has repeatedly referred to as a
nutcase, a crackpot, and worse? Because, he says, he is afraid that Paul
will run as a third-party candidate and "hand the election to Barack Obama."
First of all, Ron Paul has never been the nutcase his detractors have tried
so hard to paint him to be. Second, he is one of the most morally sound
individuals I have ever known, and is intellectually sound as well.
In fact, the "crazy uncle" remarks that the fearful media pundits keep
throwing out about Paul couldn't be further from the truth. On the contrary,
if Ron Paul has one weakness, it's that he's intellectually above the
average voter's head, which sometimes makes it difficult to understand what
he's saying.
I admit that a handful of comments purportedly made in Ron Paul's
newsletters in the 1980s and 1990s were over the line, but they certainly
were not hardcore racist. More important, he unequivocally renounces those
statements today. Often, Paul's problem is that he is very uninhibited when
it comes to being precise about the law and what he believes to be the truth
and, unfortunately, a majority of the population is more interested in
political correctness than the Constitution or the truth.
I can only speak from my own firsthand experience, and, behind closed doors,
I have never heard Ron Paul say anything that even mildly bordered on racism
Nor is he anti-semitic or anti-Israel. As he explained it to me on a couple
of different occasions, he just happens to believe that Israel would be
better off without having to answer to the U.S. for its actions.
Putting aside the mudslinging, the bottom line is that, more than any other
candidate, Ron Paul stands for freedom. But is such a strong advocate of
freedom electable? Dick Morris and other establishment Republicans say
absolutely not. And they could be right. But there's a part of me that
wonders if they might just be wrong.
If Ron Paul ran as a third-party candidate – especially if Mitt Romney were
to be the Republican nominee – he would attract not only Tea Party voters,
but independents, moderate Democrats, and anti-war people of all stripes.
While the contrast between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is, from a long-term
point of view, marginal, Ron Paul and Barack Obama are polar opposites.
Mitt Romney is John McCain. Mitt Romney is George W. Bush. Mitt Romney is
Bob Dole. Mitt Romney is George Herbert Walker Bush. Mitt Romney is Thomas
Dewey. Mitt Romney is Herbert Hoover. Which is why I believe that millions
of fed-up Americans, rather than swallowing John McCain Light or accepting
four more years of Obama's anti-American policies, might just consider
casting their vote for a candidate who stands for pure, unadulterated
freedom.
Even if Paul did not win, it would be a presidential race like no other. And
if it resulted in Obama's reelection, I'm fine with that if it keeps Mitt
Romney from taking the reins of power and feeding us small doses of
socialism day in and day out.
Longtime readers will recall that I took the exact same position in 2008
when it was John McCain versus Barack Obama. Early on, I said that I
preferred Obama over McCain because his Marxist agenda would finally wake up
millions of apathetic Americans. And that's precisely what has happened. In
fact, by scaring the hell out of the American electorate, Obama himself
brought the Tea Party into existence.
Unfortunately, the Tea Party has not kept the heat on either Obama or
Congress. But if Barack Obama is reelected, maybe Tea Partiers will be
jolted into rising up in earnest – 365 days a year – and get really serious
about taking back America.
While Dick Morris says that "Ron Paul is just an absolute nightmare," I say
he would be the perfect person to lead the charge against Obama's march
toward Marxism.
Could it be that it's Dick Morris who is the crazy uncle?
Reprinted from Robert Ringer's website.
January 3, 2012
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This fits right in with the "Repo Man" article.
http://newmediajournal.us/indx.php/item/4050
What Every American Should Know
Paul R. Hollrah
January 3, 2012
Wall Street melt-downs? Banking industry bailouts? Hedge fund hanky-panky? Multi-million dollar Wall Street bonuses? Collapse of the dollar? National debt default? Economic collapse? Who can possibly make sense of it all? How did it happen, and who's to blame? Did George W. Bush create the mess and leave it for Obama to clean up, or were Democrats to blame all along and Obama was just too incompetent to know what to do about it? What is the truth of all this?
Now that the Securities & Exchange Commission is finally pursuing wrongdoing at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it's time the American people knew the root causes of our current economic difficulties. We all need to have a basic understanding of the mess...one that will allow us to explain it to our Democrat friends in terms that even they can understand.
First, it must be said that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a Carter administration initiative, was not a totally bad idea. It encouraged lenders to make loans to qualified borrowers who had previously been denied solely on the basis of the color of their skin. The CRA was intended to reduce or eliminate a practice known as "redlining," in which realtors and lenders discriminated against potential buyers in low-income and depressed neighborhoods, approving home loans for lower-income whites but not for middle or upper-income blacks.
Throughout the Reagan and Bush (41) years, between 1981 and 1993, the CRA was enforced in a straightforward manner. Lenders were encouraged to abandon the "redlining" practice and to meet the credit needs of all members of the community, consistent with sound lending practices.
However, when Democrats regained control of the White House in 1993, in the person of Bill Clinton, Democrats began to act like Democrats. They decided that the CRA, if strategically enforced with a political end in mind, provided a unique opportunity to purchase the votes of those at the lower end of the economic ladder.
Under the Clinton administration, regulators paid particularly close attention to the lending practices of banks and savings & loan associations. In other words, were lenders meeting the credit needs of all borrowers in their local communities, regardless of borrowers' ability to repay their loans? Accordingly, they began to use the results of those examinations to determine whether or not to approve mergers and acquisitions, and whether or not to approve applications for new branch banks. Lenders soon found that the CRA was more stick than carrot.
As a result, lenders abandoned traditional lending criteria and made mortgage loans to almost anyone who applied, regardless of their income level or credit worthiness. Under normal circumstances, no prudent lender would ever lend money to those with little or no ability to repay, but these were not normal circumstances. Two of the Democratic Party's favorite patronage cesspools...Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac...were standing ready to buy up any and all mortgages. And why should Fannie and Freddie worry about the quality of the mortgages they bought? They had no reason to worry because, as quasi-public institutions, they had the cash assets of the American taxpayer...the U.S. Treasury...at their disposal.
Here's how it worked. When a home buyer took out a home loan from a bank or a savings & loan association, the mortgage was then sold to what was known as a Government Sponsored Enterprise (GSE), i.e. Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Fannie and Freddie then bundled the loan with other sub-prime mortgages and sold the bundle to private investors...promising not only attractive returns, but a high degree of security as well. By year end 2010, Fannie and Freddie had acquired more than half of the $11 trillion mortgage loan market in the United States.
However, the sale of mortgages to private investors was not a totally arms-length proposition because, even though Fannie and Freddie had sold the bundled mortgages, they continued to have a financial interest in them. They guaranteed the securities for the investors, promising to continue making payments on the mortgages even if the homeowner stopped paying. In 2008, when the overheated real estate market collapsed and a great many homeowners stopped paying all at once, the cash reserves of Fannie and Freddie were soon depleted, forcing them to default on their guarantees and precipitating a major economic crisis.
One might ask, how could something like this happen directly under the noses of our political leaders without anyone taking notice? The fact is, shortly after taking office in 2001, the Bush administration did notice and took steps to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. What they apparently failed to understand was that Fannie and Freddie existed in a world of their own, a world in which Democrats who were either owed big favors, or who were being paid to keep their mouths shut for one reason or another were well taken care of.
Among these was Franklin Raines, former Clinton White House budget director, who served as chairman and chief executive officer of Fannie Mae. Raines took "early retirement" from Fannie Mae on December 21, 2004 after the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) accused him of participating in widespread accounting irregularities, including the shifting of losses so that senior Fannie Mae executives could earn large bonuses. Some $90 million was paid to Raines based on overstated earnings...earnings initially reported at $9 billion but later found to be in the neighborhood of $6.3 billion.
Tim Howard, Chief Financial Officer under Raines, is a former Senior Economic Advisor to Barack Obama. When Howard was terminated at Fannie Mae he walked away with a "golden parachute" reported to be worth approximately $20 million.
Jim Johnson, a former Lehman Brothers executive who headed Obama's vice presidential search committee, is also a former Fannie Mae CEO who was forced to resign. Johnson's 1998 Fannie Mae compensation was reported at between $6-7 million. In truth, it was $21 million.
And last, but not least, we have former Deputy Attorney General in the Clinton administration, Jamie Gorelick, the woman who erected the infamous "Gorelick Wall" which prevented the CIA and the FBI from sharing intelligence that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. After leaving the Justice Department she resurfaced as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae from 1997 to 2003. And although she had no training or experience in finance, whatsoever, during the six years she worked at Fannie Mae she earned over $26 million.
While serving as Vice Chairman of Fannie Mae, Gorelick participated in the development of an accounting scheme which allowed Fannie's Mae's top executives – whose bonuses were tied to earnings-per-share – to meet the target for maximum bonus payouts. For example, in 1998 the target earnings for maximum bonus payout at Fannie Mae was $3.23 per share. Fannie Mae reported earnings of exactly $3.2309. (Don't you just hate it when that happens?)
So how was this arranged? Because of lower interest rates in 1998, Fannie Mae found itself facing an extraordinary expense estimated at $400 million. Johnson, Franklin, and Gorelick decided to recognize only $200 million of the $400 million expense, deferring the remainder to the next fiscal year. This fortuitous "coincidence" resulted in maximum bonus payouts: $1.932 million to then-CEO Jim Johnson, $1.19 million to CEO-designate Franklin Raines, and $779,625 to accounting whiz Jamie Gorelick.
Democrats do have an uncanny way of taking care of their own.
In the 2 years and 11 months that Barack Obama has been in office, Democrats have waged an uninterrupted and unabashed attack on George W. Bush, insisting that he did nothing to forestall the Fannie and Freddie disasters that we now face. However, the facts are these: The Bush administration warned Congress of impending insolvency at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in April 2001, May 2002, November 2003, February 2004, August 2007, December 2007, March 2008, April 2008, May 2008, and June 2008. In addition, officials of the Bush administration testified before Congress, calling for reform of Fannie and Freddie, in September 2003, June 2004, April 2005, and February 2008.
In each instance, their warnings were either ignored or were subjected to strong push-back from leading Democrats, who charged Republicans with opposing home ownership by the poor and minorities. In each instance, the principal push-back came from Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), Chairman of the Securities and Investment Subcommittee of the Senate Banking Committee, the recipient of major "sweetheart" loans from now-defunct Countrywide Financial Corporation; and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Ranking Member of the Housing and Community Opportunity Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee. Not surprisingly, one of Frank's homosexual partners, Herb Moses, was a high-ranking official of Fannie Mae at a time when he and Frank played house together on Capitol Hill.
In short, the financial crisis that our country now faces is exclusively the product of Democratic political excess. It is further proof that, when government interferes in the private economy in order to guarantee what liberals and Democrats see as "fairness" and "equal outcomes," the unintended consequences are always predictable, but never pretty. What would be pretty would be to see Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Jamie Gorelick, and other Obama cronies being led away in handcuffs. The current charges being investigated by the Securities & Exchange Commission are a good beginning.
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