Friday, April 15, 2011

Re: Digest for politicalforum@googlegroups.com - 25 Messages in 14 Topics

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Subject: Digest for politicalforum@googlegroups.com - 25 Messages in 14 Topics

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    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Apr 14 08:27AM -0700 ^
     
    The Regime's 150th Birthday <http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=10183>
     
    By Anthony Gregory <http://www.independent.org/blog/?author=2>
    Tuesday April 12, 2011 at 3:07:37 PM PDT
     
    Today marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War
    <http://www.onpower.org/history_civil.html>. This event, more than the
    Declaration of Independence, Constitution or the American Revolution,
    signifies the true birth of the modern American nation-state. It was on
    this day that the federal government first repudiated the Founding
    Fathers' republican form of government—a coalition of several states
    that combined under the Constitution to form a central state of
    enumerated and sharply limited powers—and asserted a plenary sovereignty
    over the people. Rejecting the right of states to secede, the federal
    government under Lincoln abolished the very system that was supposed to
    come out of the revolution against the British crown, a system where
    smaller political units could exercise their legal and human right to
    overthrow or at least leave the central government that ruled them
    without their consent.
     
    During the U.S. Civil War, leviathan as we know it was born. The war
    ushered in federal conscription, income taxes, new departments and
    agencies, and the final victory of the Hamiltonians over the
    Jeffersonians. For years, the nationalists—first the Federalists, then
    the Whigs, and then the Republicans under Lincoln—had advocated a system
    that subordinated the states to the central government and buried
    agrarianism and free enterprise under the heavy burden of corporatist
    neo-mercantilism. Henry Clay called this economic program "The American
    System" and boasted of its proposed "internal improvements." A more
    modern label would simply be "corporate welfare" as these nationalists
    were championing high tariffs to discourage free trade and to raise
    revenue that could be shoveled toward big businesses that would build
    railways, canals and roads, the circulatory system of a new corporate
    state with Washington directing the economy through grants of privilege
    and monopoly.
     
    Civil liberties took a hit virtually unparalleled in U.S. history, with
    the possible exception of World War I. During the Civil War, thousands
    of dissidents were arrested, hundreds of newspapers were shut down,
    martial law was declared, habeas corpus was suspended, and political
    enemies were targeted for arrest and persecution. When violent draft
    riots broke out in New York City, Lincoln sent in the army, which
    slaughtered hundreds of civilians. During the fog of war Lincoln
    conducted the largest mass-execution of U.S. history—American Indians
    stripped of any semblance of proper due process.
     
    Then, of course, there was the mass bloodshed. How appropriate that the
    U.S. government, so-called protector of peace and liberty for the world,
    was the western state that ended slavery through a centrally
    administered and completely hellish war. Slavery could have been ended
    peacefully, to be sure, but ending slavery was not Lincoln's motivation
    in waging the war—throughout which this purely evil institution was
    protected by the federal government in the Union states that practiced
    it, and during which slaves liberated from captivity by U.S. generals
    were sent back to their Southern "masters." For Lincoln, the war was
    about preserving the Union, first and foremost, and this preservation
    was consecrated upon the altar of mass death. Approximately 625,000
    Americans died in the butchery. This out of a population of about 32
    million people. That's almost one out of fifty Americans. To give an
    idea of what this would mean to the average American, imagine the
    bloodshed of 9/11 multiplied by about two thousand.
     
    We're often told to question or lambaste today's politicians while
    reserving respect for Lincoln. But this is an inconsistent outlook, to
    say the least. Conservatives who decry Big Government and liberals who
    decry Big Brother need to reexamine the legacy of Honest Abe. The
    Republicans are accused of not following in the shadows of Lincoln, but
    this party of corporatism, war, nationalism and suppression of civil
    liberty has been Lincolnian to the core for 150 years now, with
    essentially no significant interruption.
     
    It was difficult for critics of the Bush administration's war on
    terrorism to respond when its defenders pointed out the many precedents
    set by Lincoln. If Lincoln could suspend habeas corpus, why should Bush
    be any more restrained? After all, as both conservatives and liberals
    sometimes say, Lincoln had to ignore half of the Constitution to
    preserve the other half. Unfortunately for liberty, he preserved the
    wrong half—the half that sets up the framework for the central state,
    rather than the half that puts limits on that state, their necessity
    being the one important lesson from the colonies' experience under Britain.
     
    Ever since the Civil War, the U.S. government has been king of the land.
    There have since then been moments of relative freedom from federal
    meddling, but once Washington, DC, claimed the right to overturn the
    states' prerogative, all the tyranny that transpired was to be expected.
    The most important revolutionary check on federal power, the threat of
    states leaving the country, was now destroyed. With it went many other
    great traditions, such as the threat that states might nullify federal
    laws as well as the very real power states used to have in checking
    federal detentions through habeas corpus. After the Civil War came
    federal military control of the South through Reconstruction. Soon
    enough after we were into the Progressive Era and the rise of America's
    global empire, which made its major debut in the Spanish-American War,
    proved itself worthy of competition with the old world in World War I,
    and asserted itself as the world's superpower in World War II and the
    Cold War. Most major political evils coming from Washington since
    1861—federal control over the economy, the Fed, alcohol prohibition, the
    welfare state, the New Deal, the Great Society, immigration controls,
    the war on drugs, gun control, the U.S. empire—had either direct or
    indirect origins in Lincoln's war. More than any other single event, the
    Civil War, launched by the president against his own people, both
    enemies and those purportedly on his side—a war that once and for all
    abolished the radical federalism that was the Founders' most important
    Constitutional legacy—was the event that gave birth to the modern regime
    in Washington. Happy Birthday, Lincolnian central state. I do hope you
    don't persist for another 150 years more.
     
    See Robert Higgs, "The Bloody Hinge of American History,
    <http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1161>" for a review
    of Jeff Hummel's most important book on the Civil War. Also see the
    OnPower archives <http://www.onpower.org/history_civil.html> for a
    thorough bibliography.
     
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     
    Freedom Is Always Illegal.
     
    Learn How To Protect Your Identity And Prevent Identity Theft
    <http://8f7ab0ybg8rx5p6mloffi9yw8t.hop.clickbank.net/>

     

    GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> Apr 14 08:55AM -0700 ^
     
    Gotta admit, I didn't think you could find someone (no offense, but
    since all you do is cut/paste, there's no way to know what YOU
    believe), more ridiculous than Larry Vance, but you have, Anthony
    Gregory.
     
    This cupcake is convinced EVERYONE is out to get him, but to assuage
    the fact no one cares about him.
     
    He is, indeed, a laugh riot to read, and thanks for that.
     
    The Constitution GUARANTYS each state, "a republican form of
    government", and sorry, that just doesn't mean you can up and leave
    whenever you have a difficult bowel movement.
     
    On Apr 14, 11:27 am, Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashle...@lavabit.com>
    wrote:

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 01:04PM -0400 ^
     
    <snip> a big pile of fallacy
     
    The Constitution GUARANTYS each state, "a republican form of
     
    government", and sorry, that just doesn't mean you can up and leave
     
    whenever you have a difficult bowel movement.
     
    You do know that ALL of Lincoln's nonsensical arguments (such as your parrot above) have been exposed as such.
     
    A State NOT no longer in the Union is not subject to the agreement you cite.
     
    A pity you fail to recognize one of the most important checks against Federal usurpation.
     
    Regard$,
     
    --MJ
     
    "Any people, anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit. More than this, a majority of any portion of such people may revolutionize, putting down a minority, intermingled with, or near about them, who may oppose their movements." -- Tyrant Lincoln, January 12 1848

     

    GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> Apr 14 10:45AM -0700 ^
     
    and that such, I shall
     

     

    GregfromBoston <greg.vincent@yahoo.com> Apr 14 10:49AM -0700 ^
     
    You do know that ALL of Lincoln's nonsensical arguments (such as your
    parrot above) have been exposed as such.
    ----------------
     
    Lincon wasn't on the fucking planet when any of THAT was written.
     
    My "Parrots" are the consitutution.
     
    Try again.
     
    And if your gonna stick with Larry Vance nad Greg Antonony - espect
    much laughter

     

    plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> Apr 14 10:49AM -0700 ^
     
    not to worry, Lincoln paid for his mistakes
     

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 01:56PM -0400 ^
     
    You do know that ALL of Lincoln's nonsensical arguments (such as your
     
    parrot above) have been exposed as such.
     
    ----------------
     
    Lincon wasn't on the fucking planet when any of THAT was written.
     
    My "Parrots" are the consitutution.
     
    Try again.
     
    And if your gonna stick with Larry Vance nad Greg Antonony - espect
     
    much laughter
     
    Rather than your rush to spew fallacy, you might try READING what was presented ... then you might address THOSE (actual) words, concepts and ideas.
     
    Regard$,
     
    --MJ
     
    "Contrary to popular belief, the War Between the States did not prove that the Southern States had no legal right to secede. In fact, many incidents both preceding and following the War support the proposition that the Southern States did have the right to secede from the Union. Instances of nullification prior to the War Between the States, contingencies under which certain states acceded to the Union, and the fact that the Southern States were made to surrender the right to secession all affirm the existence of a right to secede.
     
    "In addition, the national Constitution's failure to forbid secession and the various amendments concerning secession that were proposed while the Southern States were seceding each strengthen the proposition: that the Southern States had an absolute right to secede from the Union prior to the War Between the States. --H. Newcomb Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," Stetson Law Review 15 (1986) p. 420.

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Apr 14 11:02AM -0700 ^
     
    147 years ago today!
     
    On 04/14/2011 10:49 AM, plainolamerican wrote:
     
    --
     
     
    Freedom Is Always Illegal.
     
    Learn How To Protect Your Identity And Prevent Identity Theft
    <http://8f7ab0ybg8rx5p6mloffi9yw8t.hop.clickbank.net/>

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Apr 14 11:06AM -0700 ^
     
    Correction: 146 years ago today!
     
    On 04/14/2011 11:02 AM, Jonathan Ashley wrote:
     
    --
     
     
    Freedom Is Always Illegal.
     
    Learn How To Protect Your Identity And Prevent Identity Theft
    <http://8f7ab0ybg8rx5p6mloffi9yw8t.hop.clickbank.net/>

     

    plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> Apr 14 10:54AM -0700 ^
     
    The Georgia Legislative Black Caucus filed a lawsuit Monday against
    the state of Georgia seeking to dissolve the city charters of
    Dunwoody, Sandy Springs, Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills.
    Further, the lawmakers, joined by civil rights leader the Rev. Joseph
    Lowery, aim to dash any hopes of a Milton County.
     
    The lawsuit, filed in a North Georgia U.S. District Court Monday,
    claims that the state circumvented the normal legislative process and
    set aside its own criteria when creating the "super-majority white "
    cities within Fulton and DeKalb counties. The result, it argues, is to
    dilute minority votes in those areas, violating the Voting Rights Act
    of 1965 and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the
    Constitution.
     
    "This suit is based on the idea that African Americans and other
    minorities can elect the people of their choice," said Democratic
    State Sen. Vincent Fort.
     
    The Office of the Governor and the Office of the Attorney General
    declined comment pending further review of the case.
     
    Rep. Lynne Riley, R-Johns Creek, called the lawsuit "frivolous" and
    "disrespectful to the citizens of these cities who are most satisfied
    with their government."
     
    Riley was active in creating Sandy Springs and the subsequent cities
    while serving as a Fulton County commissioner.
     
    "These jurisdictions were based on geography and nothing else," she
    said. "We haven't seen any evidence of any disadvantage based on the
    creation of new cities. We've watched the Fulton County budget
    continue to grow … to say there was damage done by this creation,
    there are no facts to support that, and I would reject it."
     
    Lead attorney Jerome Lee, of Taylor Lee & Associates, said the suit is
    novel.
     
    "The Voting Rights Act forbids a state from doing anything that
    affects the voting rights of minorities, except with a permissible
    purpose," he said, citing the redistricting that takes place when the
    census documents population shifts. "In this case, it's different
    because the state actually went outside the normal redistricting
    process and created these cities that have no meaningful state
    purpose."
     
    According to the 2010 census, Fulton County is 44.5 percent white and
    44.1 percent black. About 54 percent of DeKalb County residents are
    black, and 33.3 percent are white.
     
    Sandy Springs, created in 2005, is 65 percent white and 20 percent
    black. Milton, formed a year later, is 76.6 percent white and 9
    percent black. Johns Creek, also formed that year, is 63.5 percent
    white and 9.2 percent black. Chattahoochee Hills, formed in 2007, is
    68.6 percent white and 28 percent black, while Dunwoody, created in
    2008, is 69.8 percent white and 12.6 percent black.
     
    Emory University law professor Michael Kang said the case is unique
    because the Voting Rights Act focuses on redistricting, whereas this
    lawsuit challenges the legality of cities. Kang, who has not reviewed
    the case in its entirety, said the plaintiffs will likely have to show
    evidence of discriminatory purpose to have a strong claim. Kane said
    the case has interesting implications.
     
    "If we look at this realistically, there is some white flight going
    on. The creation of these Sandy Springs-type cities enables white
    voters to get away from black voters," he said. "It does strike me
    that the Voting Rights Act might have something to say about this, but
    it's unknown what the courts will say about it."

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 01:58PM -0400 ^
     
    No Wonder the Airlines Caved
     
    Posted by Christopher Manion on April 14, 2011 10:22 AM
     
    Remember how airport security was going to be conducted by the airlines, and not the government? But they quietly got bipartisan billions after 9-11, from a government that failed major league, big time, to protect them, their passengers, and the country.
     
    Folks might howl today, but the airlines will never want to take over security again. If they did, their "security agents" would all be hauled off to jail for life -- for molesting children like this government thug did, without penalty, of course, assaulting a six-year old girl. If someone had done that to this TSA agent's daughter at her home, her father would have had every right to shoot them on the spot. But after this TV appearance, it's unlikely that this girl and her family will ever be able to fly from an American airport again.
     
    Psychologists tell us that child abuse damages a person for life. A six-year-old girl knows nothing about government, but everything about a traumatic violation of her modesty. To her, all abusers are alike: monsters who will be in her nightmares for life, images that will be seared into her neurological system. And once children are told that the "authority figure" can criminally abuse them, the prospective abuser can cleverly adopt authoritative behaviors (and even wear a knockoff TSA uniform!) to mimic the government thugs and have their way with them.
     
    TSA agents, awaken from your dull slumber. The shield of government protection from arrest and incarceration cannot protect your soul from the searching eye of the Divine Author of Justice, whom we will all meet at the end our days. Forget the "terrorists" -- rebuke your superiors and the policies they have designed to accustom adults and children alike to government intrusion, crime, abuse, and debasement. Stand up for the children, demand that you be given another assignment, or quit. Refuse all immoral behavior, even if you're "just following orders." Because someday, as Sophie Scholl said from the prisoner's dock to the Nazi judge, "Sie werden stehen, wo ich stehe" -- "You will be standing where I am standing now."

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 01:57PM -0400 ^
     
    April 14, 2011
     
    War is the Biggest Power Grab of All
     
    America's Know-Nothing Policymakers
     
    By JAMES BOVARD
     
    The United States is attacking Libya based on vague hopes that peace will triumph after the NATO bombing ceases. There are plenty of reasons to doubt whether a few hundred cruise missiles will beget harmony in the Libyan desert. But one of the biggest mistakes would be to assume that US government policymakers understand what they are doing.
     
    The American media have already uncorked "surprises," such as the facts that the Libyan opposition is a ragtag mob, not an army, and that Qaddafi's opponents include organizations formally labeled as terrorists by the US government. But this is only the tip of iceberg of official idiocy.
     
    The latest follies are part of a long bipartisan tradition. In the decades since John F. Kennedy's inauguration, foreign-policy makers have become Washington's leading con men. Even though Whiz Kids and Dream Teams have dragged America into one debacle after another, the media and politicians still defer to the latest batch of "Best and Brightest" professors and appointees.
     
    The US invasion of Iraq was based on little more than a few phrases backed up by almost boundless ignorance. Paul Bremer, the chief of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority, admitted in his memoirs "that he didn't know anything about Iraq when stepping down from Kissinger Associates to become America's proconsul," Georgetown University professor Derek Leebaert observed in his new book, Magic and Mayhem. Adam Garfinkle, who worked as a speechwriter for both Secretary of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, said in 2007, "No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have the vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history."
     
    The Pentagon's recent record is not much better. The US military floundered in Iraq and Afghanistan because, as Leebaert notes, "the army not only forgot everything it had been bloodily taught about counterinsurgency in Vietnam, but in Vietnam, it had forgotten everything it had learned about counterinsurgency in Korea as well."
     
    Cluelessness is a constant in US foreign-policy making. In 1967, the Pentagon ordered top experts to analyze where the Vietnam War had gone wrong. The resulting study consisted of 47 volumes of material exposing the intellectual and political follies that had, at that point, already left tens of thousands of Americans dead. After the study was finished, it was distributed to the key Johnson administration players and federal agencies, by whom it was completely ignored, if not forgotten. New York Times editor Tom Wicker commented that "the people who read these documents in the Times [in 1971] were the first to study them." Daniel Ellsberg, who wrote a portion of the papers and leaked them to the Times, noted that the papers reveal "a general failure to study history or to analyze or even to record operational experience, especially mistakes. Above all, effective pressures for optimistically false reporting at every level, for describing 'progress' rather than problems or failure, concealed the very need for change in approach or for learning."
     
    US foreign-policy makers perennially talk as if the world is a clean sheet that they can mark up as they please. Shortly before Obama's televised speech on March 28 on Libya, Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told reporters, "We don't get very hung up on this question of precedent. We don't make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent." Rather than being a high-minded resolve, that attitude practically guarantees that the US government will repeat the same mistakes in perpetuity.
     
    Foreign policy has been a long series of blunders, in part because the American media tolerate deceits by high-ranking government officials. "Presidents have lied so much to us about foreign policy that they've established almost a common-law right to do so," George Washington University history professor Leo Ribuffo observed in 1998. From John F. Kennedy's lying about the Bay of Pigs debacle in Cuba; to Lyndon Johnson's lying about the Gulf of Tonkin resolution; to Richard Nixon's lying about the secret bombing of Cambodia; to Jimmy Carter's lying about the shah of Iran's being a progressive, enlightened ruler; to Ronald Reagan's lying about terrorism and Iran-Contra; to George HW Bush's lying about the justifications for the first Gulf War, entire generations have come of age since the ancient time when a president's power was constrained by a duty of candor to the public.
     
    WikiLeaks has revealed that US foreign policy is far more deceptive than the Beltway portrays it. From Hillary Clinton's machinations to heist the credit card numbers of foreign diplomats, to the US government's prodding Ethiopia to invade Somalia, to the covert supply of arms to the Yemen government, charades have come fast and furious. Much of the American political establishment has reacted as if WikiLeaks violated government's divine right to delude the governed.
     
    Governments routinely bury information that undermines their power grabs and war is the biggest power grab of them all. We cannot expect the Obama administration to be more prudent on Libya than the Bush administration was on Iraq, or the Clinton administration was on Kosovo, or the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon administrations were on Vietnam. Americans cannot afford to assume that this war is smarter than it seems.
     
    James Bovard is a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation and is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, Terrorism and Tyranny, and other books.
     
    http://www.counterpunch.com/bovard04142011.html

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 01:24PM -0400 ^
     
    "That's what passes for philosophical debate between liberals and conservatives. The fight isn't over the legitimacy of the welfare-warfare state way of life. They both agree on that. The fight is over how to fund it (and, of course, which side gets to run it)."
     
    Thursday, April 14, 2010
     
    No More Statism
     
    by Jacob G. Hornberger
     
    Not surprisingly, liberals are calling for tax hikes on the rich as their way to pay for the ever-burgeoning costs of the welfare-warfare state.
     
    Conservatives pretend to oppose tax hikes. Their preferred method of funding the welfare-warfare state is through the Federal Reserve, whose job is to provide the money and credit needed to fund excess federal spending without the need to raise income taxes.
     
    That's what passes for philosophical debate between liberals and conservatives. The fight isn't over the legitimacy of the welfare-warfare state way of life. They both agree on that. The fight is over how to fund it (and, of course, which side gets to run it).
     
    The controversy perfectly reflects how different we libertarians are from statists. We libertarians don't argue over whether the welfare-warfare state should be funded by income taxation or inflation. Our position is: Immediately repeal all welfare-state programs (beginning with the crown jewels of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid), repeal all interventionist and regulatory programs (beginning with the drug war), and dismantle the US government's military empire, close the bases, and discharge the troops into the private sector.
     
    Oh, and abolish the IRS and the income tax, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid taxes, and the Federal Reserve.
     
    In other words, leave people free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, leave people free to do whatever they want with their own money, leave people free to make whatever choices they want in life so long as their conduct is peaceful, and depend on a well-armed, self-trained citizen soldiery that would be ready to voluntarily come to the defense of our country in the extremely unlikely event of an invasion.
     
    With major exceptions like slavery and tariffs and many minor exceptions, the libertarian position was the position of America's Founding Fathers. They abhorred the statist philosophy that has now held our nation in its grip for many decades.
     
    With the exception of President Lincoln's unconstitutional imposition of an income tax to fund his war against the seceding states, the United States had no income taxation or IRS from the nation's founding in 1787 to the early part of the 20th century. Americans were free to keep everything they earned.
     
    When the federal government didn't tax income, lots of poor people became wealthy. Even more entered the ranks of the middle class.
     
    For most of that entire time, there was no central bank, paper money, or legal-tender laws. (Again, Lincoln's tenure was a big exception.) Americans used gold and silver coins as their official money, which is what the Constitution required. When government was unable to debase the currency, the result was the greatest buildup of productive capital that people had ever seen.
     
    The massive buildup of capital, in turn, made workers more productive. More productivity meant higher revenues. Higher revenues brought higher wages for the workers.
     
    For the first time in history, masses of poor people were breaking free of the chains of poverty, which is precisely why thousands of penniless immigrants were fleeing the European and Asian lands of statism to come to a land of no welfare-warfare state. (Did I mention that America had no immigration controls during most of that period as well?)
     
    Our American ancestors also detested militarism, standing armies, conscription, and empires. After all, they had rebelled against an empire, together with the ever-burgeoning taxes, debt, and inflation needed to fund it. Many of them had immigrated to America to escape conscription and perpetual war.
     
    Charity was entirely voluntary for more than 100 years. By and large, Americans were a religious people. The thought of using the power of Caesar to interfere with the exercise of God's great gift of free will was anathema to our ancestors. People had the moral right to decide what to do with their own money, they firmly believed. That's what freedom of choice is all about. They would never have tolerated mandatory government-enforced "charity" in the form of such things as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, grants, and subsidies.
     
    Today, the federal government is mired in ever-increasing spending, debt, taxes, and inflation. How can that surprise anyone? Americans have abandoned the founding principles of their nation in favor of the statism from which our American ancestors rebelled or fled.
     
    Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, subsidies, grants, income taxation, IRS, the drug war, the DEA, the Federal Reserve, a thousand foreign military bases, the CIA, the NSA, the TSA, occupations of foreign countries, undeclared wars of aggression, standby conscription, kidnapping, torture, Gitmo, secret prison camps, invasions of privacy, unreasonable searches and seizures, torture, and assassination.
     
    It's all part and parcel of the statism that now afflicts our land. That's the root of America's economic and social woes. There is only one way to restore freedom, peace, prosperity, and harmony to our land, and it lies not in figuring out how to fund the welfare-warfare state way of life. It lies in rejecting the welfare-warfare state way of life in favor of the libertarian principles that guided the founding of our nation no income tax, no IRS, no Federal Reserve, no Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or other welfare, no drug war, no militarism, no empire.
     
    In other words, the key to our nation's future well-being lies with no more statism.
     
    http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-04-14.asp

     

    plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> Apr 14 10:46AM -0700 ^
     
    The fight isn't over the legitimacy of the welfare-warfare state way
    of life. They both agree on that
    ---
    and the very reason that they both should be avoided
     
    send the socialists packing
     

     

    plainolamerican <plainolamerican@gmail.com> Apr 14 10:40AM -0700 ^
     
    women warmongers are capable of killing and dying just like their male
    counterparts
     
    Warmongers Beware!
     

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 01:25PM -0400 ^
     
    "Libertarians oppose the taxing of corporations for the same reason they oppose the taxing of individuals: taxation is theft. And even worse, as the nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner it: "If the government can take a man's money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists.""
     
    Is GE Paying Its Fair Share?
     
    by Laurence M. Vance, April 14, 2011
     
    Chances are you have used a GE appliance, turned on a GE light bulb, flown on a plane powered by a GE aircraft engine, seen a GE locomotive or wind turbine, taken out a loan from GE Capital (its lending division), or watched a program on NBC (partly owned by GE).
     
    General Electric Company (GE) is a multinational conglomerate corporation with 287,000 employees. It is one of America's oldest and largest companies. GE was one of the original twelve companies listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and is consistently ranked near the top on the Forbes Global 2000 and Fortune 500 lists. GE is also one of the best-known global brands. The company has been ranked first in Fortune magazine's "Global Most Admired Companies" and "America's Most Admired Companies" lists.
     
    But GE has a major public-relations problem. It has been widely reported, including in the New York Times, that GE earned $14.2 billion in worldwide profits last year, including $5.1 billion in the United States, and paid nothing in federal corporate income tax.
     
    This has upset both conservatives and liberals.
     
    Conservatives charge that the leadership of GE is in the pocket of the Democrat Party and stands to benefit from its green agenda. After all, is not GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt the head of President Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness? Although liberals many times deserve it, conservatives have a bad habit of blaming liberals for everything bad about government without checking the facts. For example: "As soon as Democrats took over Congress that's exactly what they did: they criminalized incandescent light bulbs and made GE's mercury-laden CFL bulbs the 'Big Brother' alternative." But the legislation that criminalized incandescent bulbs is the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that was signed into law by a Republican president, passed with the votes of ninety-five Republicans in the House, and only opposed by seven Republicans in the Senate.
     
    Liberals are predictably up in arms that GE is shirking its responsibilities and not paying its fair share of taxes. They complain that GE lobbies Congress for special tax treatment and moves its profits to offshore tax havens. But, of course, the same liberals that condemn GE for seeking corporate welfare are aghast that anyone would think of cutting federal funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives all of its yearly $430 million budget from the federal government.
     
    Libertarians oppose the taxing of corporations for the same reason they oppose the taxing of individuals: taxation is theft. And even worse, as the nineteenth-century classical-liberal political philosopher Lysander Spooner it: "If the government can take a man's money without his consent, there is no limit to the additional tyranny it may practise upon him; for, with his money, it can hire soldiers to stand over him, keep him in subjection, plunder him at discretion, and kill him if he resists."
     
    But aside from the onerous nature of taxes in general, there are other problems with the corporate income tax as well.
     
    First, corporations are more properly tax collectors rather than tax payers. Taxes paid by corporations merely add to their cost of doing business. It is consumers and employees that ultimately pay corporate taxes as they are embedded in the prices paid for products and reduce wages paid. The corporate tax is just another of the government's vehicles by which it masks Americans' true tax burden.
     
    The state masks taxation in many different ways. Other than businesses and self-employed individuals that submit quarterly income tax payments, few Americans pay taxes directly to the government thanks to the withholding tax. The curse of the withholding tax is that it allows the US government to confiscate the wealth of its citizens systematically, effortlessly, painlessly, and benevolently. This latter point is especially insidious because interest-free loans to the government known as tax refunds are generally viewed as gifts from the government instead of the return of stolen property. Other forms of government tax masking include the Social Security and Medicare taxes taken out of paychecks, the employer portion of these taxes, unemployment taxes paid by employers, excise taxes on things like alcohol and gasoline, corporate taxes, and, of course, the estate tax, since you don't pay it until after you're dead.
     
    Second, after corporations pay taxes on their income, individuals pay taxes on this same income when it is distributed in the form of dividends. This "double taxation" is nothing new, for the federal government does the same thing when it taxes individuals on their income in the form of income tax, Social Security tax, and Medicare tax and then on top of that taxes the taxpayer's employer on the same income.
     
    From an economic perspective, the double taxation of corporate income, as explained by economist Murray Rothbard, "penalizes corporate income as opposed to income from other market forms (single ownership, partnerships, etc.), thereby penalizing efficient forms of enterprise and encouraging the inefficient," "encourages a further distortion of market investment and organization" by leaving "a greater proportion of earnings undistributed" than would occur in a free market, and "hampers the adjustment of the economy to dynamic changes in conditions."
     
    Third, US corporate tax rates are among the highest in the world. They are also among the most convoluted, with marginal tax rates of 15, 25, 34, 39, 34, 35, 38, and 35 percent. In a recent edition of the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom, 124 countries had a lower corporate tax rate than the United States. And we wonder why some corporations prefer to operate in a lower-tax environment overseas?
     
    And then there is corporate tax on the state level. Only the states of Nevada, South Dakota, and Wyoming have no state corporate tax. Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Washington have no corporate tax, but assess a gross receipts tax. The rest of the states have a corporate tax and some of them have in addition a gross receipts tax, a franchise tax, and/or an alternative minimum tax.
     
    And fourth, corporate income taxes account for a relatively small portion of the federal budget. According to the IRS, in fiscal year 2010 the corporate income tax brought in about $180 billion. This was dwarfed by the $814 billion from the individual income tax and the $820 from Social Security and Medicare taxes. By anyone's estimate, the US government is spending over $10 billion a month on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is $120 billion a year two thirds of the yearly corporate tax revenue. And once you add in the billions that the United States will spend this year warring in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, it is clear that the corporate income tax could easily be eliminated just by ending our senseless military adventures. The result would be unprecedented economic growth, innovation, capital investment, foreign direct investment, and a much more favorable business climate.
     
    But since we do have a corporate income tax, and since it is not likely to be eliminated anytime soon, we need to take a brief look at whether GE is paying its fair share.
     
    First of all, what is GE's fair share? And furthermore, what is any company's fair share? And on the individual level, what is your fair share and my fair share? Obviously, whether GE or any corporation or individual is paying their fair share is highly subjective. Even a supporter of the corporate income tax might be willing to give GE and other large corporations a free pass since they employ so many Americans.
     
    Second, GE did pay taxes in the United States last year, even if the company paid no corporate income tax. GE paid state and local taxes. GE paid the employer's share of its employees Social Security and Medicare taxes. GE paid unemployment taxes on behalf of all its workers. And look at all the income and social insurance taxes that were paid by employees of GE. The more GE is able to prosper and hire more employees the more individuals there will be that are paying federal income taxes.
     
    Third, according to GE's Director of Financial Communications, Anne Eisele, GE "paid almost $23 billion in taxes to governments around the world from 2000 to 2009." And last year GE filed over 7,000 tax returns in more than 250 jurisdictions around the world. And according to GE's Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs, Gary Sheffer, "It was significant losses at GE Capital in the financial crisis, not 'tax avoidance' strategies, that reduced General Electric's 2010 overall tax rate below historic levels."
     
    And fourth, even if one does not view taxation as theft, there is nothing wrong with "tax avoidance" strategies for an individual or a corporation. Any and all deductions, loopholes, shelters, exemptions, and credits that can be used the better. And the more that Congress can be lobbied to come up with the merrier.
     
    The libertarian approach differs markedly from the approach of the statists on the left and the right who want to simplify the tax code by eliminating these things to ensure that every individual and corporation pays some arbitrary fair share. Since the federal government is unlikely to eliminate the income tax in one fell swoop, instead of complaining about the unfairness of deductions, loopholes, shelters, exemptions, and credits, proponents of a free society should work toward expanding them and applying them to as many individuals and corporations as possible. As Murray Rothbard pointed out in " The Myth of Tax 'Reform';": "Every economic activity that escapes taxes and controls is not only a blow for freedom and property rights; it is also one more instance of a free flow of productive energy getting out from under parasitic repression."
     
    http://www.fff.org/comment/com1104i.asp

     

    Visual Purple <doreendotan@gmail.com> Apr 14 10:24AM -0700 ^
     
    Rivka Ziv Hospital in Tzfat, Israel: Yet More "Security" Fencing
     
    These installations started going up after news broke of a 30 Million
    Shekel Joint Lawsuit against the Rivka Ziv Hospital for illegal
    experimentations.
     
    They are going up at a furious pace, wholly uncharacteristic of pokey
    little Tzfat, as my videos show.
     
    For quite some time I have known that something is very wrong in this
    part of Israel and have been documenting the problems in my videos.
     
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6aWqfwdKEM
     
    Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
    DoreenDotan@gmail.com

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 10:50AM -0400 ^
     
    Cuts in Medical Spending Central to Obama Plan
     
    "President Obama proposed Wednesday tighter curbs on Medicare spending and a new way of sharing Medicaid and children's health-care costs with states as he laid out a path to rein in the entitlement programs that pose the single largest threat to the nation's fiscal future…. But Obama's framework largely preserved the entitlement programs a central part of the nation's social safety net in their existing form. This was an explicit rejection of House Republicans, who favor converting Medicare into a voucher program and Medicaid into block grants that would give states more latitude to cut benefits and people from the program." ( Washington Post )
     
    As long as government pays for medical care, there will be budget problems.
     
    Health Care's Muddled Incentives
     
    Arnold Kling
     
    November 2009 • Volume: 59 • Issue: 9 •
     
    On the topic of health care, what empirical observations are reliable? Unfortunately, many "facts" come freighted with a great deal of ideological baggage. Those skeptical of markets, who favor a large role for government in health care, tend to emphasize statistics that disparage the American healthcare system. For supporters of markets, it is tempting to try to fight back by finding data that reflects well on American health care.
     
    I think that the best strategy is to arrive at the most accurate understanding, even if it means that America's healthcare system does not come out looking superior.
     
    This article will summarize empirical observations that I consider important in looking at the US healthcare system. First, I look at international comparisons. Next, I look at the implications of studies that compare health care in different regions within the United States.
     
    Differences Across Countries
     
    People often speak as if the healthcare system is relatively free-market in the United States and much more socialized in other developed countries. However, whether this is the case depends on how one classifies private health insurance.
     
    About 12 percent of personal medical expenditures in the United States are paid out of pocket, which is slightly below that of nearly all other developed countries, including Canada. Where the United States differs significantly from other countries is in how the remaining 85–90 percent of health-care expenditure is financed. About half that remainder is financed by private health insurance, with the other half paid for by government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid. In other developed countries, healthcare spending is mostly financed out of a government budget.
     
    Private health insurance in the United States, like government health insurance, insulates the consumer from the cost of medical care. Strong regulatory and tax incentives induce businesses to include a large health insurance component in employee compensation. Looking at how private health insurance operates in this country, and why it takes the form it does, I detect considerable influence from government policy. It is hard to tell what kind of insurance, if any, would emerge in a market unaffected by government subsidies, taxes, and regulations.
     
    Overall, I would argue that on the demand side, the United States healthcare system is essentially socialized. The fact is that close to 90 percent of health-care spending is paid for by third parties, which means that individuals in this country generally experience a socialized process for obtaining medical services.
     
    The United States deviates most from socialized systems on the supply side. What I believe is most distinctive about the US healthcare system is that it combines fee-for-service compensation for healthcare providers with fairly unlimited access to medical services. This means that supply is limited neither by rationing nor by absence of compensation nor by any fixed government budget. Notwithstanding considerable regulation of medical practice, the supply of health care is relatively unsocialized.
     
    The combination of socialized demand and relatively unsocialized supply explains one of the key facts about health care, which is that the United States spends far more on health care than other industrialized countries. We spend close to 17 percent of GDP on it, while other countries generally spend just over 10 percent. Because our GDP per capita is also higher than other countries', the differences in healthcare spending are even more dramatic in terms of absolute dollars per capita. We spend almost twice as much per person on health care as many other industrialized countries.
     
    This additional spending is not inherently problematic. Indeed, one would think that it is a good thing that we can afford to spend so much on medical care. Unfortunately, another fact about international healthcare comparisons is that outcomes differ very little between the United States and other countries. One can find higher survival rates in the United States for people with some forms of cancer, but overall, life expectancy does not appear to be better here.
     
    The combination of higher spending with equivalent health outcomes suggests that the US healthcare system is relatively less cost-effective than that of other countries. One can think of many possible reasons for this.
     
    Perhaps healthcare providers earn higher rents in the United States.
     
    Perhaps private health insurance absorbs much higher overhead than government health insurance.
     
    Perhaps in the United States people make extravagant use of medical procedures that have high costs and low benefits.
     
    In my view, the evidence to support (1) or (2) is very weak. Suppose we were to take away the profits of private health insurance companies and drug companies. Also eliminate the excess of what doctors are paid relative to the median salaries of other workers compared to that ratio in other countries, after adjusting for differences in specialization and hours worked. Overall, the effect on total healthcare spending would be small. I like the way David Goldhill puts it: "For fun, let's imagine confiscating all the profits of all the famously greedy health-insurance companies. That would pay for four days of health care for all Americans. Let's add in the profits of the 10 biggest rapacious US drug companies. Another 7 days. Indeed, confiscating all the profits of all American companies, in every industry, wouldn't cover even five months of our health-care expenses." ("How American Health Care Killed My Father," The Atlantic, September 2009.)
     
    On the other hand, one can document dramatic increases over the past 30 years in what I call "premium medicine," meaning medical procedures that use physical and human capital intensively. Among doctors, the number of specialists per capita has increased sharply. As an example of the use of physical capital, we now do more than 50 million CT scans and 25 million MRIs per year.
     
    We will see below that there is strong evidence that Americans make extravagant use of medical procedures with high costs and low benefits. Thus the rise of premium medicine also coincides with a rise in wasteful spending.
     
    Differences Within the United States
     
    One of the most important findings in healthcare research is that within Medicare there are large regional variations in spending with no difference in outcomes for similar patients. The studies directly measure the amount of medical services received, such as the number of doctor visits per week. Thus there can be no doubt that the quantity and type of medical services consumed, not prices or administrative expenses, account for the large differences in spending across regions. Finally, the studies carefully control for patient characteristics, so that the absence of difference in outcomes is a reliable finding.
     
    The studies of regional differences offer clear and compelling evidence that large variations in the utilization of medical services can be associated with no differences in health outcomes. If this is true across regions within the United States, then, in the absence of some striking piece of evidence to the contrary, I think it is reasonable to take it as true across countries as well. Again, it points to Americans' use of medical procedures with high costs and low benefits as the best explanation of why the United States spends more on health care than other countries without seeing correspondingly better outcomes.
     
    The differences in Medicare spending across regions are striking. In contrast, the differences between the way American medicine works within Medicare and under private health insurance are small. Relative to other countries, we seem to have the same large discrepancy in spending per person among our elderly population as we do in our younger population. This is consistent with the thesis that the institutional factors that make America different are on the supply side (easier availability of treatments) rather than on the demand side (the financing mechanism). America is an outlier in terms of spending both among people insured privately and among people insured by government.
     
    There is considerable controversy over what the regional differences in health spending -- without corresponding differences in outcomes -- imply about the value of medical care. At one extreme, George Mason University economist Robin Hanson argues that we could dramatically cut medical care without adverse implications for health ("Cut Medicine in Half," Cato Unbound, September 10, 2007).
     
    On the other hand, some economists point to the tremendous value of improvements in health and longevity in recent decades. If the value of health improvements over the past 30 years exceeds $1 million per person (as Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel argue), then how can our medical services not be cost effective? (Kevin Murphy and Robert Topel, "The Value of Health and Longevity," NBER Working Paper No. 11405, June 2005.)
     
    The discrepancy between the way health care looks if we examine differences across regions or over time can be explained in a number of ways. One hypothesis is that the big improvements in health and longevity that we have observed over the years are due to factors largely unrelated to premium medicine: better nutrition, less physical labor, better prenatal and postnatal care, vaccinations, and antibiotics.
     
    Another hypothesis is known as the "flat-of-the-curve" theory. The idea is that medical care offers diminishing returns. The marginal benefit of the most useful treatments is high. However, as one adds more and more spending, the marginal benefit declines. People nonetheless keep undergoing treatments as long as they can hope for any marginal benefit, no matter how small. This means that they consume along the "flat of the curve," where the marginal benefit is close to zero.
     
    Hanson thinks medical treatment can be harmful as well as helpful. He explains the observation that higher spending is not associated with better outcomes by suggesting that more treatment improves outcomes for some patients but worsens outcomes for others, with a net effect near zero. ("Showing That You Care: The Evolution of Health Altruism," Medical Hypotheses, Volume 70, Issue 4, 724–742.)
     
    What is puzzling is we know there is considerable research and innovation in medical treatment. We also are confident that at least some of these innovations are successful. For Hanson's view to be correct, there would have to be as many harmful innovations as helpful ones. One wonders why we do not then observe the market gradually filtering out the harmful innovations and retaining only the successful treatments.
     
    I should point out that in a market system, it would be of no concern to me whether other Americans spend their money on health care wisely or not. Whether you waste your money on ineffective medical treatments or on other consumer goods is of none of my business. Wasteful healthcare spending is a collective problem only because we have collectivized so much of what we spend.
     
    In spite of the large presence of private health-insurance companies, one should view the American healthcare system as largely socialized on the demand side. Healthcare "reform" could entrench this socialized system even more by inducing or requiring more people who are currently uninsured to obtain policies that insulate them from the costs of their medical care. (For more on the difference between insulation and true health insurance, see chapter 5 of my book, Crisis of Abundance: Rethinking How We Pay for Health Care, Cato Institute.)
     
    One wonders what might emerge were the government to refrain from subsidizing or regulating health insurance. If other consumers were like me, then the insurance market would be captured by companies offering policies that pay off only in the case of extreme catastrophic illness. However, if other Americans were like me, we would not have elected leaders who champion so much government involvement in health care.
     
    http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/health-cares-muddled-incentives/

     

    MJ <michaelj@america.net> Apr 14 10:50AM -0400 ^
     
    Obama Unveils Deficit-Cut Outline
     
    "President Obama entered the debate about the national debt on Wednesday after months on the sidelines, offering a plan to trim borrowing by $4 trillion over the next 12 years by combining deep cuts in military and domestic spending with higher taxes on the wealthy…. Obama announced his framework for deficit reduction in a speech that at times employed the highly partisan words he used on the campaign trail. But it included only a few notable, and largely incremental, policy proposals." ( Washington Post)
     
    Short on details, but the plan would raise taxes.
     
    The Goal Is Freedom
     
    Government as Consumer
     
    The nonsense of government investment.
     
    Sheldon Richman
     
    Posted March 12, 2010
     
    Destutt de Tracy, as I discussed last week, was a French economist whom Thomas Jefferson did his utmost to bring to the attention of America. The first part of Tracy's A Treatise on Political Economy (1817; pdf), the translation of which Jefferson arranged, is a primer in economics that will satisfy any aficionado of Austrian economics. It builds up a theory of exchange and commercial society beginning with a notion of value rooted in subjective utility. Its method is praxeological .
     
    Tracy's book discussed both the nature and economic effect of government. And how refreshingly lucid is his treatment! It makes most modern descriptions of government look childish.
     
    Today most mainstream observers regard government as a source of investment in society. Across the political spectrum, overlooking differences in detail, one finds agreement that government spending, at least at some level, creates value.
     
    Tracy did not see it that way. Like other liberal, free-market economists of early nineteenth-century France, Tracy saw the State essentially as a predator, a destroyer of value, and the source of class conflict. (Which is not to say he thought government should be abolished.)
     
    "In every society the government is the greatest of consumers," he wrote. This puts him at odds with most of what is believed about government now. Government spending, he insisted, does not create wealth.
     
    Nor does it stimulate others to create wealth, a belief that is dominant today. Prosperity cannot be achieved through consumption, he held, and he didn't buy the "multiplier."
     
    [T]hose who persuade themselves that consumptions can be a cause of direct riches, maintain that the levies made by government, on the fortunes of individuals, powerfully stimulate industry; that its expenses are very useful, by augmenting consumption; that they animate circulation; and that all this is very favourable to the public prosperity. To see clearly the vice of these sophisms, we must always follow the same track, and commence by well establishing the facts.
     
    He then proceeded to refute Keynes -- a mere 119 years before publication of The General Theory of Employment, Investment, and Money.
     
    The expenditure [government] makes does not return into its hands with an increase of value. It does not support itself on the profits it makes. I conclude, then, that its consumption is very real and definitive; that nothing remains from the labour which it pays; and that the riches which it employs, and which were existing, are consumed and destroyed when it has availed itself of them…. [This and all other emphasis added.]
     
    In other words, real investment in a free market, which is driven by entrepreneurs' attempts to satisfy consumers who -- crucially -- are free to say no, produces value, as indicated by the resulting profit. Thus we know that the output is esteemed more highly than the untransformed inputs. Government spending is not of that nature.
     
    But what about government spending on infrastructure, those "shovel-ready projects" so beloved by the champions of government stimulus spending? Tracy cleverly pulls the rug out from under the argument by seeming at first to approve of such spending. Unlike the waste of other government spending, he says,
     
    It is quite otherwise with funds employed in public labours of a general utility, such as bridges, ports, roads, canals, and useful establishments and monuments. These expenses are always favourably regarded, when not excessive. They contribute in effect very powerfully to public prosperity.
     
    And yet, "they cannot be regarded as directly productive, in the hands of government, since they do not return to it with profit and do not create for it a revenue which represents the interest of the funds they have absorbed…."
     
    Besides, Tracy wrote, even government projects aiming at valued outcomes crowd out private efforts that would have been more efficient.
     
    [W]e must conclude that individuals could have done the same things, on the same conditions, if they had been permitted to retain the disposal of the sums taken from them for this same use; and it is even probable that they would have employed them with more intelligence and economy.
     
    Even spending on science would be better left to private entrepreneurs.
     
    Finally, we may say the same things of what the government expends, on different encouragements of the sciences and arts. These sums are always small enough and their utility is most frequently very questionable. For it is very certain that in general the most powerful encouragement that can be given to industry of every kind, is to let it alone, and not to meddle with it. The human mind would advance very rapidly if only not restrained; and it would be led, by the force of things to do always what is most essential on every occurrence. To direct it artificially on one side rather than on another, is commonly to lead it astray instead of guiding it.
     
    Now Tracy goes in for the kill.
     
    From all this I conclude, that the whole of the public expenses ought to be ranged in the class of expenses justly called sterile and unproductive, and consequently that whatever is paid to the state, either under the title of a tax or even of a loan, is a result of productive labour previously executed, which ought to be considered as entirely consumed and annihilated the day it enters the national treasury. Once more I repeat it, this is not saying that this sacrifice is not necessary, and even indispensable…. But [every citizen] should know that it is a sacrifice he makes; that what he gives is immediately lost, to the public riches, as to his own; in a word, that it is an expense and not an investment.
     
    The upshot? For Tracy it is that government should be kept small and inexpensive. Note the jab he gives to "the greatest politicians."
     
    Finally, no one should be so blind as to believe that expenses of any kind are a direct cause of the augmentation of fortune; and that every person should know well that for political societies, as well as for commercial ones, an expensive regimen is ruinous, and that the best is the most economical. On the whole, this is one of those truths which the good sense of the people had perceived for a long time before it was clear to the greatest politicians.
     
    Next week: Tracy on government borrowing.
     
    http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/government-as-consumer/

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Apr 14 09:04AM -0700 ^
     
    *25 Police Cars And The SWAT Team To Evict Grandma From Home (2:50 video)*
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2axN1zsZno
    <http://a4cgr.wordpress.com/2011/04/14/08-502/>
     
    If you pay attention to the video, it is stated this woman was current
    with her house payments. They evicted her anyway.
     
    "Take Back the Land- Rochester engages in an eviction defense of the
    Lennon-Griffin family home. Rochester, NY sends 25 police cars,
    including the SWAT team, to execute the eviction.
     
    "6 Take Back the Land- Rochester members are arrested, as is an elderly
    neighbor who dared complain about the police overkill"
     
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    Freedom Is Always Illegal.
     
    Learn How To Protect Your Identity And Prevent Identity Theft
    <http://8f7ab0ybg8rx5p6mloffi9yw8t.hop.clickbank.net/>

     

    dick thompson <rhomp2002@earthlink.net> Apr 14 11:50AM -0400 ^
     
    3
    <http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/opinion/14kristof.html?permid=3#comment3>.
    George Jackson
    Tucson
    April 14th, 2011
    2:50 am
    Brilliant, and crystal clear !!!
     
    On Taxes, the following proposals:
     
    1. I would love to see proof that Taxes drove business off-shore. This
    is a pure myth. The two fundamental reasons for increased off-shore of
    jobs are simple: Local production/products/research for local markets,
    and lower labor costs to re-import to the US. Tariffs on imports would
    mitigate this, per the US Constitional authority, and should have been
    used to buffer this outflow of jobs and inflow of offshore products.
     
    2. All corporations over One Billion dollars revenue should pay a
    minumum Tax on Revenue of 3%.
     
    3. Tax rates on profits should be time dependent:
    a) 98% on profits generated in gains during 1 minute (NYSE computer trades)
    b) 95% on profits generated in gains held less than 1 day
    c) 80% on profits generated in gains held less than 1 month
    d) 50% on profits held less than 6 months
    e) 30% on profits held for less than 12 months
    f) 15% on profits held for less than 5 years
    g) 3% on profits held for 10 years - ie encourage real investment in
    Plant, Equipment assets and Research.
     
    4) Remove the cap on Social Security contributions, and put those fund
    in excess of Trust needs into a National Healthcare plan for 40+ year
    olds at least
    Recommend
    <http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/opinion/14kristof.html#>Recommended
    by 252 Readers
    Report as Inappropriate
    <http://community.nytimes.com/comments/www.nytimes.com/2011/04/14/opinion/14kristof.html#>

     

    Jonathan Ashley <jonathanashleyii@lavabit.com> Apr 14 08:46AM -0700 ^
     
    *Is Obama Ineligibility A Side Show Or The Main Event?*
     
    By J.B. Williams
    April 13, 2011
    NewsWithViews.com
     
    Despite monumental efforts to keep Obama's entire past completely under
    wraps, questions persist over who and what Barack Hussein Obama really
    is and how a half-term senate political neophyte with a totally blank
    resume managed to defeat the Clinton machine to become the most
    secretive president in U.S. history. Is it a side show, or the main event?
     
    Because Obama has refused to release his official vault birth
    certificate, college, passport records or family history including all
    medical records, and because he and those covering for him insist that
    there is 'nothing to see here' - many Americans are increasingly
    interested in how Obama was able to happen to America.
     
    His many overt anti-American and anti-constitution policies have driven
    speculation that not only is he not a natural born citizen eligible for
    the office he holds, he may not even be American at all.
     
    Business mogul Donald Trump appears ready to run for office on the
    search for a real Obama birther certificate. Not a COLB, but a real
    authentic birth certificate that looks just like every other American
    birth certificate.
     
    The press is largely responsible for the ongoing circus, as they have
    been completely uninterested in the matter for almost three years now.
    Never before in history has the press taken so little sincere
    journalistic interest in what could be the greatest scam ever
    perpetrated on American voters.
     
    They still claim that Obama's COLB (Certification of Live Birth) is an
    actual birth certificate, even though we all know that it isn't. We have
    seen real Hawaii birth certificates from people born in Hawaii on the
    same day Obama claims to have been born, even from the same hospital.
     
    But is the missing birth certificate the real issue?
     
    We all agree that the constitution requires one to be a natural born
    citizen of the United States to be president -- "No person except a
    natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of
    the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of
    President;" - But there is more than one definition of natural born
    citizen being proposed.
     
    . The Obot definition is simply citizen - native, natural,
    naturalized, hatchet, all being one in the same, using 14th Amendment
    naturalization arguments which are actually unrelated to the subject.
    . The birther definition is one line borrowed from Vattel's book on
    the Law of Nations -- "The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those
    born in the country, of parents who are citizens." -- But this
    definition ignores everything else Vattel said on the matter.
    . The historians definition also comes from Vattel's Law of
    Nations, but relies on the entire body of work; 1) As the society cannot
    exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the
    citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their
    fathers, and succeed to all their rights; 2) The country of the fathers
    is therefore that of the children; 3) in order to be of the country, it
    is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen; for, if
    he is born there of a foreigner, it will be only the place of his birth,
    and not his country.
     
    According to the Obot definition, all American citizens are natural born
    citizens eligible for office, including 14th Amendment citizens, which
    means, Article II -- Section I -- Clause V of the constitution means
    nothing at all.
     
    According to birthers searching for an authentic Hawaiian birth
    certificate, confirming Obama's birth place, or native born status, will
    establish whether or not Obama is eligible for the office he holds.
     
    Obama is happy with both of these definitions. The Obot definition of
    "citizen" sets the bar so low that Obama is confident he can meet that
    test, as could any anchor baby or 14th Amendment citizen.
     
    Once birthers help Obots establish that native and natural born are the
    same thing, Obama will likely find his missing birth certificate, even
    if the ink is not yet dry.
     
    His opposition will claim that the runny ink on the wrong paper proves
    it is a forgery, but Obama's defense team, known as the U.S. Justice
    Department, will argue that it is authentic. Leftist self-made Academics
    at FactCheck and Snopes will confirm and the press will say - see, we
    told ya so!
     
    The Supreme Court that has dodged the question for three years will
    continue to dodge the question. Obama's name will appear on the 2012
    presidential ballot in all 50 states and anyone opposed will be labeled
    a racist.
     
    But the historian's definition is not only factually correct - it leaves
    Obama no escape route and we don't even need to find the missing birth
    certificate.
     
    1) those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers;
    2) The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children;
    3) it is necessary that a person be born of a father who is a citizen;
     
    The true historical meaning of the term natural born citizen is based in
    natural law, not man-made law.
     
    The Law of Nations is the foundation, but not just the line birthers
    choose to hang their hat on, but the balance of the entire work, which
    clearly identifies the bloodline of the natural birth father as the
    source from which all rights succeed, specifically, natural born
    citizenship.
     
    We do not need a Hawaiian birth certificate because Obama has repeatedly
    identified his natural birth father as Barack Hussein Obama I of Kenya,
    who was at no time in his life, a citizen of the United States.
    Therefore, Barack Hussein Obama I could not have passed U.S. natural
    born citizenship to his son, Barack Hussein Obama II.
     
    As a constitutional law student, certainly, Barack Hussein Obama knows
    this, and that is why he is thrilled that people continue the silly
    search for a missing Hawaiian birth certificate, which would only affirm
    his native born status and also identify Barack Hussein Obama I as his
    natural birth father.
     
    Because natural rights are transferred to offspring via the bloodline of
    the father, Barack Hussein Obama II cannot be a natural born citizen of
    the United States, no matter where he might have been born.
     
    Why are birthers still in search of a birth certificate? What do they
    think they can gain from finding that missing document?
     
    If the goal is to uphold the constitution and preserve the future of the
    constitutional republic, then they need only remove Obama from office,
    along with all who participated in the grandest scam ever perpetrated
    upon American voters.
     
    Members of Congress and the Supreme Court either know this truth, or
    they should. They are either looking the other way for political gain,
    or they are horrifically unqualified for the jobs they currently hold.
    Either way, they are complicit...
     
    The ongoing search for a birth certificate is a dangerous distraction
    from the search for truth. The future of freedom and liberty hang in the
    balance. The people must get this one right, or they will get nothing
    else right.
     
    This matter is no side show -- it is the main event!
     
    © 2011 JB Williams - All Rights Reserved
     
    http://www.newswithviews.com/JBWilliams/williams144.htm
     
    JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no
    nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and
    American philosophy. He is published nationwide and in many countries
    around the world. He is also a Founder of Freedom Force USA and a
    staunch conservative actively engaged in returning the power to the
    right people in America.
     
    Web site 1: http://www.freedomforce.us/
     
    Web site 2: http://www.jb-williams.com/
     
    E-Mail: JBWilliams09@gmail.com
     
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
    Freedom Is Always Illegal.
     
    Learn How To Protect Your Identity And Prevent Identity Theft
    <http://8f7ab0ybg8rx5p6mloffi9yw8t.hop.clickbank.net/>

     

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