Centrum Silver (THIS HAS TO BE THE COMMERCIAL OF THE YEAR)!!!

 

 

 

Rare is the man who can weigh the faults of others without putting his own thumb on the scales

 

This one is just perfect and will awaken your reality, instead of your dream state!!!

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Leftist Rhetoric, Political Assassinations, and Race Riots

Another article worth reading.

http://americanvision.org/3929/leftist-rhetoric-political-assassinations-and-race-riots/

P.S. I did steal that book, was quite a radical when I was 18.

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Driver's Licenses: Not Really About Driving

Driver's Licenses: Not Really About Driving
by Eric Peters
EricPetersAutos.com

Why do we bother with driver's licenses at all?

They're certainly not a measure of even minimal competence as a driver. You take a written (now digital) test that Forrest Gump could pass, along with (maybe) a cursory "road" test that takes place in the parking lot of the DMV. A 12-year-old could pass these tests. More to the point, adults far less competent than the average 12-year-old routinely pass these tests. They have a driver's license, alright – but calling them "drivers" is generous. The sail fawn-addled, SmoooVee doing 80 in a snowstorm, '86 Buick in the left lane refusing to move right, double-yellow-crossing, half-blind inattentive Taco-eating marginality of the average Driver Americanus is known the world over. 

So, we do we bother with them at all? Because in the U.S., a driver's license is really an ID card. A sort of internal passport we're all compelled to carry – and produce, upon demand. It has very little to do with driving – and much to do with herding us like the cattle we've become.

I go too far? Well, see how far you can go without a driver's license – even if you never get behind the wheel of a car. Banks want to see your driver's license before they'll open an account – which you need to cash your check from your employer – who won't hire you unless you produce the government-issued internal passport – which you also can't board an airplane without and do many other things besides.

All of which have exactly zilch to do with competently operating a motor vehicle.

Of course, it was the Germans who invented the "driver's" license. (Stifle the PC outrage; your angry correspondent is as ethnically Volkdeutsch as sauerkraut.)

The first one was issued to Karl Benz for his Motorwagen in 1888 – and like so many other not-so-great ideas from the Fatherland such as Social Security, it has migrated to the Homeland.

The Germans have a DNA-encoded fetish for controlling things – including other humans. Again, stifle the PC outrage. I understand the German mindset because I grew up within in it and am plagued by it myself. It takes an everyday act of will to remind myself that other people are not my playthings and that they have as much right to do as they please – provided they're not harming anyone, of course – as I do.

Anyhow.

We now have to carry around these infernal internal passports that have nothing to do with driving ability, in order for the authorities – government and corporate – to be able to identify, record and process us.

Like the 4th Amendment and other former freedoms we've surrendered over the years, the freedom to travel thus no longer exists in this country. Even if you are on foot you can expect trouble if you cross paths with a representative of the sicherheitspolizei who – for no reason or for any reason – demands you "show me some ID" – and you don't happen to have any. Doesn't matter that you're just walking to the store (or whatever) and haven't done a thing to warrant suspicion of criminal conduct (the old standard; long since thrown in the woods).

Yes, I know that technically – in some states – "the law" still says they have to have some sort of articulable probable cause. See how much that helps when the SD man is Tazering you – or worse – for "resisting" or whatever he'll say you were doing. In fact, in the real world, possessing an ID – a driver's license – is a functional necessity, not simply to transact day-to-day business but to avoid becoming the star player in the next YouTube video episode of Don't Taze Me, Bro!

It's weird. Almost none of us question the basic of idea of being made to carry a driver's license/ID card – even as many of us have lately erupted in anger (rightly so) over the TSA's creepy and degrading low-rent porno scan n' feels.

Maybe we ought to.

If a driver's license were what the term implies – proof that you have shown you're competent to operate a vehicle, based on successful completion of an at-least slightly demanding driver's test in an actual car on actual roads – then, okay.

Maybe.

At least then, the bearer could take some pride in the same way that a college graduate or a person who holds a sharpshooter's certificate can take pride in a real achievement.

But the "driver's" licenses almost all of us carry today are nothing more than the equivalent of the yellow tags you see stapled into the left ears of cows. And serve the same purpose.

I think it's time for the cattle to question the whole business...

In Defense of Clear Thinking

In Defense of Clear Thinking
by Butler Shaffer

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer

My academic life in college was largely spent studying what were then referred to as the "liberal arts." History, geography, economics, philosophy, art, literature, music, psychology, and the genuine sciences, were among the various subject areas we considered essential to becoming mature, self-directed, learned individuals. We also studied one or more foreign languages, not simply to help us navigate our trips to other lands, but to provide us with the perspective that there are other people on the planet who think, live, and speak differently from us.

This approach to learning helped to provide us with the means of thinking clearly, rationally, and logically; to help us understand causal relationships in analyzing the interconnected and unpredictable complexities of our world; to distinguish fact from fantasy, and transcendent truths from fashionable opinion; all for the purpose of living as responsible individuals pursuing our respective self-interests with others.

I won't dwell, here, on how most colleges have long since abandoned such purposes in favor of curricula that [1] focus on career skills, and/or [2] serve the ideological policies of groups with social/political agendas, whose members have largely taken over the so-called "social sciences." One of the numerous adverse consequences of this transformation has been to produce many college graduates who are unable to bring the art of critical thinking to an analysis of events. An example is found in the incapacity of so many persons to identify causal connections between actions undertaken by political systems and the consequences thereof. When government officials intervene in economic decision-making [e.g., mandating minimum wage laws] that produces adverse consequences [e.g., increased unemployment], even seemingly well-educated men and women fail to see the relationship. Indeed, economic ignorance tends to feed upon itself, a fact addressed in Murray Rothbard's comment that "[i]t is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.' But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."

Another example of the disordered thinking produced by the failure to develop causal explanations of events began occurring right after the recent shootings in Tucson. How easily have people fallen for the statist lines that these killings were "caused" by private gun ownership, talk radio, the Internet, hostile rhetoric, or some mushy sense of a "failure to get along." I am surprised that the statists have not tried to exploit the shootings as another symptom of global warming! The comments made by politicians, government officials, and media flaks, have all acknowledged the presence of an atmosphere of anger in America, but none have addressed the cause of such widespread resentment.

Nearly four decades ago, I wrote an article -- titled Violence As a Product of Imposed Order -- that was published, in 1975, in the University of Miami Law Review. At the core of this article was a discussion of what is known as the "frustration-aggression" hypothesis. Briefly stated, the idea is premised on a recognition that each of us is motivated by the pursuit of what we consider to be our self-interest. Without any need for forcible direction from others, we will organize our energies and other resources in an effort to maximize our well-being.

When our self-directed, self-serving undertakings are forcibly interfered with by others [e.g., the state], our purposes become frustrated, a consequence of which is often a resort to aggression. A number of contributors to the study of aggression tell us much of the dynamics regarding aggression. Two such commentators observe, "[a] person feels frustrated when a violation of his hopes or expectations occurs, and he may then try to solve the problem by attacking the presumed source of frustration." In words that seem to have particular application to our present world, another adds: "I believe we are witnessing at all levels of our social network a conflict based on dualistic thinking, the polarities of which are personal or individual freedom as against social structures maintaining the functions of regulation and control." Another scholar expresses the point more succinctly: "[w]hen our drive to master the environment, or take from it what we need, is obstructed, we become angry." As two others observe: "the feeling that one has little control over his own destiny may lead to attempts to restore oneself as an active agent. This may involve attacking those who appear to be influencing and controlling the individual."

The voices of institutionalism -- whose function it is to constantly remind us that "all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds" -- will reject notions that the forces of the status quo have any causal connection to the violence and other aggression that surrounds us. When, during the 2008 Republican presidential "debates," Ron Paul introduced the idea of "blowback" as an explanation for the terrorism of 9/11, Rudy Giuliani revealed himself as intellectually unfit for any government office by expressing shock and resentment at Paul's analysis. What Paul was explicating, of course, was the "frustration-aggression" hypothesis: if X attacks Y, Y may choose to retaliate by attacking X. Children on the playground understand this basic fact, even if former New York City mayors do not. Those with even a rudimentary understanding of physics will recognize the proposition as Newton's "third law of motion."

Those who refuse to recognize the causal connection between state action and the epidemic of anger sweeping the world, would do well to ask this question: why do political systems have to rely on the use of violence to accomplish their ends? Violence forces life to abandon its own purposes, and to move in directions it does not want to go. What could be more frustrating, more conducive to aggression, than to deny to life its very sense of being? Individuals and firms operating in the free market don't employ such methods. Indeed, this is what clearly distinguishes the state from a free market system. Buyers and sellers in the marketplace prosper by appealing to -- not frustrating -- one another's purposes. Voluntary transactions are not only profitable to each of the participants, but to society as a whole. Why, then, the attraction of some, and the sanction of so many others, to violent methods of dealing with one another? Why do we persist in pretending that such practices serve any purposes beneficial to life? Why do we condemn the victims of state-generated conflict, compulsion, and brute-force for their counterattacks? Why do we not grasp the obvious fact that we are destroying our lives, as well as the lives of our children and grandchildren, by refusing to withdraw our energies from the kind of antiquated, organizational thinking that life, itself, can no longer tolerate?

The vertically-structured systems through which the institutional order has long operated are in a state of collapse. In large part because of technologies [e.g., the Internet] that are diffusing the control of information into the hands of the millions rather than just the few, our social systems – and thinking – are rapidly becoming decentralized. The political establishment has mobilized its violent powers in a desperate effort to shore up its weakened foundations and reinvigorate the status quo. But such efforts will no more halt the ongoing transformations than did the Luddite machine-breaking riots curb the Industrial Revolution.

What the state's increasing resort to coercion will do, however, is to further expand the sense of frustration people experience in their efforts to promote their self-interests. As economic dislocations continue to spread; as wars against the rest of the world widen the paths of destruction; as individual lives are subjected to more expansive and sophisticated police-state surveillance and intrusions; as men and women experience an ever-diminishing sense of the material and emotional quality of their lives; the resulting frustrations will produce more aggressive reactions.

As a result of institutionalized conditioning, we have grown up with certain expectations of the political system. Among these are lies such as that government exists to protect our lives and other property interests; that the state is necessary for the creation and maintenance of social order; and that we -- the ordinary people -- control it. In recent years, men and women have gotten fleeting glimpses of the man behind the curtain, and are beginning to see through the fraud and deception that has long been practiced upon them. There is a growing awareness that the system does not serve its avowed purposes, thus producing a frustration of expectations which, in turn, produces more aggression. Even as the statists try to shift the blame for all of this to the Totos of the world, centrifugal forces continue their redistribution of social energies, and neither "all the king's horses nor all the king's men" will be able to stop the process. As we discovered, along with Dorothy and her friends from Oz, you cannot lose your innocence more than once.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/shaffer/shaffer228.html

The Twenty-Year War in Iraq

The Twenty-Year War in Iraq
by Laurence M. Vance

"Why should a single American die for the Emir of Kuwait?" -- Pat Buchanan

The current war in Iraq – now near the end of its seventh year – did not really begin on March 20, 2003, when George W. Bush ordered the United States military to invade Iraq. It actually began twenty years ago on January 17, 1991, when another Bush, George H.W., ordered the United States military to invade Iraq the first time.

After getting a green light from the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, who told Saddam Hussein: "We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America," Hussein invaded Kuwait, on August 2, 1990. But even after John Kelly, the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, testified to Congress that the "United States has no commitment to defend Kuwait and the US has no intention of defending Kuwait if it is attacked by Iraq," Bush the elder sent 500,000 U.S. troops to that caldron known as the Middle East.

After imposing sanctions on Iraq in August, the United Nations in November set a date of midnight on January 16 as the deadline for Iraq to withdraw its troops from Kuwait. Congress – ignoring the Constitution and refusing to issue a declaration of war – issued a resolution authorizing the president to use military force against Iraq, "Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolution 678." The vote was 52-47 in the Senate and 250-183 in the House. Only two Republicans in the Senate and three in the House voted against the resolution.

When Iraq failed to withdraw its troops from Kuwait by the deadline, the United States commenced bombing as Operation Desert Shield turned into Operation Desert Storm. The 88,500 tons of bombs dropped widely destroyed both military and civilian infrastructure. The U.S. ground assault, Operation Desert Sabre, begin on February 24. A cease-fire was declared four days later. For the United States, there were 148 battle deaths and 145 non-battle deaths. This means that 293 Americans did die for the emir of Kuwait. Among the dead U.S. soldiers were 15 women and 35 killed by "friendly fire." The first American casualty of the war, LCDR Scott Speicher, was actually the last of the U.S. military dead to be identified, and just a couple of years ago.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers were also killed, plus several thousand Iraqi and Kuwaiti civilians. The current war in Iraq is but a delayed campaign in the war against Iraq. During the intermission there were tensions, threats, missile strikes, enforcement of no-fly zones, bombing raids, brutal sanctions that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, infamously said to be "worth it" by U.S. ambassador to the UN (and later Secretary of State) Madeleine Albright, and a continued presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, which inflamed the Muslim world, created terrorists, and led to the attacks of 9/11.

So, what should the United States have done when one autocratic Muslim state (Iraq) invaded another autocratic Muslim state (Kuwait)? The answer is the same no matter what country invades, bombs, attacks, or threatens another country – absolutely nothing.

It is not the purpose of the U.S. government to be the policeman, security guard, mediator, and babysitter of the world. The preamble to the Constitution mentions providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty "to ourselves and our Posterity," not to the tired, poor, huddled masses, and wretched refuse on distant shores.

The United States should be a beacon of liberty, leading the world by example, and not intervening or meddling in the affairs of other countries – for any reason. Not isolationism, of course, but in the words of Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none," yet doing "what is right, leaving the people of Europe to act their follies and crimes among themselves, while we pursue in good faith the paths of peace and prosperity."

And as I have maintained over and over again, the U.S. military should be engaged exclusively in defending the United States, not defending other countries, and certainly not attacking, invading, or occupying them. The U.S. military should be limited to defending the United States, securing U.S. borders, guarding U.S. shores, patrolling U.S. coasts, and enforcing no-fly zones over U.S. skies instead of defending, securing, guarding, patrolling, and enforcing in other countries. To do otherwise is to pervert the purpose of the military.

The world is full of evil, and conflicts between peoples have existed since the beginning of time. The United States has neither the responsibility nor the resources to resolve every conflict and stamp out all the evil in the world. Any American concerned about oppression, human rights violations, sectarian violence, ill treatment of women, forced labor, child labor, persecution, genocide, famine, natural disasters, or injustice anywhere in the world is perfectly free to contribute his own money to or go and fight on behalf of some particular cause. Just don't expect U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill for and U.S. soldiers to die for your cause.

Freeing Kuwait from Iraq – even if "only" 293 Americans died, even if Saddam Hussein had been deposed, even if it hadn't resulted in brutal sanctions, even if it hadn't led to another war, and even if it had ensured the free flow of oil at market prices – was not worth one cent from the U.S. treasury or one drop of blood from an American soldier.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance224.html