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Your paycheck information, or that of your neighbor's, is likely on a new database that went public Tuesday morning. It opens the curtain on the personal payroll of over one million federal workers.
Federal Workers' 2011 Salary Data Exposed Online, 5/15/12
The Institute for Justice has published an important new study on the economic impact of licensing laws.
Getting the Government’s Permission to Work, 5/10/12
If there were a widespread outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, how many would suffer needlessly because regulatory capture blocked new advances is testing? Innovations that never see the light of day, held back by the regulatory state, cannot be known. But in a free economy it is foolish to think that people wanting wholesome food will flounder about and go unsatisfied in the absence of the state.
Sick Cows and Mad Government Disease, 4/28/12
You can tell a lot about a person by assessing what they purchase. It's called "consumer profiling," and corporations do it all the time. That's how those grocery store loyalty discount programs work, by the way -- they profile your psychology by analyzing what you're buying. From that information, they can target you for coupons, mailers and other marketing campaigns that "magically" speak to your particular interests. It's not magic, of course; it's just behavioral profiling.
What's the government buying these days? Hollow point bullets, hardened checkpoint booths and radiation pills, 4/18/12
...The point being, the principle is practical. People who make rational choices when it comes to other products and services are just as likely to make rational choices when it comes to the “services” provided by government. If something has value, if it works, then they will freely buy it. If it does not have value, if it does not work then they will not.
And if it does not have value, if it does not work, then why should anyone be forced to buy it?
This is the question we must ask – and demand an answer to.
And naturally, it is the question government most wishes to avoid answering.
Eric Peters: If government "services" have any value, why are we forced at gunpoint to pay for them?, 4/17/12
How many people work for governments in the United States. Let’s look at the numbers.
Tax Burden: 40 Million Government Workers, 4/6/12
Several major differences exist between the usual corruption in the Third World and that in America.
Welcome to 3rd-World USA, 3/28/12
It’s all a stark reminder that government is a disease masquerading as its own cure… and that, ultimately, we only have ourselves to rely on. Trust me, this is good news. The sooner people wake up to how horrifically incompetent and amoral their governments are, the better off we’ll all be.
Government: A Disease Masquerading as Its Own Cure, 3/19/12
A new Executive Order signed on March 16, 2012, gives Obama the power to seize all forms of transportation, food, and any other civilian services including health care, for national defense, as well as to conscript necessary persons for a National Defense Executive Reserve. This is an all-inclusive E.O. that executes total control over everything from home gardens to any form of transportation, to forcing people to work for the collective. Read it and weep.
New Executive Order Seizes Total Control over Civilian Activities, 3/17/12
An inquisitive alien visits the planet to check on our progress as a species, and gets into a conversation with the first person he meets. The alien discovers that we live under the rule of a thing called "government", and wants to understand more about what "government" is, what it does, and why it exists.
Government Explained, 3/7/12
As the tyranny of destructive government envelops our once-free society, have you noticed how oppression, censorship and government aggression against the people is always defended as somehow protecting public safety? Consider these astonishing contradictions:
Great government hoax of public safety, 3/1/12
When you think of an abusive relationship, what adjectives come to mind? Controlling? Violent? Humiliating? Jealous? Obsessive? Go figure, it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to apply these same adjectives to many of the world’s governments throughout history and certainly the absolute states that emerged in modernity with their absolute warfare, constant surveillance, and obsessive control of every aspect of their citizens’ lives from cradle to grave– the federal government of the fifty American states being no exception to this unfortunate state of affairs.
To explore this idea a little further, I took a look at a list of warning signs of abuse, to see if our relationship with our government truly is analogous to an abusive relationship with a romantic partner. Spoiler alert: it is. The list was prefaced thusly: “The following questions ask you about your relationship. If you are not currently in a relationship, these are signs or ‘red flags’ to assist people in identifying a potentially abusive person.” Here are just ten of these questions:
10 Signs You’re in an Abusive Relationship (with your government), 2/28/12
Occupy Boise sued Gov. Butch Otter, claiming a new law aimed at them allows the state to seize private property without a warrant, without probable cause and without suspicion of a crime.
Idaho OKs Seizure of Protesters' Property, 2/27/12
The FDA reign of terror against family farms who are serving the needs of private buying clubs is culminating in one Wisconsin farmer facing federal charges. Citizens deserve the freedom to choose, and are staging an event in support of this principled farmer, Vernon Hershberger. He is being dealt with unjustly, and is standing strong with the support of the families he serves.
Farmer Faces Possible 3-year Prison Term for Feeding Community, 2/24/12
Don't worry, it's not the end of the world and it's not the first time. It's all been done before. And it will continue to be done for perpetuity until human beings realize that government is slavery, war, theft and death. Until then, we'll be living on some tropical island or beach or out-of-the-way, self-sufficient ranch surrounded by nothing other than mountains, goats and sheep... and hope our HDTV satellite feed or high-speed internet connection stays up long enough to watch the final stages of the collapse.
It's All Been Done Before, 1/12/12
Many people think that government provides some service. That is true, but it is incidental. Governments often deliver the mail. But they don’t have to. They would still be governments even if they didn’t control the Post Office. And what if they didn’t have a department of inland fisheries, or a program to teach retarded democrats to count to 20? They would still be in the government business…and still have their helicopters, chauffeurs and expense accounts. But if they lost control of the police or the army it would be an entirely different matter. Force is the essence of government, not a decorative detail. Without armies and police, they would no longer be governments. It is “from the barrel of a gun,” as Mao put it, that political power projects itself.
What Government Really Is, 12/28/11
Just when we might have thought that our society could not descend further down the rabbit hole comes news that the City of Los Angeles is offering a deal to the "Occupy LA" protesters who await trial for having dared to exercise their First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly. If these potential defendants will just cough up $355 each and agree to attend a class in "free speech" conducted by a private organization, they can avoid a trial that could result in heavy fines or imprisonment. The LA Chief Deputy City Attorney stated that "the First Amendment is not absolute," a remark that could only have been uttered by one who had never taken the time to read this provision. That Amendment reads, in relevant parts, "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, ...or the right of the people peaceably to assemble." This amendment does not read "Congress shall make no unreasonable law": it reads "no law," a proposition that is about as absolute as one can get. Nor does it say that the state can sell free speech and peaceable assembly rights to those who would like to exercise them, in lieu of going to prison!
First Amendment, Inc.: A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of the State, 12/24/11
What do Americans fear the most: big business, big labor, or big government? According to the latest Gallup poll, 64 percent of Americans surveyed at the beginning of December said the biggest threat that would face the nation in the future would be government — a jump of 11 percentage points from the beginning of the Obama years in 2008, when only 53 percent said government was the threat to keep one’s eye on.
Gallup Poll: Government Threat Growing in Minds of Americans, 12/21/11
Here at TDV fascism is frequently referred to as the increasingly prevalent form of government in the West. We recognize that this conjures strong emotions and we often get a few angry emails voicing displeasure with our characterization of their homeland. We understand that the word fascism is an emotionally charged word and we do not use it lightly.
We recognize, however, that we have never taken the time to define it completely nor place it within the context of our communications (although Jeff did compare the USA to the dictionary definition of "fascism" in "The Fasco-Communist Police State of America"). As such, we have fallen victim to one of our own cardinal sins; letting somebody else control the thoughts by controlling the definition of the words used to define those thoughts. To make matters worse, by default, we have relegated the responsibility of defining those words to two of the most criminally complicit estates in our society, namely the educational system and mass media. It is time to address this oversight.
Fascism for Dummies, 12/17/11
What if the government could write any law, regulate any behavior and tax any event, the Constitution be damned? What if the government was the reason we don't have a Constitution anymore? What if you could love your country but hate what the government has done to it? What if sometimes to love your country, you had to alter or abolish the government? What if Jefferson was right? What if that government is best which governs least? What if I'm right? What if the government is wrong? What if it is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong? What if it is better to perish fighting for freedom than to live as a slave? What if freedom's greatest hour of danger is now?
Andrew P. Napolitano: What if the Constitution No Longer Applied?, 11/30/11
When I read a story yesterday about an 89-year-old woman being water-boarded by nursing home staff over an argument about ice cream, I knew something terrible was amiss across the American landscape. Spontaneous acts of tyranny have been cropping up lately like cancer tumors: a food tyrant in Nevada raids a farm picnic and orders everyone to destroy their food; student protesters in California get pepper-sprayed by thuggish cops who clearly enjoy causing pain and suffering; and now nursing home staffers torture their own resident using techniques borrowed from Guantanamo Bay.
I watched all this with a sense of sadness and disgrace for the human race. And then a realization hit me like a sledgehammer... Like, children, people are only following by example
Trickle-down tyranny - why ordinary people in positions of local power are adopting tactics of tyrants, 11/22/11
It’s no secret that many members of the U.S. House and Senate are millionaires — 47 percent of them — their salaries paid in part by the American taxpayers.
The Center for Responsive Politics has crunched the numbers and released the results on its Open Secrets blog:
“About 47 percent of Congress, or 249 current members are millionaires. … In 2010, the estimated median net worth of a current U.S. senator stood at an average of $2.56 million,” according to the Center’s research.
47% of Congress Members are Millionaires, 11/16/11
Our form of government replaces personal responsibility (and freedom) with personal irresponsibility (and control). The TSA in its ugly, intrusive, and inefficient ways has taken over the responsibility of air travel security against terrorism. The traveler no longer need exercise any judgment in the choice of airlines. The airline company no longer need compete to distinguish itself as a desired safe way to travel, or as one that reduces waiting time. The FDA tells us what drugs may be sold and not sold and what may be used for what purposes and what may not. The government produces dietary guidelines, that is, it even tells us what to eat. The government tells us who is the enemy of the day and whom we must now bomb or kill. Any responsibility or freedom of action we might have in deciding whether or not we wish to contribute to the destruction of others is non-existent. As for helping others, the government tells us whom we must collectively support with money, medical care, emergency aid, and food stamps. This is not our responsibility.
It appears to me that the fact of government’s financial bankruptcy is surfacing to the public consciousness. The deeper fact of government by force being conceptually bankrupt hasn’t yet bubbled to the surface, but its movement has started.
Government by Force: Morally, Financially and Conceptually Bankrupt, 11/14/11
Do you want to get rich? Just get elected to Congress. The U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives are absolutely packed with wealthy people that are very rapidly becoming even wealthier. The collective net worth of the members of Congress is now measured in the billions of dollars. The people that we have elected to the House and Senate are absolutely swimming in money. Unfortunately, it is not easy to get elected to Congress. In this day and age you generally have to be heavily connected to those that are very wealthy to get into Congress because it takes gigantic amounts of cash to win campaigns. But if you can get in to the club, you pretty much have it made. The numbers that you are about to read are very difficult to believe and they should deeply sadden you. They show that Congress has become all about money. Congressional races are mostly financed by wealthy people, most of the people that we elect to Congress are very wealthy, and they rapidly get wealthier after they are elected. All of this money has turned our republic into something far different than our founding fathers intended.
The following are 12 statistics about money and Congress that are so outrageous that it is hard to believe that they are actually true.
12 Facts About Money and Congress That Are So Outrageous That It Is Hard To Believe That They Are Actually True, 11/10/11
The federal workforce appears to be immune to the country’s worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, which has left 14 million Americans out of work.
Civilian unemployment has mushroomed, sticking above 9 percent for months, although many experts put the real figure in the 18-20 percent range. Meanwhile, the number of federal employees has grown 12 percent since the official start of the recession in December 2007, MSNBC reports, citing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The Office of Personnel Management also estimates that there was a 14.8 percent increase in executive branch employees — that’s about 275,000 more — between September 2007 and June of 2011. That number does not include the Central Intelligence Agency and a few other government agencies.
Bloated Federal Workforce Rises 12% as Rest of US Goes Jobless, 11/3/11
The good news is that Americans' distrust of government is at its highest level ever. It's good news because it shows the public recognizes how poorly we're being governed. Not much good comes out of trusting people who shouldn't be trusted — not much good comes out of re-electing them, either.
Only 9 percent of Americans approve of the way Congress is handling its job, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. That's one point higher than the percentage of Americans who said in a 2002 Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll that they believe Elvis could still be alive.
Public's Distrust of Government, 10/31/11
If you were asked to guess, what area of the United States would you say has the highest average income? New York City? Los Angeles? Silicon Valley? Well, would you believe that it is actually the Washington D.C. area? Median household income in the region is $84,523, which is the highest in the nation. One of the biggest reasons for this are the huge salaries being pulled down by federal employees in the Washington D.C. area. According to the latest numbers, the average federal employee in the D.C. area brings in total compensation worth more than $126,000 a year. Of course members of Congress are even doing far better than that. Most of the members of Congress are millionaires, and somehow the vast majority of our politicians leave Washington D.C. far wealthier than when they arrived. So if you want to live the high life, you might want to move to the Washington D.C. area. Our "representatives" in Congress and the bureaucrats that work for the federal government are swimming in cash, and it is all at our expense.
10 Mind Blowing Facts which show how Members of Congress and Federal Employees are living the high life at Our Expense, 10/22/11
An excerpt of Doug’s musings on why “the problems we’re facing are 100% caused by the US government” – from the recent Casey/Sprott Summit When Money Dies.
Government Is a Monopoly of Force, 10/22/11
Does the government work for us or do we work for the government? Can the federal government take credit for saving us from a plot of its own creation? Tonight, has the federal government kept us safe or does it just want us to think that it has kept us safe?
Since the tragedy of 9/11, numerous crazies and low-level copy-cats have engaged in criminal behavior which they hoped would result in the deaths of innocent Americans and somehow advance the cause of jihad. If you ask the leadership of the FBI, most of whose field agents are tireless, dedicated, Constitution-supporting professionals, it will tell you that it has foiled about seventeen plots to kill Americans during the past ten years. What it will not tell you is that there have been twenty foiled plots; and of them, three were interrupted by members of the public. The seventeen that were interrupted by the feds were created by them.
Government-Generated Plots, 10/14/11
In yet another stunning attack on freedom of religion, President Barack Obama’s Justice Department asked the Supreme Court last week to give the federal government the power to tell a church who its ministers will be.
The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be forced to restore her ministry position.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and American Atheists, Inc. have filed briefs siding with the Obama administration against the church.
DOJ Says Feds Can Tell Church Who Its Ministers Will Be, 10/12/11
What we’re talking about here are the deaths of at least 200 people, and countless unnamed others, and Eric Holder, our top lawman, has his hands all over it. Where we come from this is usually called “being an accessory” or “accomplice,” though in Washington it seems to be business as usual.
This is just the latest example of the modern American system of justice, where the average Joe is arrested for crimes like selling lemonade or imprisoned for life for possession of marijuana, while the well-connected live within a completely different world where lawlessness runs rampant, the deaths of innocents are not investigated, trillions of dollars in fraud are ignored, and the Constitution is treated like an outdated policy rather than the fundamental law of the land.
If You Want to Stop Crime in America, Start in the White House and Work Your Way Down, 10/12/11
What if the Constitution were written not to limit government, but to expand it? What if the Constitution didn't fulfill the promise of the Declaration of Independence, but betrayed it? What if the Constitution actually permitted the government to limit and constrict freedom? What if the Bill of Rights was just a paper promise, that the government could avoid whenever it claimed the need to do so? What if the same generation – in some cases the same people – that drafted the U.S. Constitution enacted laws that violated it? What if the merchants and bankers who financed the American Revolution bought their way into the new government and got it to enact laws that stifled their competition? What if the civil war that was fought in the name of freedom actually advanced the cause of tyranny?
Myth of American Freedom, 9/30/11
The legal theory behind civil forfeiture is that property – not its owner – is guilty of a crime. And, if the government alleges that your property somehow was involved in or facilitated a crime, you can lose it. Because civil forfeiture is a civil procedure, none of the protections that would apply to a criminal proceeding are in place. Your property is presumed guilty. If you can’t prove that it’s “innocent,” you can lose it. If you don’t have $20,000 or so to hire an attorney who specializes in civil forfeiture cases, you’re unlikely to ever get it back.
Civil Forfeiture: The War on Your Wealth, 9/29/11
Chuck and Stephanie Fromm of San Juan Capistrano, Cal., have long enjoyed having their friends over for weekly dinner, fellowship, and a time of studying the Bible together. But according to a recent report from CBS 2 in Los Angeles, the city is not so pleased, as it considers such gatherings to be illegal.
Since more than three people typically come over to the Fromms house every week, the city claims the couple is violating a local ordinance, and must obtain a conditional use permit if it wishes to continue having guests on the property. But to obtain such a permit, the Fromms would have to jump through all the same regulatory hoops as a local business or church would have to, including conducting extensive traffic and environmental impact reports, making their home accessible to wheelchairs, and paying additional fees.
City threatens to fine couple up to $500 every time friends come over for Bible study, 9/25/11
New York City was under siege this week. Decent folk cowered at home while two-bit thugs stalked our streets, guarding the self-important sociopaths invading Manhattan.
Yep, the United Nations’ General Assembly met as always at this time of year, plotting to grab more power over the world, and the NYPD milked that for all the overtime it could get.
Were you to stroll around the skyscrapers in midtown, you’d assume you’re in occupied territory. Cops – phalanxes of them – clog every intersection, and movable, metal barricades fence off whole streets, confining New York’s disarmed populace to sidewalks as though we pose some sort of threat. Recall that many of the dictators bloviating at the UN have hundreds or thousands of rapes and murders, a war or two, torture and often even genocide to their credit, not to mention the usual plunder and theft. Yet Our Rulers fret about protecting them from us.
UNsafe New York, 9/24/11
As the U.S. government grapples to find ways to trim the bloated federal deficit, a new report suggests officials might start with cutting out $16 muffins and $10 cookies.
"We found the Department (of Justice) spent $16 on each of the 250 muffins served at an August 2009 legal conference in Washington," said a DOJ Office of Inspector General report released on Tuesday.
The DOJ spent $121 million on conferences in fiscal 2008 and 2009, which exceeded its own spending limits and appeared to be extravagant and wasteful, according to the report that examined 10 conferences held during that period.
$16 muffins, $8 coffee served in Justice audit, 9/21/11
President Obama's highly touted $300 billion "jobs" bill is a non-starter. It is unlikely to get through the Republican House of Representatives and even if it did, it would not create viable private sector jobs. After three years of sluggish economic growth and meager private sector jobs growth, politicians in Washington D.C. still insist on playing smoke and mirrors with the American people.
Can government spending create jobs? Governments can certainly create jobs in the public sector; they do it all the time and Obama's bill will do more of it. Governments can hire school teachers, social workers, and millions of other bureaucrats to administer its thousands of programs and regulations. Importantly, however, the funds for these jobs must be provided by either taxation or by borrowing from the private sector. Thus as almost all economists recognize, public sector employment comes (in some real sense) at the expense of opportunities for private sector employment.
Obama Jobs Bill Hoax, 9/21/11
Why does the U.S. Government feel that they can routinely ignore, circumvent and break the common laws of the land encapsulated by the Constitution? This is a complex issue outside the ability to fully explain in one short article. However, the main crux of this issue has to do with the application of maritime law over common law.
Why the U.S. Government continually ignores the Constitution, 9/19/11
Allison, who I first wrote about here, was facing up to 75 years in prison for recording public officials with a digital recorder. Those charges have been dismissed.
Great news. And kudos to Allison for refusing to take a plea in the case. I’m not exactly sure where things go from here. I’ll report more on this next week.
Illinois Judge Dismisses Charges Against Recorder of Public Officials, 9/17/11
One distinct set of essentially age-old, though contemporarily repackaged fallacies is still very much with us, and – such is their perverse nature – their popularity keeps feeding on the calamities that they themselves continue to bring.
They are the fallacies rooted in the denial of the existence of the logical structure of human action, and the consequent negation of economic laws. They are the sophisms that lead people to believe that with sufficient determination and coercive power, one can eliminate the constraints of scarcity. They are the supposed panacea eagerly peddled by the representatives of politically connected special interest groups, whose purported effects they often refer to as "paradoxically salutary" or "counterintuitively beneficial". Taken together, they constitute a vision of an upside-down world, whose inhabitants are expected to believe, among other things...
Fixing an Upside-Down World, 9/9/11
American fascism is one of a kind. Its economic system is neither free enterprise nor pure egalitarian socialism, but more akin to buffed-up, modernized, globally dominant Mussolinian corporate state. Its militarism rivals and in many senses exceeds any of history’s fascist regimes, in power, uninterrupted belligerence, and sheer size. Its presidency is the most revered and powerful Fuhrer in world history, despite and actually due to its democratic nature. America’s racial nationalism is unusual but very real, combined with pretensions of anti-racism. Its police state enslaves and punishes, at home and abroad, in ways that would make Franco or Perón envious, even as it allows for a relatively wide range of social liberty.
When Keith Olbermann called Bush a fascist in 2008, the conservatives thought it seditious and threatening. When Glenn Beck began sounding the alarm in 2009 that America was moving toward fascism, the progressives thought it crazy and dangerous. Both of these statements were not hyperbole, however. If anything, antiwar lefties and populist rightists only know the half of it when they use the dread "F" word, since they fail to note how intimately much of their own favored agenda falls in line with what they despise.
America’s Unique Fascism, 9/6/11
Father Obama, "Mommy" Margaret Hamburg, Big Sis Janet Napolitano, "Crazy" Grandpa Harry Reid, Uncle Ben Bernanke, Cousin "Good ol' boy" Tom Vilsack - Don't you love your new Federal Family?
Meet your new Federal Family, 9/3/11
Immediately after the "Labor Day Holiday" congress will come back to "work" to finish the 52 days that they officially spend each year actually working for their astronomical compensation packages that we pay them; to do what they do? Would it surprise you to know that this time what is 'first-up' on their agenda is the 'seating' of the new SUPER-CONGRESS?
You've probably heard something about it but what you might not know is that by being sworn in and actually seated; these twelve people will be openly committing TREASON against the US Constitution and the people that supposedly elected this congress to their offices? That is a true statement because everything the constitution spells out includes the fact that only the Congress (all of the congress) shall be responsible for all legislation. Bush began this erosion of the rule of law when he introduced his totally illegal third signing-option; wherein he could decide which parts of any legislation he would be bound by and which parts he as Dictator would ignore. That began the illegal-precedent for criminal-violations by the congress as well as the Executive Branches of this government and so far the courts have not challenged these completely unconstitutional actions.
Obama and The Gang of 12: The World's Largest Slave Auction, 9/3/11
I think what my church does is important, but I don’t want government giving it money. I think what we do at FEE is important, but we’d go out of business before we’d take a nickel of somebody’s money against his will. I might even like certain nongovernment-funded art forms more than the ones that are politically well connected enough to get a grant, but I don’t want to corrupt them with a government check. As children we want what we want and we want it now, and we don’t care where it comes from or even if somebody has to be robbed for us to get it. But as discerning adults who put a higher premium on mutual respect and building a culture that rests on creativity and persuasion over coercion, we should have different standards.
Lots of things are important in life. Spare us the sanctimonious and self-serving nonsense about taking other people’s money for the art you happen to think they should pay for.
What’s Wrong with Government Funding of the Arts?, 9/2/11
The US Government's agenda to lobotomize the majority of Americans has been an unequivocal success.
Americans now live in one of the world's least free prison camps yet when asked they will tell you they live in the land of the free and, on top of that, they are attacking and occupying countries who did nothing to them because "they hate us for our freedom"!
...Yes, Americans love that freedom, don't they. As long as it is fully regulated, taxed and overseen by some government bureaucrat.
We Love Freedom! Wait, What's Freedom?, 8/25/11
The Wall Street Journal published a disturbing article earlier this week entitled “Federal Asset Seizures Rise, Netting Innocent With Guilty.”
You can already imagine the crux of the article.
In the United States, there are hundreds of regulations which authorize dozens federal agencies to confiscate private property– homes, cars, bank accounts, gold, company shares, and even personal effects.
Ironically, most Americans still think that they live in a country where you’re innocent until proven guilty. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it’s just another clear example of how the US Constitution has become a worthless piece of toilet paper for the federal government.
US Government Asset Seizures on the Rise, 8/24/11
Meet Audrey Tomason.
Reportedly Barack Obama's Director for Counterterrorism, the diminutive 30-something Tomason is said by Wikipedia to be "one of the most secretive women in U.S. intelligence circles", so much so that her master's thesis, written while attending Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is now classified by the U.S. government as top-secret, as reprehensible a violation of academic principles as possible.
It is known that she has authored a report called "The Apocalypse Equation", suggesting that it would be more "humane" for our world—meaning our species—to undergo a "planned and controlled genocide" rather than to see it descend into the abyss of chaos it is now entering.
Note that whenever the power-hungry speak of "chaos", what they are actually referring to is freedom. And that whenever they are doing the most unspeakable things to people—making choices for them that nobody should be allowed to make—it is invariably out of pure kindness.
Democide Is Painless, 8/14/11
Eighty-one House members, one fifth of the chamber, will visit Israel during the traditional summer recess, instead of addressing festering local issues at home during the nation's gravest economic crisis too serious to ignore.
Congressional Junkets to Israel - Power of the Israeli Lobby, 8/14/11
President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law suffered a setback on Friday when an appeals court ruled that it was unconstitutional to require all Americans to buy insurance or face a penalty.
Appeals court rules against Obama healthcare mandate, 8/12/11
Congress has a new hot spot this summer - Israel.
Over the three-week recess, 81 members — 55 Republicans and 26 Democrats — will take a trip to the Jewish state, the Jerusalem Post reported Monday. That breaks down to about 20 percent of the House who will spend a week of their August break in Israel.
81 Members of Congress to Visit Israel: Preparing for War?, 8/8/11
Referring to the Super Congress as a committee is a bit deceitful. Calling it a Supreme Council of Overlords would be a bit more accurate.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made this quite clear by announcing on the Senate floor that, “The joint committee – there are no constraints. They can look at any program we have in government, any program … It has the ability to look at everything.”
When this is made explicit and openly so, I think there should be some serious concern among Americans.
The PATRIOT Act was not billed as an Act that would be used to detain and torture Americans and innocent people from around the globe who did not have any evidence against them. We only found this out after it was rushed into law.
The Super Congress, on the other hand, has already been exposed as a completely unconstitutional body that will remove the ability for anyone to filibuster a bill or amend it in any way. This gives 13 people the unprecedented power to push through any legislation without a single amendment.
Super Congress: The Final Nail In The Coffin Of Representative Democracy And Freedom As We Know It, 8/2/11
As we look back on the horrors of the dictatorships and autocracies of the past, one particular question consistently arises; how was it possible for the common men of these eras to NOT notice what was happening around them? How could they have stood as statues unaware or uncaring as their cultures were overrun by fascism, communism, collectivism, and elitism? Of course, we have the advantage of hindsight, and are able to research and examine the misdeeds of the past at our leisure. Unfortunately, such hindsight does not necessarily shield us from the long cast shadow of tyranny in our own day. For that, the increasingly uncommon gift of foresight is required…
Essential Rules of Tyranny, 7/30/11
Many have had the sneaking suspicion that our elected “leaders” in Congress are not going to Washington D.C. to represent us but for their own personal gain. This video may just validate that assessment! Using the net worth data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics we found a disturbing trend.
Congressional members net worth up 3669%, 7/27/11
A pediatrician in Boston named David Ludwig has been sharply criticized over the past week for suggesting that obese children might be taken away from their parents by state authorities for their own safety. In his article, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, he explains that taking these children away from their natural parents and putting them in foster care might, as a "last resort," be the most ethical choice.
US pediatrician suggests government should take obese children away from their parents, 7/19/11
There are a lot of people who consider themselves freedom advocates, who, with righteous zeal and indignation, vehemently rail against the injustice, corruption and oppression "government" continually spews forth. However, many of those same people, when they hear someone suggesting life without the monstrosity called "government," will immediately go into turbo-backpedal mode, insisting that some "government" is needed, that we need to work to fix the system, and that we need a good "government," that just does good stuff, and protects us, and so on.
The situation is a lot like a battered spouse, who is given the opportunity to escape her abuser, but who insists that she can't leave, that he really loves her, that she needs him, that the relationship can be fixed. Such a response shows that, as much as the abuser is a nasty scumbag, there is also a serious problem in the mind of his victim, which enables the abuse to continue.
So it is with statists who just want a nicer, gentler "government." They don't actually want freedom. In fact, they are scared to death of freedom, which is why they refuse to give up the very beast that they are constantly condemning and complaining about. They insist that "government" is needed to protect people, to maintain liberty and justice, and do nothing more. The fact that the gang called "government" has never done that, anywhere in the world, at any time in history, doesn't shake "limited statists" from their faith in the idea that that "needs" to happen.
Scared of Freedom, 7/11/11
The anti-food tyrants are at it again, this time threatening a Michigan woman with fines and jail time for her "crime" of daring to plant tomatoes and peppers in her front yard. Your help is needed to take action and fire off an avalanche of complaints against the local bureaucrats in Michigan who are threatening this woman.
Bureaucrats in Michigan threaten woman with jail time for planting vegetable garden in her own yard, 7/11/11
Legally, the Federal government is a month away from bankruptcy. The government, under the direction of Treasury Secretary Geithner, is borrowing money from Federal employees' pension funds to keep the doors open. It's an accounting trick. First, the Federal government funds the pension funds with money. Second, the funds buy Treasury bonds. Third, the government immediately spends the money. It's like Social Security, whose Trust Fund is a pile of IOUs from the government.
On the Road to Government Default
It began as a routine check-up. New parents Calob and Ashly had taken their 2.5-month old baby, Caden, to a weight specialist because he was slightly underweight. As far as they knew, they were doing a great job with Caden, feeding him everything he needed and performing the duties of responsible parents. They had gone along with their pediatrician's recommendation to see the specialist because they wanted to be certain nothing was wrong.
But after a few minutes in the examination room, the appointment turned into an ambush. Multiple officials from Department of Family Services (DFS) stormed in the room, demanding the astonished parents disclose what they had been feeding their child. They were then given a choice, between being put into jail on the charge of child abuse, and signing a rights waiver to relinquish their parental rights over their child. Under the intense scrutiny and pressure of state officials, they signed the waiver, and then lost their child.
Infant kidnapped, tortured by Missouri state officials, 7/6/11
Getting on the wrong side of a political fight can land you in the crosshairs of a White House smear campaign, at least that is what appears to have happened during the Bush administration years. According to recent testimony by former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Glenn Carle, the Bush White House ordered the agency to dig up dirt on a prominent university professor that had been outspoken against the war in Iraq, in order to publicly discredit him -- and that was apparently not the only time the administration targeted those who dared to question the legitimacy of its actions.
Whistleblower claims Bush White House used CIA to perform hit jobs against political dissidents, 7/2/11
NBC Sports has been forced to apologize following an outcry after the network deliberately edited out the words “under God,” from the US pledge of allegiance in a video segment for the US Open that showed images of US troops, but the edit has nothing to do with NBC’s purported “liberal bias” and everything to do with the fact that NBC is owned by the US military-industrial complex.
One Nation Under the Military-Industrial Complex, 6/20/11
Most things are still legal in the US. It is still legal to have foreign bank accounts – although you are required by law to report them to the Government. It is still legal to get a second passport. It is still legal to move assets in your IRA outside of the country. It is still legal to move money outside of the country and buy foreign real estate.
The window of opportunity is closing. If you live in the US and still have all your assets inside of the US, you likely have months, not years, to internationally diversify your assets and to get your affairs in order. Anything much after 2011 is taking a big risk of losing it all.
Door Is About to Shut for Americans, 6/17/11
Whenever justice is uncertain and police spying and terror are at work, human beings fall into isolation, which, of course, is the aim and purpose of the dictator state, since it is based on the greatest accumulation of depotentiated social units.
Why TSA, Wars, State Defined Diets, Seat-Belt Laws, the War On Drugs, Police Brutality, and Efforts to Control the Internet, Are Essential to the State, 6/9/11
Feeding the homeless in a public park without the proper permits can land you in jail, at least in Orlando, Fla. A recent report in the Orlando Sentinel explains that police officers there arrested three volunteers with the Food Not Bombs (FNB) charity for illegally feeding a large group of homeless individuals in Orlando's Lake Eola Park.
Cops arrest charity workers for illegally feeding homeless, 6/7/11
Last year I wrote an article titled "I'm Fed Up With Constitution Worship!" Since that time it seems, I hear more and more every day about "getting back to the constitution," mainly from "conservatives" and those of the Tea Party persuasion. I always wonder not only have any of these people ever read and studied the constitution, but also do they even understand why it was secretly drafted in the first place? All indications show that they aren’t at all familiar with the enabling power of that document to create a strong central governing system that reduced severely the sovereignty of the states.
I have this contrarian view not because I am cynical or pessimistic, but because I have thoroughly studied this set of rules or "law of the land," and found them to be antagonist to individual liberty and state’s rights, and sympathetic to big government. When one compares the constitution that was replaced, The Articles of Confederation, there is little doubt of this truth.
Constitution Worship Revisited by a Constitutional Atheist, 6/4/11
So many of the words and warnings delivered by America’s Founding Fathers are appropriate for today. Consider this sage counsel from America’s first and greatest President, George Washington: “Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” I was reminded of these words when I read the following report out of the State of Indiana.
“Overturning a common law dating back to the English Magna Carta of 1215, the Indiana Supreme Court [ISC] ruled Thursday [May 12, 2011] that Hoosiers have no right to resist unlawful police entry into their homes.
Government Cannot Be Trusted To Police Itself, 5/27/11
The essence of Gangster Government was summed by a comment President Barack Hussein Obama made in October, 2010: We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.
That in essence is what government corruption is all about, and that is what we have had in Washington since Obama took his oath of office. We now have a government of men, not laws. That was how the Democrat Congress forced the enactment of Obama’s socialized healthcare program despite strong opposition from the American people.
Thugocracy: America's New Gangster Government, 5/19/11
The Massachusetts legislature is conducting hearings Wednesday on a bill that would bar divorcing couples with children from carrying on a sexual relationship while in their own home.
The bill would prevent parents from "conducting a dating or sexual relationship within the home" until the divorce is final.
Although seemingly written to spare children the pain of seeing their parents become involved with other people, the bill's language is so broad it can easily be interpreted as forbidding sex entirely.
Parents that wish to have sex would need to get a judge's approval.
Mass. bill would require divorcing parents to obtain judge’s approval for sex, 5/18/11
For a people to be free, they must first be honest with themselves, their government, and the world at large. History is filled with stories of free nations that fell under the spell cast by their governments who exploited the threat of terror.
In fact, numerous presidents in American history already have used various specific threats to sidestep their Constitutional restraints. Today we are entering a nebulous world where our "enemy" cannot be defined, has no particular allegiance to one country, and is able to adopt new leaders at will. Rather than encourage a sense of resilience and independence in its citizens, America has chosen to amplify the terror threat in order to concentrate power in the hands of the State. The very first signpost on this historically familiar road to tyranny is an atmosphere of hate, suspicion, and vindictiveness. It first begins as an outwardly directed aggression and then rather abruptly turns inward upon itself.
The good news is that freedom is won and lost in our hearts and minds. It is for this reason that we must state the obvious: we have clearly passed through the first "atmospheric" stage of approaching dictatorship, and have now entered the second -- the open behavior of a dictatorship in the United States.
10 Indications the United States is a Dictatorship, 5/16/11
As we've noted before on a number of occasions, the US government is preparing for Unlikely Events Like War, Catastrophic Collapse of Society, and Even Asteroids and the Pentagon and Military are Actively War Gaming ‘Large Scale Economic Breakdown’ and ‘Civil Unrest’. In addition to security and law enforcement implications, it doesn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to come to the conclusion that war gaming these scenarios takes into account continuity of government directives, which means that elite members of reserve government elements need a place to go if the SHTF.
Shadow Government Bunkers: Security Heightened at Underground Storage Facilities, 5/13/11
Except for Aristide's tenure, what passes for Haitian democracy would make a despot blush, thanks to America's imperial grip on the hemisphere's poorest, long-suffering people.
As a result, last November's presidential and legislative elections might best be called a cruel joke. The entire process was rigged to exclude 15 parties, including by far the most popular, Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas.
Moreover, the election was so tainted by brazen disenfranchisement and fraud, including ballot box stuffing and other irregularities, that legitimate independent observers would have demanded throwing out the results and starting over.
Washington rigged Haiti's elections, 5/11/11
The White House's 'death of bin Laden' story has come apart at the seams. Will it make any difference that before 48 hours had passed the story had changed so much that it no longer bore any resemblance to President Obama's Sunday evening broadcast and has lost all credibility?
So far it has made no difference to the once-fabled news organization, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which on March 9, eight days later, is still repeating the propaganda that the SEALs killed bin Laden in his Pakistani compound, where bin Laden lived next door to the Pakistani Military Academy surrounded by the Pakistani army.
Americans Are Living In 1984, 5/10/11
Democracy is the worst form of government, Sir Winston Churchill once said... except for every other form of government. In other words, all forms of government are atrociously bad, and democracy may merely be the least bad of the bunch. I certainly wouldn't want to live under a dictatorship, socialism or communism. So I like the idea of democracy, and I wish it would work better for America. But it isn't working. That much is clear. Democracy is failing America, and we can't just blame it on the politicians and the corporations. People actually vote for their own self-destruction by electing professional liars to represent them.
Why democracy is failing America, 5/10/11
As gasoline prices passed $4 per gallon in Connecticut, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Joseph D. Courtney joined President Obama in denouncing "speculators" and urging investigation of manipulation in the oil market. There are a few problems with this.
Biggest Market Rigger Is Government Itself, 5/9/11
The Fed and the Treasury Department routinely refuse to answer questions about their secret market interventions. Now that the government bond market is admittedly and almost entirely a Fed operation, even reputable market observers suspect that the government's market intervention has become comprehensive as the government's financial mismanagement has worsened -- that not just the bond market but the dollar and equity markets as well are being held up only because of secret government intervention.
Biggest Market Rigger Is Government Itself, 5/9/11
The “logistical coordinator” for a top Mexican drug-trafficking gang that was responsible for purchasing the CIA torture jet that crashed with four tons on cocaine on board back in 2007 has told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago that he has been working as a U.S. government asset for years.
Top Mexican Drug Lord: I Trafficked Cocaine For The U.S. Government, 4/27/11
Now, in a new book, A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mother, it is reported that the President's mother actually worked for a period at the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia while she lived there
An Early Government Connection for President Obama's Mother, 4/21/11
The guilty are powerful and free, the innocent burdened and oppressed: that is injustice.
There is a fundamental injustice that is poisoning the soul of the nation, and if it is not openly addressed then the nation will face the explosive consequences of institutionalized injustice.
Simply put, it is this: those responsible for the nation's financial crisis and its catastrophic after-effects are not paying for the consequences of their actions--it is the innocent, those who were not responsible, who are paying the price.
The state of justice in America; Fundamental Injustice That Is Poisoning the Nation, 4/20/11
In the last 14 years here at the Sovereign Society I have had the sad duty to chronicle and warn about the Leviathan state’s ferocious war against free market economics, and especially against your freedom to bank, invest and do business offshore.
The State's Ferocious War Against Us, 4/21/11
9/11 george bush rigged polls fraud elections alternative vote av bin laden war of terror Libya massacre revolution resistance Fighters Zintan Protest Mesrata Benghazi Gaddafi Revolution Bayida Tubruq Al Beida LIBYA Bahrain Army Massacre government Torture Police Abdullah Saudi uprising demonstrators Uprising Karzakan Iran 25Bahman Tehran Egypt Tunisia Khamenei 14Feb Mahmoud Ahmadinejad FBI US Government Wikileaks Tahrir Square Resistance Cairo Hospital Solidarity freedom Muammar Gaddafi:
Programmer under oath admits computers rig elections, 4/18/11
Jury nullification plays a vital role in a healthy legal system. It allows people to vote their conscience and nullify bad laws, thus sending a strong message to legislators. This is how alcohol prohibition was overthrown. This is how marijuana prohibition will be overthrown.
Live Free and Nullify, 4/18/11
Ariana Goldboldo, a mentally handicapped 13-year-old, was abducted from her home at gunpoint on March 24. Her captors have systematically poisoned her through injections of a dangerous psychoactive drug. There is also reason to believe that Ariana, who has reportedly tested positive for an STD, has been molested during her time in captivity.
Stormtroopers and Child-Snatchers, 4/13/11
Restrictions on the purchase of meth precursor chemicals have been a boon to law enforcement entrapment schemes. For years, undercover government agents have been have been launching, building, supplying, and then busting meth manufacturing operations. Claims of entrapment are so closely linked to methamphetamine manufacturing cases that most meth-lab conviction appeals focus on officer conduct rather than defendant conduct. See here, here, and here. In this case, an undercover government informant delivered a van with 52 gallons of ingredient chemicals to a threesome of dupes. In this case, undercover informants provided not only the precursor chemicals but also the very location for the lab and the necessary equipment for manufacturing meth. Law enforcement agencies have even set up fake chemical supply stores in order to get the precursor chemicals out onto the street so they can bust meth lab operators.
Cooking Meth: How Government Manufactured a Drug Epidemic, 4/5/11
Corporate structures can be psychologically profiled much like human beings. Basic principles and dynamics are similar, but with different scales of measure. The wheels of bureaucracy grind more slowly, but they do grind through processes analogous to human personal development in rising from conception to maturity and end at a point of systemic failure, a decaying corpse. Uncle Sam, personification of America’s now psychopathic body politic, reigns as “the world’s policeman”, yet denies his diseased mind is a danger to himself and others. This gangster exercises force and fraud to assert his vitality vainly in violent spasms while vultures hover in view of the corpus delicti
Psychopathic Body Politic, 3/29/11
Whether they realize it or not Americans live in a constant state of fear every day. I’m not referring to the fears of everyday life like losing a job or having an accident of some kind, but rather a more sinister and devious fear; a fear that Americans only dare talk about around the water cooler or at cocktail parties so as not to be taken seriously; a fear they try to mask with a with a whimsical tone of sarcasm or indifference. Whether Americans want to admit it or not, it’s the single greatest fear in their lives: fear of the government.
American Fear, 3/25/11
Last fall, it became widely public that the US government deliberately infected roughly 700 Guatemalans with syphilis in a 1940s experiment on the effectiveness of penicillin (http://www.naturalnews.com/029924_m...). Now, those involved in the experiment and their families are planning to sue the US government for damages unless it agrees to properly settle the issue outside of court.
Guatemalans to sue US government for secretly infecting them with syphilis, 3/11/11
A Republican senator in Idaho has found a little-known doctrine dating back to the 1700s that may be the silver bullet needed to bring down Obamacare, at least in this state. The concept is “nullification,” and Idaho is not alone in pursuing it as yet another way to deflect the expensive and repressive costs involved in complying with Obamacare. Maine, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming are also considering using nullification.
The doctrine is old, but in essence, nullification provides that states are their own sovereign authorities if and when Congress and/or the POTUS overstep(s) the bounds of their power. It also contends that the Supreme Court has no authority under the concept. In other words, the states decide on their own whether or not to comply with any legislative or judicial mandate at the federal level.
Nullification, a Different Way to Tell the Feds, “Stuff Obamacare”, 3/1/11
What if you went to a restaurant and found it rather pricey? Still, you ordered your meal and, when done, picked up the check only to discover that it was almost twice the menu price.
Welcome to the world of the real U.S. national security budget. Normally, in media accounts, you hear about the Pentagon budget and the war-fighting supplementary funds passed by Congress for our conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. That already gets you into a startling price range -- close to $700 billion for 2012 -- but that's barely more than half of it. If Americans were ever presented with the real bill for the total U.S. national security budget, it would actually add up to more than $1.2 trillion a year.
$1.2 trillion for national security?, 3/1/11
The United Nations has recently decided that they need to establish a Social Protection Floor for the 80% of the entire worlds’ population that are evidently suffering from abject poverty. They have decided they can do this with a minimal contribution of just 2% of all nations’ GDP. (How they can get 2% of the worlds’ GDP as contribution when they say that 80% of that world is in need of the help… well, it’s a conundrum that *I* can’t figure out).
Ineffectual Where They are Needed Most!, 2/24/11
The 10th Amendment Movement is an effort to push back against unconstitutional federal laws and regulations on a state level. The principle is known as "nullification," and was advised by many prominent founders.
10th Amendment Nullification Movement, 2/15/11
The Central Intelligence Agency makes up fifty percent of U.S. embassy staff in certain countries, according to a former senior State Department official who has recently been in Afghanistan. In fact, the U.S. embassies in Kabul, Afghanistan and Baghdad, Iraq have the highest complement of CIA official cover and non-official cover agents of any U.S. embassy. Along with the massive CIA presence among the U.S. diplomatic corps is the presence of independent air forces and armies that are operated in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other countries by the CIA. The operations are run out of U.S. embassies in the countries.
CIA makes up half of some US embassies, 2/12/11
The move toward a North American Union received another big boost last week as President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper met in Washington, D.C. to hammer out a deal on creating a common “perimeter” around the two countries while diminishing the role of the nations’ shared border and developing a biometric system to track North Americans. The two leaders, touting the plan as a move toward security and prosperity, signed a four-page declaration supposedly committing the two countries to working together on a wide range of issues. According to news reports, the final agreement was the product of many months of work.
Our New Biometric Cage: U.S. & Canada Agree to Common "Perimeter", 2/11/11
In a shocking coup d’état said to rival Nazi Germany’s 1938 Anschluss (German for “link-up”) of the Austrian Republic, the United States this past week effectively took control of Canada creating what is being called by Russian diplomatic officials as the world’s first 21st Century “Superstate”.
The United States announcement of this “merger” between these two North American Nations was made February 4th by a posting on the WhiteHouse.Gov website of President Obama and which, in part, says:
“Today, President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have directed the creation of a United States-Canada Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC), composed of senior regulatory, trade, and foreign affairs officials from both governments. In recognition of our $1 trillion annual trade and investment relationship, the RCC has a two-year mandate to work together to promote economic growth, job creation, and benefits to our consumers and businesses through increased regulatory transparency and coordination.
They have directed that the first meeting of the RCC be convened within 90 days by the relevant agencies in the United States and Canada.”
Concealed in the “diplo-speak” wording of this historic agreement, however, is the complete overturning of the sovereignty of both the American and Canadian peoples laws and regulations they have lived under for centuries, but which will now be “melded” together with no votes allowed by either of them ever again.
Obama Creates World’s First Superstate With US-Canada Merger, 2/8/11
A day once existed in America when a woman like Dena Long-Christensen, 44, would have been celebrated, admired for her "can-do" spirit, and held up as a role model for others. That day is sadly past. Now Long-Christensen—and others like her—are treated by the new America as criminals to be fined and jailed. Her crime? Dena Long-Christensen was discovered selling flowers from her home.
Utah woman jailed for selling flowers from her home, 2/5/11
National security; this term has come to mean the terrorizing of legal US citizens by our own government. Any one or all of several spy agencies supposedly existing to protect us from terrorists, have made it evident that, “we the people” are the focus of their efforts. When speaking of national security I believe it is imperative to understand what that term in reality means: National security is the protection of the corporate federal government, and by extension multi-national corporations that benefit from their unfettered access to the government, from the people of the (50) sovereign but united states. We the people are viewed as the greatest threat to a malevolent government and its partnering corporations and the expansion of what is becoming a full blown police state. The security the government desires is not from foreign terrorists, but rather, from us.
Deconstructing the sovereign United States: This is national security?, 1/30/11
The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision that serves to allow judges to void the Constitution in their courtrooms. The decision was issued on January 18, 2011, and the Court did not even explain the decision (Docket No. 10-632, 10-633, and 10-690). One word decisions: DENIED.
Presented with this information and massive proof that was not contested in any manner by the accused judges, at least six of the justices voted to deny the petitions: "There is no legal or factual basis whatsoever for the decisions of the lower courts in this matter. These rulings were issued for corrupt reasons. Many of the judges in the Northern District of Georgia and the Eleventh Circuit are corrupt and violate laws and rules, as they have done in this case. The Supreme Court must recognize this Petition as one of the most serious matters ever presented to this Court."
U.S. Supreme Court Issues Landmark Decision: Constitution is Void, 1/18/11
George Bush and his supporters like to point to the absence of major terrorist attacks since 9-11 as a vindication: “His policies kept us safe.”
Lisa Simpson once parodied such arguments: “By your logic, I could say this rock keeps tigers away.” Homer: “Oh, how does it work.” Lisa: “It doesn’t work. It’s just a stupid rock… But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?” Homer: “Lisa, I want to buy your rock.”
And even if there were another major terrorist attack on the scale of 9-11, they wouldn’t take it as falsifying their position. Can you imagine an apologist for USA PATRIOT or the TSA saying: “Well, I guess draconian security clampdowns and police statism aren’t any good for preventing terrorism after all”? No, they’d use it as a pretext for doubling down on their authoritarianism yet again.
Statism: An Unfalsifiable Religion, 12/21/10
You can make a reasonably accurate prediction of the future of an individual or organization by what its priorities are. And you can tell someone's true priorities by seeing how they spend their time, money, and energy. Based on this simple formula, the US is in serious need of a major adjustment of its priorities.
US government (priorities) in 33 seconds
Young people and foreigners who are unfamiliar with the conduct of public affairs in the United States sometimes have difficulty in decoding the rhetoric used to describe government actions in this country. As a public service to such political novices, I have drawn up a brief guide whose entries match a particular government action, objective, or condition with the terms commonly used to describe it in the news media and in polite conversation. Simply apply the rule:
If the Government Does X, It Is Called Y, 11/29/10
In the genesis of the state, from the subjection of a peasant folk by a tribe of herdsmen or by sea nomads, six stages may be distinguished.
In the following discussion it should not be assumed that the actual historical development must, in each particular case, climb the entire scale step by step. Although, even here, the argument does not depend upon bare theoretical construction, since every particular stage is found in numerous examples, both in the world's history and in ethnology, and there are states which have apparently progressed through them all. But there are many more that have skipped one or more of these stages.
Six Stages of the Creation of the State
Labor day has come and gone, and there is an election this November. The campaign season is on. The airwaves, the internet, and what’s left of the print media are saturated with political ads. All of this leads many Americans to wonder who they’re going to vote for. Quite a few realize that the choice is essentially limited to the Democratic scoundrel or the Republican scoundrel. Regardless, to too many people voting is seen as a patriotic, almost sacred duty. Clichés abound about how our forefathers gave their lives so we can have the right to vote today. A lot of people see voting as a way to control the government and preserve our liberties. "If you don’t vote don’t complain", they say. In this article, however, I will explain why none of these positive things attributed to voting are true. In fact the very opposite is usually the case.
What should have been clear for generations is made ridiculously obvious after a year and a half of the Obama administration, namely that elections have failed as a means of controlling or changing the government. The almost seamless continuity of policy from the Bush administration to Obama’s presidency is undeniable and represents only the victory of the special interests in thwarting the people’s will.
Principled Nonvoting: Beginning of Disengaging from the State, 9/15/10
To the Editor of The Voluntaryist, I am anonymously sending this letter to you after looking at The Voluntaryist website while surfing the internet. It appears that my ideas might fit somehow with what you call voluntaryism.
I am one of the tens of millions of Americans who don't file tax returns or voluntarily pay taxes. I'm writing this letter to explain something that you and your readers may not be aware of. The reasons for not filing tax returns or voluntarily paying taxes, and not voting, are similar.
They are similar in that both taxes and voting are activities that demand involvement with that coercive institution known as government. Government exercises a monopoly of legal control over a certain geographic area. This encompasses coercive monopolization of the major services that it provides us. To fund these services, the government unilaterally imposes a compulsory levy upon us. These "taxes" are not based on the amount of service the government provides us, nor upon our request for them. (The government does not offer us the opportunity to do without a particular service, or shop elsewhere for it, or to negotiate the price.) It doesn't care if we didn't want the service, didn't use all that was offered, or simply refused it altogether. The government declares it a crime if we refuse to pay all or part of "our share." It attempts to punish this refusal by making us serve time in jail or confiscating some of our property, or both.
Why I Refuse to Register (To Vote or Pay Taxes), 10/9
1. The Executive Branch 2. Intelligence Branch 3. War Department 4. Weapons Industry 5. Financial Department
Shadow Government Organization Chart
The U.S. Constitution is absolutely clear without any ambiguity what so ever in the fact that only Congress has the exclusive right to enact all law.
Executive Orders = Fascism & Presidents Out of Control
Unfortunately the original Confederate constitution was patterned after the 1787 US Constitution which itself was a repudiation of the whole revolutionary war effort against British dominance. Constitutions are quite unnecessary unless a people surrender all their sovereignty to a government in which case restraints are seemingly necessary to keep that government from ending the people's liberties. The primary mistake with any government is to rely on the democratic process, for by one's vote one surrenders one's sovereignty to those for whom one votes. Any government, and there have been many around the world which have patterned their organizations on the US Constitution, is doomed to failure as far as freedom is concerned. This is from the people's point of view. "All organizations are organized for the benefit of the organizers." From the government point of view government is always a success until it self-destructs from its own internal rot and corruption. Under a government's dominance, there can be no such thing as a "sovereign freeman."
Founding Scoundrels, 7/14/5
At the outset, many of the framers of the U.S Constitution were the best minds and mainly principled advocates of self-government. Their attempt to achieve a model for a “Federalism” form of a Republic is certainly unique in history. With great gratitude, successive generations should admire and respect an intellectual application and recognition that government, by composition, should be feared and restrained. The irony that some authors possessed such wisdom, and constraints were codified, does not match with the unfortunate record for their creation. Their endeavor proved insufficient to alter the base character of human nature. Acknowledgement of historic fact, does not desecrate the failed effort, but celebrates the attempt. Without necessary criticism the prospect for any meaningful revision is impossible.
The crux and crumple of the structure rest upon a false objective that an elastic central government can serve the basic purpose of society. In order to achieve the state of inherent autonomy, the State must be confined to a subordinate authority. The only legitimacy that is conveyed upon any government, rests upon the consent of citizens. Surely, only a toady for the regime, will argue that individual liberty and the common good, is the basis upon which the central government operates.
A Constitution Flawed from Inception, 12/26/4
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