How Much More Tyranny Can Americans Take from Their Government?

November 30, 2011

(Link to article at Activist Post)

Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com points out a probable reason for the U.S. Senate’s voting to give the military the power to seize Americans from their homes and detain them indefinitely, without any suspicion or charges brought against them, and based solely on the judgment and whim of U.S. soldiers and other armed agents of government. I addressed this just recently, in my article on martial law and my article on inalienable rights.

The reason we have rules for government officials to follow is to protect innocent civilians from being wrongfully arrested and detained. There needs to be actual suspicion and there need to be actual charges brought against someone — otherwise these agents of the State are obligated by law, and by adherence to the American principles of presumption of innocence and inalienable rights, to leave people alone.

Paul Joseph Watson at Infowars.com writes about Sen. Rand Paul as stating that this bill could cause any American to be sent to Guantanamo prison without charges, without trial. Now, shouldn’t we worry about this in light of DHS Sec. Janet Napolitano’s campaign, “If You See Something, Say Something”? Such a campaign urges Americans to snitch on their neighbors, but based on something that could be entirely innocent, only perceived by the snitchers as something criminal or “terrorist” in nature — and the snitchee will have no chance to defend oneself when being arrested and detained. No evidence, only the word of the ignorant snitcher, and no due process. And with this bill, it is especially worrisome, given the indefinite nature of the detention.

Raimondo points out that, given that the entire economy could crash any day now, the real reason that these people in Washington want to have this martial law power is because they know that when banks run out of your cash and you want to get it, and when food shortages occur, there will be panic, looting, food riots, and violence. All of this is completely preventable, by decentralizing the banking system, and de-monopolizing the production of money away from government. Human beings have a right to choice, competition and freedom in their use of a medium of exchange.

But regarding these latest actions by dangerous imbeciles in Washington, these senators are voting to put soldiers in the streets to suspend our inalienable rights. Such power usurped and seized by these Washington officials is thus criminal in nature.

We have inherent rights as human beings to life and liberty. This includes the “right to be secure in our persons, property and effects.” Those are rights. The right to be free from aggression against oneself by others, including by police, soldiers, U.S. senators, rapists, muggers, etc.

If an agent of the government does not suspect you of something, or even if he just didn’t like something you said against Obama or Bush, he is obligated by moral law, as well as by the Constitution, to leave you alone. When they violate these rules, these State agents, including the senators who vote to give those military personnel that power, are committing crimes against the people. If you are in your home, and on your own property, or even if you are on a public street, you have a God-given right to defend yourself by any means necessary to protect your life from these criminals.

Senators who are voting to impose military aggression against innocent individuals are ipso facto declaring war against the people, using the armed agents of the State to carry out their aggression. War against the people by their own government is an act of treason.

Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” In this case with this bill, and other laws already in place, arresting presumably innocent civilians based on the whim of a soldier or other armed agents of the State, without charges and indefinitely detaining them without due process, is not a case of the one who is apprehended “giving aid and comfort” to the enemies (such as “terrorists”); in actuality, it is a case of the ones doing the arresting “levying war against them,” meaning the states that make up the “United States,” specifically the people who inhabit those states. (See here as well.)

These allegedly treasonous senators must be arrested, impeached and put on trial for treason. As I have been saying for quite a while, those government bureaucrats in Washington are a de facto foreign regime occupying our capitol. They are foreigners in that their actions, especially since 9/11, have been thoroughly un-American in nature, endangering our lives, with the Patriot Act surveillance spying intrusions, due-process-free detentions, property seizures, radiation cancer-causing scanners, and other crimes against us.

This is all in addition to the fact that our federal government and its military have been aggressively provoking foreigners abroad with obnoxious, murderous belligerence, especially against Middle-Easterners.

Since well before 9/11, for decades, our government has been provoking foreigners to act against Americans. The real way to end the terrorist threat against us is to stop provoking foreigners. Stop trespassing on their lands. Stop stealing their resources. Cease our government bureaucrats’ constant collusion with other tyrannical governments and dictatorships who oppress their own people.

As Hans-Hermann Hoppe has noted, the idea of “limited government” is impossible, especially with a centralized form of government, like the U.S. government. We can see how it is falling to pieces as the desperadoes try harder and harder to strengthen and expand the federal government’s power over others, expand its reach into more intimate details of our lives and into the lives of foreigners.

We can see how the European Union is also falling to pieces. Twenty years ago the Soviet Union fell to pieces. Centralization of government doesn’t work, and it only leads to tyranny, impoverishment, destruction, violence, societal decay and chaos. Central planning leads to “planned chaos,” as Ludwig von Mises noted.

The only way to protect ourselves, to restore our liberty, our security, and our prosperity, is to totally decentralize America. States must secede in a coordinated effort. If the political Powers That Be who are in control of state governments don’t want to do that and instead desperately cling to that dying, tyrannical, criminal regime in Washington, then it is up to the people themselves to secede, to withdraw support for the occupying federal regime, and to practice their right to protect and preserve their lives and their families’ lives.

Dick Morris: Ron Paul is a “Nut”

In an interview on Fox News, Dick Morris referred to Ron Paul as a “nut.” Now, I know that Morris tends to hang with corrupt politicians, like the Clintons and the Bushes, and so on. And, like most statists, Morris loves the State and supports expanding its power and reach into our lives and overseas onto foreign lands. But I think it is “nuts” to label a “nut” someone such as Dr. Paul who advocates honest money that isn’t printed from nothing and has no value, who thinks rationally on the issues and doesn’t support policies based solely on reactionary knee-jerk emotions (such as the Patriot Act, Iraq, and now Iran, etc.), and who believes strongly in the rights of the individual to freedom of association and contract and private property rights.

In the interview, Dick Morris described the debate in question, and accused CNN of over-emphasizing Ron Paul, including with a split screen of Romney answering a question alongside Dr. Paul’s visible reaction, as though CNN constantly did that. But there were several split-screen instances in which Ron Paul was answering a question, and we see Newt Gingrich’s reaction, as well as Rick Sanitorium. If Morris perceived CNN as over-emphasizing Paul, then Morris, like most politicians and their flunkies, is exhibiting signs of paranoia, in my opinion.

So, Morris, who thinks Ron Paul is a “nut,” is concerned that the front-runners weren’t given enough attention in that debate. The people haven’t heard enough of Willard Romney, Herman Munster Cain, or Newt Gingrich — we want to hear more of these people, their ignorance and buffoonery and their flip-flops!

Okay, let’s start with one of the candidates that Morris would prefer to vote for, rather than the “nut,” Ron Paul — Willard Romney. Here is Romney greeting voters, and, being asked by a disabled medical marijuana patient in a wheelchair whether or not he, Romney, would have the patient and his doctor arrested if the doctor gave the patient marijuana for medical purposes. Note Romney’s fixed forced smile throughout and finally snubbing the patient. Would Romney have them arrested? Knowing Romney, he probably would.

I can’t believe that someone as supposedly intelligent and informed as Romney (and those other statist Republican candidates) could support the continuation of the War on Drugs, unless they were just dumb, uninformed of the history of Prohibition and the violent crime it wrought, or just plain “on the take.” It is a totally irrational policy that no one in his right mind could possibly support.

Dick Morris called Ron Paul “horrific” for wanting to end the War on Drugs. Morris said in an interview, “We should drug test every high school student … We should drug test everybody that gets a student loan. Anybody that’s using drugs should not get a government student loan.”

How about drug testing political candidates and their campaign strategists and pollsters? How about drug- and alcohol-testing everyone in America? And for what?

What’s the point of all this? So the government can tell us that it owns our bodies and order us not to put something into our own bodies? Because Republicans and conservatives do not like the idea of an individual being responsible for the consequences of one’s actions? Because we want the police to have more and more power to break into people’s homes, steal their property, terrorize the population, and engage in gun-running to the drug-lords in Mexico who wouldn’t be in that business were it not for the the U.S. government’s War on Drugs? And Morris wants to call Ron Paul a “nut”?

What about prescription drugs? Should we include that, too? How many deaths, car crashes and accidental (or on-purpose) overdoses have been caused by prescription drug use or abuse?

Speaking of prescription drugs, recently I made a reference to the “mentally unstable” Michele Bachmann, another Republican candidate that Dick Morris would support for president above Ron Paul. My reference was based on this article at the Daily Caller. It appears that stressful situations, such as the departure of a major Bachmann staff spokesperson, have caused sudden, severe “debilitating medical episodes,” in which Bachmann must be placed in the hospital to recover. According to the article, “These episodes, say witnesses, occur once a week on average and can ‘incapacitate’ her for days at time. On at least three occasions, Bachmann has landed in the hospital as a result.

“’She has terrible migraine headaches. And they put her out of commission for a day or more at a time. They come out of nowhere, and they’re unpredictable,’ says an adviser to Bachmann who was involved in her 2010 congressional campaign. ‘They level her…'”

But it’s not just the difficulty in dealing with stress with Michele Bachmann, it’s her apparent overuse of prescription drugs. The article states that, “Bachmann’s congressional staff is ‘constantly’ in contact with her doctors to tweak the types and amounts of medicine she is taking.” It’s not just one prescription drug, it’s several ones. Not good.

But Dick Morris, who thinks Ron Paul is a “nut,” wants to drug-test students! And without probable cause or any suspicion that anyone has done anything wrong, of course. Typical statist, who believes in the guilty-until-proven-innocent fascism with which Bush and Obama have ruined America. Morris would still support Bachmann for president above Ron Paul.

And here is Bachmann, showing how important America is to her, but not as important as Israel, apparently. Bachmann, like many Americans, has the blind support for Israel, no matter what the Israeli government and military do to Palestinians (that most Americans don’t even know about because the propagandists in the government and their media stenographers make sure that the American people don’t know what’s going on there), and based mainly on the Bible (but not the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights). “Israel First,” Congresswoman Bachmann:

While Dick Morris thinks that Ron Paul is a “nut,” it seems that Morris would also support Herman Munster Cain before he would support Paul. Herman Cain wants to keep the income tax and corporate taxes, AND add a national consumption tax. Ron Paul’s answer to “9-9-9” is “0-0-0,” because, rightly, Paul recognizes that the income tax and corporate taxes are theft, pure and simple. It is immoral to covet your neighbors’ wealth and property, and it is immoral to force someone to do extra labor to serve the government. And sales taxes are regressive — they hurt the poor the most. “9-9-9” is Nuts-Nuts-Nuts!

But sensible, reasonable and rational, and honest and moral Ron Paul is the “nut.”

And the one that Dick Morris seems to like the most — although one couldn’t possibly figure out why — Newt Gingrich, was just endorsed by the Manchester Union Leader. Now THAT’S “nuts”!

Here is some more Romney. Some people actually believe that, because of his “business” experience, he would be a good president. Hmmm. He sure did produce a lot for consumers of some sort over there at Bain, he sure contributed to society while there. And he sure put a good “business sense” into his time as governor.

Here is Romney, who isn’t a “nut,” acting like a street performer, or like someone overdosing on Prozak. But like Ronald Reagan, if nothing else, Romney is a good actor:

Here’s Romney, who pretends to be “conservative” (barf!), at the signing of his socialist and fascist, budget-busting RomneyCare with his good friend, Ted Kennedy:

But Ron Paul is a “nut.” Dick Morris would support these people, these warmongering socialists, flip-floppers and degenerates before ever supporting the one who actually believes in sound policies, and, most of all, who wants to “legalize freedom.” The others — the real nuts — want to take more and more freedom away, and they support the most un-American socialist police state! But Ron Paul is the “nut.”

And why did I spend my Sunday afternoon doing this post? Maybe I’m nuts, too.

Senate to Vote for an American Savak

Next week, the U.S. Senate will vote on whether the U.S. military may apprehend and indefinitely detain any American, from one’s home, the public sidewalk, a park, and for whatever reason, without charges, without even suspicion. (Why do I think that Joe Lieberman is involved?)

According to the ACLU, via Mac Slavo, “The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.”

These people in the Senate are disgusting, un-American degenerates. They have no concept of individual liberty, the right to due process, and what America really stands for. This is truly a case of treason, when these Washington criminals are now declaring war on their own people. I would like to see those senators who are proposing this bill, and those who vote for it, charged with treason.

If there ever were a case for the necessity of decentralization and state secession, this is it.

As I noted this past week in my article on the neocons vs. due process, the flag-waving conservatives will probably withdraw the support they gave George W. Imbecile for imposing these crimes against foreigners when you see the current Communist-In-Chief ordering the military to apprehend people who dissent from the Regime.

As I referenced in my recent piece on martial law, you might want to contact your governor, state legislators, mayor etc., and tell them to disobey any Obama order to impose martial law.

This is just disgusting.

This is not the same America in which I grew up.

The Ignorance of Newt versus the Inalienable Rights of All

November 21, 2011

Copyright © 2013 by LewRockwell.com. (Link to article)

During a recent Republican Presidential debate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich implied that he strongly disagrees with very important assertions of the Declaration of Independence: “That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Additionally, like many people now, Gingrich seems to believe that there should be a different set of laws for society when there is a “war” underway. But the truth is, war is an artificial concept used by collectivists and statists to rationalize the commission of criminal acts of aggression against others and get away with it.

The truth is, there are really two kinds of behaviors in general:

• Peaceful, non-aggressive behaviors, in which the people of a society act voluntarily amongst themselves, and under the rule of law that forbids physical aggression (except in a case of actual self-defense), theft, fraud and trespass; or
• Non-peaceful, aggressive behavior that consists of the violation of others’ persons or property. These are the crimes of society, which include theft and the initiation of aggression against others, terrorist acts, and the use of the State’s armed apparatus to initiate violence against foreign peoples.

By “all men,” the Declaration refers to all of humankind created equal, and endowed with unalienable rights to life and liberty that are inherent in all of us as human beings. The Declaration does not state that such rights apply only to Americans. And “unalienable” (or inalienable) means that such rights are not given to anyone by government because they are inherent rights. If these basic, inherent rights are not given to us by the State and its agents, then the State may not take such rights away. And the Founders were very clear on the idea of due process, which are very strict rules placed on the government to prove its case against a suspect.

Gingrich disagrees with these basic points. He opposes the idea of presumption of innocence. If Gingrich believes that the President, a CIA officer, a soldier or general may have the power to be judge, jury and executioner against someone, then he certainly couldn’t believe in the idea of inalienable rights.

Here is just one example of Gingrich’s ignorance, joined by most of the other Republican candidates for president, in reference to President Obama’s order to assassinate American citizen Anwar al-Awlaki without due process, without trial or any evidence brought forward:

When asked by CBS News anchor Scott Pelley if, as President, Gingrich would “sign that death warrant for an American citizen overseas,” Gingrich’s response was a correction for Pelley. Gingrich declared that al-Awlaki was found guilty, by “a panel that looked at it and reported to the president.”

But such a panel and its findings have been kept secret, away from the scrutiny of al-Awlaki’s counsel, a jury, Congress or the American people. Gingrich believes that, if the government has told us that someone is guilty of terrorism, without trial or even evidence brought forth, then we must have a blind faith in these government officials that they are telling the truth.

This is despite the fact that Obama never presented actual evidence against al-Awlaki, just as George W. Bush never presented evidence of Osama bin Laden’s guilt. We should just believe them. Even the so-called killing of bin Laden by the Navy SEALS might not have been true, and bin Laden may actually already have died as early as 2001.

So, are the war supporters and government expansionists really sure they want such un-American, banana republic governmental powers to be in place? At the recent debate, Gingrich declared that, “If you engage in war against the United States, you are an enemy combatant.  You have none of the civil liberties of the United States…You cannot go to court.”

Now, Gingrich is called, “Mr. Speaker” because he is fairly good at speaking. But they do not call him “Mr. Thinker,” that’s for sure. You see, like many others nowadays, he is assuming that, based on someone’s determining that one is an “enemy combatant,” therefore one has no civil liberties. But it is those civil liberties, those inalienable rights to life and liberty that includes presumption of innocence and due process, which protect the individual from being falsely imprisoned or executed.

When you know that the Bush Administration knowingly apprehended hundreds of innocent people, including children and senile old men,  at the beginning of their war against Afghanistan, and detained them indefinitely without trial, evidence or even suspicion, and with more innocents victimized by the Obama Administration as well – some of whom languished at Guantanamo prison for years – you have to admit that these have been crimes committed by the agents of the U.S. government against innocents.

And contrary to what the propagandists have been stating, the real purpose of torturing presumably innocent people has been to extract false confessions and to falsely implicate other innocents.  (See here, here and here.). Stating, “but we’re at war,” as do Newt Gingrich and other statist proponents of this kind of banana republic society, is a simply juvenile attempt at rationalizing the government’s crimes.

Now, are you really sure you want to trust the President, military officers and soldiers, and CIA officers – or local police, for that matter – to decide that someone is a “terrorist,” and then be his judge, jury and incarcerator, and executioner? Do you trust these people under orders of the likes of Obama, Janet Napolitano or Eric Holder to be the ones to conclude that someone is a “terrorist,” and then to be his judge, jury and executioner? Already, some of these public officials have referred to Tea Partiers as “terrorists.”

And so we should believe that someone is a “terrorist” without any evidence, because Barack Obama said so? Now, there’s someone with credibility. A President who has worked feverishly to bomb and destroy Libya, only to have it come under al Qaeda rule. Or a President such as Bush who bombed and destroyed Iraq, only to bring Iraq under rule of repressive Islamic Sharia Law. We should trust these people to act as judge and jury and to imprison those that such officials determine to be a terrorist, despite the hundreds or thousands who had been swept up randomly in Afghanistan and Iraq, falsely implicated, detained, tortured and murdered?

And should we trust the young soldiers on the battlefield to make that judgment? Remember, the brilliant George W. Bush has said that the whole world is the battlefield now. And that includes the U.S., in which each individual is treated like a criminal now, thanks to the TSA, DHS and Patriot Act.

And should we trust soldiers, many of whom have been committing sexual assaults against female military personnel? Or those who have been committing sexual assaults against other male military personnel, and trust their superior officers who defend them? Should we trust people of that ilk to determine that someone somewhere is a “terrorist”? Or local police departments, many of which are corrupt or have been increasingly militarized?

Should we trust military personnel who have intentionally murdered innocent civilians for the “thrill of it” and other military or police who also have demonstrated a lack of understanding of basic ethics or who suffer from war-induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or who have criminal backgrounds? (See here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)

Remember, “if you see something, say something” – the Stasi fusion centers are waiting for you, and, the detention centers are awaiting those who have been designated “enemy combatants” by the self-appointed judges and juries of the government and police.

And, in being the government’s own judge, jury and executioner of those they deem to be “terrorists,” should we also trust U.S. officials in the Congress or Senate who also have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the ideas of inalienable rights and presumption of innocence, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman, or who have shown themselves to have warped views in life such as Rep. Allen West, or who have shown mental instability such as Rep. Michele Bachmann?

Should we trust the judgment of an attorney general who has (allegedly) been overseeing a gun-running op from the U.S. government to Mexican criminals and drug lords, with the guns then being used against Americans?

Or an FBI run amok, in which agents intentionally approach young Muslim males, manipulate their emotions and motivate them to act against America. FBI agents entering mosques to encourage young Muslim boys and men to be terrorists? You see, in the real world of common sense, you would go into a mosque to discourage, not encourage, young Muslims from wanting to commit acts of terrorism. But, alas, the central planners of national security do not have any common sense.

It is a shame that an innocent young guy like Bradley Manning, who allegedly exposed criminal wrongdoing amongst U.S. government forces overseas, has been locked up in solitary confinement, under torturous and inhumane conditions, without trial or charges. But that is just a typical example of Newt Gingrich’s idealized banana republic.

Very similar to communists and fascists, the main purpose of today’s neoconservatives – hardly conservative, by the way – has been to expand the size and power of the central government, in its domestic intrusiveness and its reach into foreign lands, while using fear-mongering campaigns and the bogeyman of “terrorists” as their excuse. All they have done especially since 1990 is deliberately provoke foreigners to act against us, as a means of justifying their ever-expanding, centralized Leviathan monstrosity.

Unfortunately for the rest of us who have to live in the same world with these Newt Gingrich statists and collectivists, many government policies (such as presidents starting wars against other countries who were of no threat to us, and un-American police-state domestic policies – not to mention the government’s false flag ops) have been based on the bureaucrats’ lies and propaganda, repeated by their lapdog media stenographers. Many amongst the population, over whom those unproductive agents of the State rule, come to conclusions and approval of these policies based solely on emotion and not reason. The Bush Administration exploited the fears that the 9/11/01 attacks provoked, and used its fear-mongering as the way for the general population to accept the rights-violating, government-expansionist domestic and foreign intrusions the federal government had been planning to put into place long before 9/11.

One particular kind of mentality wrought by the past century’s statism and growth of central planning has been short-term thinking. Like the moral relativism of Gingrich, Obama et al., such short-term thinking has been reinforced by America’s government-controlled education system, whose purpose has been the indoctrination of the young to be obedient to the State. The apparatus of central planning itself, promoted by democracy and the collectivizing of the entire territory, has thrived on the population’s self-destructive short-term thinking. (See Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s book, Democracy: The God That Failed for a thorough analysis of that, and see here as well.)

If Newt Gingrich, Romney and the others prefer living in a banana republic, and do not believe in the morals and ethics of the American Founders – that all humans are equal under the law and under God, that all humans have inherent, inalienable rights to life and liberty – then they ought to go live in Cuba, North Korea, or Venezuela. But please stop trying to turn America and the rest of the world into another Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. We can do without it.

Police-Nazi Criminalization of Protesting the Government: Further Need to Decentralize

A few nights ago on the radio, Michael Savage, in a break between his nightly yelling rants and tirades, mentioned that some of the Occupy Wall Street protesters had been acting in an unsanitary manner, using sidewalks and other city grounds as toilets, and that it is not a surprise that diseases such as TB and other contagions — including with dogs — have shown up.

It is too bad that a legitimate movement to protest what should be seen as the real causes and enablers of Wall Street’s parasitism — the Federal Reserve, tax-funded bailouts, banks committing fraud and getting away with it, etc. — has been hijacked by leftists and communists who want free stuff at the expense of others by force and coercion.

The Tea Party protesters did not act in the kind of unsanitary way as are some of the current protesters, as the Tea Partiers used porta-potties and cleaned up after themselves. And unlike the hijacked Occupy Wall Street movement, the Tea Party did not call for more government control, regulations, more socialism, more fascism, but for much less government, more limitations on government’s intrusions into our lives and in the economy, i.e. more freedom.

However, that said, we have seen more and more examples of the police state that America is becoming. If there’s one good thing that these disruptive protests have accomplished, they have exposed many police for who and what they really are throughout America: fascists, bullies, violent criminals, and sick barbarians who enjoy spewing pepper spray into innocent and harmless people’s faces while the officers’ victims sit around expressing clearly non-violent behavior.

Now, this video of police spraying the pepper spray into non-violent protesters faces has gone viral. However, if it is true that they were forcing the protesters mouths open and spraying it down their throats — which I find hard to believe and can’t find any corroboration for the professor’s assertions — then, this, in addition to several officers in New York who nonchalantly sprayed the stuff into the faces of peaceful female observers just standing there, and with other officers who have deliberately used violence against peaceful military veteran protesters, etc., then we have a bunch of very sick, neanderthal barbarians working in these police forces. They are giving the appearance of police now not hesitant to use Nazi-like tactics to “enforce public safety,” that they are making it appear more like enforcing State-imposed suppression of protest, and the State’s intolerance of dissent.

As we have seen in the last 20 years of militarizing the police, especially since 9/11, some of these police have clearly been showing “overkill” in their responses to protesters, and in their following the orders of city mayors. Most of these mayors are “Progressives,” and probably align themselves with the gun control fanatics, people who oppose the rights of individuals to self-defense and their right to bear arms. If Obama gives orders to these mayors, or to governors, to literally disarm the people, which would clearly be unlawful orders, I am afraid that these police (and possibly National Guard and military as well) will have no problem with following those orders.

In a police state as ours is becoming, the disarming of the people is a further way of further empowering the State and its hired guns. In fact, the UN and the World Government crowd who love authoritarianism and hate freedom and the means to defend it, are already scheming and conniving to get international gun control into effect, to further erode what’s left of Americans’ right to self-defense and right to bear arms. Another example of how our stupid imbecilic representatives in Washington are further chopping away at our freedom and sovereignty.

And we are also seeing on the other side of the globe how Germany wants to expand its power (hmmm, that’s a new one), as Mrs. Merkel is perhaps now letting her power addiction get more out of control. As we can see, according to Nigel Farage, various government power-grabbers now are attempting to suppress national referendums, referendums in which the people would decide whether they want their freedom further taken away. The power-grabbers are trying to implement more central government controls over the people, and central bank thefts of the people’s private wealth — what’s left of it, that is.

And now in Japan, the government there has been attempting to suppress massive protests there, similar to the Wall Street protests here but in addition to their anti-nuclear, anti-Fukushima protests, and their news media do not seem to be covering all this (on behalf of the government). Were you aware of these protests in Japan?

It seems that this is a world-wide phenomenon now, with governments colluding with high-finance and central banks enabling the feeding off of the workers and producers of societies by the already rich, the politically connected and corporate State-lickers. And many of these interests are getting their media lapdogs to help them in the suppression of the truth of what they have been up to, and covering up of the crimes that they have been committing against the people. There have been several attempts to censor the Internet, under the pretense of “protecting copyrights” and other nonsense, but really with the goal of shutting up expressions of dissent and the spreading of actual information regarding what these governments and their hired guns the police are up to.

One can see how all these developments are coming together as something once known as “The Free World” is becoming increasingly less free and increasingly more totalitarian.

The real answers to these problems, as I have been stating repeatedly, are found in decentralization and de-monopolizing away from government control. This includes in money and banking, food production, energy, but mostly local policing and security. Regarding the police specifically, local police departments are monopolized by local municipal governments. There is no good reason for this.

The problem with monopoly — specifically government monopoly that legally forbids any competition — is that the monopolists are not accountable. The only real, substantive way of achieving accountability is by allowing competition. With government-monopolized community policing and security, there is no incentive amongst those charged with such duties to be productive in their “services.”

If free competition were allowed to occur, as well as voluntary groups allowed to police communities and provide security, the ones who actually did a good job in protecting the public and acting as community watchdogs and preventers of crime would be rewarded by the consumers: the public. Those who didn’t do a good job, or worse, who abused their positions and actually committed criminal acts against others (which many of our local police departments have been increasingly doing and getting away with it), would be punished, either by losing their jobs or by being criminally prosecuted for crimes committed.

In a world of common sense and actual justice, the concept of community policing and security would be totally decentralized down the the lone individual exercising one’s God-given right to protect oneself and one’s family. If we had that kind of society, there would be less aggression and more peace, because when aggressors do commit acts of aggression, their victims or would-be victims would fight back and use weapons if they had to. This would give would-be aggressors the message that, if you commit an act of aggression against someone, you may very well get killed. It’s just common sense. But currently, in the world of government-monopolized police, the police may commit acts of violence with impunity, and the police protect aggressors and punish those who protect themselves and their families from aggressors.

For example, in a world of de-monopolized policing, given that video of the cowardly police officer spraying pepper spray directly into the faces of peaceful protesters, that officer would immediately have been apprehended and arrested in a community of non-government-monopolized policing and security. In this instance, any one or group of those protesters, observers or passersby witnessing what that cop was doing would immediately have grabbed him and had him arrested and charged with many counts of assault with a deadly weapon, criminal mischief and so forth.

But in our current situation, in which the local government maintains a compulsory monopoly of community policing and security, if those people grabbed the officer who at that moment was assaulting innocent, harmless civilians, those people would have been arrested, not the criminal cop. We now live in a society in which anything can provoke an officer to arrest you for no good reason. Any kind of questioning him or non-cooperation is now known as “disorderly conduct” or “resisting arrest.” With government-monopolization of community policing and security, we now live in the Twilight Zone era of neanderthal government police who get off on their abuse of power and legal “authority.” It is that monopoly by compulsion against the people in which these criminal aggressor cops get away with their crimes against the people.

In a truly peaceful and just society, under the rule of law (and by law I mean the most basic law of civilized society: no physical violence except in case of actual self-defense, no trespassing the persons and property of others, no theft or fraud), no one would be permitted to have “authority” over others (although one could make the case for parents having authority over their children, sure), no one would be above the law, no one may commit acts of aggression against others that the rest of society is forbidden to commit. Currently, the government police are permitted to commit acts of criminal violence, theft, even murder, against others and get away with it.

I know, when people hear of suggestions to de-monopolize policing away from government, they react, “But the government MUST be in control over policing the community!” And when asked why the government must monopolize local policing, there are no clear answers, except, “But, because, uh, you see, um…”

And another example as to why we need to de-monopolize away from government control over community policing and security is this: On the radio Michael Graham has been covering the story of a guy in Swampscott, Massachusetts, McKay, who was arrested for assault when he came upon another guy, Johnson, who was allegedly stealing stuff from McKay’s truck that was in McKay’s driveway. McKay saw that the alleged truck burglar/trespasser had a knife and it appeared that he was about to use it against McKay, so McKay punched Johnson. The local police (the government-monopolized police, that is) have dropped charges against the truck-burglar trespasser Johnson and instead arrested and charged McKay with assault.

As is the case with police goons all across the country, who see themselves as gods, how dare an individual defend and protect his property and his family from intruders! The government-monopolized police say, “Why, that’s our job, YOU can’t do that!” And of course, that is why the local police have an officer assigned to every street corner, every house, every person, for our protection. You see, this is the arrogance of people in government, when government is allowed to have a monopoly over anything. The idea of an individual acting in self-defense against an aggressor is abhorrent to government people.

Just about every news item I read now is an example of how compulsory governments, federal, state and local — and worldwide — are taking over this and that sector, are centralizing more and more of their power, and becoming more and more criminal and totalitarian in their behavior and their treatment of ordinary civilians.What the “Progressives” don’t seem to understand is that, when they call for more and more government controls and regulations of business and everyday life, they are calling for more and more police — government-monopolized police, that is — to enforce all the regulations and controls. Not good.

We need to go the other way, in policing, banking and money, industry and business, and education especially. This government-controlled education stuff isn’t working out so well, and has caused an entire population to be brainwashed to love their government monopolists, and their local neanderthals.

Our Cultural Decline Shown by Sicko Perv Child Rapists and Military Personnel Sexually Assaulting Their Own Comrades

I’m glad that Jim Quinn at The Burning Platform has this post on the Penn State child rapists and those who defend them, because Quinn says exactly what I had been thinking, so I don’t have to write anything. Well, but I do have some thoughts to add anyway, regarding these kinds of situations.

There really is something very deeply wrong with our society in general when a grown man goes into a men’s locker room, and actually witnesses another grown man literally anal-raping a little boy, and not physically intervening to stop the rape. And what is wrong with students there at Penn State who riot not because their coaches or other “adult” employees are child-rapists or covering up for child-rapists, but because their beloved coach was fired?

It is definitely a problem when these young people do not see something wrong in the crime of raping a child. Has our culture declined that much that people are that much desensitized to acts of physical aggression against others? Is that why our government and military’s starting wars against other countries and murdering so many hundreds of thousands of innocents just in the past two decades is so acceptable to people?

I know, I’ve brought this up before, but I really believe that our culture has declined so much this past century because of the general acceptance of the use of aggression against others, particularly by agents of government, such as in its illicit wars-for-profit overseas.

The initiation of aggression against presumably innocent people has also been made acceptable by the local government-monopolization of community policing and security. When you allow some members of your community to have authority over the rest of the people, to have the power to be above the law and be allowed to initiate aggression against others — that, if private civilians had committed the same acts of aggression they would be thrown in jail — you are asking for trouble.

And the past century’s schemes of redistribution of wealth and earnings have allowed some people to live at the expense of others’ hard labor, and allowed some people to get rich by using the armed power of the State and its corporate-State connections and the government-protected banking cartel.

With this kind of system in place, as it has been for the past century or more, it is only a matter of time that the whole society in general will end up becoming corrupt and everything that has been learned from or gained by the Enlightenment and the early Americans’ wisdom on behalf of individual rights and liberty will be increasingly less understood by each subsequent generation.

One of the best books to read on this is Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Democracy: The God That Failed. (Here is the Introduction to that great book.)

Now, onto the subject of the violent sicko perv raping a little child in the locker room. This is the kind of story that reminds me of the importance of the right to bear arms. If the locker room victim were armed, and if someone were approaching him and starting to do what the criminal in this case did, and if the criminal didn’t stop doing what he was starting to do when told by the victim to “knock it off,” then, if the victim were armed, he should then shoot the attempted rapist and blow his brains out. Yes, I know, some people don’t like it when I use language like that, I know. But there it is. (And this should apply to all people, male or female, of all ages, as well, by the way.) The society’s message here to the attempted rapist is: If you don’t like the idea that your chosen victim might shoot you and blow your brains out, then don’t rape (or assault, etc.) him or her.

This is why gun control laws have been another aspect of the decline of our society. The legal disarming of innocent civilians has made them defenseless against rapists, thugs, assaulters and murders.

A defense of the child in the locker room being armed and shooting his attacker is that all human beings have a God-given right to defend and protect their lives. For all the child knows, this criminal attacking him might have AIDS or be carrying HIV, or might have some other kind of VD, and is therefore a threat to the child’s life, so the victim has every right in the world to use a weapon to protect his life. And for all the boy knows, the rapist plans to murder him after he rapes him. I believe that in many instances, when a neanderthal criminal rapes a little child, the rapist ends up murdering the child. Knowing this very likely possibility gives the boy even more reason to shoot the attacker dead before he, the boy, ends up dead. I know there are people out there who do not agree with me, because they either side with aggressors or with those who pose a threat and a danger to the lives of others who are weaker, or because they are afraid of the idea of being alone and having to protect oneself against the predators of society, I know. But we have to face reality.

Another book to read is More Guns, Less Crime, by John Lott.

Now, getting back to the progressive occurrence and acceptance of aggression in our society, I mentioned the government’s illicit wars and its murders of hundreds of thousands overseas over the last two decades, millions if you want to include their atrocities in Vietnam, yet another country that was of no threat to the U.S. (Laurence Vance had this article on U.S. Presidents and Those Who Kill for Them.)

However, it isn’t really the wars that I wanted to refer to here, but the culture of the military, and how no one should be surprised that our military has gotten away with such murderous atrocities against foreigners, from our supposedly civilized and advanced society. The culture of our military merely reflects the society in general, that has become desensitized to the aggression and violence that many Americans now inflict against each other.

An aspect of the sick, violent nature of our military that really shocked me was the prevalence of male-against-male sexual assaults and rape within our military. That is, male soldiers and officers against other, mostly younger male soldiers. I read about that in this article, and I wrote about it here.

Now, male military personnel violence against female military personnel is bad enough. That’s a crime, no matter who the perpetrator is and no matter who the victim is. But I have a feeling that the prevalence of this male-on-male sexual assault within the military is a more recent phenomenon. To me, what the socialists and leftists of our society have done to the American male — discouraging him to grow up to be a responsible adult and get married and have a family, and instead stay alone and not be responsible, and, in fact take one’s anger and frustrations out on others — is a part of this newest trend.

Given how sickeningly authoritarian our society has become, so far away from what the American Founders intended, it’s as though the preceding generation has beat any instinctive impulse to act like a grown adult and marry and have kids right out of the males of the next generation. Such dysfunctionalities make their way into other areas, such as males preferring to be with other males, and those preferring to be with other males who feel ashamed of it and become perverted in their behaviors because of such shame, such as in raping little boys, or sexually assaulting your comrades in the military units.

And, regarding the young male military personnel who were victims of sexual assaults and reported such crimes to their superiors, if you read the article I linked to, you will see that the superiors not only wouldn’t do anything about these crimes, but were blaming the victims, saying that they caused it, or they invited the assaults.

If you are a higher ranking officer in the military, and a younger soldier came to you with such a complaint, and you wouldn’t come to his defense, then that shows that you side with aggressors, and with violence. That makes you the same kind of “criminal-coddler” that so-called military-supporting conservatives are constantly whining about. But being employed by the military means that such people are supposed to protect others (like protecting Americans from foreign criminals and invaders), not to come to the side of the aggressors when crimes are committed. Superior officers who have displayed such criminal-coddling are not worthy of the uniform they are wearing. They are of the same breed of gutless, spineless cowardly wimps that those at Penn State are who have been defending the sicko perv child rapists.

This is why I am concerned about, when Obama orders illegal, unconstitutional martial law and orders the military and police to turn the guns on the civilians, that they actually will do it. No wonder leftists like Obama want to disarm the civilians, so they can’t fight back when attacked by the armed thugs of government.

Oh, by the way, today is Veterans Day.

Western Governments Have Not Been As Advanced nor Civilized for Many Decades Now

In his columns, GMU Economics Professor Walter Williams promotes the ideas of liberty and economic freedom. Sometimes I have a disagreement with him, and in Democracy Is Impossible, there are some assertions and some assumptions I would like to address. He believes that we should not intervene and attempt to bring democracy or freedom to the Middle East, and I agree with that.

However, we have had democracy here in the U.S. — “good and hard,” as some would say. Democracy is majority rule, which is dictatorship by mob rule. I hope that Prof. Williams isn’t implying that democracy is a good thing to have. Having this collectivist, majority rule dictatorship here in the U.S. has given us a State apparatus in which some people can use the coercive, compulsory powers of government and its hired guns, the police, to rob others — mostly through taxation, protectionist regulatory restrictions and the government-controlled banking cartel and Federal Reserve. But also the compulsory powers of the State and its armed forces have been used to rob others in foreign territories.

Prof. Williams believes that there is little prospect for freedom in most areas of the Middle East, and that “Western encouragement and hopes for democracy are doomed to failure and disappointment. Most nations in the Middle East do not share the philosophical foundations of the West. It’s not likely liberty-oriented values will ever emerge in cultures that have disdain for the rule of law and private property rights and that sanction barbaric practices…”

If Prof. Williams really believes that the West has maintained the philosophical foundations of the rule of law and private property rights, then I have a bridge to sell him.

In the past century, Western governments, especially the U.S. government, have not exactly practiced the philosophy of Live and Let Live, in my opinion. To practice the philosophy of Live and Let Live is exactly what you have when people respect the lives, liberty and property of others. But Western governments for many decades have not been doing that.

For example, in 1951 after nearly 40 years of the British exploiting the Iranians’ oil resources, Iranians elected Mohammad Mosaddegh as Prime Minister, who then cancelled the oil contracts with the British and nationalized Iran’s oil industry. Then, on behalf of the British, the U.S. government’s CIA  overthrew Mossadegh and brought the notorious Shah back to power. The U.S. supported the Shah’s dictatorship, torture, and violations of civil liberties for the next 25 years. The Iranian people reacted against the U.S.-installed Shah regime by becoming more and more religiously fanatical and militantly anti-American, and finally had a Revolution in 1979 that included also the extremist Revolutionary Guards taking Americans hostage for 444 days.

You see, the “unintended consequences” of the Western interventionist CIA coup (that was on behalf of the British retaking the Iranians’ oil) and the U.S. government’s loyal support for a vicious dictatorship resulted in that 1979 blowback. (For further details, see this.) This was not exactly a Live and Let Live policy on the part of Western governments.

In 1991 the U.S. Government, under President George Herbert Walker Bush, invaded Iraq because the central planning interventionists didn’t like Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (although, supposedly, Kuwait had been stealing Iraq’s oil through underground horizontal drilling).

Had Saddam invaded a country that had no oil, would Bush the Elder been so insistent on invading Iraq, a country that was of no threat to the U.S.? Of course not. It was all about oil, and whatever other natural resources the U.S. and other Western governments could steal from other countries, particularly less advanced countries. That’s really what Afghanistan and Iraq in the 2000s were all about, not terrorism, and now it’s time to invade more African countries, such as Libya and Uganda, etc.

For our more “civilized” Western countries, invading less advanced countries’ territories and stealing their natural resources is rationalized because the lives of the people of those countries can easily be devalued by the wise Western folks. Those other people are less advanced, you see, and therefore, their rights to any liberty or property are just not equal to those rights that Westerners have.

And of course, to show how advanced and civilized our Western governments are, they have been employing tactics overseas such as apprehending, detaining, torturing and murdering whomever they wished without due process, without trial or even suspicion. And they have been violating the liberty and property rights of their own people as well, here in the U.S. especially, spying on them and imprisoning innocents without trial.

You see, the American Founders’ principles of due process and presumption of innocence — some of what came out of the Enlightenment (Huh? The what?) — needed to be scrapped and it was necessary to revert to the old ways of barbarism, for the sake of protecting the Amurcan people, of course.

Thanks, Honest Abe, for providing such a good role model. (More here.)

And now, let’s bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran, for no good reason (And, especially see this.), and use a lot of fear-mongering propaganda to get the support of the masses of Western nations. Of course, the masses of these Western nations are just so well-educated and informed, aren’t they?

I guess the reason that Ron Paul gets snubbed and censored by the MSM is because he’s the only candidate whose message isn’t that of these “civilized, advanced” Western governments of ours. Dr. Paul genuinely believes in Live and Let Live, not just in foreign policy but in economic affairs as well. In other words, he believes in genuine freedom, presumption of innocence and, when it comes to foreign policy, using force only in actual self-defense and not for any kind of paranoid preemptive purposes that he knows would or probably will have dire “unintended” consequences, as we have seen this whole past century.

Do you think that maybe it is time to throw the central planning socialists of Western governments into the dustbin of history? I know I do.

Obama’s Latest Scheme and Our Choice Between Freedom and Tyranny

November 7, 2011

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com (Link to article)

It seems that every day there is some new proposal or scheme coming from the federal government to remind us of the ruling class’s audacious craving for control. Well, here is a further example of the government’s fascism run amok, a scheme that has given me further reason to promote real freedom even more emphatically:

On Wednesday, November 9^th at 2 PM Eastern, the Obama Administration will seize control over all radio and TV broadcast communications, to conduct a “test” of the Emergency Broadcast System. For the first time, however, there will be nothing any individual station can do to prevent it, and, unlike past tests which lasted for only roughly 30 seconds, this unusual test will last approximately 3½ minutes.

But, even though the government is supposed to announce that it is “only a test,” and, given that it is to occur during the middle of a weekday, such a “test” still has potential to cause panic. Could the Obama Administration be subtly planning to incite anxiety and panic amongst the population? The evidence includes Obama flunkies such as ACORN having been intentionally inciting agitation at Wall Street protests, and Obama himself having been accused of incitement. It is therefore valid to suggest that the Administration is up to no good, such as testing a plan for something illicit, such as martial law. I have addressed possible Obama martial law here.

This reminds me of how FDR took advantage of much panic throughout America after the Crash of 1929 and during the Great Depression, in which he implemented one illicit scheme after another against the American people by the government. FDR seized control of whatever wealth that might have remained, through new restrictive regulatory policies, heavy tax-thefts and stealing the people’s gold. The real purpose of such schemes was to ensure votes for Democrats for all eternity.

Obama himself has been expanding his own executive powers as President, has unleashed S.W.A.T. teams to arrest student loan defaulters and seize guitar makers’ assets, as well as attempting to seize control over the entire health care industry.

Obama wants votes, he wants his Party to be in power, and he wants control. But in the end, he and most other politicians just do not want the people to have their freedom.

Now, I’m sure that some readers believe that I’m making a mountain out of a molehill with Obama’s latest scheme. But how can anyone not be suspicious when a government seizes control over all radio and TV frequencies, and for such a lengthy duration? Three whole minutes?

This 3-minutes-of-silence scheme, and the panic it may cause, is yet another reason why Americans are going to have to make a choice, and soon. The choice is between freedom and tyranny.

Unfortunately, some indoctrinated Americans believe that it’s worth waiting until the 2012 elections, and then we can get our freedom back. Sorry, that is just not realistic.

As each day passes, we have more crimes committed against us by government officials, from the DHS and TSA to the militarized local government police, and crimes committed by our government against foreigners. We are increasingly less free, and our rights to life, liberty and property are increasingly infringed by government bullies. The American Revolutionaries had a Revolution for reasons far more petty and trivial than the crimes of violence, theft, and trespass our local, state and federal governments have been committing against us.

But why are Americans so sheepish and gullible, and knowingly and willingly being such co-conspirators in their own slavery, their own imprisonment by the State?

Thanks to many decades of government-controlled schools and our lowest common denominator-oriented culture, so many people are indoctrinated to not question or challenge the current system that’s in place, to not think about their own serfdom.

I just want to live in a country of freedom. And what we need is to cleanse this land of what has wrecked it. That requires people willing to stand up for themselves.

If only we could get the majority of the population to engage in nullification of government demands, thefts and aggressions. The problem, however, is that the government would send out its goons to arrest people who are trying to protect themselves, their families and their means of sustenance. (And see here.)

But there are only so many goons, with so many badges and guns, you know.

And if only we could get those armed officials of government-monopolized police forces to realize that it would be in their better interest to join the people’s side against the government. If these official armed agents really thought about it, they would see that the benefits of freedom far outweigh the immediate-gratification arousals of their short-term power-grabs.

All human beings have a God-given right to their freedom, and, if you’re familiar with the American Founders’ speeches and writings, you would know that they founded America to be a place for people to be free. And I’m not referring to a little freedom that a mighty central government allows us to have in some instances – I mean genuinely free. This includes the freedom from the federal government seizing control over all the broadcast airwaves for three minutes, doing God knows what.

And here are some more examples of real freedom:

In this example, some workers go into their offices or factory and do their jobs. Then they get their paycheck, which is for 100% of the amount their employer promised when they were hired. Why? Because they did 100% of the work. The workers spend the money, deposit it into their savings account, or write a check for their local church or charity. What is absent here? The workers’ having to report their earnings to some bureaucrat in Washington. And the threat of IRS police goons banging on their door is also absent. You see, this is called freedom. The human right to voluntary exchange, the right to not be a serf, and the right of one’s private contracts with others to not be encroached by intruders (i.e. the government). (And see here and here.)

Here is another example: A family decides to homeschool their kids. They research what kind of curriculum would be appropriate for their kids’ ages, level of achievement and abilities, according to these parents’ own judgment. The parents make their decisions based on their knowledge of various factors and what they think is best for their kids. No bureaucrats. No “Child Protection Services” social workers barging in and trespassing. No S.W.A.T. teams being sent over to terrorize the family and kidnap the children. And if parents prefer to keep their kids out of the government-run schools and put them into alternative educational settings, they are not obligated to inform any local or federal government bureaucrat, because those things are none of anyone else’s damn business! This is what I mean by freedom. Real, honest-to-God freedom, which is our natural right to have.

In those two examples, the problem with our enslaved society is that the State believes that it owns your body, your labor, your private contracts and your property. And many amongst the population agree with this sentiment, consciously or not.

And the State believes that it owns your children as well.

There are plenty more examples of what I mean by freedom, in trade, milk freedom, freedom of self-defense [.pdf], free banking, freedom from being tracked by the government, and so on.

So what does all that have to do with the Obama Administration seizing control over the airwaves for three whole minutes, scheming and conniving? Well, Americans have passively and gullibly let this federal Leviathan slip one intrusion after another into our society, and each day that goes by we have less and less freedom. America is now a police state, and it is getting worse each day.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who just don’t want to live in a society of freedom. They prefer the comfort of a State-controlled society, in which they remain children their whole lives, they don’t have to make decisions for themselves, and they don’t have to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. Many prefer to live a life of infantilization as adults.

But most of all, it is those very bureaucrats in control in Washington who especially don’t want the people to have their freedom.

But in a society with so much government control, the police state in which we now live, living the life of a prisoner is not what the Founders had in mind, and it isn’t my kind of society.

No, I want a society of freedom, in which the neighbors and the State all mind their own business and stop trespassing into the lives of others.

You can call me a “conspiracy theorist” if you wish, but people need to see the red flags when the federal government will silence the airwaves for three whole minutes.

Obama Blows the Horn

The Obama Administration has begun its newest warmongering, now in the Horn of Africa, in the name of extending the “War on Terror,” but also the propagandists amongst Obama’s faithful supporters want to do something about the famine. Really, as with Iraq and Afghanistan, Washington just wants to grab other territories’ natural resources. If they would just outright directly conquer those entire territories and declare them territories of the United States, at least that would be more aboveboard (as opposed to the more indirect, undeclared missions of resource-stealing and ethnic cleansing attempted in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, etc).

But, as with their constant blunders throughout the Middle East and northern Africa, Washington’s clowns-in-charge will “make the Horn of Africa safe for democracy” (and for American Rule/Expropriation), while, as with Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and (fill in the blank), destroying as much territory, lives and property while they’re at it.

History repeats itself. From Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

Just weeks before Clinton took office, President George H. W. Bush had deployed American soldiers to Somalia, a coastal nation on the Horn of Africa, where people were suffering and dying from starvation and civil war. The soldiers were sent to guard food and other relief supplies from being stolen by warring factions. After soldiers faced fire from armed clans and 19 soldiers were killed in 1993 in the Battle of Mogadishu, the mission quickly lost popularity with the American people. Fearing anarchy resulting in the starvation of Somalia’s civilians and to help U.S. Forces defend themselves, Clinton increased troop presence in the country. Demands for withdrawal, however, grew louder and Clinton ordered troops out of the country in March 1994. This left Somalia in a state of anarchy, with warlords battling for control, even 15 years later.

In April 1994, a genocide erupted in Rwanda due to a conflict between Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. Over the next few months, an estimated 500,000 to 1 million Rwandans, mainly Tutsi, were killed. By July, the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over the country. Although the Clinton Administration and the international community was aware of the genocide taking place in Rwanda, no action was undertaken. By the end of July, nearly two million of Hutus fled the country for safety, spawning the growth of refugee camps in neighboring countries. As thousands of people died of disease and starvation in these refugee camps, Clinton ordered airdrops of food and supplies for the Hutu refugees, including known genocidaires. In July, he sent 200 non-combatant troops to the Rwanda capital of Kigali to manage the airport and distribute relief supplies. These troops were subsequently withdrawn by October 1994. Clinton and the United Nations faced criticism for their non-response to the genocide. When Clinton traveled to Africa in 1998, he said that the international community, presumably including the US, must accept responsibility for the failure to respond to the massacres. When speaking about the Rwanda Crisis, Clinton called it his worst failure, admitting “I blew it.”

(NPI)