Tom Woods on Nullification and Resisting Federal Tyranny

Here is an interview by Alex Jones of Tom Woods on resisting federal tyranny. Tom Woods is the author of Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century

Jury Nullification

A Layman’s Guide to Jury Nullification

(h/t Activist Post)

Hoping for a Miracle

I posted this in April, 2010, and I’m reposting it as my response to Willard Romney’s recent “47%” remark, as well as a response to Barack Obama’s constant wealth-redistribution and “you didn’t build that” diatribes. 

April 27, 2010

What would happen if Congress cut the income tax and capital gains tax across the board, and made those cuts permanent? People would have more of their own money to spend, save, invest, start businesses, invest in businesses, and more. For example, just one national corporation could expand and create new jobs, putting thousands of people back to work, better able to provide for their families and afford to live in better homes in better neighborhoods. Tax cuts not only “benefit the rich,” as our leftist commie friends like to fantasize, but they benefit the lower classes and middle classes as well. Tax cuts benefit everyone. Cutting taxes creates prosperity — economic booms — regardless of the propaganda dished out by those who love having the State loot the wealth of others.

So, if cutting taxes increases prosperity, then why not just end the income tax and capital gains tax completely (and property taxes as well!)? As 1996 and 2000 Libertarian presidential candidate Harry Browne has written, in ending the income tax,

There will be a similar increase in take-home pay for everyone you do business with — your customers or your employer — meaning that people will have more money to spend on what you have to offer.

A similar increase in take-home pay will occur throughout America, unleashing the biggest boost in prosperity that America has ever seen. There will be a job for everyone who can work and charity for everyone who can’t.

Your life will be your own again: an end to government snooping into your finances, an end to keeping books for the IRS, an end to fear of an audit, an end to rearranging your financial life to minimize your tax burden.

There are some people out there — and they know who they are — who have been proposing several alternatives to the income tax, such as the value added tax (VAT), the “Fair Tax” (national consumption tax), and other alternatives. LRC recently posted this article (from 1972) by Murray Rothbard, The Value-Added Tax Is Not the Answer, and Rothbard noted that the VAT is a “regressive” tax, hitting lower income Americans certainly more than the higher income ones. Rothbard exposes the VAT for what it really is:

It allows the government to extract many more funds from the public – to bring about higher prices, lower production, and lower incomes – and yet totally escape the blame, which can easily be loaded on business, unions, or the consumer as the particular administration sees fit.

The VAT is, in short, a looming gigantic swindle upon the American public, and it is therefore vitally important that it not pass. For if it does, the encroaching menace of Big Government will get another, and prolonged, lease on life…..

We have seen just how destructive governments are to the lives of those over whom government — the State — has such monopolistic and compulsory power. It is especially the U.S. federal government that has wrecked the lives of so many millions of Americans, and millions of lives overseas. These taxes that are forced on everyone are enablers. Americans must withdraw the means by which the government has been enabled to cause so much destruction, stress and anguish of so many people. Americans are starting to wake up and see how the government has turned them into slaves. As Jacob Hornberger noted a few weeks ago,

Prior to the enactment of the income tax, the relationship between the citizen and the government was one of master and servant. The citizen, who was free to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, was sovereign because there was nothing the government could do to interfere with that process. The government was the servant.

The nature of that relationship fundamentally changed in 1913. With the enactment of the income tax, the citizen became the servant and the federal government becoming his master.

Once we have regressive, destructive taxes such as the income and capital gains taxes, we automatically become a socialist society: wealth taken by force from the citizens and redistributed to politicians, bureaucrats and other professional parasites. By its very nature of compulsion and monopoly, government can’t run any kind of service, such as the services government purportedly has been running this past century, including national defense, social security and medicare. As Rothbard noted in his The Myth of Efficient Government Service,

….Since there is no pricing, and therefore no exclusion of submarginal uses, there is no way that government, even if it wanted to, could allocate its services to the most important uses and to the most eager buyers. All buyers, all uses, are artificially kept on the same plane. As a result, the most important uses will be slighted, and the government is faced with insuperable allocation problems, which it cannot solve even to its own satisfaction…..

…Proponents of government enterprise may retort that the government could simply tell its bureau to act as if it were a profit-making enterprise and to establish itself in the same way as a private business. There are two flaws in this theory. First, it is impossible to play enterprise. Enterprise means risking one’s own money in investment. Bureaucratic managers and politicians have no real incentive to develop entrepreneurial skill, to really adjust to consumer demands. They do not risk loss of their money in the enterprise. Secondly, aside from the question of incentives, even the most eager managers could not function as a business. Regardless of the treatment accorded the operation after it is established, the initial launching of the firm is made with government money, and therefore by coercive levy. An arbitrary element has been “built into” the very vitals of the enterprise. Further, any future expenditures may be made out of tax funds, and therefore the decisions of the managers will be subject to the same flaw. The ease of obtaining money will inherently distort the operations of the government enterprise…..

…. As we have seen, a government enterprise competing in an industry can usually drive out private owners, since the government can subsidize itself in many ways and supply itself with unlimited funds when desired. Thus, it has little incentive to be efficient. In cases where it cannot compete even under these conditions, it can arrogate to itself a compulsory monopoly, driving out competitors by force. This was done in the United States in the case of the post office. When the government thus grants itself a monopoly, it may go to the other extreme from free service: it may charge a monopoly price. Charging a monopoly price — identifiably different from a free-market price — distorts resources again and creates an artificial scarcity of the particular good. It also permits an enormously lowered quality of service. A governmental monopoly need not worry that customers may go elsewhere or that inefficiency may mean its demise…..

…. A further reason for governmental inefficiency has been touched on already: that the personnel have no incentive to be efficient. In fact, the skills they will develop will not be the economic skills of production, but political skills — how to fawn on political superiors, how demagogically to attract the electorate, how to wield force most effectively. These skills are very different from the productive ones, and therefore different people will rise to the top in the government from those who succeed in the market….

We know that cutting, or better, eliminating the taxes and other intrusions and restrictions on growth and prosperity, as well as ending those costly, inefficient and destructive government services, would resolve America’s woes and help renew the country’s progress and freedom after a century or more of grief. Unfortunately, the selfish neanderthals and vultures in Congress aren’t willing to let go of their own little fiefdoms and their unearned, undeserved privileges and perks. As Jacob Hornberger wrote in his blog post yesterday,

….There really are some simple solutions to all this. For example, at both the state and federal level drugs could be legalized, which would enable federal, state, and local governments to lay off lots of officials whose jobs revolve around that immoral, idiotic, and destructive war. But needless to say, all too many public officials oppose losing their access to bribes, payoffs, asset forfeitures, and political power that accompany the war on drugs….

…The problem at the federal level is no different. Statists will simply not let go of their favorite welfare-state programs, regulatory programs, and warfare-state programs, even if they are taking our country down….

….It’s the same with respect to the warfare state, which also constitutes a large portion of federal spending. Despite 8 or 9 years of continued occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are still not willing to let go of their beloved empire and its imperial adventures….

….Dismantling all the welfare-state programs, the regulatory programs, and the warfare-state programs would resolve America’s fiscal problems immediately. Alas, however, the American people are still not prepared to let go of their socialism, interventionism, and imperialism….

I am hoping for a miracle.

Don’t Get the Flu Shot – Take Vitamin D Instead

“Flu season” is approaching once again, and I wanted to repost some articles about the flu shot, and add some newer ones. Bottom line: don’t get the flu shot. It has been shown to have very little effect in preventing the flu, and is not worth the risk of adverse reactions. The one nutritional key for prevention of colds and flu, besides a goodly amount of vitamin C that most people already know about, is vitamin D.

Donald Miller, MD: Avoid Flu Shots, Take Vitamin D Instead

Bill Sardi: The American Flu Charade

Mike Adams: Vitamin D proven far better than vaccines at preventing influenza infections

Ethan Huff: In ‘Universal’ Flu Shot Push, Medical Industry Admits Current Flu Shots Are Useless

Susanne Posel: CDC Pushes Flu Vaccine for Children in New fear-Mongering Campaign

Anthony Gucciardi: 3 Reasons to Reconsider Flu Shots

Alex Newman: Risks of the Swine Flu Vaccine

Paul Joseph Watson: New Study Finds Link Between Flu Shot, H1N1 Pandemic

Civil Unrest: Do Our Rulers Actually Want It To Happen?

September 18, 2012

Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com. (Link to article)

There have been several different predictions and scenarios involving how inflation and austerity measures in the U.S. could bring about food shortages and other shortages, food riots, looting, violent protests, flash mobs, and martial law.

All these things can be prevented, of course, if more people could wake up to the fact that government central planning in money and economic matters is inherently flawed and doomed to failure, societal self-destruction and collapse.

Some people see the recent German court decision to approve German bailouts of irresponsible European governments as a new dictatorship for Germany and a boon for investors. And there are others who see this new scheme as the beginning of runaway hyperinflation in Europe that will spread to the U.S.

Following this decision by the high German court, the U.S. Federal Reserve has announced a new round of quantitative easing (QE3). Some people believe that QE3 will cause more economic instability, and further destruction of the dollar.

Eventually the austerity measures we have been seeing in Europe will reach the U.S.

Austerity measures will hit public employee benefits and pensions, and welfare and Medicare recipients (but not the bloated salaries, benefits and pensions of Congressmen and their beloved bureaucrats).

But it seems that the U.S. government has been pushing hard to get as many people dependent on government as possible. Food stamps spending has more than doubled since Barack Obama became President, although the number of Americans on food stamps almost doubled from 2001 to 2009 during the presidency of George W. Bush as well.

And the Obama Administration has gone so far as to push U.S. food stamps onto Mexicans! (And Mexicans can’t even vote for Obama this November – theoretically, that is.)

Also distressing is how private corporations profit from the government’s exploiting the population’s vulnerabilities that the government’s own interventions cause. One example is JP Morgan Chase’s shamefully profiting from the food stamps program.

Incidentally, employees of JP Morgan Chase donated over $800,000 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign and, so far over $155,000 to Obama’s 2012 effort. (There certainly has been no quid pro quo here, as former President George Bush the Elder might say.)

Now, regarding eventual shortages, austerity and civil unrest in America that would involve the unavailability of Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) payments, in large part affecting food stamp recipients, one scenario I’ve seen details how rioting and turmoil could unfold, mainly beginning in the cities, but eventually flowing out into the suburbs. It is not a pretty picture.

One would think that the government bureaucrats who control these social programs could see ahead what would happen when withholding such benefits, especially with millions of people dependent on them for their daily sustenance. So, in the case of possible future EBT cards not functioning followed by rioting and violence, one has to wonder whether such an action by the government could be purposeful.

In the aforementioned scenario, the writer emphasizes urban minorities as the ones mainly perpetrating the flash mob rioting and violence. But, in 2010 34% of food stamp recipients were white, 22% black and 29% Hispanic, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

However, the flash mobs committing acts of violence in the cities in recent years do not seem to be associated with government austerity measures, food stamps, hunger, etc. In some instances, such violence has been racially motivated, black against white, as witnessed in this account, for example. Unfortunately, the mention of such a modern social phenomenon in the U.S. is politically incorrect, as many newscasters and newspapers reporting on those events censor the race of the perpetrators and that of victims, as author Thomas Sowell has noted. Race demagogues such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Shrapnel have gained much fame and popularity from such “race-hustling.”

So are the Chicago-Washington community organizers and agitators trying to promote race riots? Obama and his “social justice” cohorts do not seem to have any comments on the violence committed by inner-city punks. The Holder Justice Department has refused to prosecute black against white voter intimidation cases. And Obama wants public schools to stop disciplining misbehaving black students. Hmmm.

And why have U.S. military recruiters allowed so many white supremacists to join the military?

It appears that the efforts of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and now the election of Barack Obama as President do not seem to have healed the friction among the races in America.

So there seem to be extremists on both sides, and the rest of us are caught in the middle.

But when there will be government austerity and EBT card non-functionality, the flash mob violence we have seen recently will probably be much worse, regardless of race or ethnicity.

But, racial conflicts aside, why have the Bush and Obama Administrations increased spending on food stamps so much? Social programs such as food stamps rob people of their incentive to provide for themselves, and they become serfs to bureaucrats.

It is as though these imbecilic bureaucrats are encouraging the masses to get dependent on these bureaucrats, and for devious purposes.

No, they wouldn’t do that. Not that there hasn’t been enough information about Obama and his immoral, unconstitutional acts as President to indicate any sort of deviousness, no.

With the moral hazard of government bureaucrats’ luring people into this kind of dependence and serfdom, QE3 will cause further economic instability, part of the inherent moral hazard of having a central bank and lack of freedom and competition in money and banking. Such Fed policies continually rob the people through inflation, particularly the lower and middle classes.

Added to those moral hazards of these professional bureaucrats are Congress’s raising the debt ceiling, Washington’s lack of prosecuting criminally irresponsible banksters, the 2008 extortion-like bankster bailout, and foreclosure fraudsters.

And Obama’s pushing through Congress the bill allowing for indefinite detention of Americans without charge or evidence, and his signing it into law, followed by his appealing the judge’s striking it down – there probably isn’t any deviousness behind that, and probably won’t be any targeting of political dissenters during future civil conflicts in America, no. (There certainly hasn’t been any of that, not in America, no.)

All these acts of government criminality could be leading America into a total breakdown of society.

So these people in Washington are either extremely clueless and don’t know what they’re doing, or they are doing these things intentionally, in which case they are just plain evil.

So, could the ruling elites be purposefully trying to cause so much massive dependence on government and such massive weakening of the financial and monetary systems, followed by a false-flag type economic collapse and sudden withholding of government benefits and unavailability of our own money in the bank, to intentionally bring about rioting and violence?

And, if Romney is elected in November, would he be any different from Obama?

And so, if these scenarios play out, and there is indeed massive civil unrest in America, we already know that various federal agencies and local and state police as well are preparing for it. The police state that J. Edgar Hoover, Oliver North, and Dick Cheney put in place is being fully embraced by Obama, the Department of Homeland Security, the TSA, FBI and CIA, as well as many local police neanderthals all across America – it is as though they are drooling for some action, and for a chance for them to show the rest of the world just how tough they are.

Can you imagine people with the kind of extremely questionable character and level of dishonesty and untrustworthiness as Obama and Romney presiding over a situation of military martial law?

In addition to all this, the Obama Administration has allowed foreign troops onto U.S. soil. NATO troops were in training in Tampa just prior to the Republican Convention. They now have Russian soldiers training in the U.S., and some insiders believe that these foreign troops are joining with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security toward some sort of illicit action against Americans under the pretense of “peacekeeping” during a time of civil unrest in America.

In my opinion, having foreign troops coming into the U.S. for any reason is dangerous, and Sheriff Richard Mack agrees with me.

And now, because of inner-city gun-related crime rates, and recent isolated shootings and mass killings, the emotionalistic calls for gun control have been on the increase. This despite violent criminals who disobey laws against assault, rape and murder probably are not inclined to obey gun laws as well.

And, as John Lott has noted, would-be assaulters, rapists and murderers are less likely to commit their crimes when they know their prospective victims are armed.

But because of the emotionalism surrounding certain tragedies, even Republicans such as SCOTUS Justice Antonin Scalia, radio host Michael Savage and TV host Bill O’Reilly have shown irrationality on the matter. How will Americans, in their cars stuck in busy intersections when flash mobs rampage and attack them, be able to defend themselves if they have been disarmed by the government? When looters and burglars break into their homes and businesses, how will disarmed homeowners and businesspeople protect themselves?

And you can say what you want about anti-UN “conspiracy theories” and so forth. But, mirroring a zany 1961 U.S. State Department call for complete civilian disarmament, the 2012 UN Arms Trade Treaty would require signing member nations to enact much stricter national gun ownership restrictions. That was up for a vote in July but has been postponed until probably later this year. Some analysts have interpreted Article 15 of the Treaty to allow for foreign troops in the U.S. to confiscate guns from Americans in their homes. Even having U.S. troops going around door to door to search for and confiscate firearms is itself illegal and unconstitutional, but foreign troops?

It should not be difficult to believe that not just local police but our own U.S. troops would go door to door to seize Americans’ means of self-defense, when we know that they have much experience in doing just that in Iraq, a country in which U.S. troops had no business or reason to be, violating private Iraqi civilians’ own right to bear arms and defend themselves.

As the people’s right to defend themselves against looters, rioters, rapists and killers, as well as against government tyranny, is being criminally whittled away by the degenerates in charge, those same degenerates are arming themselves up and preparing for something that could be interpreted as outright treason.

I have already expressed concern about martial law and explained that U.S. military and other federal armed goons and local police, who have all sworn to obey and defend the Constitution of the United States, are obligated to disobey unlawful orders by commanding officers including the U.S. President.

Unlawful orders include those in which a soldier or an officer is ordered to violate a presumably innocent civilian’s rights to free speech, protest, dissent and criticize the government, right to bear arms and defend oneself against criminal assailants including government criminals, right to due process, and “right to be secure” in one’s person, home and effects. If the officer or soldier does not suspect a civilian of some actual crime, then that agent of government is obligated by law to leave the civilian alone, no matter who ordered otherwise. (The Oath Keepers have made a list of orders they will not obey.)

Further treasonous is the rulers’ inviting foreign troops in to aid in the rulers’ abuses.

And, given the criminality of monetary easing to enrich bankers while creating inflation that robs the poor, one might very well describe those actions as treasonous as well.

If only Americans had listened to the American Revolutionaries’ warnings about paper money and tyranny, wealth redistributionism, and their warnings against foreign entanglements.

With Conservatives Like Willard and Rand, Who Needs Communists?

With Willard Romney and Rand Paul around, who needs enemies? Who are all the millions of voters who supposedly voted for these kinds of people? (My thanks to Robert Wenzel for keeping us up to date on Rand Paul’s continuing spiral down into the depths of statist hell.) Willard Romney and Rand Paul are essentially saying now: “We want to help get Obama reelected!”

As you may have already heard, Willard Romney has now reneged on his promise to repeal ObamaCare. He says he now wants to keep parts of ObamaCare that he thinks are pretty good, regardless of their fascist unconstitutionality, such as forcing private insurers to have to provide insurance to people with pre-existing conditions. Romney wants to “replace” ObamaCare with his own plan.

Yes, he has a “plan.” Professional government bureaucrats who are driven to monopolistic power and control are driven to central planning, and they come up with their own plan for how the rest of the population ought to live. Never mind the idea pf personal responsibility, and encouraging people to take care of themselves. And it seems that the economically-ignorant Romney has never learned that what drives up the costs of medical care and insurance are the very government-mandated bureaucratic intrusions, regulations and red tape, taxes and restrictions that have existed in America for many years now.

What will drive the prices down, believe it or not, is freedom under the rule of law. No before-the-fact, presumption-of-guilt reporting requirements, regulations and restrictions, licensing laws or medical/insurance cartel government-protectionism, or confiscatory taxation.

No, medical licensure does not protect the consumers from bad doctors. Just as teachers’ tenure protects bad teachers from being fired, medical licensure protects bad doctors from the competition. That is why we have a whole slew of bad doctors now. Most of them know nothing (as Sgt. Schultz would say) about how nutrition and healthy foods and supplements and vitamins do much more for people toward  prevention than pharmaceuticals ever could. And these so-called “modern” doctors will get worse as long as Romney-ObamaCare stays in place, in which the government will drive most insurers and doctors out of the business, and the only insurer will be the government and the majority of doctors will be those who don’t mind being slaves of the State, essentially they will be government bureaucrats with an “MD.”

No, freedom is what will drive prices down so that medical care will be affordable to the people who need it, and personal responsibility will be encouraged by a system in which no one is allowed to use the government’s guns to force doctors or hospitals to treat them.

So much for mealy-mouthed Willard Romney, but I won’t say “I told you so.”

Now, on to the mealy-mouthed Rand Paul. Robert Wenzel did a post in which he asks if he should turn up the heat on Rand. After his many posts critical of Rand Paul, I don’t think he could turn the heat up too much higher. But the commenters are always amusing and enlightening in these posts. In Rand’s new book, he claims to be a “Crunchy-Con,” because he like Cap’n Crunch. I know I do. But seriously, Rand claims to not be against all regulation, just “overzealous” regulation. Rand, any intrusions into private property or private contracts by third-parties are trespassers, in my opinion. Government bureaucrats have no more moral authority to intrude than one’s neighbors do.

And in the quoted passage at that link, Rand Paul states, “I often joked on the campaign trail that I was for $2.2 trillion worth of government—what we currently bring in in revenue—but certainly not for the $3.8 trillion of government we currently spend.”

Perhaps that Cap’n Crunch has gone stale.

“$2.2 Trillion”? Therefore, Rand Paul supports over $2 trillion in unconstitutional government programs, policies, bureaus, phony bureaucrat “jobs,” bloat, crony pelf, money that would be MUCH better spent by private individuals in the private sector, providing real jobs that actually produce products and services that people actually need and are willing to voluntarily pay for.

And Willard Romney said this on Meet the Press: “I’ll balance the budget by the end of my 2nd term. Doing it in my 1st term would cause a dramatic impact on the economy.” Yes, it might help to save the country from total ruin! And anyway, Willard, WHAT “2nd term”? (Or 1st term either, as the Republicans, in addition to their shutting out Ron Paul like scared little chickens with their heads cut off, are now showing what self-defeating morons they are.)

Willard, say you will balance the budget and cut the budget by closing all the useless military bases overseas and bring the troops home and put them back in the private sector where they belong, repeal ObamaCare and all the other socialist programs that are ruining America, repeal the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and legal tender laws and allow for free and open competition in money and banking, repeal the Patriot Act and NDAA, abolish DHS, TSA, FTC, SEC, and all the other dirty three-letter words in Washington.

Alas, Willard will not do the right thing, neither will Obama, neither will Rand Paul, they’re all just a sideshow as they join in the government bureaucrat-criminals’ final curtain call of The American Experiment Theater.

Another 9/11 Anniversary Soon: Look at the Evidence, Challenge Government’s Conclusions

Another 9/11 anniversary is coming up. This new, nearly hour-long video details evidence presented by many architects and engineers that contradicts the official government-approved explanation for what brought down the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Toward the end it features interviews by psychologists who explain how people can easily go into immediate denial and refusal to look at actual evidence, when their trust in government protectors has been challenged. I know there are still a lot of deniers out there, but if you really believe yourself to be open-minded, you will spend a little time to view this video.

To Hell With the Republicrats!

September 8, 2012

Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com (Link to article)

This article at the Examiner details with links how the Grand Old Progressives a.k.a. “Republicans” stole the nomination away from Ron Paul, from the 2011 straw polls to the first 2012 primaries and caucuses, and leading up to the Republican National Convention.

At the conclusion of the convention, and in an extreme instance of the kinds of threats that Establishment State-apparatchiks are known for, real thugs apparently tried to give some freedom advocates a strong message.

But despite the contempt that Romney and his fellow Establishment ilk continue to show toward Tea Partiers, Constitutionalists, cultural and religious conservatives, and libertarians, it seems that these grassroots freedom advocates just can’t let go of their blind faith in these politicians. Author James Bovard calls it “Battered Citizen Syndrome.”

I have been observing politics since high school in the 1970s. But in this election season and last week’s Republican Convention it is the first time I have seen grown men and women act like spoiled rotten children, like babies – like Democrats. But the clueless Republicans – they would never admit to it, despite their obvious and blatant Soviet-like silencing of the Ron Paul delegates and rules-changing shenanigans.

Even Sen. Rand Paul seemed oblivious to how poorly the Ron Paul delegates were treated.

It used to be that the Democrat Party was the party of immature brats who just want to take other people’s money and their stuff, and the Republicans were the mature, responsible types who “worked for a living” and believed in playing by the rules.

Sorry. The Republicans have shown no shame in their childish impatience and short-sightedness, and especially since 9/11. They ostracized the one actual conservative in the Republican race, Ron Paul. And they were delusional and ignorant to seriously promote Willard Romney as a “conservative” and a “capitalist.”

In their short-sighted impatience and nominating Romney that included the rules changes and the way the Romney people treated the Ron Paul delegates, these infantile Republicans have increased the risk of alienating real conservatives and libertarians and their Romney losing to Obama.

But in their immediate-gratification selfishness and their power-pumped adrenaline for more power, the elitist Republicans just can’t see that. You see, it is these delusional Republicans who are the real tinfoil hat wearers, not the rational and realistic Ron Paul.

And now it’s the Democrats’ turn, this week. Speaking of “rules changes,” because these old fools were ridiculed for their omission of God and Jerusalem in the Democrat Platform, Convention Chairman Antonio Villaraigosa gaveled the revised version through on a “two-thirds” vote, even after three votes in which the “ayes” were obviously not in the two-thirds. He was “booed” by the “anti-God, anti-Israel” crowd, as Michael Savage would say.

But these useless conventions and State-aggrandizing elections are the natural consequences of democracy, of publicly-owned government and the centralization in DC of power and control over a large territory. Natural consequences of people forfeiting control over their own lives and destinies to a small group of bipartisan elitists and bureaucrats in Washington.

What we have been seeing is the natural decivilizing process of such centralization of power and the people’s willingly enslaving themselves to serve the non-productive rulers. Economist and philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe has explained these phenomena in his great book, Democracy, The God That Failed: The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order.

In that book, Hoppe explains, among other things, the long-term effects of empowering a centralized government with wealth-confiscation and redistribution, and the decivilizing effects of such redistributionism in terms of the breakup of the family and the cultural decline of the society. He also points out how such a scheme weakens the principles of private property, production and voluntary exchange that are, as Hoppe notes, the “ultimate source of human civilization.”

Those very principles have been totally abandoned by Republicans – their rhetoric means nothing when they continually support socialists, fascists, warmongers and professional bureaucrats to rule over us. And such principles were resoundingly trashed by the Democrats and “progressives” a century ago with Democrat President Woodrow Wilson.

The temporary rulers of a democracy do not actually own the country and thus they are not particularly interested in its capital stock, as Hoppe has noted. This makes their decision-making short-sighted and exploitative. This has been true in America with Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, throughout most of America’s existence.

And the pattern of America’s conservatives blindly and loyally following Republicans off the cliff has increased over the past 20 or 30 years now. Despite Ronald Reagan’s government expansion, the 1994 “Republican Revolution,” the Bush II years and the exploitation of 9/11 (in which the government seemed to have had some complicity), the Republican Party Faithful continue to be suckered in to supporting more Big Government, more socialism and fascism, and less and less freedom.

Given Romney’s record as governor and his statements over the years, how the hell could any rational person actually believe he will cut away at Leviathan and restore our liberty?

Unfortunately, the nation’s conservatives and Republicans let themselves be fooled and bamboozled by the post-9/11 fear-mongering propaganda of the Bush Administration. They would never believe that when the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, President George H.W. Bush would start a new, totally unnecessary conflict – in Iraq – to justify the continuation of an already overly-bloated military-industrial complex. The Iraqi sanctions throughout the 1990s continued to provoke Middle-Easterners, which led to 9/11.

The Romney-supporting “conservatives” do not seem to see how the system of redistributionism also includes their tax dollars being stolen from them for the sake of pleasing the profiteers of the military-industrial complex racket.

And the Democrats! Throughout this convention this week, it seems there has been no mention of Obama’s wars and his drone bombings murdering innocent civilians overseas, his NDAA law, his war on whistleblowers, his war on medical marijuana and war on drugs in general, the issues of which so-called “liberals” would normally be very critical.

But no, the unprincipled Democrats and liberals now join the unprincipled conservatives and Republicans, as the Democrats now cheer on their Messiah.

So conservatives who actually believe in conservatism and traditional moral values and fiscal responsibility, and antiwar liberals and progressives who support civil liberties and individual rights, all had their chance with Ron Paul. But in their democratically-developed collective infantilization, they instead have gone with two anti-freedom warmongers, both bought and paid for by Wall Street and the military-industrial complex, the worst of the worst.

But, in my opinion, even Ron Paul doesn’t go far enough as far as emphasizing the futility and failure of central planning. (Yes, believe it or not, conservatives, when you support Dick Cheney and Doug Feith, Donald Rumsfeld and Condi Rice, you are supporting “central planners,” and very bad ones at that!) I wish that Ron Paul could have been more direct in just stating the truth that central planning doesn’t work, as the great 20^th Century Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises showed in his book, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis.

The truth is, most Republicans and conservatives are no longer people who believe in fiscal responsibility or moral values. And most Democrats and liberals no longer believe in peace and civil liberties. They love central planning and the State, they love and worship Washington and its imbecilic and corrupt bureaucrats, no matter how those rulers destroy everything they touch, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and especially in America. That is the true, inherent nature of central planning.

The major political parties of today are a result of the continuing devolution and decivilization of society in their immaturity and infantilization, their pettiness, and their refusal to face the reality that they have been supporting tyrants and criminals, non-productive politicians and bureaucrats, most of whom have spent their entire adult lives feeding at the public trough (or benefiting indirectly from it).

These Parties of the State need to stop supporting socialists and fascists, and stop silencing, arresting or detaining those who want their freedom back and who want to cut the chains of Leviathan’s enslavement.

And soon We the People will need to take the Tenth Amendment more seriously, that’s for sure.

 

The Disgusting Romney-Nixon

On the LewRockwell.com blog, Thomas DiLorenzo writes:

This time they broke into the hotel room of a Ron Paul delegate at the Republican convention and planted bullets in her luggage.  She was detained by the TSA at the airport, of course, but they let her go when they learned she was a Ron Paul delegate.  This suggests that the TSA bureaucrats understand that such behavior is common practice with the Party of Great Moral Ideas. 

Since neither this woman nor Ron Paul himself posed no threat to the nomination of King Romney, the apparent purpose of this thuggery is to send a message to all others who might contemplate supporting a future candidate who believes in a free society as opposed to the fascist police/warfare state that defines the GOP agenda and platform.  They’ve adopted Obama’s Chicago-style politics, in other words.

UPDATE:  J.P. writes:  “You might also like to know that there were reportss of RP delegates having pot planted in their hotel room safes.  Several delegates posted warnings on Facebook, suggesting tht others have hotel staff accompany them to their rooms at check-in and inspect the safe, in order to prevent similar problems with [the law].”

Here is the video on the Daily Paul page that was linked: