Recent Supreme Court Rulings

There were two major rulings by the USSA Supreme Court yesterday: overturning Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, and overturning a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act which had mandated certain states to get federal preclearance before making changes to their voting and election laws.

Regarding the Defense of Marriage Act, I liked what Lew Rockwell had to say about it:

Of course, DOMA is unconstitutional, since marriage is none of the federal government’s business. Under the present system, it is a state issue. Of course, it is actually none of any government’s business. Marriage–like every other contract–should be privatized, with people free to make the contracts they choose, so long as no one else’s rights are violated.

It was an ill day when government began to take marriage over in the 18th century. Marriage antedates government, and unlike government, is socially beneficial.

The extension of federal payments to new classes is an unhappy development, but typical of the supremes. And note that the idea that nine lawyers can determine constitutionality is a usurpation and mentioned nowhere in the constitution.

The constitution itself was a coup, marking a huge step-up in central government power. If we are to be saddled with a national government, let it be under the far-more libertarian articles of confederation.

When something like marriage is made a matter of state, it’s a license to stick your nose into other people’s business. When it’s private, you need not worry if some people want polygamy, or gay marriage, or Protestant marriage, or Catholic marriage, or Hindu marriage. Live and let live is possible. The state, on the other hand, always seeks to divide and rule.

But I will add this. People are worried about same-sex couples and their federal tax deductions, or benefits regarding retirements, pensions, etc. The answer to that is simple, as I referred to in this recent post. Given that compulsory, involuntary government confiscation of the people’s earnings is nothing but theft, plunder, and criminality, then any society that wants to call itself “civilized” must get rid of such theft, plunder and criminality.

Forced, coerced, compelled redistribution of earnings, wealth, income or property is criminal, regardless how one wants to rationalize it.

Another point about that is that some people — religious, conservative, or otherwise — do not want their tax dollars going to “subsidize a gay lifestyle.” Well, as I have referred to before, the government’s tax breaks, deductions, or loopholes are not “the government subsidizing” anyone. The less of your own money that the government steals from you, the more you keep of what is rightfully yours in the first place!

But if there are those evangelicals, or otherwise religious or conservative people out there concerned about that, what do they say about people who don’t want their earnings taken from them to be redistributed to Israel, which by law treats the Arabs there as second- or third-class citizens? Or to Pakistan, to Egypt, to Kenya, etc? Or used to fund the wars that the two Bush Presidents started for no good reason?

And, regarding the Voting Rights Act decision yesterday, everyone should have a right to vote in elections. Everyone. If there are public office holders who make laws and policies which ALL the people must obey and follow — at the point of government’s guns and badges — then ALL the people must have the right to determine who will be given those powers. Either that or don’t let ANYONE have those powers to make new laws or policies which ALL other people MUST follow and obey! (And 51% of the people should not have the right to vote away the other 49%’s rights, their liberty, their wealth, their earnings or their property anyway!)

A voluntary society that does not allow coercion or the initiation of aggression is the only way to maintain a genuinely peaceful, civilized society. As long as we have the institutionalized aggression and thuggery of the State, as we currently have, we will not have peace nor a civilized society or culture.

Democracy is the God That Failed.

New Study on HPV Vaccine “Preventing Cancer”

As usual, the State-stenographer news media are jumping up and down like dogs as the CDC promotes more profits for Big Pharma, Merck and GlaxoSmithKline in this case. That’s the bottom line. If you want to take the CDC’s word for it and believe that a purported anti-HPV vaccine will actually prevent cervical cancer, then that’s up to you.

In this PBS MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour interview, Margaret Warner and the CDC’s Dr. Anne Schuchat neglected to mention the severe health problems and several deaths directly related to the vaccine Gardasil, which is produced by Merck. Gardasil and Glaxo’s Cervarix were the vaccines used in the study.

Nor did they mention any other ways toward cancer prevention such as avoiding certain risky things such as smoking or the importance of nutritional support.

A few months ago, I wrote about NPR host Diane Rehm who seemed to be promoting the pharmaceutical industry when discussing the flu vaccine, but not promoting prevention and staying healthy. I wrote that

no one [on the discussion panel] seemed to suggest taking vitamins, anti-oxidant supplements and probiotics, and eating healthy foods (and refraining from unhealthy activities such as smoking and drinking, which reduce one’s healthiness and can compromise the immune system).

They didn’t exactly invite a nutritionist or alternative medicine practitioner on the panel.

But they did have someone on from GlaxoSmithKline. (Hmmm….)

It seems that in the mainstream media news coverage of this recent CDC study, almost no one is bringing up the harm (and lawsuits) caused by these dangerous vaccines.

Now, regarding the HPV vaccine preventing cervical cancer issue, I think it’s a stretch to conclude that because the vaccine supposedly prevents the spread of HPV, and, despite the fact that most people diagnosed with HPV do not develop cancer, because HPV has in certain cases been associated with cervical cancer, that therefore, the HPV vaccine will prevent cervical cancer.

According to the CDC itself, 90% of cases of HPV go away on their own within just two years. So, the hype regarding all this is really questionable.

And there are other factors involved in developing cancer, cervical or otherwise.

Just recently, Bill Sardi had an article on LewRockwell.com on a Japanese study which showed how natural cancer treatments led to the total disappearance of cancer in several hundred patients in the study.

The treatment team at the Saisei Mirai Clinic uses a combination of therapies that include (a) weekly Gc-MAF injections; (b) high-dose intravenous vitamin C therapy twice a week; (c) oral alpha lipoic antioxidant supplementation 600 mg/day; (d) oral vitamin D3, 5000-10,000 IU/day.

“All of these therapies aim to strengthen and activate the immune system and take a holistic approach to fighting cancer rather than a localized approach that is common with conventional therapies such as radiation and surgery,” their report says.

Dr. Donald Miller, a cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, has written this extensive article on the importance of vitamins and nutritional supplements, this extensive article on saturated fats, and this article on the importance of vitamin D in preventing the flu rather than getting the flu vaccine.

Sadly, there seems to be some sort of short-sighted fascination in our society with instant fixes, and the enmeshment of the big pharmaceutical corporations with the State has promoted such a fascination, and the mainstream media just follow the lead of government bureaucrats.

On Merck’s Gardasil vaccine, Karen De Coster did this post in September of 2009 on the Tyranny of the Pharmaceutical-Congressional-Medical Complex. She cited a 2007 Judicial Watch analysis which found over 3,000 complaints about adverse reactions from the vaccine, within the first year of its availability, information obtained only through FOIA requests.

In that post, Karen De Coster linked to several articles, including regarding the Judicial Watch findings, and the possible link between Gardasil and ALS, As of that 2009 post there had already been 32 reported deaths associated with the Gardasil vaccine.

And in 2011 Judicial Watch had again obtained information through further FOIA requests, and reported that, between September 2010 and September 2011 28 new deaths had been reported, “as well as incidents of seizures, paralysis, blindness, pancreatitis, speech problems, short term memory loss and Guillain-Barré Syndrome.”

Glaxo’s Cervarix vaccine, the other vaccine used in the recent CDC study with Merck’s Gardasil, has also been linked to several thousand reported adverse reactions.

Anthony Gucciardi of NaturalSociety.com in 2011 provided this Gardasil timeline that also included a link to a CalWatchdog.com article. Cal Watchdog showed how Merck’s financial contributions to California state legislators helped Merck to gain its treasured mandatory Gardasil vaccination program in California. I guess Merck had to go that route after in 2007 they discontinued their intensive lobbying efforts to make their vaccine mandatory, based on so many complaints about it already by that time.

And Sibel Edmonds wrote in 2011 how California not only made such vaccines mandatory, but removes the right of parents to even be informed that such a vaccination would be taking place.

Gardasil vaccines were made mandatory for young girls in Texas, signed by Gov. Rick Perry who was also closely tied to Merck, having benefited a great deal financially from Merck campaign donations.

Judicial Watch details the most recent claims totaling over $5.8 million paid to 49 victims of these HPV vaccines.

And I have linked to these articles before regarding the flu vaccine: Vitamin D proven far better than vaccines at preventing influenza infections by Mike Adams, In ‘Universal’ Flu Shot Push, Medical Industry Admits Current Flu Shots Are Useless  by Ethan Huff, CDC Pushes Flu Vaccine for Children in New fear-Mongering Campaign  by Susanne Posel, 3 Reasons to Reconsider Flu Shots  by Anthony Gucciardi, Risks of the Swine Flu Vaccine by Alex Newman, and New Study Finds Link Between Flu Shot, H1N1 Pandemic  by Paul Joseph Watson.

Most recently, The American Dream Blog had an article regarding 2o Signs That the Pharmaceutical Companies Are Running a 280 Billion Dollar Money Making Scam.

Here are some more articles regarding vaccine issues:

The Autism-Vaccine Debate: Why It Won’t Go Away

Secrets About Vaccines and Autism

New Evidence Refutes Fraud Findings in Dr. Wakefield Case

The Influence of Big Pharma in the Dr. Wakefield Controversy

And here is a short documentary by Natural News on how Big Pharma has been responsible for many more deaths than guns each year:

Several News Media State-Stenographers: Michael Hastings Wasn’t Sufficiently Subservient to the Military

Glenn Greenwald posted this article in February, 2011 on not just the military but the news media attacks on Michael Hastings after the publication of his controversial article on Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and after the publication of his subsequent Rolling Stone article on the military’s use of psy-ops on U.S. senators to influence their military-budgeting decision making.

Greenwald wrote about some of the news media hacks who attacked Hastings for his real, professional journalism that wasn’t subservient to the State and its military, including John Burns of the New York Times, Lara Logan of CBS News, Norah O’Donnell of MSNBC, Julian Barnes of the War Street Journal, as well as the Washington Post and ABC News.

More on the Massachusetts Faux Republican Running for U.S. Senate in Special Election

In my post on Gabriel Gomez, the “faux Republican” running against Democrat Ed Malarkey in the Massachusetts June 25th special election to replace John Kerry in the U.S. Senate, I addressed mainly the issues of taxation, and touched a little on military “defense” spending. But here I want to discuss the issues of immigration, “border security,” and gun control.

I linked to Gomez’s appearance on Avi Nelson’s show on WRKO, in which Gomez also stated that he wants to become the added ninth member of the “Gang of Eight” and work with Marco Rubio on immigration reform and “border security.” We need to “secure the border.”

In a nutshell, the way to fix the immigration problem and security is to get rid of the causes of the problems. The main causes of these problems are central planning and socialism. We have had professional, career central-planning bureaucrats implementing their schemes, “reforms” and bad policies for many decades, and we need to get rid of that reckless, destructive central planning; otherwise, the problems will remain and only get worse.

But I doubt that Marco Stupido and John McCain, or Lindsey Graham joined by Gabriel Gomez will ever understand that, and instead they will merely continue with their versions of central planning no matter what.

In immigration, we need to replace immigration socialism with immigration freedom and restore private property and contract rights. These politicians do not like the idea of private property and the sanctity of voluntary contracts sans aggression, because such freedom of the people takes power away from these power-grabbing control freaks in Washington.

And the way to ensure “border security” is to remove central planners from those activities and restore the people’s right to protect themselves, their families and businesses and their homes and property. And that means no restrictions on the 2nd Amendment.

Both those issues of immigration and security would also be resolved by ending the socialist war on drugs (See this, this, and this.), and ending the immoral welfare state that attracts the loafers and parasites that the ultra-conservatives scream the loudest about.

It seems that every time I tune into Howie Carr on the radio, it’s constant rantings about “illegal immigrants,” and he has his little sound effects, the bugle playing the Mexican Hat Dance (or whatever song that is) and occasionally the cartoon character Speedy Gonzales. But despite his other rantings about the EBT card abuse etc he never seems to discuss the idea of getting rid of tax-thefts and wealth redistribution schemes altogether. That’s because conservatives nevertheless love the welfare state, whether they will admit it or not. (See this, this, and this.)

As Future of Freedom Foundation President Jacob Hornberger wrote just recently in explaining how our current governmental immigration controls are examples of socialist central planning,

The federal government plans, in a top-down command and control fashion, how many immigrants can enter the United States and what their particular skills will be. The process is the epitome of what Friedrich Hayek called “the fatal conceit” — the mindset of the central planner in which he is convinced that he can plan the economic activities of millions of people in a constantly changing, dynamic market. It cannot be done. Inevitably, there are distortions that appear in the marketplace, followed by illegality and black markets.

If you are interested in reading more about Hayek’s view of the central planner’s “fatal conceit,” read his book, The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism.

In an earlier article, Immigration Socialism versus Freedom and the Free Market, Hornberger elaborates:

Hayek pointed out that the central planner, no matter how brilliant, can never possess the requisite knowledge and expertise to plan and direct a complex market activity. One of the primary reasons for that inability is that market conditions, which turn on ever-changing subjective valuations of people, are changing constantly, and they’re different in every particular locale across the land.

In the marketplace, circumstances are changing every minute. In the real world, demand is never constant, not even for labor. For example, it depends on what area of the country one is considering. It depends on what the particular circumstances are. Everything is in flux at any given time.

How is a central planner supposed to come up with a plan for this? He can’t, because the minute he comes up with a plan, it’s outmoded. The minute the planner allocates workers to one part of the country because workers are needed there, another part of the country begins experiencing a greater scarcity of workers. The planner cannot possibly keep up with ever-changing conditions in life.

The beauty of a free market is that it accommodates instantaneous changes in people’s valuations. If demand for something goes up, suppliers rush to increase supply. If demand goes down, suppliers decrease production. And it all happens without a central planner. The phenomenon of the market was described by Hayek as the result of human action, not of human design.

Hornberger further elaborated in a different earlier article here.

When central planners impose intrusions in markets, they distort the markets and the price system. This includes the market for labor.

But there is also a moral aspect to the issue of immigration freedom vs. government central-planning controls. Whether the anti-foreign-immigrant conservatives like it or not, all human beings have a right to freedom of travel and freedom of movement, and a right to migrate to wherever they want, as long as they don’t trespass on private property.

And that’s the heart of the matter: private property. As I have noted here, here, here, and here, these central planning-worshiping conservatives do not believe in private property. On the immigration issue, they believe that the collective population has ownership rights of the entire territory, and their “duly elected” central planners in Washington are employed to enforce such territorial ownership rights. However, when you have a collective group of people taking group ownership of a territory, then that includes everything within the territory, including all homes, businesses, and the people themselves.

Does that sound absurd? Well, actually think about whether or not you own your home, or does your local municipality really own it? Or do you actually own your own body, or does the State own your body and has a right to tell you what you may or may not ingest into your body?

The pro-immigration central planning crowd believes in the collective right of exclusion at the expense of private property, freedom of contract and freedom of association. They believe that not only are individual Americans’ lives, businesses and property owned by the collective (but really by the State), but the lives of foreigners as well.

Of course, that not only applies to Mexicans but to other foreign migrants and prospective migrants as well, including Gabriel Gomez’s Colombian parents.

But morally, the right of exclusion should be a private right and an individual right, not a public or collective right. The anti-immigration, anti-private property collectivists do not seem to understand that. Hans-Hermann Hoppe has an elaboration on that here, here, and here [.pdf].

And senatorial hopeful Gabriel Gomez mentioned the importance of border security. But what really ensures border security, and security within the borders, is liberty. Liberty includes the natural rights of all human beings to self-defense, and to protect themselves from aggressors. And by aggressors I am not talking about foreigners crossing the border to find a new home or a new job. If you want to think in those old collectivist and statist terms of government-drawn artificial borders not based on voluntary contracts, that is up to you. I am talking about any aggressors, those who trespass on private property or commit acts of physical aggression against other people.

When there is liberty, then people’s right to their means of self-defense is not infringed in any way by anyone. In liberty, the people have a right to not be compelled to be dependent on government bureaucrats for their protection and defense.

In liberty, we would not have 100-mile stretches of “Constitution-free zones,” and militarized borders. Or a Berlin Wall-like “fence,” except that private property owners would have the right to put up a fence surrounding their property and as high as they want to build it, or they don’t have to if they don’t want to.

Unfortunately, Gomez talks out of both sides of his mouth on the right to bear arms and right to self-defense. (Hmmm. Is there a politician who doesn’t speak out of both sides of his mouth?)

While Gomez says he supports the 2nd Amendment, he still supports restrictions, including expanding background checks. He states that he opposes assault weapons bans. However, in a letter to Gov. Deval Patrick, Gomez wrote,

Two main issues that will dominate the political discussion during this appointment will be Immigration Reform and Gun Control. Given my Latino and Navy SEAL background, I have credibility to contribute thoughtfully on these issues. I support the positions that President Obama has taken on these issues and you can be assured I will keep my word and work on these issues as I have promised.

Another problem with Gomez is that, as he has stated in last night’s debate, he not only supports background checks which is the camel’s nose in the tent for a national gun registry, but he wants to “tie it to mental illness.”

But who is to decide who is “mentally ill”? I happen to think that most politicians and government bureaucrats are mentally ill in their obsession for control over others and their extreme covetousness of other people’s wealth and property.

And I think that Obama is “mentally ill” in his psychopathic belief that it’s okay for him to murder anyone he wants based on his own personal belief that his victim is a “terrorist,” without any supporting evidence whatsoever. But that’s my own subjective opinion on who is mentally ill. (Do we really feel “safe” with Obama’s “finger on the button”?)

I don’t want government bureaucrats or government police or government psychiatrists to have the power to decide who is or isn’t “mentally ill,” and who should or shouldn’t be disarmed and made defenseless by the State.

Gomez has also stated that, as a Navy SEAL he has a “unique perspective” regarding guns and assault weapons. My interpretation of that is that he is like many State-loyal elitists, and believes that only government agents may have armaments but civilians may not. I could be wrong about his view on that, however.

There is a group called the Oath Keepers, and that consists of police and military and veterans who defend their oath to obey the law and the U.S. Constitution, and they will not obey unlawful orders, such as the order to forcibly disarm their neighbors during a time of crisis or civil unrest.

One wonders on which side Gomez will be.

In their debate last night, Gomez’s opponent Ed Malarkey asked Gomez what use “civilians” could possibly have for various assault rifles which shoot multiples of rounds in a short period of time. Of course, Gomez didn’t answer, probably because he doesn’t know the answer. Well, given that Obama’s DHS and other domestic agencies have purchased hundreds of millions of rounds of ammo and these power-grabbing pols in Washington and state governments are attempting to impose more firearms ownership and ammo restrictions, it is another reminder that the civilian population are the ones who need whatever weapons they need to protect themselves, not just from common criminals, but government criminals, oath-breakers, usurpers and power-grabbers.

The deniers out there still don’t believe that “it can’t happen here.” But it is happening here, as Larken Rose demonstrated in this extensive video documentary.

In Massachusetts, Another Faux Republican vs. Another Shoo-In Lifelong Politician

This week  on the Avi Nelson Show on WRKO, I heard Gabriel Gomez, the Republican nominee for the June 25th special election to replace John Kerry in the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts. Gomez will oppose Democrat Ed Malarkey.

Once again, there is little to no difference between the Republicrats and the Demopublicans, except that one has an “R” and the other has a “D.”

What the two candidates have most in common is that they are both diehard statists, and they both oppose freedom.

Speaking to Avi Nelson, Gomez said he supports corporate tax “reform” and personal income tax “reform,” and “closing loopholes” for both personal and corporate taxes. And he wants to lower the corporate tax rate from 35 to 30%, and claims that such a reduction would “spur the economy” and with that we will “have more growth.”

So, if you want to “spur the economy” and “have more growth,” then why not lower those taxes to 25%?

Or better, how about 10%? Wouldn’t that really, really “spur the economy”? Of course it would!

In fact, if you eliminated those income taxes altogether, and for both individuals and businesses and made that permanent, individuals and entrepreneurs would then have the freedom to do whatever they wanted with their own income and their own wealth, to invest, expand existing businesses, or spend and save for the future.

You see, that is what freedom is all about. Freedom in a civilized society and under the rule of law means that no theft is permitted, period. You can’t have actual freedom without private property rights and voluntary contracts. If some people or groups are allowed to take your wealth or property from you involuntarily, in the absence of a voluntary contract, then that is stealing. As Murray Rothbard wrote,

Taxation is theft, purely and simply, even though it is theft on a grand and colossal scale which no acknowledged criminals could hope to match. It is a compulsory seizure of the property of the State’s inhabitants, or subjects.

Taxation really can’t be rationalized by socialist (D) or by socialist (R).

First, once we allow some people to steal from others, then we no longer have a civilized society. And that is what we have now: a thoroughly uncivilized society.

And it doesn’t matter whether the thieves have “legal authority” (which itself is illegitimate) or are “The Government.”

Equal under the law means that if Mr. Smith down the street may not steal from Mr. Johnson, then Senator Jones and police Sergeant Anderson also may not do so. That’s what real “fairness” is.

It is “unfair” when some people are exempt from the rule of law.

And second, America developed and advanced during its first 100 years or so because Americans were not forced at gunpoint to work for the government, its bureaucrats and their little minions. Human beings have a right to their labor not being used to serve others involuntarily. I know, I know, for a century now socialists (D) and socialists (R) have been snickering at the claim that being forced to involuntarily submit one’s private financial status to government bureaucrats and fork over a portion of one’s paycheck is “involuntary servitude.”

We now have generations of ignorant, government-educated serfs who repeat that snickering.

But when you are forced at gunpoint to do extra labor to serve government bureaucrats, their corporate cronies and the military contractor merchants of death, to fund government bureaucrats’ own personal pet projects and bridges to nowhere and their reelection campaigns, that’s big time involuntary servitude, and it’s criminal to do that to your fellow people, and it’s un-American.

Speaking of that, some people didn’t like my use of the word “un-American” in my recent article, Our Un-American Rulers in Washington. But for something to be American, in the George Washington-Thomas Jefferson-Patrick Henry sense of the word, then just about everything the crooks, shysters, hooligans, morons, imbeciles and dirtbags in Washington do is “un-American”! But I digress.

And what is this “closing loopholes” stuff? Some misguided people, mainly on the Left, actually believe that when taxpayers use loopholes and/or tax deductions, the government is giving them more money. A loophole or deduction is a “subsidy.”

But whether something is a “loophole” or an officially designated tax deduction, that is in fact a way for someone to keep more of what already belongs to him. It is a way to reduce the amount of your income that the government takes from you at the point of a gun.

I can see why some people view Microsoft’s or G.E.’s tax avoidance and exploiting loopholes as their being “subsidized” by all the other schleps who don’t have the lawyers these corporations have and so therefore the schleps must pay a lot of their income to parasites. However, when these big corporations have less of their incomes stolen from them by non-productive bureaucrats, that means the big corporations might have more to use in the expansions of their businesses which should mean more jobs. However, it would be even more the case if our bureaucrats would cut it out with their selfish regulations and intrusions, their “planned chaos.”

Robert Wenzel criticizes Sen. Rand Paul’s also wanting to close loopholes:

But once you are in deep talking tax ‘”reform,” it’s all about the government coming up with creative ways to raise taxes by calling them something else. And why is Rand willing to close loopholes? Remember, Ludwig von Mises said capitalism breathes through loopholes.

And the more loopholes and deductions the better, the more everyone can keep what is rightfully theirs. As Murray Rothbard wrote in Can There Be a ‘Just Tax’?,

If a tax is in fact unjust, and some are exempt from it, the hue and cry should not be to extend the tax to everyone, but on the contrary to extend the exemption to everyone. The exemption itself cannot be considered unjust unless the tax or other burden is first established as just.

So, given that taxation itself is involuntary, without a voluntary contract, it is thus theft. Then, it is never “just.” Period.

But with the unjust IRS that apparently Gomez wants to keep in place, we can see now how corrupt such an institution of organized theft can be.

See Laurence Vance on how the Republicans and conservatives have not been outraged at the recent IRS scandal because those pols support the IRS and what it does.

And see Jacob Hornberger on how the conservatives are just as socialist as the liberals.

(Just wait until the tax Nazis are out there enforcing Obama’s Unaffordable Careless Act, a.k.a. “ObamaCare.” Talk about “Nazi Germany” and “Stasi,” “Gestapo,” etc. I guess  We The Sheeple have been very bad, and we deserve to be prisoners of these gangsters, and we deserve to be punished, enslaved, put in chains, experimented on, treated like subhumans, etc.)

Anyway, I can see why “Republican” “businessman” Gabriel Gomez won’t sign the “no new taxes” pledge. Another mealy-mouthed Republican.

And regarding his rhetoric on “cutting spending,” on his campaign website Gomez states that Republicans and Democrats must conspire cahoots conniving “work together to enact meaningful spending reductions in a fair and equitable way, without hurting our military preparedness,” i.e. without touching the profits of the military contractors, the merchants of death. (Apparently, Gomez is a former Navy SEAL. Not that that means anything, though.)

“Ooooh, we better not touch ‘defense’ spending. We better not close down any of those hundreds of U.S. military bases overseas,” and so on. I have addressed that here, here, and here.

Some people claim that such bloated, parasitic ‘defense’ budgets are “keeping us safe,” when the opposite has been the case, especially since the early 1990s.

And others gullibly and naively believe that such a militarized society and the wars of aggression that our corrupt government bureaucrats have started for no good reason are “good for the economy.” Economist and economic historian Robert Higgs, the author of  Depression, War, and Cold War: Challenging the Myths of Conflict and Prosperity, Resurgence of the Warfare State: The Crisis Since 9/11, Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government, and Delusions of Power: New Explorations of the State, War and Economy, has addressed that here and here.

Well, I had also wanted to comment on Gomez’s views on the immigration and “border security” issues, but I don’t have time now. So, I will try to get to that tomorrow.

UPDATE: I have now addressed those issues here.

Police DNA Thefts Discussed on Talk of the Nation

NPR’s Talk of the Nation had an interesting discussion [link to NPR media player page] on the illegal police thefts of DNA from innocent civilians without reasonable suspicion, and the police unconstitutionally placing said DNA into a database which thus compromises the security of the lives of the victims of these police, and the decision by the lettered imbeciles of the Supreme Court to allow said government criminals to commit those crimes.

I did not hear the whole thing and turned it on maybe 3/4 of the way through, but what I heard was informative. I did not know that when you put one individual’s DNA into a database, his entire family members’ privacy and security are also compromised. This is very Nazi-like, and I’m very disappointed that five Supremes who should know better decided to side with Nazis.

Here is the discussion:

http://www.npr.org/v2/?i=192740045&m=192740037&t=audio

Our Un-American Rulers in Washington

June 13, 2013

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

Recent events are enough to make anyone express “vitriolic rhetoric.”

First there was the IRS scandal, in which various IRS flunkies have been targeting Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny, and attempting to interfere with the groups’ First Amendment-protected rights of dissent from the Regime.

My article, Tea Partiers May Need the ACLU Soon was on LewRockwell.com in 2010. The article didn’t mention the IRS targeting the Tea Party, but I did note that the unconstitutional George W. Bush policies that many amongst the Tea Party and conservative wing supported – policies which remove due process and presumption of innocence – may very well come back to haunt those very Tea Partiers.

And now the U.K. Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and former NSA worker Edward Snowden have revealed, albeit in a somewhat coordinated and controlled manner, the National Security Agency’s spying on all Americans’ phone calls, emails and other methods of private communications regardless of actual suspicion, probable cause or warrants.

Yeah, NOW some of the conservatives are waking up to the dangers of these George W. Bush policies they supported for many years, as I hear them yapping on the radio. But that’s mainly because the current dictator is Barack Obama. If these revelations came out while Bush was still President, the conservatives would be defending it.

Oh wait a minute, this did come out while Bush was President, in December, 2005 when the New York Times revealed that Bush authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans’ phone calls and emails without warrants and that in fact some of the eavesdropping involved U.S.-only calls. But the hysterical conservative dupes such as Malkin and Coulter wanted to hang the Times for such a treason as reporting the government’s criminal activity.

But now that Obama is in charge, Rush Limbaugh et al. have finally heard of the “Fourth Amendment.”

Alas, there are still goofballs and degenerates in the U.S. Senate who have no problem with the NSA spying program. In fact, the senior U.S. Senator from South Carolina says he has Verizon and he wants the NSA to spy on him, on customers of Verizon and other telecom providers’ customers.

Apparently, South Carolina’s senior ignoramus doesn’t listen to Rush Limbaugh.

Is there a psychiatrist out there who is not on the State payroll who can explain these people?

Apparently those gullible sheeple of the U.S. Senate aren’t concerned that such government eavesdropping and spying on Americans’ private communications could get in the wrong hands or be used for devious purposes.

Oh wait a minute, such government eavesdropping and spying actually has been used for devious purposes, as reported in 2008 by Brian Ross and ABC News in this “Exclusive” story.

Well, it may not have been that exclusive, given that Warisacrime.org’s David Swanson had reported on the same story a year earlier. But we can’t expect ABC to cite such alternative sources who are not sufficiently State-licking propagandists. (As they apparently are at ABC and its ilk. But I digress.).

According to the ABC “Exclusive” story, two U.S. military linguists and some of their “fellow intercept operators listened into hundreds of Americans picked up using phones in Baghdad’s Green Zone from late 2003 to November 2007.”

“‘Calling home to the United States, talking to their spouses, sometimes their girlfriends, sometimes one phone call following another,’” explained the former Navy linguist in that ABC story. And some of the conversations being intruded on were of a very personal nature, including “phone sex,” according to this McClatchy story.

But we should believe government bureaucrats when they say that the illegal snooping only involves the phone records and “metadata.”

They aren’t really “listening in.”

However, in his interview with the U.K. Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald, NSA spy story leaker Edward Snowden stated, “If I wanted to see your emails or your wife’s phone, all I have to do is use intercepts. I can get your emails, passwords, phone records, credit cards.”

If you have seen the 2010 Washington Post series on the overreaching extent of this National Security Gestapo that very questionable characters in Congress continue to support, you would know that a lot of private military- and security-related government contractors themselves have access to the same kind of private information on Americans that government workers have, including NSA and others. (See the Washington Post series here, in Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.)

Much as I don’t want to spoil the Andrew McCarthyCharles Krauthammer fantasyland that this Bush-Obama police state is “keeping us safe” and that anti-NSA spy complainers are “overreacting,” the truth is that the U.S. government’s police state isn’t keeping us safe.

As Marcy Wheeler and Jason Ditz have detailed, despite the massive, unconstitutional surveillance methods already in place for years, the government bureaucrats’ gloating over “thwarted attacks” has been widely exaggerated. And many, many crimes of all sorts continue to be committed throughout America despite such close government scrutiny of web searches, phone calls, and emails.

So this constantly growing police state really isn’t about protecting the American people from terrorism. It’s really about “thwarting” political opposition to the Rulers and suppressing dissent. The IRS scandal and the Justice Department’s surveillance of AP and Fox News reporters are indications of the same thing.

As Cato Institute’s Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power, has pointed out, quoting former Deputy Attorney General Laurence Silberman,

(Former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover) had let the bureau “be used by presidents for nakedly political purposes” and engaged in “subtle blackmail to ensure his and the bureau’s power.”…

And, quoting the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence under Sen. Frank Church in 1976, Gene Healy continues,

Under “Project Minaret,” from the early 1960s until 1973, the NSA compiled watch lists of potentially subversive Americans, monitored their overseas calls and telegrams, sharing the results with other federal agencies.

Watch-listed Americans “ranged from members of radical political groups, to celebrities, to ordinary citizens involved in protests.” Under Project Shamrock, the NSA collected all telegraphic data entering or leaving the United States, “probably the largest government interception program affecting Americans ever undertaken.”

(And see this related commentary by Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg.)

So, it was happening then, but it isn’t happening now? (As Nancy Mussolini might say, Are you serious?)

So some of the so-called representatives of the American people, such as Sen. Diane Feinstein and Speaker John Boehner, have referred to NSA leaker Edward Snowden as having committed “treason” and that he is a “traitor.” These people obviously haven’t studied their history, such as how the German people supported their own criminal State during the Nazi period. Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation explains here the similarities of that era’s Germans and today’s American sheeple.

Now, I wonder if Sen. Feinstein, someone who is also known to be a compulsive leaker herself, has ever considered the possibility of her own phone calls, emails, web searches etc. being snooped on by the NSA and could information obtained from such communications possibly get into the wrong hands?

Has she discussed campaign strategies with consultants which she wished would remain private? How about private phone calls with campaign contributors or military contractors?

What if a political opponent had obtained such information? Or a Democrat primary opponent?

Perhaps she doesn’t care. As the Guardian’s Glenn Greewald noted, Feinstein’s husband himself has benefited from the National Security Stasi that “DiFi” defends so dearly.

That just shows how all this Amerikan Gestapo stuff – besides being as un-American as it possibly could be – really is a protection racket.

But can you imagine just how paranoid those NSA workers (and FBI, etc.) must be at their offices, wondering whether their co-workers may have accessed their private communications, and what the co-workers might know about them? (“Why are you looking at me that way?” “OMG, she knows about my seeing the psychiatrist!” etc.)

Eventually, one hopes that the bureaucrats will overwhelm each other with paranoia, suspicion and self-destruction. Perhaps Gary North was right: In the end, the police state is doomed.

And I think it is quite commendable that Sen. Rand Paul wants to take this NSA spying issue all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But what, exactly, will that accomplish? The Supreme Court has shown itself to be a group of nine ignoramuses, authoritarians and government apparatchiks. They are employed by the State – of course they will side with the State in most cases. Duh.

After all, the high court’s most recent bad decision was their allowing police to take arrestees’ DNA alongside fingerprinting. Dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia predicted that anyone arrested, “rightly or wrongly,” can have one’s DNA submitted into a “national DNA database.”

And that decision is especially disturbing given that DNA used as evidence is not as foolproof as many people think it is.

Rush Limbaugh’s new pal, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, clearly recognizes the right of the people to be “secure in their persons” from these intrusions by the State when it lacks probable cause.

Many government police have been arresting people for the most frivolous of reasons, and for acts which are non-arrestable “offenses,” including failure to use a turn signal or walking the dog without a leash. And the “high” court also approved the sicko strip-searches that such arrestees would also have to endure.

And the Fourth Amendment refers to our right to be secure in our “persons,” but also our “houses, papers, and effects.”

Now, just how secure is an individual whose phone calls and emails are being eavesdropped on by government employees and private contractors, especially given the likelihood that such personal information will get in the wrong hands and be used for devious purposes?

This whole thing is nuts! It’s beyond “Orwellian.”

Whether it’s the TSA, DHS or NSA and FBI, the U.S. government’s treating an entire population as criminal suspects will not protect them from terrorists, from foreign invasions, bombings, or shootings.

And we are not “secure” when political power-grabbers are intruding their way into the most intimate daily aspects of our private lives, our homes, and our businesses.

And all this is for no good reason as well!

As I tried to explain in my article, The 22 Year Bush War of Aggression on Iraq, it was our own government that started this long war and other aggressions overseas, well before 9/11.

So as Glenn Greenwald, author of How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok, pointed out in this article with reference to the 2004 Donald Rumsfeld-commissioned task force, and in this article (and as Laurence Vance has observed as well), the Islamists, jihadists, or otherwise inhabitants of those invaded Middle-Eastern and Asian territories have expressed not their hatred for America’s “freedom and values,” but their anger and retaliation against the U.S. government’s violence, occupations, and criminality on their lands and against their people.

In other words, not only are we less safe because of our own government’s criminal spying intrusions and predations against us, but we are less safe because our stupid government bureaucrats keep starting wars of aggression for no good reason against foreigners who will obviously retaliate!

So, if you really want to prevent terrorism, then stop invading countries that were of no threat to us, stop drone bombing and murdering innocent civilians on a daily basis, and stop occupying foreign lands that are not U.S. territories, with U.S. government apparatus and military bases.

And stop believing government bureaucrats and their little helpers who say that these bureaucrats aren’t illegally eavesdropping on your private life.

The State Against the People

More from the U.K. Guardian and Glenn Greenwald on the criminal intrusiveness (and for no good reason whatsoever) of the U.S. government:

Obama Orders Senior Government Security and Intelligence Officials to Draw Up Overseas target List for Cyber Attacks

NSA Prism Program Taps In to User Data of Apple, Google, and Others

Boundless Informant: The NSA’s Secret Tool to Track Global Surveillance Data

Edward Snowden: The Whistleblower Behind the NSA Surveillance Revelations

This isn’t to do with the “War on Terrorism.” The illegal spying and criminal intrusions are for the purpose of tracking and spying on dissidents, protestors, critics of the gangster U.S. government bureaucrats who rule over us.

This entire U.S. government is nothing but a criminal racket now, everything from ObamaCare to nationalizing and collectivizing education, to the profitable-for-bureaucrats-and-their-minions “War on Drugs,” to the police state militarism.

If these imbeciles and gangsters were genuinely serious about preventing terrorist attacks against us, they would not start wars of aggression against foreigners who were of no threat to us, they would stop drone-bombing and murdering innocents overseas, they would release illegally-detained totally innocent abductees from Guantanamo, they would stop torturing innocent human beings for the sake of extracting false confessions and falsely implicating other innocents … and it goes on and on and on.

But no, the surveillance police state now is mainly for the purpose of shutting up those who criticize the Regime, and that’s it. As far as those who are employed by the Regime to do all this illegal spying, if they really believe that what they are doing is for preventing terrorism, then they are dupes.

In Amerika now, everything is on behalf of the evil State.

Democracy: The God That Failed.

The Importance of Nullification

I spent a lot of time on my recent article on LewRockwell.com, and I mentioned a lot of things. But I forgot to make reference to the idea of nullification. I’m sure many people have heard of nullification, but to get a thorough overview and analysis of nullification, check out Tom Woods’s book, Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century. Also, Woods addresses objections to nullification on this page. (And see this, this, and this.)

Slavery or Freedom

June 3, 2013

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

Have you ever thought about the morality or legitimacy of politicians forbidding you to have a vegetable garden in your own front yard, or buying or selling raw milk, or merely having a lemonade stand without a local bureaucrat’s permission?

You see, when the armed bureaucrat is arresting the peaceful raw milk seller, the harmless vegetable gardener or the little lemonade proprietor, those arrestees are not the criminals here.

Those otherwise peaceful people have harmed no one, but they are the victims of the actual criminal, the one who is violating their rights to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. He is the aggressor and the criminal, he is the one who should be thrown in jail!

Much of what the State does now is largely criminal in nature: the violent enforcement of “victimless crimes,” the warrantless spying and searches, the prosecutorial misconduct and asset forfeiture, and the drone bombings and murders of innocent civilians overseas, just to name a few.

Even the President and Congressmen – rubber-stamped by the Chief Comrade Roberts – ordering every individual to buy health insurance, are giving an unlawful order, in my opinion.

And the people in a supposedly free country have an inherent right to resist these government crimes and unlawful orders!

So besides the dictates of loathsome bureaucrats, Americans are also enslaved by the government-protected banking cartel and legal tender laws, and the sadistic impulses of the “law enforcers” who actually enforce – and often with malice aforethought – all those Soviet-like rules, orders, and prohibitions of the loathsome bureaucrats.

But millions of people still cling to this horrifying, increasingly-totalitarian State – the U.S. Congress, Supreme Court, state legislatures, local police, etc. – as their Savior, voluntarily choosing to be slaves to these bureaucratic worst of the worst in society.

And the faithful cling to their Rulers, despite how contemptuously those Rulers view the people whose hard labor funds the Rulers’ paychecks.

Unfortunately, most people tend to go into denial about what’s really happening to America, even though they see the growing totalitarianism right before their very eyes.

So here is a very well done video by Larken Rose which not only refutes the assertion that “it can’t happen here,” but describes how totalitarianism is happening here, and only getting worse.

As part of our enslavement, the State demands involuntary payments for nothing, while simultaneously locking out entrepreneurs, laborers and immigrants alike.

The current IRS scandal, for example, as Robert Murphy points out, is that those complainers amongst our fellow hoi polloi want to be exempt from the same criminal wealth-seizures the State inflicts on everyone else.

But the complaint should be that everyone should be exempt from any transaction that is involuntary, coerced, compelled, or accompanied by threats from the taker.

“But we must pay for government’s services,” some people cry.

Yes, we must pay for huge bureaucracies such as the FDA and HHS so they can take care of the fat cats of Big Insurance and Big Pharma. That sounds fair.

And we must pay for DEA, FBI and local police S.W.A.T. raids to make sure that innocent, peaceful civilians who have harmed no one have their homes broken into and even be murdered for no good reason. Check.

And we must pay for more wars and false flags to provoke more foreigners and take care of the fat cats of the military industrial complex. (Except we can’t actually say that out loud. Shhh.)

But the enslaved State-faithful live their lives with rationalization, knowing full well that their labor and livelihoods are being raped by genuine shysters.

I wish more people could understand the inherent immorality and undermining of the rule of law caused by any form of compulsory State taxation, including sales taxes, for example.

You see, when you have a transaction you then have a contract, which is presumably voluntary. However, the transaction is supposed to be between the two traders, neither of whom voluntarily consented to a third-party intruder coming along and seizing part of the trade.

But if third parties (such as government bureaucrats) were allowed to intrude into other people’s lives, contracts and property, then what’s the point of having any laws against trespass, theft, or harassment?

And the government’s thuggish restrictions on employment, entrepreneurs and immigration lock out those who want to start a business here but can’t. That is because of the government’s union protectionism, costly red tape or, because of minimum wage laws prospective entrepreneurs can’t afford to employ enough laborers including entry-level workers.

You see, in the current collectivist slavery, the U.S. government assumes ownership of the capital and labor of both American and immigrant entrepreneurs and workers. Just as Americans are slaves of their government bureaucrats’ restrictions, mandates and other intrusive trespasses, so are prospective businesspeople and immigrants.

I’ll never understand the collectivist anti-foreigner crowd, those who believe in some sort of communal ownership of the whole territory with total disregard for private property and freedom of trade. (Are they closet communists? Who knows.)

And now we have ObamaCare, which is now compulsory, just like the dysfunctional government-run retirement scheme.

I can’t believe that Americans would bow to their government’s demand to report their private medical or insurance status, and allowing such private information to be entered into government databases. Absolutely shameful!

And similar to the Nazi-like “If You See Something Say Something” campaign, doctors will be obliged to report patients’ gun ownership, and report on patients’ “abnormal” behaviors or their criticism toward the government, etc.

The deniers don’t think this is a big deal, but this really is right out of Nazi Germany.

Both doctor and patient are made to follow orders like prisoners, and any mistake one makes in various payment matters or reporting matters could cause one or both of them to be heavily fined (i.e. robbed) by the State, or even jailed.

Following the Boston Marathon bombings, there was a completely unconstitutional police siege, door-to-door searches mainly in nearby Watertown. Heavily militarized government police ordered residents to leave their homes while the homes were searched, without warrants, without probable cause. Some media propagandists even denied that such illegal behavior even occurred.

Will the “authorities” be knocking on the doors of those reported by doctors to have criticized government-run medical care? Or a patient who mentioned that he and his wife had an “argument”?

In contrast, in a free society the people would never allow government police “authorities” to harass innocent people who are not suspected of having committed actual crimes, or order innocent people out of their homes as happened in Watertown. Such a suggestion would be absolutely absurd to freedom-loving people.

Frankly, a government monopoly on policing and security shouldn’t exist anyway, and can easily and more economically be replaced with private providers. Boston was a great example of why market law is morally and practically better than martial law.

And when we have freedom (as opposed to the current slavery and government disarmament of the people) there would be no records of which private civilians have what weapons and who doesn’t.

For some reason, the ignoramuses and chicken littles don’t understand that such an atmosphere would discourage would-be muggers, rapists, burglars, murderers, mass shooters, and government thugs from committing their crimes.

But sadly, most Americans, hypnotized by hours of television watching and constantly staring at their cell phones like zombies, defend the criminality of the State.

And economically, a real free market (sans slavery) would be this: the workers, producers, and salespeople voluntarily contract with other employers, clients, customers, laborers, shoppers, for some kind of goods, labor or services, in exchange for some kind of monetary compensation and/or other goodies. And any third-party such as a government bureaucrat who intrudes into such associations or contracts demanding reporting or receiving a take from the laborer’s compensation or traders’ income is nothing but a criminal and will be treated as such.

With freedom, American business owners can hire whomever the employers feel are the best-qualified and who can best serve their customers, the treasured consumers. And such employers would have the freedom to pay workers whatever the employer decides the workers’ labor is of value, regardless of what government bureaucrats or union meddlers have to say about it. And yes, the workers actually benefit from a real free market.

The consumers are much better served as well, when there is freedom than under the current slavery.

And in the much preferable scenario of medical freedom, because there will be no government regulations, red tape, mandates, restrictions, protectionist patent laws, taxes, licensure or other governmental intrusions, the prices for medical care, medical equipment, insurance, pharmaceuticals or supplements will be much, much lower and more affordable to most people.

With freedom, the medical patient sees a doctor of one’s own choosing, or doesn’t see a doctor at all. It’s the individual’s choice. No government involvement here.

And one contracts with a third party insurer if one wants to, and doesn’t do so if one doesn’t want to.

No bureaucrats involved here. No fascist Nazi-like orders from non-productive apparatchiks like Nancy Lugosi and Chief Comrade Roberts.

And the patient’s payment is between doctor and patient, including whether the patient wants to pay with cash or use a third-party insurer, or can receive services for free, for that matter.

Also, the conversation between the doctor and patient is between doctor and patient only – there is a confidentiality and trust which will not be broken into by the bureaucratic burglars of Leviathan.

If it’s none of the neighbors’ business, then it’s none of the government’s business, I always say.

And no ObamaCare-Patriot Act-Complex tyranny. No government databases. No billion-dollar boondoggle NSA domestic spying centers in Utah.

And with guns, regarding background checks and databases, as mentioned, a free society would have no records of civilian arms ownership (or have any other government-run databases of any information on innocent private people!).

However, if government agents such as local police or the feds must be armed, there should be privately-run civilians’ databases of government employees’ weapons possessions, and other matters as well.

A database on the Internet into which all government employees or prospective employees, armed or not, must enter their complete personal background information including school records, criminal records, gun ownership, etc. And if you don’t like that, then don’t work for the government!

Besides making it uncomfortable for anyone to work for the government, free people must shun government employees, as Jim Davies noted.

Then, we would hope to have fewer and fewer government employees to enslave us, and harass, extort, expropriate, burglarize, mug, rob, search, abuse, assault, unlawfully detain, unlawfully arrest or jail, taser, shoot, or murder the people.

In a society of real freedom, all relationships, associations and contracts are to be voluntary. Restoring private property rights, the individual’s right of self-ownership, and the non-aggression principle is just common sense, after all.

With freedom rather than slavery, no more compulsory government Social Security, tax-thefts, landthefts, IRS, the Fed, or any other such illicit monopolies and criminal rackets in Washington.

The people really have to decide, and soon, whether they want to continue being slaves, or whether they want to live in a land of real freedom.

You know, some people who are afraid of the necessary decentralization process will bring up the collapse and decentralization of the old Soviet Union, and how millions of people just couldn’t handle such sudden freedom. But that was because the government bureaucrats who had been in control made the process gradual and painful.

Then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms, Perestroika and Glasnost schemes were “only expedient measures to preserve the centrality of the Soviet Communist Party and to salvage what was left of the socialist system,” according to Russian-born economist Yuri Maltzev, author of Requiem for Marx.

Those Soviet bureaucrats were the real “bitter clingers” there, the power addicts who couldn’t let go of their little fiefdoms.

And that is exactly what we will experience here in America, by decentralizing gradually, as the bureaucrats attempt to preserve their central planning crimes.

As Murray Rothbard wrote,

Holding back, freeing only a few areas at a time, will only impose continuous distortions that will cripple the workings of the market and discredit it in the eyes of an already fearful and suspicious public …

To achieve genuine freedom, the role of government and its advisers must be confined to setting their subjects free, as fast and as completely as it takes to unlock their shackles. After that, the proper role of government and its advisers is to get and keep out of the subjects’ way.

So, now it is time for a “Requiem for Soviet Amerika,” that’s for sure.

We must resist the evils of collectivism, socialism, and compromise, as Rothbard observed.

There is no other way out of the Rulers’ Soviet-style legislative trespasses, and their constantly provoking foreigners to justify their parasitic war bureaucracies, but to dismantle that Leviathan apparatus.

It is finally time to undo the slavery of central planning, the shackles of State monopoly, and the lawlessness of authoritarianism, root and branch.

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