U.S. Politics and the Orwellian U.S. Death Machine

I happened to tune in to the Howie Carr Show on the radio yesterday and Fox News military analyst and retired Army Col. Dave Hunt was filling in. In their political discussion, they were taking calls from people who had suggestions for who should run for President on the Republican side (like it matters). Now, I can understand why some people like Sarah Palin, but some callers actually suggested her to run for President.

Well, of course Sarah Palin should run for President. But she should not win. Palin is a militarist, a “Christian Zionist,” and is clearly clueless. We have already had militarist-Christian Zionist-clueless Presidents in George W. Bush and the evil elder Bush.

And I couldn’t believe that some callers were actually suggesting that Willard Romney should run for President a third time (and lose a third time). Don’t the callers know that Democrat activists invaded the state primaries to nominate obvious loser Romney?

Oh, let’s “run the country like a business.” Barf. They’re talking about running the government, not the country! No one can “run a country”! (And no one can run a government as well.)

You can’t run a government monopoly bureaucracy “like a business” because there is no profit motive, there are no competitors to keep one on one’s toes, and thus unlike in the productive sector there is no incentive to actually serve the consumers. Government is the parasitic sector that feeds off the productive sector. (For those who are interested in exploring why government can’t be run like a business, see Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, Chris Rossini, and Robert P. Murphy.)

As I have already written several times, Romney is a socialist and a fascist, a corporatist, is criminally corrupt, an ObamaCare-repeal-promise welcher, and an authoritarian who supports Federal Reserve central planning and who supports the NDAA indefinite detention of innocent American civilians, he supports gun control, and the corrupt foreign policy in which your tax dollars are stolen from you to fund counter-productive military escapades to serve the interests of politicians’ election campaigns and profits for the “merchants of death” military contractors and banksters, and in which you are forced to do extra labor to serve and fund the hundreds of U.S. foreign military bases and actions which do nothing but provoke foreigners to want to retaliate (e.g. 9/11).

So much for these useless political campaign discussions on talk radio.

Speaking of Benghazi, Col. Dave Hunt filling in for Howie Carr also discussed the dreaded Benghazi issue. I only heard a little bit, but I have heard him discuss the issue relentlessly when filling in for past shows. The issue was the incident on September 11th, 2012, in which 4 Americans, including the U.S. Ambassador to Libya, were brutally murdered by extremists. Many people believe that was a “serious” international incident, which of course it was and it is very unfortunate that 4 Americans were killed.

But what about the roughly 5,000 U.S. troops whose deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan were caused by U.S. government bureaucrats for no good reason? I happen to believe that that entire issue is more serious, as George W. Bush should not have started those two wars of aggression against two countries which had nothing to do with 9/11 and which were of no threat to Americans. Both U.S. government wars of aggression were planned well in advance of 9/11.

But the American people were bamboozled by our criminal Rulers to support such wars. So roughly 5,000 U.S. troops dead, many more injured and some disabled for life, skyrocketing rates of military suicides, but the conservatives (yes, mainly it’s the conservatives) who are even more upset about the Benghazi incident.

And what about the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi and Afghan civilians now dead, many more wounded, displaced, their homes and businesses destroyed in those countries, because of covetous and bloodthirsty socialist government expansionists of the Regime in Washington? And that’s in addition to the Iraqi children with birth defects due to the radiation and other effects of the U.S. military’s bombing and use of depleted uranium, and in addition to the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians murdered by the first President Bush from 1991 through the U.S. government-led sanctions throughout the 1990s.

And the Orwellian U.S. death machine continues. With more secret “ops,” murders and assassinations overseas, and with drones on a reckless murder spree.

In addition to the totally innocent civilians that U.S. forces know to be innocent, there are those who supposedly are “terror suspects,” when rarely has there ever been evidence presented against any one of the many innocent civilians murdered each day by the U.S. military and CIA drones. And generally, “militant” is another word for someone in his own country who retaliates against invaders.

But don’t expect our revolving-door “intelligence” analysts to ever look at any of those concepts more closely, however. Well, there are some people who are no longer connected to the State and who can take a more objective look at these things.

In this article former CIA officer Philip Giraldi discusses the problems associated with determining just who should or should not be considered a “terrorist” or terrorism suspect. There are language and translation problems, and also, whose judgment should be considered in making determinations?

Giraldi writes, among other things:

The ability to manipulate the intelligence explains why some terrorists getting predator droned in Pakistan are undoubtedly on the Pakistani Intelligence Service’s (ISI) hit list and are not actual terrorists.

So this reminds me of the recent report published by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, in which it was shown that the numbers of innocent civilians murdered overseas by the Obama CIA drones (2,000+) since Obama took office of President have far surpassed the numbers of innocent civilians murdered overseas by drones under the command of George W. Bush (~250). Not only have the bombings killed innocents who were not determined to be terrorism suspects but were just “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” but there have been cases of the CIA drones intentionally targeting the rescuers and funerals of drone victims as well as intentionally targeting other group gatherings such as wedding parties. Yes, socialists like Obama and Bush really do wreak havoc.

So for decades, especially since the early 1990s, the U.S. government has been trespassing on foreign lands and provoking foreigners. So much for “moral values” and the Golden Rule. Good for you, “conservatives“! (But the Democrats, as we have seen from Obama, Hillary et al., are just as bad.)

So now we have an increasingly totalitarian government and militarized local police all across America turning the guns, the surveillance, the searches and drones against the American people. It seems that Americans are more accepting of that police state crapola, as though that could actually protect us from terrorists, when the real solution is to stop provoking foreigners. Ya think?

But keep on wasting time and money trying to find a “leader” who will attempt to make government more limited and less powerful. Is the Tooth Fairy available?

Is there any way to convince these “conservatives” that the idea of  “limited government” is nothing but fantasy?

Hitler’s Lincoln Inspiration, and Obama Fears Constitutional Sheriffs

Economist Thomas DiLorenzo has this very informative article on how Hitler’s inspiration for mass extermination of people came from the U.S. government’s mid-19th Century practices of ethnic cleansing and extermination of Native Americans. Of course, those who view the U.S. government and President Lincoln in high esteem are ignorant of the truth of Lincoln’s atrocities against his own fellow Americans, and probably view that first sentence as just absurd and may not check out the DiLorenzo article. But he does cite some good sources.

Related: Infowars has this article on a police chief who is being harassed by the U.S. government because he has been affiliated with a group called Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, and because he has signed a pledge to obey the Constitution and Bill of Rights and pledges to NOT violate any individual’s rights to self-defense and private property regardless of any federal order to do so. In other words, these “good” government police and sheriffs are on the side of the people and their rights when it comes time for the feds to violate them. As we saw in Nazi Germany when Hitler rounded up the Jews, if or when dictator Obama orders the arrests and detainment of civilians who are viewed as “threats” to the Regime, these constitutional sheriffs and peace officers will defend the people and will disobey Obama and the feds’ unlawful orders.

The Pro-Aggression Statists Smear Those Who Support Peace and Liberty

Mises Institute economist Walter Block, a frequent contributor to LewRockwell.com, believes that he may have been libeled by the New York Times‘ latest smear campaign against those who love liberty, free markets, and who believe in non-coercion and non-aggression. God knows, those who believe in peace and freedom ought to be maligned and smeared, libeled and slandered as much as possible.

The Times‘ recent hit piece on the Mises Institute and libertarians in general included a brief quote by Prof. Block, totally out of context. Block was quoted as stating that slavery was “not so bad.” Here are the two paragraphs in which the quote appeared in the Times:

Some scholars affiliated with the Mises Institute have combined dark biblical prophecy with apocalyptic warnings that the nation is plunging toward economic collapse and cultural ruin. Others have championed the Confederacy. One economist, while faulting slavery because it was involuntary, suggested in an interview that the daily life of the enslaved was “not so bad — you pick cotton and sing songs.”

And

Walter Block, an economics professor at Loyola University in New Orleans who described slavery as “not so bad,” is also highly critical of the Civil Rights Act. “Woolworth’s had lunchroom counters, and no blacks were allowed,” he said in a telephone interview. “Did they have a right to do that? Yes, they did. No one is compelled to associate with people against their will.”

And here is what Prof. Block told the Times Reporter, as quoted in Block’s article linked above:

“Free association is a very important aspect of liberty. It is crucial. Indeed, its lack was the major problem with slavery. The slaves could not quit. They were forced to ‘associate’ with their masters when they would have vastly preferred not to do so. Otherwise, slavery wasn’t so bad. You could pick cotton, sing songs, be fed nice gruel, etc. The only real problem was that this relationship was compulsory. It violated the law of free association, and that of the slaves’ private property rights in their own persons. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, then, to a much smaller degree of course, made partial slaves of the owners of establishments like Woolworths.”

I think that clarifies things. The point is that the slaves were made to be where they were and do what they were told involuntarily. That’s the point. You see, with statists such as those employed by mainstream media corporations, whether something is voluntary or involuntary doesn’t matter. It’s really the emotionalism surrounding various social philosophies and government policies that matter.

But as long as your actions don’t violate the non-aggression principle, then you should have the freedom to do whatever you want, with your own life, your person, property, labor and wealth. As long as you don’t violate someone else’s person and property, that is.

If you want to talk about actual slavery, I could say that you are made to do extra labor involuntarily in order to fork over what government bureaucrats demand that you fork over. And now with ObamaCare the youngins are made to do extra labor and go into debt frankly in order that their earnings be taken from them by force to be handed over to others. Some might see that as “slavery.” That is definitely “involuntary servitude,” for sure.

The kind of slavery that has been referred to in the articles mentioned above is “chattel slavery,” in which the slave — or involuntary laborer — is kept as property by the slave owner. It is much more personal, direct and explicit. But the general population, the non-government class, or non-ruling class, are really the slaves of the political class, the Rulers. Your labor exists primarily to serve them the non-productive parasites and their special interests.

But regarding Walter Block, here are some readings by Block to see for yourself how deeply devoted to the non-aggression principle and voluntary association he is:

Defending the Undefendable

The Case for Discrimination

Building Blocks for Liberty

The Privatization of Roads and Highways

Elizabeth Warren’s Unwarranted Wage

Labor Relations, Unions and Collective Bargaining: A Political Economic Analysis

Is There a Human Right to Medical Insurance?

Defending the Undefendable II

Other Walter Block Publications

The New York Times, CBS and Fox, et al – They’re ALL Part of the Regime

Copyright 2014 LewRockwell.com (Link to article)

Recently the Ludwig von Mises Institute received a visit from a New York Times reporter. Lew Rockwell politely asked him to leave, referring to the reporter as “part of the regime.”

The New York Times‘ subsequent article* was mainly intended to be about Sen. Rand Paul, but really it was a hit piece on the Mises Institute and libertarianism in general.

I think that Lew Rockwell was right to correctly identify a scribbler for a long-time distributor of State press releases.

And given the Times‘ past efforts at pro-Democrat Party influence, one can suggest that this hit piece, with assertions made without facts to back them up, may have been intended with the 2016 Presidential race in mind.

But the New York Times is not only a propaganda sheet for the Democrat Party, but for the State, as we saw many years ago with the NYT‘s cover-up of Soviet genocide in the Ukraine. More recently have been the Times‘ aiding and abetting the war on Iraq, its push for medical fascism, a.k.a. ObamaCare, and other campaigns for State expansion.

In fact, the NYT has been a “propaganda megaphone” for war. There have also been the NYT‘s collusion with the CIA and Obama Administration on the handling of Hollywood’s use of Zero Dark Thirty to promote Obama’s reelection bid, the NYT’s conspiring with Obama flunkies to justify the murder of alleged terrorist supporter Anwar al-Awlaki (after the fact), the NYT‘s unjustifiably withholding information on behalf of Bush officials and withholding stories to cover up for CIA misdeeds (yet reveals military secrets on its front page on behalf of regime parasites), and the NYT‘s propaganda for war on Iran.

Could there be any more rhetorical question than asking whether the New York Times is “part of the regime”?

But it isn’t just the New York Times. We can compare CBS’s harsh interrogation of regime critic Ron Paul to CBS’s love-fest with then-Defense Sec. Leon Panetta.

We can also look at the news media‘s criticism of Julian Assange and Wikileaks. And the media’s pro-military criticism of an actual investigative journalist as well, the late Michael Hastings, regarding his Rolling Stone article on the military’s use of psy-ops on U.S. senators and, in some cases reporters acting as Pentagon spokespeople in criticizing Hastings in his article on retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

But back to the New York Times, the paper of State worship and Regime deference. One of its authoritarian statist columnists, David Brooks, seems to think that Americans aren’t deferential enough to authority.

In Brooks’s differentiation between just and unjust authority he refers to Presidents Lincoln and FDR as apparently just authority.

And Brooks refers to the “Question Authority” crowd as seeing public servants as being “in it for themselves” (which they are, most of them), and that we are arrogant to question the legitimacy of the central planners of the ruling elites. Perhaps Brooks might try reading Ludwig von Mises’s Socialism and Planned Chaos, for a bit of de-programming.

And contrary to the Mises Institute’s promotion of Austrian economics, the Times‘ alleged economist, Paul Krugman promotes the Keynesian way of life that has caused America’s decline over the past century. Krugman lives by Keynesianism, which consists of policies of selfishness, irresponsibility and immediate gratification, yet he calls those who are against central planning and who believe in sound money to be of the “extreme fringe.” Go figure.

I think that Brooks and Krugman adequately reflect the statist authoritarian mindset of the Times‘ editors in general. But such promotion of statism and militarism seems to have found its way into the slanted news coverage as well.

So with the Times, and most of the other mainstream media outlets, the State and its central planners are good and decent, but those who love liberty, not so much.

One problem with many amongst the news media and the Left is a short-sightedness which really characterizes the American population in general. This is part of the society’s decline since the turn of the 20th Century and FDR’s New Deal especially, and is part of an emotionalistic idolizing of the State (and its central planning bureaucrats) as society’s replacement parents. An example of the short-sightedness is the Times editorial board’s response to Barack Obama’s recent State of the Union address.

But this Regime-supporting authoritarianism isn’t just on the part of those on the Left. The conservatives love the State as well, hence the shallow, unthinking support for the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, which was wrong and based on lies, and for war on Iraq, also based on lies. For some reason, statists on both sides seem to see patriotism as supporting your government even when the government’s actions are wrong. In my view, they need to grow up and try to think for themselves.

So when the State’s critics make their criticisms known, for many people it is as though someone has criticized their mom or dad, it’s deeply personal and not only do the State’s defenders run to the State’s defense but they also tend to childishly run to slander the State’s critics.

But how do the news media such as the New York Times continue to enjoy such good standing in the eyes of so many people? Why do so many of them act is sycophants for the State? As Hans-Hermann Hoppe observed,

As an anti-intellectual intellectual, one can expect bribes to be offered — and it is amazing how easily some people can be corrupted: a few hundred dollars, a nice trip, a photo-op with the mighty and powerful are all too often sufficient to make people sell out.

But as far as why mainstream media outlets continue to lie and distort information, propagandize on behalf of corrupt politicians, banksters and military leaders, many such “journalists” probably do have a gullible and naive blind faith in their leaders despite the destruction such leaders have caused.

Or perhaps the scribblers and babblers really are fearful that what happened to James Risen, James Rosen, Audrey Hudson, and Michael Hastings, among others, may also happen to them. Who knows?

But in their devotion to the State, yes, sadly many amongst the “Fourth Estate” really are just another part of the Regime.

So Lew Rockwell was right to cordially request the New York Times reporter to vamoose, to leave the premises of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, an institution obviously not friendly to the statist paradigm of the New York Times‘ beloved central planning regime.

*Note: The link to the actual NYT article is here. (I neglected to include it in this article. Sorry about that.)

 

Ron Paul: Do We Live in a Police State?

Some Interesting Items Recently

Here are some interesting items I have read recently:

Jacob Hornberger asks: What’s wrong with income inequality?

Sayer Ji discusses how the Gates Foundation/CFR propaganda against “anti-vaccine” movement is backfiring.

Marcy Wheeler discusses the corporate store, where NSA goes to shop your content and your lifestyle

Kit Daniels writes about the totalitarian state of New York wanting to track everyone’s life, from early schooling to career

Ron Paul says that every week should be school choice week.

William Grigg on the plunder-lusting quislings seeking to repeal posse comitatus

Sheldon Richman on welfare/warfare/corporate state: All of a piece

Patrice Lewis discusses the feminists who think that allowing women to be women is hurting them

Juan Cole writes about Israeli right-wing extremists’ race-based discomfort with Benjamin Nutty-Yahoo’s son not only dating outside their Jewish faith, but outside their nationalist State. (Recently, Cole had also written about recognizing Israel as a Jewish state is like saying the U.S. is a white state.)

Sibel Edmonds on Turkish PM Erdogan: the speedy transformation of an imperial puppet, and CIA-Zionist operatives urging Obama to overthrow Erdogan’s administration

Laurence Vance on the “War on Drugs”

Yuri Maltsev explains the Tea Party

And Melissa Melton on EPA bureaucrats tracking flu-related keywords on Twitter.

The Presidential Address I’d Like to See Tonight

Barack Obama has his next State of the Onion tonight. So here is a suggestion on what he should say:

More Ignorance from The New York Times

Robert Wenzel posted this response to a recent New York Times article on Rand Paul that referred to the younger Paul as “libertarian.” Wenzel, however, mainly responded in great length to the Times‘ smear of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

In a second post, Wenzel pointed out one part of the Times article that mentions how a Times reporter visited the Mises Institute requesting a tour, and the Institute’s founder, chairman and CEO Lew Rockwell, asked the reporter to leave, because the reporter was “part of the regime.” The commenters to that post praised Lew Rockwell’s response, and Wenzel noted,

Notice Lew doesn’t attempt to deflect the problem. He doesn’t say, “We don’t give tours.” He doesn’t tell the reporter, “You need an appointment.” He tells it like it is, essentially saying, you are part of the crony establishment elite and we don’t want you here. Pure Clint Eastwood.

And Lew Rockwell responded to the Times smear of the Mises Institute and libertarianism in general, as well.

But in his first post, Robert Wenzel remarked on the Times‘ assertion that the Mises Institute scholars are associated with some sort of “dark biblical prophesy”:

From his writings, it is obvious that Mises regular contributor Tom Woods is a Catholic and that frequent contributor Laurence Vance is Christian, but not Catholic. Walter Block, who is affiliated with the Institute is Jewish, although I have no idea whether he is religious or not. The Institute was named after Ludwig von Mises, a non-religious Jew. There is no “dark biblical prophecy” agenda at the Mises Institute.

The Times article also implied that scholars and writers associated with the Mises Institute were of a racist bent, pro-slavery and so forth. They probably really think that because many people on the Left and in the news media do not understand the ideas of private property rights and the importance of voluntary contract and voluntary association, and the idea of self-ownership. I have previously addressed the issue of libertarianism and the Civil Rights Act, for example. But It is doubtful that Times reporters or editorialists have taken the time to read articles by Walter Block, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Murray Rothbard, and Lew Rockwell.

But I happen to believe that after so many years of State-obedience and the widespread notion that “you share with your community the ownership of your life, labor and earnings” inculcated into most people, even when such indoctrinated people are exposed to the ideas of Rothbard et al. they most likely will reject or at least ignore such ideas. That is, until the government police break into your home and arrest you for criticizing a pol on your Facebook page while taking some of your property and cash, then the skeptics might start to get the feeling that supporters of private property rights and non-aggression might very well be on to something.

But until then, I am not surprised that yet another smear piece has been written against libertarians on behalf of statists and the State and its power-lust. From 2007 to 2012, the news media, pundits and talk radio crowd sure gave Ron Paul the works, as far as smear and suppression of the truth are concerned. I have written about that in this post that includes a list of some of Dr. Paul’s books and links to his many articles and speeches. The elder Dr. Paul was also part of the founding of the Mises Institute in the early 1980s.

But the Mises Institute is mainly an academic and scholarly institution devoted to the Austrian school of economic thought, that of economist Ludwig von Mises. It is an institute which promotes the importance of economics in understanding society. In particular, many books and articles. speeches and discussions have been devoted to a main theme, as I see it: Against Central Planning. At least, that is my own personal perception of what I have read and heard up to now.

The problem with the Times and other mainstream news distributors, statist economists such as Krugman, and State-promoting academics (sorry for the redundancy), is that many of these people were raised in a society in which a ruling central government is a given. It is a “fact of life.”

But further, the central planning bureaucracy which rules over them is an extension of their primary caretakers, i.e. their parents. So, those who criticize the ruling government are really criticizing the mommy and daddy rulers, and that makes people very uncomfortable. There has to be something wrong with someone who is dissing my government, my President, and so on. How dare they!

Alas, most people will never grow out of their devotion and loyalty to the State, regardless how it enslaves them, how it invades their privacy, compromises their security in every way, makes life miserable and difficult for them, and prevents them from exercising the real freedom they have a human right to have. That is, as I have already noted, until the State’s armed thugs and marauders break down their doors and seize their belongings, rape their daughters and take them away. Then, they might wake up.

Some School Freedom in New Zealand

Free Range Kids author Lenore Skenazy writes about a school in New Zealand that, instead of building a new playground, just allowed the kids to play freely on the areas that they had available. Not only were the kids kept busy outside, but the incidence of discipline problems went down. Perhaps here in the nanny state of USSA they might consider such freedom and “chaos” at the school playgrounds. No further need to call police and arrest children for “acting up.” (Nah, it makes too much sense.)

“We Need Centralized Authority” Is Causing the Decline of Civilization

The decay of America seems to be getting increasingly worse, and some things are increasingly frustrating to deal with. One problem is the lack of communicating that goes on in the society, despite the multitudes of communications apparatus at everyone’s disposal now. But no one seems to be saying anything, or learning anything. And I wish this extreme frigid deep freeze stuff would stop.

Anyway, antiwar writer Tom Engelhardt (The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s, The United States of Fear) has this new article on the “Golden Age of Journalism.” Engelhardt shares his earlier years experiences as a reader of many newspapers, magazines and books, and his more recent years experience as a somewhat frustrated user of computers and the Internet. While he notes that he doesn’t use Twitter or a Smartphone and longs for a “typewriter” (a what?), he does say that the Internet has a lot to offer eager journalists. So it may not be all that bad that today’s newspapers are going under, as you can read a lot online now.

However, the reality is that what we have in America now are a lot of people who are addicted to their little hand-held gadgets, their iPhones, and compulsively must check their texts and emails every five minutes or sooner. And the zombies seem to have to talk to someone on the phone constantly even though they aren’t really saying anything.

But with all the information now available on the Internet, are more people actually reading? Such as articles on the Internet — or when they click on an actual article do they just skim or glance at it? Some recent surveys have shown that many people don’t read books anymore. Schools now rely on the computer and laptops for assignments, rather than books.

However, there is a growing segment of the population who are starting to reject the government-run or government-controlled education system and are home-schooling their kids. And there are many people who are rejecting the nonsense and State-stenography coming out of the mainstream media now.

But I would say that the majority of the population are very pacified now, they get their doses of electronic-hypnosis by staring at a screen and putting their brains to sleep. And these are the people who support the rise in the American police state, the surveillance, the criminal intrusions and trespassing that various government agencies are inflicting on the American people. I used to be critical mainly of the TV that people stare at for hours per day, but now it’s their little electronic hand-helds turning them into brainwashed zombies who will do what the master tells them without question. Am I losing people now?

And we have seen the obedience to the State and the unthinking waste-fests coming from the news media. In their obedient support of the Iraq War, their blindly acting as Obama slaves and their suppressing of anyone critical of the Regime (such as Ron Paul), the mainstream sycophants have exposed their true lacking of actual journalistic abilities or actual desires to get at the truth of situations which affect the lives of millions (such as ObamaCare).

Since their stenographically pushing the Iraq War on behalf of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the profiteers and merchants of death of the military-industrial-security complex, in more recent years the “journalists” of the mainstream news media have covered up for Obama and his drone murders of innocent civilians overseas (in addition to their helping Obama in his drive for more domestic surveillance, drones, as well as their looking the other way when it comes to Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning and the NDAA indefinite detention provision Obama craves).

This report by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism details the 2,000+ innocent civilians murdered overseas by Obama’s drones since 5 years ago, and compares the number of innocent civilians murdered by Bush (250) to those murdered by Obama (2,000+). But who else is reporting on this?

In Googling this somewhat important news story (ya think?), I find that the articles coming up now on this are from HuffPo, Infowars, Salon, and Juan Cole. Yes, “conspiracy” websites, “fringe,” and so forth (although they aren’t fringe — it’s the mainstreamers who are fringe!). But we certainly are not getting such actual news from CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, Fox News, the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Could the Bureau of Investigative Journalism be wrong about those statistics? That’s possible. Perhaps, like Frank Reynolds, the mainstreamers need better “confirmation.” Who knows. They certainly won’t get the accuracy they’re looking for from the Pakistani government, that’s for sure.

But if they report on something like that, Obama’s drone murders, the story may reflect badly on Obama. He’s a murderer of civilians, but it’s difficult for some to actually report that. (It was easier to report on Bush‘s murdering of innocent civilians, though.)

And this goes for not just the news business, but the entertainment industry as well.

But most of our current crop of print and broadcast journalists and entertainment industry zombies seem very bent on their worship of authority, the State especially. Mainly now it’s Obama as their Savior. If anyone criticizes Obama, one is called a “racist” by the sheeple “journalists.” Some of them actually believe that those who would criticize Obama are doing so out of racial motivations. And there are those who don’t believe that but they say it anyway out of fear that they will be labeled “racist.” That’s how intelligent and “open-minded” modern mainstream journalists are nowadays.

The latest example from the entertainment people, according to Breitbart,  is this new “brainstorming” campaign on how to “portray” (i.e. propagandize) ObamaCare in TV and film.  How to sell this extremely fascistic and counter-productive intrusion into all Americans’ private medical and insurance matters, regardless how criminal and destructive it is. It will not take too much of an effort on the part of those in Hollywood who are the die-hard authoritarian fascists who love their dictator Ruler, Obama, that’s for sure.

But the unthinkingness, conformity and cluelessness are part of the ruling class’s strengths as well. For example, Michael Rozeff recently blogged about the clueless Elizabeth Warren. He doesn’t mention this, but she’s the one who suggested that we bring the minimum wage up to $22 per hour. (Walter Block recently addressed that issue, and so has Murray Rothbard.) Rozeff wrote that Elizabeth Warren probably has a high IQ, but I don’t think so. And some people think that Obama has a high IQ. Tell that to his teleprompter. If Obama has such a high IQ, then why does he still allow his CIA to bomb and murder innocent civilians overseas, knowing full well that such murder and destruction — as was the case with the Bush wars — only further provokes the foreigners to want to commit a jihad retaliation? Or perhaps Obama does know this but that’s what he wants? Are you that cynical? And if Elizabeth Warren’s IQ is so high, how come she doesn’t understand the counter-productivity and terrible effects on lower-income folks of government-provision of services such as medical services? (Kevin Carson explored that problem the Left has especially with “single payer” just recently.)

Okay, so maybe it’s not really an IQ problem, but a lack of critical thinking skills. But I’m getting really tired and frustrated with the zombies and the brainwashed and government-propagandized sheeple we have now, in academia, the news media, the government-controlled education system and the entertainment industry. All these statists who are clueless about the ideas of freedom, self-ownership and non-aggression, and that the State is the biggest, most powerful criminal racket ever in the existence of humankind. I’m frustrated by all the people who are so influenced by the statists on the so-called “right” such as the Rush Limbaughs, the Mark Levins, the Peter Kings and Sarah Palins, and the statists on the Left, the Rachel Maddows, the Chris Matthews, and the Dianne Feinsteins, and so forth.

Josie the Outlaw has this new video on the comparison to prisons of our government-controlled education system, and the uselessness of schools in actually encouraging youngins to develop critical thinking skills. (And it’s a good explanation for the aforementioned statists and their irrationality and cluelessness.) I may post that video here. And Larken Rose has another video to explain a little further in introducing that Josie video.

But anyway, to conclude all this, here is another recent video by Larken Rose. Now, I know that some readers to this blog do not particularly like these kinds of videos, and that some will not like this one with a sort of comical, making-fun-of-the-statists tone. But Rose really makes it clear exactly what the statists sound like. Yes, this is what the authoritarian statists of the so-called right sound like, and it’s what the authoritarian statists of the Left sound like. However, toward the end of the video, a pleasant lady comes on to speak with a more respectful and sensible tone what the hell exactly Larken Rose was talking about.

Will the Constitution and the Bill of Rights Survive the Voracious National Security State?

Jacob Hornberger discusses what life in America would be like if we had no Constitution and Bill of Rights. He uses the U.S. military’s unconstitutional Guantanamo prison and the U.S. military’s attempts at establishing new governments in countries they spent a lot of time and effort ruining such as Iraq, as examples.

Regarding Guantanamo, Hornberger writes,

Whenever the federal government invades, conquers, and occupies a foreign country, one of the first policies it establishes is one of indefinite detention. Suspects are rounded up, especially men in their 20s and 30s, and simply locked away in jail…

Torture is another important part of federal Constitution-free zones. That’s what has happened at Guantanamo, Bagram, and other federal overseas prisons. There is also rendition, a policy in which federal officials send suspected terrorists to brutal partner dictatorships, whose job is to torture the inmates into confessing or divulging information.

As I have recently mentioned here, the use of torture is not to get the tortured victims to confess to any crimes, but to extract false confessions, or falsely implicate others. Obviously, the one who is being tortured wants the torture to stop and will say anything to get the torturers to stop torturing. Duh.

And so-called conservatives or otherwise supporters of the “national security” state and the War on Terror do not seem to understand that the Bill of Rights recognizes individual rights that we ALL have inherently as human beings, whether we are American citizens or foreigners. The Bill of Rights recognizes rights in ALL human beings, rights which are pre-existing of the creation of any ruling government. Hornberger continues:

Inmates at Guantanamo Bay and other federal facilities are presumed guilty and are treated as if they are guilty. There is no such thing as bail. There is no right of trial by jury by one’s peers. Guilt is determined by federal officials serving as a tribunal.

If trials are ever held, the defendants have no right to confront the witnesses against them. Hearsay is admissible, which is another way to deny defendants the right to confront their accusers. Communications between attorney and client are monitored by federal officials. Many of the legal proceedings are conducted in secret. The trial is not open to the public.

Sadly, many people in America who say they support the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights also assert that the Bill of Rights does not apply to foreigners. But as I noted, the Bill of Rights recognizes pre-existing rights that we ALL have, American of not. So if some U.S. military soldier or general or CIA operative chooses to trespass on foreign soil, in Iraq or Afghanistan and seizes some guy there and renditions him off to Guantanamo prison, that victim has as much of a right as any American would have to require that his accuser (U.S. soldier, general, Obama, etc.) present evidence and also precisely define what crime has been committed by that specific individual that such alleged evidence would prove in a court of law.

And no, no reason for secret trial. If the “national security” statists don’t like that, then they really ought to rethink whether they should be true Americans living in America or whether they should be living in North Korea or some other third world dictatorships.

Conservatives and so-called “constitutionalists” who have supported the extra-constitutional judiciary such as Guantanamo really need to think twice about supporting what the U.S. government has done to mainly innocent foreigners over the past 12 years, because excusing your government to treat foreigners in such unlawful, unconstitutional and immoral ways really only encourages such government bureaucrats to then turn those powers onto their own people.

And Hornberger continues with reference to U.S. military’s attempts at setting up a government or reestablishing security in Iraq after they destroyed the country in the mid-2000s. When U.S. government and military personnel take charge of the new system in the country they destroyed such as Iraq, they

immediately begin confiscating weapons and make it illegal to own them. The reason? They don’t want any resistance to their orders. Their aim is to establish “order and stability,” which necessarily depends on submissiveness and obedience. The last thing they’re going to do is recognize the right to keep and bear arms by the local citizenry.

They also establish a system of unrestrained search and seizure, which involves no judiciary to interfere with operations. Everyone’s door is subject to being bashed in at any hour of the day or night, with agents having the unrestrained power to search people, homes, and businesses for weapons, contraband, and anything else. There is no such thing as judicially issued search warrants based on probable cause.

Hmmm. That sounds an awful lot like what’s happening here in the U.S., thanks to judges who are increasingly upholding Obama’s and local police departments’ unconstitutional and criminal policies. And Hornberger concludes:

As bad as things are with respect to NSA surveillance, torture, indefinite detention, and other aspects of the U.S. national-security state, imagine what life would be like if America were a Constitution-free and Bill of Rights-free zone. Thank goodness our American ancestors didn’t trust federal officials with unrestrained power and instead demanded passage of the Bill of the Rights as a condition for agreeing to let the Constitution call the federal government into existence.

Alas, as we are seeing with the criminals of the police, the NSA, TSA, FBI and other government goon agencies all across America, obviously our American ancestors really did have a reason to distrust not just federal government officials but ALL government armed agents of  “law enforcement” and “security.” But sadly, even though the early Americans insisted on a Constitution and Bill of Rights, those documents nevertheless meant nothing. The U.S. Constitution itself is unconstitutional. To restore our liberty and security, the people need to get rid of police socialism, and national security socialism as well.

How Can We Make Security Providers More Accountable?

All these related articles appeared within the past week or so:

William Grigg discusses the jury’s acquittal of clearly guilty murderous government police out in California, in which it’s okay for police to murder innocent people in cold blood.

Eric Peters says that police (if there must be government police, that is) must be accountable under the rule of law.

Jeff Deist discusses the government’s monopoly in security provision and voluntary and market alternatives to said monopoly.

And Wendy McElroy discusses Gustave de Molinari’s ideas for competitive provision of security.

You see, the government monopoly way of doing these things involves coercion and compulsion. The government usurps the people’s right to self-defense and self-determination, and it monopolizes the provision of security which the people are compelled by law to have to be dependent on. In contrast, the moral way of keeping communities secure from aggressors and invaders is to not interfere with the people’s inherent human right to provide their own security in whatever way they see fit. The voluntary way is the moral way, and it also is the way to ensure the greatest amount of security possible. The coerced, government monopoly way is immoral, dishonest, and it provides power for the monopolists to further expand their powers, it empowers the monopolists to be above the rule of law, and it thus makes the people less secure.

Related: In a different context, Bretigne Shaffer discusses coercion vs. non-aggression (or voluntaryism).

Howie Carr: A Bit Macabre (and Perhaps a Bit Sadistic?)

(Updated below)

I try not to listen to Howie Carr too much. But in the past several weeks, I’ve probably heard a bit too much. One of Carr’s schticks is this “death pool,” in which after a celebrity dies, people call in to give their guess as to who the next celebrity might be who “won’t be coming down for breakfast.” Just in the past two weeks there have been two “death pools,” after Ariel Sharon died, and after the Professor on Gilligan’s Island, Russell Johnson died. You see, because a caller guessed Johnson in the previous death pool, that caller wins a prize, and then they have a new death pool.

I am not. Making. This. Up.

Well, yesterday long-time local TV news anchor Chet Curtis died, and someone actually guessed his name in the previous death pool. He had been ill with cancer for over a year. At that time, the news about Curtis made it sound as though he could kick the bucket any time. But it took him this long. I think the same situation has been going on with Valerie Harper, who has been very ill for a long time, but there was talk a while ago that she could go at any time. Many listeners to the Howie Carr “death pool” are waiting with bated breath. (I think some of Carr’s eeriness and ghoulishness is catching on.)

Some common names suggested on the Howie Carr death pool have included Zsa Zsa Gabor, Kirk Douglas, Doris Day, the Rev. Billy Graham, Hosni Mubarak, and Lindsay Lohan.

It is amazing that Howie Carr has been on for 20 years at the same time in the afternoons on WRKO, since replacing the great Jerry Williams in 1994. Go figure.

But yesterday following news of the death of TV news anchor Chet Curtis, one thing that Carr said when noting that they won’t be doing the death pool that afternoon was that we “can’t have too much of a good thing.” Like he implies that someone dying is a “good thing,” so that they can do another fun “death pool.” That is why I say this is way on the “macabre” side, and perhaps a bit sadistic.

Carr was not specific as to whether he would be having the next death pool this afternoon or Monday, or Tuesday, but it’s usually at the 4 PM hour, Eastern Time. You can hear it on AM-680 in the Boston area, or wrko.com for those who are interested in hearing the “Howie Carr Death Pool.”

UPDATE: For those who are interested, Howie Carr said that the next death pool will be on Wednesday (1/29).

Some Misc. Items for Cold “Global Warming” Deep Freeze

It’s only in the single digits outside today. And it will be a little worse tomorrow, but relief is on the way for Saturday. Anyway, when leaving a store earlier, this young lady was also leaving and with a baby stroller. The lady didn’t have gloves on, and I don’t think she had a hat. Is that how the youngins are now, not knowing that you should wear a hat and gloves when it’s only in the single digits outside? Oh, maybe I’m the one who’s stupid. I didn’t look to see of the little kid was protected, but s/he probably wasn’t. But many of these people then get sick, and they go to the emergency room to get treated. At least that’s what I heard. Willard Romney stated in the mid-2000s as governor that RomneyCare was necessary to save the costs associated with people who go to emergency rooms to treat a cold, etc. However, emergency room exploitation increased since RomneyCare’s intrusions began. And now with Obama’s DisasterCare, I’m sure more people, such as those youngins who are avoiding government-imposed insurance and instead paying the fine, will probably use the emergency rooms when they get a cold, too. God forbid these people will ever hear about vitamin D and so forth.

And there’s a local community in the area in which their Town Meeting banned plastic shopping bags and will only allow paper bags (despite evidence which shows that the paper is worse for the environment than plastic!). So it’s only paper bags from stores in that community. I will not name the town here. Just what is it with these progressive elitists who are obviously ignorant about the effects of certain materials such as plastic bags or paper on the environment? I’m sure a lot of people are eventually not going to do any more shopping in that town and it’s because of those ignoramuses of Brookline, home of Michael Stanley Dukakis (remember him?). That’s the “limousine liberal” community in which many people have a car such as their little Prius and “Smart” car (that’s not so “smart” when it gets in the way of a tractor trailer, for sure). But what if it rains? With paper bags they get wet and rip apart and everything falls out. Those Prius-driving elitists probably don’t walk from home to store and back home as many of the elderly people around do. And also, how many more trees are now going to be sacrificed because the elitists really believe that not letting people use a plastic bag will save the environment? Just a thought.

The website Police State USA has this story about an 84-year-old man who doesn’t understand English and was beaten and arrested by New York  nazis neanderthals police for “jaywalking.” I’m sure you cops who arrest and beat up elderly people for “jaywalking” are really proud of yourselves. Talk about courageous. Good for you, as Elizabeth Warren would say. (I wonder if the plastic bag-banning elitists in Brookline arrest and beat up elderly people for jaywalking, too. Probably.)

When it comes to defiance and expressing one’s independence, Brandon Smith at Alt Market has got “true grit,” or spunk, as he’s not afraid to say what he thinks. He praises the efforts of the people in Mexico to handle the violent drug cartels themselves rather than rely on the corrupt government to do anything, and he seems to hope that Americans will have such guts. Note how Smith refers to these governments and their law enforcement monopolies as “subversive,” which they truly are, although many of these bureaucrats actually believe that it is the people (the ones who believe in freedom and the rule of law) who are the “subversive” ones. (Perhaps the people of Brookline will revolt against their Town Meeting schnooks and tell them to let the people use the goddamn plastic shopping bags, for crying out loud!)

Modern Medicine in the USSA Banana Republic

Last November, a report was issued by the Institute on Medicine as a Profession, in which its Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers concluded that the U.S. government directed “doctors, nurses and psychologists, among others, to ignore their professional codes of ethics and participate in the abuse of detainees in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,” according to the New York Times. The Times noted,

Among the abuses cited in the report are doctors’ force-feeding of hunger strikers by pushing feeding tubes into their noses and down their throats. The task force also suggested that medical personnel ignored their duty to report evidence of beatings or torture of detainees, and that the Defense Department “improperly designated licensed health professionals to use their professional skills to interrogate detainees as military combatants …

The U.K. Guardian notes that these practices remain in effect under the Regime of the “Peace Prize” President, Barack Obama.

But why is all this going on at all? There’s no point to it. These “national security” bureaucrats and their “doctor” minions are nothing but statist dogs chasing their tails. The only way to prevent terrorist attacks is to not motivate foreigners to want to commit terrorist attacks against you. And the way to not motivate them is to stop provoking them as the U.S. government has been doing for decades and decades, starting wars of aggression against countries that were of no threat to us, occupying and trespassing their lands and murdering their people. Ya think?

Now, just who are these so-called doctors, nurses and psychologists who are aiding and abetting the crimes being committed against innocent people who aren’t event actual suspects? I think the Task Force’s report should or should have named those co-conspirators, if it hadn’t done so. These alleged medical professionals need to have their names publicized, and they need to be shamed into leaving their profession.

UPDATE (August 9, 2017): Two of the psychologists, James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, will now be tried in a jury trial to determine their financial liability to several victims who were illegally tortured by CIA.

UPDATE II (August 18, 2017): The plaintiffs and the psycho psychologists have settled their suit out of court (probably at the insistence of the CIA, to avoid the thousands of pages of declassified documents being revealed in court).

And yes, the alleged medical professionals really were aiding and abetting crimes against mostly innocent people. The main purpose of torture is to extract false confessions from innocents or getting victims to falsely identify others as suspects or conspirators. And yes, the majority of the hundreds of detainees at Gitmo were innocent, non-suspects who were picked up either randomly by U.S. military or CIA forces, or they were handed over by others who were paid financial bounties as rewards.

Given history, especially throughout the 20th Century, it should be of no surprise that we will probably find more of these kinds of “doctors” and other health professionals who will be produced by a nationalized health care system which ObamaCare will become (until the collapse and decentralization and re-localization occur, of course).

Most of the younger generation of doctors are being brought up in the government-controlled schools which instill an unthinking obedience toward the State and will do as ordered, including torturing those the bureaucrats deem necessary to be tortured.

As we have seen now, many of the good doctors have been retiring early because they see their practices being destroyed by power-mad government bureaucrats, and they don’t want to be used as slaves for the State and its desires for social engineering. Remember, this Gitmo torture regime as well as the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq have nothing to do with protecting Americans from terrorists, as they have much more to do with the empowerment of bureaucrats and with enabling extremely sadistic parasites to act out their lust to inflict cruelty onto others.

And then I see this post by Ticker Guy Karl Denninger, with the title, Is Your Doctor Trying to Murder You? Denninger refers and links to this article at Forbes, “Medicine or Mass Murder? Guideline Based on Discredited Research May Have Caused 800,000 Deaths In Europe Over The Last 5 Years.”

Given the way governments have infiltrated medical care and the medical establishment, of course medical care has not only decreased but become much more dangerous.

In the year 2000, the late pediatrician Barbara Starfield wrote, “an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 (Americans) die each year as a result of medical errors.”

This September, 2013 article on NPR noted,

In 2010, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said that bad hospital care contributed to the deaths of 180,000 patients in Medicare alone in a given year.

Now comes a study in the current issue of the Journal of Patient Safety that says the numbers may be much higher — between 210,000 and 440,000 patients each year who go to the hospital for care suffer some type of preventable harm that contributes to their death.

That would make medical errors the third-leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease, which is the first, and cancer, which is second.

And Dr. Mercola expanded on those findings, and notes that “avoiding hospitals can be ‘good medicine’.” And he goes on with some suggestions for how to protect yourself if you must be hospitalized, and gives ways to take care of yourself for prevention.

But my conclusion is this: Take the zeal with which loony-tunes “security” bureaucrats are waging the “war on terror,” and the lust that many of those criminal-minded operatives have to harm, torture and murder innocents, and combine all that with the third-world government-run U.S. education system and what will be the third-world government-run U.S. medical system, and we will probably not be happy campers in the near future.