The “Conservative” Political Action Conference a.k.a. CPAC is really out of control now, with this Gen. Michael Hayden, former U.S. government spy chief asserting that he is a “libertarian” like his debate counterpart Judge Napolitano.
Give. Me. A. Break.
Hayden’s describing himself as “libertarian” is like the others at this conference describing themselves as “conservatives.” As Jacob Hornberger noted recently, conservatives, whose slogans are often mixed with the phrases, “individual liberty, free enterprise, private property, and limited government,” do not seem to actually believe in any of those principles. As Hornberger points out, conservatives by and large believe in those principles except in these areas:
1. Retirement (Social Security).
2. Healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid, regulation, and licensure).
3. Education (public schooling, charter schools, licensed private schools, vouchers …)
4. Farm subsidies.
5. Economic activity (economic regulations).
6. Monopolies (Postal Service).
7. Foreign aid (including to foreign dictatorships, such as Egypt).
8. Corporate bailouts.
9. Monetary policy (Federal Reserve System, FDIC, fiat money, banking regulations).
10. Drug laws.
11. Immigration controls.
12. Trade restrictions.
13. Sanctions and embargoes.
14. Permanent standing military establishment.
15. Overseas empire of military bases.
16. National-security state.
17. Foreign interventionism.
18. Regime-change operations.
19. Secret surveillance.
20. Indefinite detention without trial.
21. Secret prisons.
In other words, conservatives are really progressives but with a different social agenda. But they all agree that the government should seize private income and wealth from the workers and producers of society involuntarily and redistribute it as they see fit (but mainly enrich themselves with the loot, as most of what is stolen from innocent Americans is used to fund the bureaucrats’ own extravagances). But they are all statists, though, not really conservatives.
And to think that someone who endorses and engages in state-sponsored eavesdropping, wiretapping, spying and snooping on his own fellow Americans without probable cause, without suspicion, could call himself a “libertarian” shows just how Orwellian these people are.
Speaking of enriching themselves via taxpayer-funded redistribution schemes and the “defense” racket, Gen. Michael Hayden himself is now benefiting from that aforementioned government largess. As Lee Fang wrote in his article on the Hayden-CPAC laugh-fest,
Hayden is a principal with the Chertoff Group, a consulting firm for the multi-billion dollar cyber security and intelligence industry. He is also on the board of Alion Science and Technology, a military contractor that does intelligence and techical work. For that part-time gig he has been paid approximately $336,500 over the last four years, according to reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
As I wrote in my 2010 article, our current system of military and security socialism and fascism is what has enabled the government’s protection racket bureaucrats, consultants and contractors to exploit and profit from such a monopoly structure and exploit and profit from the people’s anguish over security.
And Rand Paul says that “ISIS is a ‘dangerous and barbaric cult’.” Does he really believe that? He wants to sacrifice MORE U.S. troops to go fight a losing war against crazy extremists, and on the extremists’ own turf, no less? How’d that work out in Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Talk about an impossible task.
If you’re someone who really believes these people, these bureaucrats and shysters (sorry for the redundancy) who say this, that or the other thing to provoke people’s emotions and to get votes, then you need to open your mind to new ways of thinking, and then you’ll see the monopoly State as the criminal racket for what it really is. Read Rothbard and Rockwell, and Hoppe to get an idea of what I’m talking about.
Rand Paul says that ISIS is a “dangerous and barbaric cult,” yet he himself is a member of the legislative branch of the U.S. government, an even more dangerous and barbaric cult than ISIS, responsible for the murders of millions of innocent human beings, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Japan and Vietnam and all points between, and a cult that commits crimes on a daily basis against its own people, of murder, theft, harassment, terrorism, invasions of security and privacy, you name it.
As Larken Rose put it, the “most dangerous superstition” is the people’s blind faith in this thing called government, or the State. Regardless how destructive and criminal the agents of the government have been to their own country, the people nevertheless maintain a blind faith in such a system of self-destruction. And I happen to think that such a blind faith is worse now than ever before, given the general decline of America, the way the American people uncritically and unthinkingly believe the government’s media stenographers, and given the cultural depravity as seen in the popularity of propaganda films such as American Sniper and Zero Dark Thirty.
So CPAC gives us Michael Hayden and Rand Paul, Chris Christie and Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rick Perry. On the other side of the statist coin we have Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. And . . . Let’s call the whole thing off. (Election 2016, that is.)
The idea of a “political action” conference is a bad idea, anyway, as political action involves the use of force, coercion and aggression.
How about a “voluntary action” conference? Now, that’s a good idea.