Russell's Rhetoric

Tramp Stamps - How to get rid of them!

2007-07-10T01:09:00.000-04:00

Tattoo Remover - video powered by Metacafe

The Neoconservative Empire

2007-02-17T13:47:00.000-05:00

On February 14, 2007 Congressman Dr. Ron Paul (R) of Texas gave a terrific speech against the neo-cons on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Please take six minutes to watch this speech on video. ---Russ

The Neoconservative Empire

by Ron Paul

Statement on the Iraq War Resolution
Before the U.S. House of Representatives February 14, 2007

Watch Ron Paul's speech on video.

This grand debate is welcomed but it could be that this is nothing more than a distraction from the dangerous military confrontation approaching with Iran and supported by many in leadership on both sides of the aisle.

This resolution, unfortunately, does not address the disaster in Iraq. Instead, it seeks to appear opposed to the war while at the same time offering no change of the status quo in Iraq. As such, it is not actually a vote against a troop surge. A real vote against a troop surge is a vote against the coming supplemental appropriation that finances it. I hope all of my colleagues who vote against the surge today will vote against the budgetary surge when it really counts: when we vote on the supplemental.

The biggest red herring in this debate is the constant innuendo that those who don’t support expanding the war are somehow opposing the troops. It’s nothing more than a canard to claim that those of us who struggled to prevent the bloodshed and now want it stopped are somehow less patriotic and less concerned about the welfare of our military personnel.

Osama bin Laden has expressed sadistic pleasure with our invasion of Iraq and was surprised that we served his interests above and beyond his dreams on how we responded after the 9/11 attacks. His pleasure comes from our policy of folly getting ourselves bogged down in the middle of a religious civil war, 7,000 miles from home that is financially bleeding us to death. Total costs now are reasonably estimated to exceed $2 trillion. His recruitment of Islamic extremists has been greatly enhanced by our occupation of Iraq.

Unfortunately, we continue to concentrate on the obvious mismanagement of a war promoted by false information and ignore debating the real issue which is: Why are we determined to follow a foreign policy of empire building and pre-emption which is unbecoming of a constitutional republic?

Those on the right should recall that the traditional conservative position of non-intervention was their position for most of the 20th Century-and they benefited politically from the wars carelessly entered into by the political left. Seven years ago the Right benefited politically by condemning the illegal intervention in Kosovo and Somalia. At the time conservatives were outraged over the failed policy of nation building.

It’s important to recall that the left, in 2003, offered little opposition to the pre-emptive war in Iraq, and many are now not willing to stop it by de-funding it or work to prevent an attack on Iran.

The catch-all phrase, “War on Terrorism,” in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against criminal gangsterism. It’s deliberately vague and non definable to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere, and under any circumstances. Don’t forget: the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with any terrorist attack against us including that on 9/11.

Special interests and the demented philosophy of conquest have driven most wars throughout history. Rarely has the cause of liberty, as it was in our own revolution, been the driving force. In recent decades our policies have been driven by neo-conservative empire radicalism, profiteering in the military industrial complex, misplaced do-good internationalism, mercantilistic notions regarding the need to control natural resources, and blind loyalty to various governments in the Middle East.

For all the misinformation given the American people to justify our invasion, such as our need for national security, enforcing UN resolutions, removing a dictator, establishing a democracy, protecting our oil, the argument has been reduced to this: If we leave now Iraq will be left in a mess-implying the implausible that if we stay it won’t be a mess.

Since it could go badly when we leave, that blame must be placed on those who took us there, not on those of us who now insist that Americans no longer need be killed or maimed and that Americans no longer need to kill any more Iraqis. We’ve had enough of both!

Resorting to a medical analogy, a wrong diagnosis was made at the beginning of the war and the wrong treatment was prescribed. Refusing to reassess our mistakes and insist on just more and more of a failed remedy is destined to kill the patient-in this case the casualties will be our liberties and prosperity here at home and peace abroad.

There’s no logical reason to reject the restraints placed in the Constitution regarding our engaging in foreign conflicts unrelated to our national security. The advice of the founders and our early presidents was sound then and it’s sound today.

We shouldn’t wait until our financial system is completely ruined and we are forced to change our ways. We should do it as quickly as possible and stop the carnage and financial bleeding that will bring us to our knees and force us to stop that which we should have never started.

We all know, in time, the war will be de-funded one way or another and the troops will come home. So why not now?

February 15, 2007

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.

Ron Paul Archives

President's Budget: Everything Is A Priority

2007-02-15T16:44:00.000-05:00

President Bush's new 2008 budget boldly declares that "each program was closely reviewed to determine if it is among the Nation's top priorities.... [F]ailure to meet these criteria resulted in proposed termination or reduction of 141 programs for a savings of $12 billion."

Sounds pretty impressive, doesn't it? The president is proposing to eliminate or reduce all programs that aren't "top priorities." Wow!

But hold on. Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute has done the math.

Says Edwards: "Total federal outlays in 2007 will be $2.784 trillion. Thus, programs that are "top priorities" of the Bush administration account for 99.6 percent of all spending."

So Bush proposes to ruthlessly chop away at all that non-top-priority federal spending -- the whole "whopping" 0.4 percent of it. Meanwhile, the 99.6 percent that is "top priority" will continue and grow. After all, it is a top priority.

Source: Cato Blog: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/
More on budget shenanigans:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118632.html

READ MY LIPS:

2007-02-15T16:39:00.000-05:00

The Bush administration may be squarely against new taxes, but its proposed fiscal 2008 budget seeks to raise almost $81 billion in new revenue over the next five years by hiking user fees and other charges on taxpayers and businesses. Technically, changes to these fees aren't taxes. But for anyone who must pay them -- everyone from recreational hikers to war veterans -- it's a question of semantics.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/16636417.htm

Surprise: The Laws of Economics Work!

2007-02-15T16:21:00.000-05:00

Throw a rock in the air, and it falls back down. The law of gravity.

Increase the price of labor by imposing a minimum wage, and jobs -- especially low-paying entry level jobs -- are destroyed. The law of supply and demand.

Last month Arizona raised the minimum wage to $6.75 per hour from $5.15 per hour -- a 31 percent increase.

The results? This headline from the Arizona Republic newspaper tells the story:

New Wage Boost Puts Squeeze on Teenage Workers Across Arizona: Employers Are Cutting Back hours, Laying Off Young Staffers.

An excerpt from the story:

Some Arizona employers, especially those in the food industry, say payroll budgets have risen so much.... that they're cutting hours, instituting hiring freezes and laying off employees.

Mark Messner, owner of Pepi's Pizza in Phoenix, says he plans to lay off three teenage workers and decrease hours worked by others.

"I've had to go to some of my kids and say, Look, my payroll just increased 13 percent. Sorry, I don't have any hours for you."

Tom Kelly, owner of Mary Coyle Ol' Fashion Ice Cream Parlor in Phoenix, voted for the minimum-wage increase. But he said, "The new law has impacted us quite a bit."

It added about $2,000 per month in expenses. The store, which employs mostly teen workers, has cut back on hours and has not replaced a couple of workers who quit.

Kelly raised the wages of workers who already made above minimum wage to ensure pay scales stayed even. As a result, "we have to be a lot more efficient" and must increase menu prices, he said.

These anecdotes only affirm what minimum wage critics have been saying for 60 years. A new study by the non-profit Employment Policies Institute (EPI) finds that for every 10% increase in the minimum wage:

Minority unemployment increased by 3.9%
Hispanic unemployment increased by 4.9%
Minority teen unemployment increased 6.6%
African American teen unemployment increased by 8.4%
Low-skilled unemployment (i.e., those lacking a high school diploma) increased by 8%

If a new federal minimum wage goes into effect, look for the same painful results as Arizona is experiencing -- across the nation.

Source: Arizona Republic
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0210biz-teenwork0210.html
http://www.epionline.org/news_detail.cfm?rid=95

More Money For Failed Drug War Ads

2007-02-15T15:05:00.000-05:00

Between 1998 and 2004 the federal government spent over $1.4 billion dollars producing and airing anti-drug ads aimed at teens.

A nearly five-year-long, $47 million investigation -- carefully reviewed by the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) -- found that the program failed to reduce teen drug use.

Worse, "greater exposure to the campaign was associated with weaker anti-drug norms and increases in the perceptions that others use marijuana." After seeing the ads, non-marijuana-using teens were actually more likely to try the drug!

That's a spectacular failure by any standards. And how does the government reward failure?

With more money, of course. President Bush has proposed a huge increase -- a "surge," one is tempted to say -- in funding for the ad program: a 31 percent increase that would raise the budget to $130 million.

Sources: The Politico: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0207/2673.html
http://www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-11-num-11.html
GAO Report: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06818.pdf

2007-02-12T14:40:00.001-05:00

It's said that a picture is worth a thousand words. This one certainly is!

Exit strategy?

2007-02-09T21:13:00.000-05:00

Support our troops:
bring them home NOW.

Accountability and Culpability - Theirs and Ours

2007-02-09T20:04:00.000-05:00

Benjamin Franklin once said:

``The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.''

Christianity teaches us that we must not regard our reason, that we must ``have faith'', as it were, no matter the circumstances, as if God had given us reason as a plaything, or a rattle, for the sole purpose of making fun of us.

Here's an eye-opening article that I found on ``Bible Prophecy'', I offer it to you in hopes that it will help to open your eye of reason:

Accountability and Culpability - Theirs and Ours

by Pauline Rocco

How many times have you heard variations of the theme: "Repent! The End is Near" thumped out by the bible cranks? Many times I'd guess, because bible prognosticators have been at it "forever and ever" (well, for almost two thousand years, but who's counting?) The Rapture!, Armageddon!, the Antichrist!, Gog and Magog (who? what?) 666!, the 2nd Coming!, the Tribulation!, and other glad tidings of great joy!

The Christian seers reliability quotient has been on par with Enron's CEO and accounting department, but at least the Justice Department is investigating Enron. We can't say the same about any major Christian leader or organization. They are never held accountable for their misinformation, their disinformation, their blatant lies.

Once upon a time we may have believed we could dismiss this end of the world blather as laughable nonsense. I assure you this is no laughing matter. An outbreak of war in the Middle East will affect all of us.

Recently French Ambassador Daniel Bernard asked a rather succinct question at a dinner party in London. He described Israel as, "that shitty little country," and asked, "Why should we all be in danger of World War Three because of these people?"

Why, indeed! Could it be because we have allowed Christians to wield their illegitimate power over our foreign policy? When was the last time you heard the United States' unqualified support of Israel questioned in the context of separation of church and state? How many politicians manipulate their power and authority in support of Israel based on their belief that it's the least we can do for God's "chosen people?" America is filled with people living in fear of the bible's threat of woe to those who aren't nice to the Jews. Isn't it time WE said, "Whoa" to the sheep gleefully hoping to bring on Armageddon so Jesus will come back and move into the White House? Can't you just imagine that while listening to George Bush bray about 'rooting out the evil ones', Ariel Sharon must be thinking,

"I, like Samson, am having great success using the jawbone of an ass!!"

Really! Aren't you getting fed up with Christian interlopers laying claim to our heritage and our destiny?

Our kindred spirits of the Enlightenment expect more from us! The Founding Fathers risked everything they had and more to give us what we take for granted: The freedom to govern our country based on the use of reason. They gave us freedom from the tyranny of the church that had used (and still uses) its power to enslave people with guilt and fear. Be inspired by Thomas Jefferson's words,

"There is not a truth existing which I fear, or which I would not want known to the whole world."

One truth we should help make known to the whole world is Jefferson's description of the bible's Book of Revelation as...

"...the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams."

But don't just sit there thinking about all this... DO something about it! Be encouraged by Johann Goethe's words,

"What ever you do, or dream you can do, begin it! Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

The Next Big Property Rights Battle?

2007-01-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

By James W. Harris

"Bart Didden wanted to put a CVS pharmacy on his property in Port Chester, N.Y. He even obtained approvals from the local planning board.

"But because a portion of the CVS site was in a blighted redevelopment zone, Mr. Didden was told that planning board approval wasn't enough. He'd have to reach an understanding with a private company that had been selected by Port Chester officials to control all construction inside the renewal zone.

"The developer, Gregg Wasser of G&S Port Chester, told Didden he'd have to pay $800,000 or give G&S a 50 percent stake in the CVS business. If Didden refused, Mr. Wasser said, he would have Port Chester condemn and seize his property and instead of a CVS he'd put a Walgreens drugstore on the site.

"Didden refused. The next day, the Village of Port Chester began legal proceedings to seize Didden's land by eminent domain."

So begins a Christian Science Monitor story on what is shaping up as the next big U.S. property rights battle. The case has made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which will decide whether a local government can give a private company like G&S the power to extort payment from a property owner by using the threat of seizing that property.

The fight to defend Didden's property rights is being led by the Institute For Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest, non-profit law firm that defends individual rights. IJ became nationally famous for fighting the notorious Kelo eminent domain case, which they ultimately lost. In the Kelo decision, the Supreme Court ruled that local governments could seize private property and turn it over to favored private developers. That case set off a firestorm of protest across the country, leading many state legislatures to pass laws prohibiting Kelo-type seizures.

IJ hopes to persuade the Supreme Court to rule against the kind of extortion being used against property owner Didden.

"We want the Supreme Court to rule that the Constitution does not permit governments or citizens acting on their behalf to demand money in exchange for allowing property owners to keep what is rightfully theirs," said Dana Berliner of IJ. "The very fact that we have to ask the highest court in the land for such a ruling underscores how precarious and threatening things are getting for ordinary American landowners."

"My case is about extortion through the abuse of eminent domain; it is about payoffs and government run amok," says property owner Didden. "It took me years of hard work to buy that property, pay off my mortgages and really feel like I own it. How dare the Village of Port Chester and this developer threaten me in this way. Unless the Supreme Court takes up my case, I fear for anyone else who owns a piece of property -- not just in Port Chester, but anywhere a politically connected developer is eyeing it."

This case, and the Kelo case, illustrate the ugliness of the sleazy deals local governments are making with developers to deprive property owners of their most basic rights. Let's hope that the Supreme Court rules against this practice.

Otherwise, government-connected developers across America will be given a green light to threaten property owners: "Your money or your land."

Sources:
Christian Science Monitor http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0102/p02s01-usju.html
Institute for Justice http://www.ij.org/private_property/didden/12_18_06pr.html

John McCain’s War On Blogs

2006-12-27T14:54:00.000-05:00

John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere. Always an enemy of real freedom and the U.S. Constitution McCain has introduced legislation to disparge and nullify the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of the people's RIGHTS to freedom of speech and freedom of the press ---WITHOUT AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION as required!

Click on the title for the full story.

Comparative anthropology

2006-12-27T14:40:00.000-05:00

Enough said.

Iraq: Fighting continues, McCain babbles nonsense

2006-12-27T13:57:00.000-05:00

North County Times

"Sen. John McCain said Thursday that America should to deploy 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq to control its sectarian violence, and give moderate Iraqi politicians the stability they need to take the country in the right direction. McCain made the remarks to reporters in Baghdad, where he and five other members of Congress were meeting with U.S. and Iraqi officials. 'The American people are disappointed and frustrated with the Iraq war, but they want us to succeed if there's any way to do that,' McCain, a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said at a news conference at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq's heavily fortified Green Zone. ... Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped dozens of people Thursday from a commercial area in central Baghdad, police said, and a car bomb killed two policemen who were trying to defuse it in Baghdad's Sadr City section, where officers were on high alert after receiving tips that militants were moving more bombs into the Shiite slum." (12/14/06)

The whole truth:
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/12/14/ap/headlines/d8m0kgv80.txt

Support our troops:
Bring them home NOW. ---Russ

FL: Real gun trumps fake

2006-12-10T02:57:00.000-05:00

Miami Herald

"A robber used a lighter resembling a pistol to steal a man's wallet -- only to be shot by his victim, who was armed with a gun that was real. Delbert Leroy Wells, 40, the would-be robber, lingered for two weeks at Jackson Memorial Hospital before succumbing to his wounds on Thanksgiving Day. On Nov. 8, Miami police say, Wells was driving a white Dodge when he pulled up to the car of Patrick Laguerre on Northwest 75th Street and North Miami Avenue at about 12:20 a.m. He asked for directions. As Laguerre was responding, Wells pulled out a nickel-plated lighter made to look like a gun. Laguerre gave him some loose dollars, 'but wanted more,' according to a police report. Wells searched his pockets, fished through his wallet an got back into his own car. But the wallet was empty. Wells 'became irate aiming the handgun at the victim, stated he was going to shoot,' the police report said. Laguerre took cover back in his own car, grabbed his own handgun and squeezed off three to four rounds." (11/27/06)

More about this victory for freedom:
http://tinyurl.com/yeakz9

Seven million in US "justice" system

2006-12-10T02:43:00.000-05:00

Miami Herald

"A record 7 million people -- or one in every 32 American adults -- were behind bars, on probation or on parole by the end of last year, according to the Justice Department. Of those, 2.2 million were in prison or jail, an increase of 2.7 percent over the previous year, according to a report released Wednesday. More than 4.1 million people were on probation and 784,208 were on parole at the end of 2005. Prison releases are increasing, but admissions are increasing more." (11/29/06)

http://tinyurl.com/y4eeqd

My health care is making me sick

2006-12-10T02:30:00.000-05:00

Liberty For All
by Donna Mancini

"Getting sick is high on my list of life's biggest hassles these days! Excuse me if I am sounding like an 'old fogie' when I reminisce about the 'good old days;' but, I can't help thinking back on my childhood (in the 50s and the 60s) when my mom and dad would call our family doctor who lived in the neighborhood. Dr. Greenfield would keep my dad calmed down who was such a worry-wart that he would get sick along with me and my two sisters." (11/28/06)

The rest of the article:
http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=399

Back to basics

2006-12-10T02:18:00.000-05:00

The Libertarian Enterprise
by L. Neil Smith

"True, there a lot of obstacles to overcome: crooked election laws, crooked elections, corrupt officials, deliberate legal obstructions, outright disregard for the law when it works for us and against the BOYNers. But we don't have to overcome these obstacles by ourselves. Give people a good enough reason, and they'll storm the Bastille for you, clean out the judiciary with flamethrower and firehose, and hang an election official or a judge from each and every lamppost in the city. The key to a libertarian future is the libertarian future itself. The other parties are afraid to talk about the future. We are the future." (11/26/06)

Full story:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle395-20061126-07.html

Brittany K. Behne injured in a head-on collision.

2006-12-03T16:12:00.000-05:00

In a story published in Rice Lake Online, Brittany K. Behne, 17, of Clear Lake, Wisconsin was seriously injured in a head-on collision that killed one and injured one other.

Full story:
http://www.chronotype.com/newarticle.asp?T=L&ArticleID=11240

The Energizer - Amory Lovins' Oil Free Vision

2006-11-30T13:04:00.000-05:00

Amory Lovins has a vision:
The U.S. economy keeps going and going and going—
without any oil !
By Cal Fussman

"AMORY LOVINS is a physicist, economist, inventor, automobile designer, consultant to 18 heads of state, author of 29 books, and cofounder of Rocky Mountain Institute, an environmental think tank. most of all, he's a man who takes pride in saving energy. The electricity bill at his 4,000-square-foot home in Old Snowmass, Colorado, is five dollars a month, and he's convinced he can do the same for all of us. His book Winning the Oil Endgame shows how the united states can save as much oil as it gets from the persian gulf by 2015 and how all oil imports can be eliminated by 2040. And that's just for starters." (Feb 06)

Full article:
http://discover.com/issues/feb-06/features/energizer/

Let's End Flat Earth Politics!

2006-11-29T13:41:00.000-05:00

Fifteen years ago the standard view of politics -- the mental "map" almost everyone used when thinking of political positions -- was the old "left-right" line. It is still widely used today.
You've probably seen it in textbooks and newspapers. It looks something like this:

<-------------- left ------------ center ------------- right -------------->

Or, when expanded a bit:

<-crazies-communist/socialist-far_left-liberal-centrist-

-conservative-far_right-fascist-crazies->

This model is misleading and fatally flawed. It doesn't have a place for many millions of people who don't fit neatly into some variant of liberal or conservative. In effect, it disenfranchises the millions of Americans who don't feel that "left," "right," "liberal," "conservative" etc. accurately describe their views. Thomas Jefferson, for example, wouldn't fit comfortably on that chart under any of those labels. Neither would Jesse Ventura or Huey Long or Pat Buchanan. America's real political spectrum is more complex than this simplistic Crossfire model allows.
Nor does the "left-right" line give any useful insight into the differences between the various political categories. It doesn't tell us what the important differences are between liberals, conservatives, fascists, and so on. It tells us nothing of the views of these and other groups.
Furthermore, the left-right model is inherently illogical. The model implies that if you "go too far" (i.e., are consistent) with any political idea, you end up, in some weird and unexplained way, at totalitarianism or anarchism (or maybe both!). Pursue conservative thought to its logical extreme, according to this model, and you somehow end up at fascism (which is national socialism), or white supremacy or some other authoritarian position. If you pursue liberal thought too far, you supposedly end up at socialism or communism. This is inconsistent, and ignores gigantic philosophical differences between, say, liberalism and communism, or conservatism and fascism.

To see another major reason why this model is irredeemably flawed, try to fit libertarians on that line. Libertarians believe that people should be free to live as they choose, in both the economic and personal realms, as long as they don't harm others. So libertarians believe in a free market -- which should put them on the "right," right? Nope. They also oppose censorship, the drug war and other attempts by government to control the personal lives of peaceful individuals. Does that put them on the left? Well, no. Does it put them in the "middle"? No. There's just no place for libertarians on that map.

Consider that millions of Americans are libertarian or libertarian-leaning. Libertarians and libertarian thought are a large and important part of American politics, and have been since the country's founding! Indeed, libertarian ideas have played a central role in world history for centuries. But the left-right line simply pretends that libertarians don't exist. It does the same for others as well.

No wonder, then, that many Americans -- used to thinking about politics with this familiar left-right map -- couldn't figure out what libertarians were. Libertarians weren't left-wing, they weren't right-wing, they weren't centrists -- so they, in effect, didn't exist. Libertarians literally weren't on the map!

The left-right model thus gives a skewed, distorted, inaccurate picture of American politics. It's a "flat earth" political map -- inaccurate and misleading.

A new, more accurate, more inclusive political map was desperately needed. That's what led to the creation of the Quiz -- as an alternative to this failed, flawed model. Take a couple of minutes, go here to take the quiz, and see where you really fall in the political spectrum:

World's Smallest Political Quiz

Source: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz-faq.html#faq02

Without just compensation

2006-11-29T13:08:00.000-05:00

Cato Institute
by Timothy Sandefur

"The U.S. Supreme Court's notorious 2005 decision in Kelo v. New London allowed state and local governments to condemn [steal] private land and transfer it to developers to construct shopping centers or other private development. The ruling led to a nationwide outcry, and last week voters in nine states adopted new restrictions on eminent domain to prevent such abuses. In September, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed five bills that he claimed would rein in abuses of eminent domain in California. Unfortunately, these laws accomplish little -- they simply tinker with procedural details while leaving the state's abusive redevelopment industry intact." (11/22/06)

Entire story:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6776

Free money against "inflation bias"

2006-11-29T12:54:00.000-05:00

Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Thorsten Polleit

"Today's mainstream economics maintains that inflation -- defined as an ongoing rise of the economy's price level over time -- is 'a prerequisite for a growing and thriving world.' A great number of arguments in support of the 'inflationist view' have been put forward. For instance, inflation would be needed to allow real wages and employment to adjust more smoothly to changing market conditions." (11/14/06)

Entire article:
http://www.mises.org/story/2373

Senator McCain: When and why did you sell your soul?

2006-11-29T12:47:00.000-05:00

Strike the Root
by Doug Herman

"Senator McCain, you and I are about the same age. We both served during the Vietnam War. We both have been Arizonans for many years. Do you really serve the best interests of the American people by requesting more troops and many more billions for the war in Iraq? I wonder how a foreign war based on lies can suddenly become more truthful by escalation." (11/20/06)

Complete article about `Insane-McCain':
http://www.strike-the-root.com/62/herman/herman4.html

US v. Bush, et al.

2006-11-29T12:30:00.000-05:00

Truthout
by William Fisher

"The scene is a Federal Grand Jury room. There, impaneled ordinary citizens listen intently as a veteran federal prosecutor asks them to return an indictment unique in American history. The charge is Conspiracy to Defraud the United States. And the defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, outgoing defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former secretary of state Colin Powell." (11/27/06)

Entire article:
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/112706M.shtml

Police defense falling apart

2006-11-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

Classically Liberal
by "CLS"

"The officers with a 'no-knock' warrant started battering down the door to the Johnston home. The terrified woman used her handgun in self-defence. But in America one is not allowed to defend one's self from criminals in uniform. Johnston fired six shots and hit all three officers only missing with one shot. They lived but she didn't. Police shot her to death. Of course they gave the same claims they always give. They claimed they had the right address. They claimed there were drugs in the house. They claimed they announced themselves first. And anyone one who believes the cops -- well, they also tend to think there is a Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny delivers chocolate eggs. Now all eight members of the drug thugs squad have been suspended. The 'informant' has said that immediately after the execution of Johnston he was called by the police and told to lie for them. The George Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have now been called in." (11/28/06)

Entire article:
http://tinyurl.com/y2g45c

Congress to ponder conscription?

2006-11-29T12:02:00.000-05:00

AntiWar.Com
by US Rep. Dr. Ron Paul (R-TX)
(Congress' only sane congressman -Ed.)

"To many politicians, the American government is America. This is why, on a crude level, the draft appeals to patriotic fervor. Compulsory national service, whether in the form of military conscription or make-work programs like AmeriCorps, still sells on Capitol Hill. Conscription is wrongly associated with patriotism, when really it represents collectivism and involuntary servitude [AKA slavery - Ed.]. I believe wholeheartedly that an all-volunteer military is not only sufficient for national defense, but also preferable. It is time to abolish the Selective Service System and resign military conscription to the dustbin of American history." (11/28/06)

Entire article:
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=10069

War on Drugs expands to catnip

2006-11-29T11:56:00.000-05:00

The Free Liberal
by Fred E. Foldvary

"Drug warriors scored a virtual victory after the 2006 U.S. elections when they hurriedly extended the War on Drugs to a psychoactive substance previously exempt: nepetalactone, the main psychoactive ingredient in catnip. It is well known that the sniffing of catnip makes some cats 'turn on.' Their eyes open wide, they roll over on the floor, they hug and bite the catnip toy and kick it with the feet, and they friskily run to and fro, similar to human beings who go crazy ingesting psychoactive drugs. While catnip does not have the same effect on human beings, the advocates of banning catnip have pointed out that children who give their cats catnip and then see the cat being 'happy' might get dangerous ideas about getting high." (11/28/06)

Complete article:
http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/002448.html

Taking from Peter to pay Paul

2006-11-29T11:47:00.000-05:00

The Libertarian Enterprise
by Chris Claypoole

"However, through the magic of tax withholding, most people seem to have no idea how much the government is Petering them. Nor do they understand how much the hundreds of thousands of government regulations bleed them almost as much. And most of them think that corporate income taxes are a good idea, making sure they 'pay their fair share.' This is another of the great mysteries of our current condition: how can people be so ignorant of economics and the world around them that they don't realize that if the government places a more-or-less uniform burden upon businesses, said businesses will pass that cost along to the consumers! We all know that shit flows downhill, and that money talks. This point is easily as obvious, so why is it that people seem oblivious to it?" (11/27/06)

The full article:
http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2006/tle395-20061126-05.html

Should Your Internet Provider Spy On You?

2006-11-29T11:27:00.000-05:00

Should your Internet provider be required by the federal government to maintain records of all the sites you visit on the Web?
Should search engines like Google be required to keep permanent records of your Web searches?
Many in the federal government -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- say yes. And renowned CNET tech reporter Declan McCullagh says this is going to be one of the hottest privacy battles of the coming year.
Look for the FBI and other government agencies to push hard for this legislation when the new Congress convenes in early 2007.
The idea was recently endorsed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. FBI director Robert Mueller praised that endorsement, saying:
"Terrorists coordinate their plans cloaked in the anonymity of the Internet, as do violent sexual predators prowling chat rooms... All too often, we find that before we can catch these offenders, Internet service providers have unwittingly deleted the very records that would help us identify these offenders and protect future victims," Mueller said. "We must find a balance between the legitimate need for privacy and law enforcement's clear need for access."
It's to be expected that this privacy grab, like so many others, will be cloaked under the guises of fighting terrorism and protecting children. And of course, our "legitimate need for privacy" -- or rather, our right to privacy -- must be "balanced." ("Balanced" is too often a government euphemism for "obliterated.")
This is the classic government rhetoric we've come to expect before a major curtailment of our rights.
What might such laws require? CNET's McCullagh gives some possibilities:

Require your Internet service providers (ISP) to keep permanent records of your Web surfing habits. (Currently ISPs keep this information for varying lengths of time, until it is no longer needed for business reasons such as network monitoring or stopping fraud.)
Require registrars (companies that sell domain names) to maintain permanent records of your searches and requests.
Require search engines to keep permanent traceable logs of all your searches.

Is such a drastic invasion of our privacy really necessary for the government to fight terrorists and child molesters? No. McCullagh notes that current federal law already requires ISPs to retain any record in their possession for 90 days "upon the request of a governmental entity."
Thus, notes McCullagh: "Industry representatives say that if police respond to tips promptly instead of dawdling, it would be difficult to imagine any investigation that would be imperiled" by the lack of mandatory retention of your personal Web surfing history.
But since when has reason and common sense stopped the government from trying to expand its snooping powers?

Source: CNET, "FBI director wants ISPs to track users"

Deism versus Islam - Problems with the Qur'an

2006-11-24T23:10:00.000-05:00

The Book of Terror
Muslims are quick to criticise the Bible’s authenticity and authority; and make the most of the writings of liberal Christian scholars in doing so. But what of their own scriptures? The Qur’an has, in the past, been protected by a kind of doctrinal embargo - but now its historicity, claimed inimitability and historical accuracy are facing a blistering attack from contemporary scholarship.
Missing Manuscripts
According to Muslim tradition the Qur’an was received by Muhammad between AD 610 and 632, recorded by his companions, collected by Zaid-Ibn-Thabit, standardised by Uthman the third Caliph, and then distributed to Baghdad, Medina, Basra, Kufa and Damascus in AD 646-650.
Where then are the original manuscripts? The Qur’anic manuscripts Muslims regard as their earliest; the Topkapi manuscript in Istanbul, Turkey, and the Samarkand manuscript in the Soviet State Library in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, bear the marks of a date of authorship of ~AD 850. They are written in a form of Kufic script which arose in the Abbasid period (~AD 750-850) and are adorned with 9th century embellishments.
The oldest Qur’an, according to forensic dating, is in the British Library. It dates to around AD 790; almost 150 years after Muhammad’s death.
Muslims defend their inability to produce early manuscripts by saying that the Qur’an was originally passed down orally and that early copies have disintegrated. But Muslim tradition itself tells us that the Qur’an was written down 20 years after Muhammad died and we have other Arab literature that has survived from the 7th century. We know that there were secretaries during the Ummayad Dynasty (AD 660-750) and that Muhammad himself worked on a caravan where written records of transactions would have been kept.
The defence of disintegration can be applied to the early New Testament documents which were written on papyrus. However the earliest Qur’ans were written on parchment, a far more robust material. Many of the early Christian parchment manuscripts (such as the Codex Vaticanus, Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus) have been preserved in extremely good condition despite predating the Qur’an by several centuries.
The missing manuscripts are a huge embarrassment to Islam and raise serious questions about whether what Muslims now have are accurate copies of the original. Some scholars are proposing that the Qur’anic text was not standardised until the Abbasid period (AD 750).
Imitable Style
The Qur’an bases its claim of divine authorship on its supposed inimitability. Christians who question the book’s origin are challenged to ‘Bring then a Sura (chapter) like unto it’ (Sura 10:38). The Qur’an’s literary beauty is supposed to prove that it could not have been ‘produced by other than Allah’ (S 10:37).
But is the Qur’an beautiful? Many genuine seekers find its haphazard arrangement, jumbled chronology and endless repetition an insurmountable obstacle. Muslims usually object that the real beauty can only be appreciated in Arabic; and yet great works of literature like Solzenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago and the Hebrew Psalms retain their beauty in English translation. (If in doubt compare Psalm 23 and Sura 109 in English translation and judge for yourself).
Even if we give the Qur’an the benefit of the doubt, is beauty proof of divine origin? Many people would agree that Shakespeare’s plays, Hopkins’ poetry and Vivaldi’s music are magnificent. Indeed, they may lead us to worship God as the giver of such creative talent, but we don’t therefore conclude that only God’s supernatural dictation could have produced these works of art.
In any case, beauty is to some extent subjective an the final judges will always be Muslims, duty-bound to reject any challenge out of hand.
Gerhard Nehls has produced an impressive list of ‘beautiful suras’ in English in his book Christians ask Muslims as noted in the last issue of Isa Masih. A selection of Arabic suras was recently removed from the internet after America On Line faced a barrage of Muslim protests.
Borrowed Stories
Those reading the Qur’an for the first time cannot help but be struck by the number of stories about biblical characters which do not tally with what we know from other historical sources. The usual Muslim defence is to say that the Bible has been changed. However, now we are beginning to identify the real sources for the Qur’an’s mythology.
The account of a raven showing Cain how to hide his brother’s body (S 5:30-32) has its origins in the Targum of Jonathan-ben-Uzziah, the Targum of Jerusalem and the Pirke-Rabbi Eleazar; all apocryphal Jewish writings from the Talmud dating from AD 150-200.
The story of Abraham breaking the idols (S 21:51-71) comes from a set of second century Jewish folktales called the Midrash Rabbah; and the bizarre account of the Queen of Sheba lifting her skirts to walk across a mirrored floor (S 27:44) is derived from a second century apocryphal document called the Targum of Esther.
Equally strange stories from the childhood of Jesus, such as his making real pigeons from clay (S 3:49), and speaking from the cradle (S 19:29-33) originate in the History of Nativity, the First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ and Thomas’ Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ, further fanciful fiction from the early Christian era.
Contradictions and Inaccuracies
The contradictions in the Qur’an are well recognised and have been extensively documented elsewhere.
But perhaps even more damaging to Islamic beliefs about the Qur’an are the factual errors that litter the text. Mary, rather than the Holy Spirit, is identified as the third person of the trinity in Sura 5:119. She is also called the sister of Aaron (Moses’ brother) despite the fact that the two lived 1,500 years apart in history (S 19:28).
We are told in Sura 20:85-87 that a Samaritan was responsible for casting the golden calf of the Exodus, when in fact the Samaritans did not come into existence until after the Jewish exile hundreds of years later. In a similar vein Haman (Esther’s Persian enemy) is identified as a servant of the Egyptian pharoah at the time of Moses.
Once we appreciate that the Bible was not available in Arabic until the mid eighth century, it becomes clear how such glaring fallacies may have found their way into the Qur’an through corrupted oral tradition and hearsay.
Conclusions
Could God really be responsible for a book for which there is so little early manuscript evidence and containing so many inaccuracies? Surely the evidence speaks for itself.

Bible & Koran - Deist Warning Labels

2006-11-24T20:21:00.000-05:00

Someone had given my daughter a christian bible, something I would not have done. I don't forbid it, in fact, I have quite a few different versions of the bible at home, and have studied it extensively. I never pushed it on my kids because, as Thomas Paine said over 200 years ago, the bible is "a history of wickedness." It is full of murder, rapine, and robbery, committed in the name of God. As a Deist I do believe in God, but I cannot possibly believe the libelous claims the bible makes about God. It is full of evil things that shock the mind of a child, (which is why I never pushed my kids to read it,) and when my daughter began reading it, she certainly was shocked at what she read!
The problem her reading it has caused is that she now says that she is an atheist. An atheist! --- because of what she read. She is still too young to properly analyse and understand what she read, and so she incorrectly assumed that either everything she read is the infallible truth (including that God is a monster that would order crimes like the genocide, murder, and robbery that the bible says the Jews committed in his name,) or that there is no God.
She chose the latter, when she should have chose a third option: that there really is a God, but just not the false one depicted in the books of revealed religions. Christians say that their book is or was "inspired" by "the word of God", but there is no claim at all that any of these many books of "sources" of Hebrew Scripture was inspired or was in any sense the "Word of God"; they were commonplace lay chronicles and books of history or literature; so that very large and material portions of "inspired" Hebrew Scriptures are from entirely uninspired and human sources. But I say that only nature is the true, unchanging "Word of God", that God reveals himself through science and natural laws. Thomas Paine said,

"The Creation speaketh an universal language, independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and various as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend upon the will of man whether it shall be published or not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary for man to know of God."
(Source: http://www.ushistory.org/Paine/reason/index.htm)

It's shameful the damage that reading the bible does to people's minds. Because of the horrors and perverted logic that readers are exposed to, I believe that if we must have bibles they should all come with warning labels to warn readers of the dangers that exposure to its contents may cause, particularly in young people during their formative years. To this end I have created a PDF file which contains eight warning labels that you can cut out and paste to the inside cover, (and anywhere else you can find space inside,) of all bibles, korans, and other superstition books of revealed religions. You can get it for free by clicking here. and send copies to all your friends and relatives!

OTOH: If you disagree and still believe that children should be taught the bible, then at least make it easy for them to understand. Show them

It's pretty impressive for an illustrated Bible made entirely of Legos. Rev. Brendan Powell Smith has spent the past four years staging and photographing particularly intense biblical scenes in the living room of his home. The thirty-two-year-old son of an Episcopalian Sunday-school teacher insists his project is meant to explore the Scriptures, not mock them. "My version of Noah's Ark focuses a little more on the people who didn't make it onto the boat." See more at The Brick Testament.

Minimum Wage Hike: You Can't Keep A Bad Idea Down

2006-11-23T00:34:00.000-05:00

Some economic fallacies never die. They just go into hiding for a while, then suddenly come roaring back to plague us again.

Take the minimum wage.

The newly-elected Democratic congress has announced that one of its top priorities is to dramatically increase the federal minimum wage. Prominent Republicans -- including the president -- agree.

It's a wretched idea, however. An increase in the minimum wage will inevitably cause harm to huge numbers of the very low-income workers it is supposed to help. It will destroy many entry-level jobs, cause significant unemployment and poverty, and have many other negative effects.

This used to be the common wisdom. Indeed, a 1978 survey taken by the American Economic Review found that fully 90% of economists agreed or partly agreed with the statement, "a minimum wage increases unemployment among young and unskilled workers."

In 1987 even the liberal New York Times called for the total abolition of the minimum wage, declaring, "There's a virtual consensus among economists that the minimum wage is an idea whose time has passed. Raising the minimum wage by a substantial amount would price working poor people out of the job market."

However, the minimum wage fallacy was snatched from the graveyard of dead political ideas in the 1990s by two highly controversial studies that claimed to find little or no job displacement from the minimum wage. Those studies relied on "fantastically faulty methodology," according to a new study by the non-profit Employment Policies Institute. (See links below for more on this study.) But that was enough to revive the idea politically.

Hoover Institution economist David Henderson, an expert on the minimum wage, recently summed up the fundamental arguments against it in the Wall Street Journal:

"In raising the minimum wage, the government doesn't guarantee jobs. It guarantees only that those who get jobs will be paid at least that minimum. But precisely by requiring this, the government destroys jobs. Someone to whom an employer was willing to pay only the current minimum wage of $5.15 might not produce enough to be worth paying, say, $7.25."

Raising the minimum wage, Henderson says, "will help only a subset of the people it is thought to help, and will help them only a little -- while hurting some of them a lot."

According to Henderson, the proposed increase from $5.15 to $7.25 -- a 40% increase -- could mean the loss of up to 1.6 million jobs, especially entry-level jobs that allow young people to gain valuable work skills that let them move on to better-paying jobs.

Recent history bears this out. A 1997 National Bureau of Economic Research study estimated that the federal minimum-wage hike of 1996 and 1997 actually increased the number of poor families by 4.5 percent.

Other studies indicate that employers, faced with having to pay more for labor, cut back benefits such as health insurance or on-the-job training. Others cut back hours, force employees to work harder, replace workers with automation, or simply eliminate jobs altogether. (Remember movie ushers, elevator operators, and gas station attendants?)

Is there a better way to help low-wage workers -- without harming so many of them? Yes, says Jim Cox, author of the booklet "Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage," published by the Advocates. [www.theadvocates.org] De-tax them!

The working poor are hit with taxes everywhere they turn, including taxes on such essentials as food, clothing, housing and transportation. They must also pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. Free these workers from this government-imposed burden. Let them keep the full wages they earn. This would benefit them far more than the minimum wage -- without the minimum wage's disastrous effects.

Sources:
David Henderson, "If Only Most Americans Understood," Wall Street Journal (subscription required): http://users1.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?mg=wsj-users1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB115439870173323067.html
Employment Policies Institute: http://www.epionline.org/news_detail.cfm?rid=72#
NCAC: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba/ba550/
Columnist Stephen Chapman: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0610220346oct22,1,7142202.column?coll=chi-news-col
"Minimum Wage, Maximum Damage," by Jim Cox: http://www.theadvocates.org/mw.html

Xian mysteries

2006-11-12T01:33:00.000-05:00

Here's some facts well known to most biblical scholars, but of which Xians are completely ignorant:

The phrase ``Jesus of Nazareth'' is a mistranslation. The original Greek text actually says ``Jesus the Nazarene''. The Nazarenes were one of the three major religious sects in Jesus' time, the other two being the Pharisees and the Sadducees. You can find a Greek-English interlinear text in any Bible shop, and probably in many public libraries. Read Mark 14:67, John 19:19, and Acts 2:22 in the interlinear to see what it really says.
Acts 24:5 confirms that Nazarenes were actually a sect, not people from "Nazareth" a town which didn't exist until some 400 years after the alleged crucifiction. In Acts 24:5 "Saul of Tarsus" (known to Xians as Paul, and whom is the actual founder of Christianity,) is accused of being a member of that sect, but he himself claims to be a member of the Pharisee sect (Acts 23:6) and a Roman citizen (Acts 22:27).
`Jesus' is a poor translation of `Yeshua' from the New Testament that went from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English. In the Old Testament `Yeshua' was translated directly into English as `Joshua'. Thus Yeshua, Joshua, and Jesus are the same name, and a very common name at that. Joshua, or Jesus, means ``Jehovah is Salvation''.
The Jesus story has elements of several different ideas combined into one myth. It is my belief that there probably was an actual man named Jesus, but quite unlike what Christianity describes.
First of all, he was a Nazarene - (not from Nazareth, since he was born in Bethlehem.) As a Nazarene he followed the Torah, and neither was he ever a `Christian, nor a God-incarnate, nor did he found a new religion.
The `Nazarene' of the New Testament are also the same as the `Nazirite' of the Old Testament, A Nazarene being a member of the sect, and a Nazirite being a Nazarene under an obligation of a holy oath. (Read Numbers 6:1-21) It's similar to the O.T.'s `Philistines' who today are called Palestinians; and are actually the same people. Samson was declared a Nazirite from birth. (Read Judges 13:2-7) Thus, the Nazarenes are the oldest of the 3 major sects that existed in Jesus' time.
The word Nazarene, as best I can determine, came from an Aramaic phrase that means ``Keepers of the Covenant''.
The `Ministry' story of Jesus was taken from Solar worship and astrology and applied to the Jesus myth. (Read, no, study http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/index.htm)
The wisdom sayings came from another source, refered to by biblical scholars as ``The Book of Q'' The `Q' comes from the German word `Quella', which means `source'. No evidence exists that a man named Jesus actually said those words of wisdom that are attributed to him in the Bible.
The so called `miracles' attributed to Jesus were embellishments that were commonly added to stories about religious leaders of that time, and have no more basis in reality than the Greek myths.
The Gospel stories do not date to Jesus' time, but allegedly date to the time between the two major revolts, around 66 to 74 and 132 to 155 A.D. according to most scholars. However, keep in mind that no extant copy of any Gospel predates the fourth century!
In 325 A.D. Constantine, the Emperor of Rome, ordered the convening of the first Council of Nicaea. At the Council the attendees voted to deify Jesus. The results were 218 for and 2 against making Jesus into god incarnate, like the Emperor. Thus, Jesus became God-incarnate by the vote of men! After the Council, the Emperor ordered that all documents mentioning Jesus were to be sought out and seized from whereever they were, taken to Rome, and sequestered from the public. Six years after the Council Constantine ordered the Gospels rewritten to include the decisions made by the Council. All the originals were then burned, which explains why no existing copies of the Gospels predate the fourth century.
Emperor Constantine's own `virgin birth' story was also incorporated into the Gospels at that time.
My conclusions after years of biblical study are that a man we call Jesus perhaps actually did exist, that he was a Nazarene, that he followed and taught the Torah and the other scriptures of the Old Testament, that he was anointed twice, first as the King of Judea, then a second time as King of Israel, (in imitation of King David's two annointings,) that he attempted to organize a revolt, ordering his followers to arm themselves (Luke 22:36) and they did use their weapons (John 18:10), but the revolt failed to materialize.
Nothing was wrote about Jesus in his lifetime - all stories being passed down by word of mouth, miracles and solar worship stories were blended into his true, albeit boring biography, spicing it up so as to make it more appealing, to make him seem more important, more successfull, and to preserve elements of solar worship by blending them into a biographic account, giving birth to the Jesus myth.

They Deserved to Lose

2006-11-12T01:27:00.000-05:00

Having lost control over the U.S. House of Representatives and possibly also the U.S. Senate, Republicans have no one to blame but themselves. They deserved to lose.
For years, Republicans have used libertarian rhetoric in their political campaigns. “We favor freedom, free enterprise, limited government, and responsibility,” Republican candidates have so often proclaimed. “We’re opposed to big government,” they loved telling their constituents.
People believed them, but it was all a lie from the get-go.

Click on the headline to read the entire article.

What Republican Revolution?

2006-11-12T01:22:00.000-05:00

Since the Democrats took control of the Congress in the recent midterm elections, we have heard and seen numerous references to the Republican victory in the 1994 midterm elections as the Republican revolution of 1994.
What Republican revolution?
We can see the results in history of revolutions like the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Russian Revolution, but what evidence is there of a Republican revolution?

Click on the title to read the entire article.

Habeas Corpus: R.I.P

2006-11-12T00:39:00.000-05:00

This has been a year of shocking attacks on individual liberty by the Bush administration and its Democratic allies. But perhaps nothing better shows the dangerous waters into which America is now heading than the passage on September 27th by Congress of the "Military Commissions Act of 2006."

Habeas corpus is the principle that a free people have the right to see the causes and the evidence for any arrest. Without this basic protection, a government by definition becomes a tyranny. Yet this new bill contains, among other things, a direct assault on the centuries-old right of habeas corpus. It says:
"No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination."
This is a stunning step backwards for human rights. The right of habeas corpus, which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, is not just for U.S. citizens. It is fundamental for all human beings. Indeed, the principle of habeas corpus predates the founding of the United States by centuries. "The Great Writ," as habeas corpus is called, dates back to England's Magna Carta of 1215.
Habeas corpus was written into our Constitution because, by the time the United States was born, it was considered the bedrock of a free and just society.
This new law doesn't just affect people living abroad. There are millions of residential aliens living and working in America. Because the bill says the U.S. government can determine who can be arrested as a possible "enemy combatant," it removes all protections from false arrest and imprisonment for non-U.S. citizens both in the U.S. and abroad. They can now be "disappeared" indefinitely at the president's wish, and, under other provisions in this wretched bill, subjected to torture in secret prisons.
Further, some commentators (see the link to libertarian Justin Raimondo's article, below) argue that language buried in the bill may allow the president to designate *U.S. citizens* as "unlawful enemy combatants" and strip them of habeas corpus protection and other rights. We will have to wait and see.
The respected human rights organization Amnesty International, after the passage of this bill, noted that America has changed in ominous ways: "The past five years have seen the U.S.A. engage in systematic violations of international law, with a distressing impact on thousands of detainees and their families." Human rights violations have included:

Secret detention.
Enforced disappearance.
Torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Outrages upon personal dignity, including humiliating treatment.
Denial and restriction of habeas corpus.
Indefinite detention without charge or trial.
Prolonged incommunicado detention.
Arbitrary detention.
Unfair trial procedures.

Amnesty goes on to give a lengthy and frightening summary of the bill. Sadly, the junking of habeas corpus is just one of many awful elements. (You can read Amnesty's full report at the URL below.) The report concludes: "Those defending human rights should be prepared for a long struggle."
The bill has been denounced by writers across the political spectrum.
Conservative constitutional scholar Bruce Fein wrote in the Washington Times: "The legislation passed by Congress last week turns the Constitution's philosophy on its head. It authorizes the government arbitrarily to spy, to detain, and to punish without making Americans one whit safer. It curtails liberty for the sake of curtailing liberty."
Liberal syndicated columnist Garrison Keillor joined other critics in hoping that the Supreme Court will throw out the worst aspects of this bill. But he added:
"If, however, the court does not, then our country has taken a step toward totalitarianism. If the government can round up someone and never be required to explain why, then it's no longer the United States as you and I always understood it. Our enemies have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. They have made us become like them."
Libertarian writer Justin Raimondo of antiwar.com put it bluntly: "Congress has now granted the president the powers of a dictator."
Does this sound like the America of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights?
The passage of this bill should set off alarms. Libertarians must reach out to, and join with, pro-liberty liberals and conservatives in a massive new effort to preserve and restore civil liberties. The American political debate is no longer about left versus right. It's about freedom versus tyranny.
Sources: Amnesty International
New York Times (September 28, 2006)
Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com
Future of Freedom commentary by Jacob Hornberger
Garrison Keillor commentary
Bruce Fein commentary

Are libertarians anarchists?

2006-11-11T02:18:00.000-05:00

In the very first response to my very first post in this blog [Majority of Americans Think Government is Too Big, Too Intrusive], the respondent did that thing which, for many years, both democrats and republicans have been doing in an attempt to discredit the freedom philosophy through the use of dis-information: falsely accusing libertarians of wanting anarchy.
Democrat and republican statists say that the libertarians want anarchy, but what the statists don't admit is that thanks to them, we already have anarchy! The demopublican and republicrat statists have controlled this country for over a century, and the result of their political monopoly is that our streets aren't safe, children are being shot in the schools, cops are robbing citizens through federal and state "civil asset forfeiture laws", identities are being stolen, people's homes are being stolen through "eminent domain" for the sole benefit of big corporations, we worry about foreign "terrorists" attacking us, our borders are being breached by criminals illegally entering the country, machete toting gangs like MS-13 threaten us, our homes are burglarized, bank robberies are on the increase, there are more carjackings, fully 50% of every dollar you make is stolen by the government through the legalized theft called taxation, and the list of atrocities go on and on and on.
Statists think that more government can solve the crime problem, but the reality has been the opposite; as government grows bigger and bigger, crime has grown right along with it. Every attempt by government to reduce crime fails, and this is most evident in the government's failed moron "war-on drugs". (BTW: Isn't it curious that "war-on" rhymes with "moron"? )
So when statists say libertarians want anarchy, I don't believe them, and neither should you. What libertarians really want is to reduce government (but not eliminate it,) and repeal the thousands of victimless-crime laws which over-stuff our prisons with people who shouldn't be there, and keep the hard-core criminals in there where they belong, instead of letting murders, rapists, and robbers go free every time some court says the sheriff has to ease up on prison congestion, which is they way it works now.
Laws like California's "3-strikes" rule are draconian, since they are applied without regard to any circumstances. When you think of poor people trying to make ends meet who unintentionally bounce a check a few times, then end up with a life sentence under the 3-strikes law, you understand why the Founding Fathers made "cruel and unusual" punishments unconstitutional ---it was meant for moron laws like this one.
With nonsense laws like that, draconian asset forfeiture laws, government abuse of eminent domain, and the countless other cruel draconian laws we now suffer under, it's no wonder we have anarchy!
What the libertarians really want is a return to freedom and sensible laws,

and an end to democrat and republican created anarchy.

See http://www.libertarianism.org for more information on those libertarians and what they really think, and why.

TOP TEN SIGNS YOU'RE A CHRISTIAN

2006-11-11T01:37:00.000-05:00

This one's been floating around Deist circles on the Internet for a while, but there's still plenty of folks who haven't yet seen it---(mostly Xians, of course!)
Humorous, yet refreshingly profound!

10 You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of your god.
9 You feel insulted and ``de-humanized'' when scientists say that people evolved from lesser life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
8 You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Trinity god.
7 Your face turns purple when you hear of the ``atrocities'' attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in ``Exodus'', and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in ``Joshua'', including women, children, and trees!
6 You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed and came back to life and ascended into the sky.
5 You are willing to spend your life looking for little loop-holes in the scientifically established age of the Earth (4.55 billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by pre-historic tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that the Earth is a couple of generations old.
4 You believe that the entire population of this planet, with the exception of those who share your beliefs, even including large sects of Christians, will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet you consider your religion the most ``tolerant'' and ``loving''.
3 While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in ``tongues'' is all the evidence you need to prove Christianity.
2 You define 0.01% as a ``high success rate'' when it comes to answered prayers. And you consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God. (Which begs the question: If it's all the will of God, why the hell pray in the first place?)
And the Top Sign that you are a Christian:
1 Most Deists, Agnostics, and Atheists know a hell of a lot more about the Bible, Christianity, and church history than you do. (Which might be an indication of the very reason that you are still a Christian).

Here's an interesting quote from Thomas Jefferson

2006-11-11T01:16:00.000-05:00

``Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions, more than on our opinions in physics and geometry....The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.''

--Thomas Jefferson (Third president of the United States.)

Robbery With A Badge

2006-11-11T00:58:00.000-05:00

America's insane drug laws have turned cops into robbers.
Back in September, Davidson County, North Carolina sheriff's deputies pulled over a car traveling on Interstate 85, southwest of Lexington. The officers said the car was following too closely to another vehicle.
While searching the car, the officers found $88,000 in cash. The driver and passenger insisted the money was to buy a house in Atlanta.
The officers didn't believe them. So they called in a drug-sniffing dog.
According to the Davidson County newspaper The Dispatch, the dog "found a strong odor of narcotics inside the car."
But no drugs were found. Nor any evidence of wrong-doing. So the two men weren't charged with any crime and were free to leave.
But not with their $88,000. The sheriffs kept that.
Incredibly, thanks to federal and state civil asset forfeiture laws, police can seize property and cash on the mere suspicion that they may be connected with drugs. The lack of proof of a crime is no protection. The sheriff's department called in federal investigators, and they are now preparing to argue in federal court that the government should be able to keep the money.
If they win -- and the over-powerfull government does win the vast majority of asset forfeiture cases -- the local sheriff's office cut will be 75 percent ($66,000) of the confiscated money.
Asset forfeiture has been quite lucrative for the Davidson County Sheriff's Office: $1.6 million in 2005 and $1.4 million in 2004.
"It allows us to buy equipment without using taxpayers' money," said Sheriff Grice.
Police departments across the country report similar windfalls.
This practice, common for many years, was given a strong boost in August. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled that if a motorist is carrying a large sum of cash, that money is automatically subject to confiscation. "Possession of a large sum of cash is 'strong evidence' of a connection to drug activity," the court ruled.
In other words, for all practical purposes, driving with a lot of cash is now a crime in the United States of America.
(See the following links for an article on the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals case, and the full text of that court's ruling.)
Article on Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals case
Text of U.S. v. $124,700, U.S. Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, August 19, 2006 (Note: Downloadable PDF)

Marijuana Shocker: Arrests Hit All-Time High

2006-11-11T00:37:00.000-05:00

U.S. governments are embroiled in a deadly war abroad and battling the threat of terrorism at home.
But they still found the time and resources last year to arrest an all-time record number of marijuana smokers.
U.S. police arrested an estimated 786,545 persons for marijuana violations in 2005, according to the latest FBI annual Uniform Crime Report
That total is the highest ever recorded. It amounts to one arrest every 40 seconds. Annual marijuana arrests have more than doubled since the early 1990s.
Further, the total number of marijuana arrests in the U.S. for 2005 far exceeded the total number of arrests in the U.S. for all violent crimes combined -- including murder, manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault.
The target of almost all of these arrests are mere users. Approximately 88 percent -- some 696,074 Americans -- were charged with possession only.
And the remaining 90,471 individuals were charged with "sale/manufacture," a category that includes all cultivation offenses -- even those where the marijuana was being grown for personal or medical use.
These figures indicate that the War on Drugs is in substantial part a "War on Marijuana Smokers." Indeed, marijuana arrests comprise 42.6 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.
"These numbers belie the myth that police do not target and arrest minor marijuana offenders," said NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre. "This effort is a tremendous waste of criminal justice resources that diverts law enforcement personnel away from focusing on serious and violent crime, including the war on terrorism."
An arrest, even without imprisonment, can be a devastating and life-wrecking experience.
"Arresting hundreds of thousands of Americans who smoke marijuana responsibly needlessly destroys the lives of otherwise law abiding citizens," St. Pierre said, adding that over 8 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges in the past decade.
"Some 94 million Americans acknowledge having used marijuana during their lives," St. Pierre noted. (Among them: presidents, congressmen, and Supreme Court justices.) "It makes no sense to continue to treat nearly half of all Americans as criminals for their use of a substance that poses no greater -- and arguably far fewer -- health risks than alcohol or tobacco."

GAO Head: US Economic Disaster Looms

2006-11-11T00:06:00.000-05:00

The U.S. government is bankrupt and headed towards economic disaster.
So says no less an authority than David Walker, head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO is a government agency that audits and evaluates the federal government. Walker is, essentially, the government's chief accountant.
And the story Walker is trying to get Americans to hear and understand is a frightening one.
According to Walker, unless the federal government halts and reverses current policies, the national debt -- already $8.5 trillion -- could reach $46 trillion or more in the next few decades. That is almost the total net worth of every person in America.
According to some estimates, just the interest payments alone on a debt that size would take all the tax revenue the government collects today.
Walker further notes that the problem is growing by $2 trillion to $3 trillion every year.
The major culprits: America's three biggest and bloated entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. When the aging baby boomer generation begins retiring in mass numbers in a few years, the costs of those programs will explode.
To avoid a financial disaster, Walker says, government will have to take extremely painful and unpopular actions: raising taxes (boo!) and/or slashing spending and reducing or eliminating programs and promised benefits. Otherwise the country faces possible economic collapse.
Meanwhile, the Democratic and Republican mega-spenders who got us into this fiscal nightmare won't even talk about it publicly, because it's not a "sexy" campaign issue -- and perhaps because it so totally discredits their policies and promises.
Conservative and liberal politicians have blown it. They've bankrupted America, and now they're keeping it quiet. Only libertarians have the answers, and the political will, to make the changes necessary to save the country from a financial meltdown.
Can libertarians convince the public of that -- in time to avoid the financial tidal wave?

Majority of Americans Think Government is Too Big, Too Intrusive

2006-11-11T00:03:00.000-05:00

A new CNN poll shows that a large majority of Americans agree with libertarians that government is far too big and is sticking its snout into matters that should instead be handled by businesses, non-profits, and individuals. According to CNN: "54 percent said they thought government was trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses. Only 37 percent thought government should do more to solve the country's problems." Further, people correctly perceive that the federal government is rapidly growing. According to CNN: "When asked if the size of the federal government has increased in the past four years, 72 percent said it had, and 86 percent said they thought federal spending had gone up during the same period." They are right, of course. Since 2000, when supposedly fiscally-conservative Republicans took control of the U.S. presidency, House and Senate, federal spending has skyrocketed, even disallowing for the costs of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Indeed, the GOP's 2000-2006 domestic spending spree has been unmatched since the regime of 1960s liberal Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson and his "Great Society" explosion of social(ist) welfare spending.