Enlightened Republic

Thought for the Day

2012-02-14T09:24:00.000-06:00

"... judicial verbicide is calculated to convert the Constitution into a worthless scrap of paper and to replace our government of laws with a judicial oligarchy." Senator Sam Ervin (1896-1985) United States Senator NC-D (1954-1974)

American Catholicism's Pact with the Devil

2012-02-13T14:16:00.003-06:00

In the 1930s, the majority of the bishops, priests, and nuns sold their souls to the devil, and they did so with the best of intentions. In their concern for the suffering of those out of work and destitute, they wholeheartedly embraced the New Deal. They gloried in the fact that Franklin Delano Roosevelt made Frances Perkins – a devout Anglo-Catholic laywoman who belonged to the Episcopalian Church but retreated on occasion to a Catholic convent – Secretary of Labor and the first member of her sex to be awarded a cabinet post. And they welcomed Social Security – which was her handiwork. They did not stop to ponder whether public provision in this regard would subvert the moral principle that children are responsible for the well-being of their parents. They did not stop to consider whether this measure would reduce the incentives for procreation and nourish the temptation to think of sexual intercourse as an indoor sport. They did not stop to think.

In the process, the leaders of the American Catholic Church fell prey to a conceit that had long before ensnared a great many mainstream Protestants in the United States – the notion that public provision is somehow akin to charity – and so they fostered state paternalism and undermined what they professed to teach: that charity is an individual responsibility and that it is appropriate that the laity join together under the leadership of the Church to alleviate the suffering of the poor. In its place, they helped establish the Machiavellian principle that underpins modern liberalism – the notion that it is our Christian duty to confiscate other people’s money and redistribute it.

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/American-Catholicism-s-Pact-With-the-Devil

Daniel Hannan at CPAC 2012

2012-02-13T11:50:00.001-06:00

Don’t repeat our mistakes… Europe is a grizzly image of the future towards which your present rulers are intent on taking you… Stick to the principles on which the republic was founded.” Daniel Hannan

Daniel Hannan gave a rousing speech at this year’s CPAC. Hannan not only seems to understand the importance of America as a beacon of freedom and opportunity more than many of our politicians, but he articulates it better than many of them as well. Watch the full speech below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U6v0pZ9f6k

Thought for the Day

2012-02-13T11:31:00.002-06:00

Given the increasing dependence of the US citizenry on the federal government, Samuel Adams hit the nail on the head with this quote:

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House on August 1, 1776.

The Depression You've Never Heard Of: 1920-21

2012-02-12T23:11:00.001-06:00

It’s not that the government boosted the budget at a slower rate, or that the Fed provided a tad less liquidity. On the contrary, the government slashed its budget tremendously, and the Fed hiked rates to record highs. We thus have a fairly clear-cut experiment to test the efficacy of the Keynesian and monetarist remedies.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/the-depression-youve-never-heard-of-1920-1921/

Wall Street Couldn't Have Done It Alone

2012-02-12T23:06:00.001-06:00

A letter to Occupy Wall Street by Sheldon Richman:

To Occupy Wall Street:

Wall Street couldn’t have done it alone. It takes a government and/or its central bank, the Federal Reserve System, to:

Create barriers to entry for the purpose of sheltering existing banks from competition and radical innovation, then regulate for the benefit of the privileged industry;
Issue artificially cheap, economy-distorting credit in order to, among other things, give banks incentives to make shaky but profitable mortgage loans (and also to grease the war machine through deficit spending);
Make it lucrative for banks – and their bonus-collecting executives — to bundle thousands of shaky mortgages into securities and other derivatives with the knowledge that government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other companies, all subject to powerful congressmen looking for campaign contributions, would buy them after a government-licensed rating cartel scores them AAA;
Inflate an unsustainable housing bubble by the foregoing and other methods, enticing people to foolishly overinvest in real estate.
Work closely with lending companies to establish a variety of programs designed to lure people with few resources or bad credit into buying houses they can’t afford;
Attract workers to the home-construction bubble, setting them up for long-term unemployment when the bubble inevitably burst;
Implicitly guarantee big financial companies and/or their creditors that if they get into trouble they would be rescued;
Compel the taxpayers to bail out those companies and/or creditors when the roof finally fell in.

No bank or group of banks could do these things on its own in a freed market. It takes a government-Wall Street partnership – the corporate state — to create such misery and exploitation.

So demonstrators, you are right. Something is dreadfully wrong. But your list of culprits is far from complete. So go ahead and protest outside Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. But also spend some time outside the White House, the Fed, the Treasury, and the Capitol Building. Together they are responsible for our current economic woes. These are the entities that control our fate and over which we have no real say. It’s time for things to change.

Greed without political power is boorish. Greed with political power is dangerous.

The freed market is the alternative to what you properly despise.

There is no free lunch, and there is no free birth control

2012-02-12T22:00:00.000-06:00

Peter Schiff on the issue

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U73xKgbXh68

USA Obituary - born 1776, died ?

2012-02-12T10:13:00.002-06:00

In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of
Edinborough, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some
2,000 years prior:

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a
permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until
the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts
from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for
the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with
the result that every democracy will finally collapse over loose fiscal
policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of
history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations
always progressed through the following sequence:

>From bondage to spiritual faith;
>From spiritual faith to great courage;
>From courage to liberty;
>From liberty to abundance;
>From abundance to complacency;
>From complacency to apathy;
>From apathy to dependence;
>From dependence back into bondage."

Although we are a Constitutional Republic, and not a democracy, the principle above still applies. The recent dependence of the US constituency on the government has grown substantially over the last 20 years. Nearly half of all Americans do not pay income tax. I think we have reached the apathy to dependency stage.

2012 Index of Dependence on Government

2012-02-10T09:36:00.001-06:00

The great and calamitous fiscal trends of our time—dependence on government by an increasing portion of the American population, and soaring debt that threatens the financial integrity of the economy—worsened yet again in 2010 and 2011. The United States has long reached the point at which it must reverse the direction of both trends or face economic and social collapse. Yet policymakers made little progress on either front since the 2010 Index of Dependence on Government was published. Today, more people than ever before—67.3 million Americans, from college students to retirees to welfare beneficiaries—depend on the federal government for housing, food, income, student aid, or other assistance once considered to be the responsibility of individuals, families, neighborhoods, churches, and other civil society institutions. The United States reached another milestone in 2010: For the first time in history, half the population pays no federal income taxes. Related to these disturbing trends, publicly held debt continued its amazing ascent without any plan by the government to pay it back.

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/2012-index-of-dependence-on-government

Obamacare's latest victim Religious Freedom

2012-02-02T11:59:00.000-06:00

The Obama Administration recently reaffirmed a rule under Obamacare that requires many religious employers to provide health care coverage for all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and related education and counseling. On the grounds that certain FDA-approved contraceptive methods can sometimes “cause the demise of embryos both after and before uterine implantation,” many groups also believe that the rule forces them to cover abortion.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/02/morning-bell-obamacares-latest-victim-is-religious-freedom/

The Prescience of Thomas Jefferson

2012-02-02T09:55:00.004-06:00

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world."

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

The Outcome of the Income Tax

2012-01-31T09:59:00.001-06:00

When a discriminating income tax is allowed to become the means of legal plunder, the spark of envy within the classes of men is fanned into a raging fire. No longer is the state able to restrain the fruits of covetousness; now it works to produce them. From the spark of envy to a conflagration of confiscation, the graduated income tax has led to democratic tyranny.

The progressive income tax has come upon us gradually. It began with a seemingly harmless maximum rate of 7 per cent. Yet within less than a generation, this rate climbed higher than 90 per cent. Of course “progressive” is a misnomer. “Aggressive” might be closer to the truth. But alas, perhaps “regressive” would be best, as this graduated tax policy has taken America back centuries—down the road to serfdom.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-outcome-of-the-income-tax/

This article was written more than 30 years ago. It is as relevant today as it was then.

What the Bible teaches us about Capitalism

2012-01-31T09:39:00.001-06:00

Many on the religious left criticize capitalism because all do not end up monetarily equal—or, as Churchill quipped, "all equally miserable." But the Bible's prescription of equality means equality under the law, as in Deuteronomy's saying that "Judges and officers . . . shall judge the people with a just judgment: Do not . . . favor one over the other." Nowhere does the Bible refer to a utopian equality that is contrary to human nature and has never been achieved.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203806504577179303330474134.html

No need to Panic about global warming

2012-01-31T09:03:00.002-06:00

This is a recent editorial in the Wall Street Journal. A large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed. Follow the money. Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366-lMyQjAxMTAyMDMwMDEzNDAyWj.html?mod

Peter Schiff's commentary on Obama's 2012 SOTU address

2012-01-26T14:25:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtBH4t4VY2A

Dr. Seuss on present day politics

2012-01-26T14:05:00.001-06:00

I do not like this Uncle Sam
I do not like his health care scam
I do not like those dirty crooks or
how they lie and cook the books
I do not like when congress steals
I do not like their secret deals
I do not like this jobless rate or
speeches filled with racist hate
I do not like this drilling ban
I do not like this "yes we can"
I do not like this spending spree
I'm smart I know that nothing's free
I do not like their smug replies
when I complain about their lies
I do not like this kind of "hope"
I do not like it Nope Nope Nope.

State of Dysfunction

2012-01-24T10:38:00.001-06:00

Tonight, Americans who tune in to the State of the Union will watch the work of a rhetorical master with a flair for illusion..... Before considering the President's record, first consider his message--that economic populism is the core of America's principles, that the federal government should be the guarantor of equal outcomes and that "fairness" of achievement should be decided by legions of bureaucrats in Washington. It is a theme that the President unveiled in a speech last month in Osawatomie, Kansas, and it's one he plans to return to tonight. This vision is at the root of the President's progressive ideal. It is not, however, the ideology on which our country was founded....The "ladder of opportunity" exists so that people may apply their God-given talents and abilities in order to better themselves and pursue the American dream. That is the liberty that makes the United States unique. The President, though, does not stand for that dream. Instead, as he has made clear, he believes that it is through government engineering that society can advance--through more government power, federal education programs, economic regulations, and infrastructure spending, all funded by "fair" taxes on "wealthy" Americans.

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/24/morning-bell-state-of-dysfunction/

The Growth of Government in the US

2012-01-24T10:18:00.002-06:00

This article, published in 1990, is even more relevant today. Here are some excerpts:

Our nation was founded by men who believed in limited government, especially limited central government. They were not anarchists; nor did they espouse laissez faire. But they did believe that rulers ought to be restrained and accountable to the people they govern. If the founders could see what has happened to the relation between the citizens and the government in the United States during the past two centuries, they would be appalled.........All but the few anarchists among us recognize that effective liberty requires some government, if only to define and protect rights to life and property. Beyond a point, however, bigger government begins to cut into our liberties; then the growth of government becomes synonymous with the sacrifice of liberty. In the United States, we entered this stage a long time ago..........The growth of government cannot continue forever. An economy totally dominated by government isn’t viable—even the Communists now recognize this. Eventually the government will eat up so much of the private sector that it will destroy the means of its own sustenance. At some point the balance of political power will swing away from support for bigger government in an effort to revive the dying goose that lays the golden eggs. If such reaction can occur in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, it certainly can occur here.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/the-growth-of-government-in-the-united-states/

It's Treason to Disagree

2012-01-23T19:56:00.001-06:00

The more objectionable and egregious a government policy is, the more the government depends on brute force to enforce it. So you can know for sure that when such laws are proposed that there are plans for the wars of the future to be even more objectionable, immoral, and unjust than the wars of the past. If you have to criminalize and banish dissent, it is likely that every intelligent person is going to be a target.

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/its-treason-to-disagree/

Peter Schiff's newest video blog

2012-01-15T12:44:00.002-06:00

Peter is a favorite of this blogger. He espouses the Austrian school of economics and his views are often at odds with the main stream Keynesians. His predictions are usually correct.

http://www.youtube.com/schiffreport

Ron Paul predictions from April 2002

2012-01-15T12:23:00.001-06:00

This is Ron Paul's famous Predictions speech from April 24, 2002. This is the original video compiling recent images and video to give his speech a chilling effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zGDisyWkIBM

2012 Index of Economic Freedom

2012-01-15T12:01:00.002-06:00

So you think you're free? Thanks to big government spending and exploding debt, the United States -- and indeed the world -- is less economically free today than it was a year ago. Economic freedom -- the ability of individuals to control the fruits of their labor and pursue their dreams -- is central to prosperity around the world. Heritage and The Wall Street Journal measure economic freedom by studying its pillars: the rule of law, limited government, regulatory efficiency, and open markets. Things like property rights, freedom from corruption, government spending, free trade, labor policies, and one's ability to invest in and create businesses all factor in to a country's economic freedom. Rapid expansion of government, more than any market factor, appears to be responsible for flagging economic dynamism. Government spending has not only failed to arrest the economic crisis, but also--in many countries--seems to be prolonging it. The big-government approach has led to bloated public debt, turning an economic slowdown into a fiscal crisis with economic stagnation fueling long-term unemployment. The United States fell to 10th place in the world for economic freedom, and its score continues to drop. The U.S. ranked 6th in 2009, 8th in 2010 and 9th in 2011.
http://www.heritage.org/index/default

The Unity and Beauty of the Declaration and the Constitution

2012-01-09T12:56:00.001-06:00

A great interview with Constitutional Scholar Larry Arnn, published in Imprimis

http://www.hillsdale.edu/news/imprimis/archive/issue.asp?year=2011&month=12

What has America become?

2012-01-09T12:17:00.000-06:00

What has America become?

Editor,

Has America become the land of special interest and home of the double standard?

Lets see: if we lie to the Congress, it's a felony and if the Congress lies to us its just politics; if we dislike a black person, we're racist and if a black person dislikes whites, its their 1st Amendment right; the government spends millions to rehabilitate criminals and they do almost nothing for the victims; in public schools you can teach that homosexuality is OK, but you better not use the word God in the process; you can kill an unborn child, but it is wrong to execute a mass murderer; we don't burn books in America, we now rewrite them; we got rid of communist and socialist threats by renaming them progressive; we are unable to close our border with Mexico, but have no problem protecting the 38th parallel in Korea; if you protest against President Obama's policies you're a terrorist, but if you burned an American flag or George Bush in effigy it was your 1st Amendment right.

You can have pornography on TV or the internet, but you better not put a nativity scene in a public park during Christmas; we have eliminated all criminals in America, they are now called sick people; we can use a human fetus for medical research, but it is wrong to use an animal.

We take money from those who work hard for it and give it to those who don't want to work; we all support the Constitution, but only when it supports our political ideology; we still have freedom of speech, but only if we are being politically correct; parenting has been replaced with Ritalin and video games; the land of opportunity is now the land of hand outs; the similarity between Hurricane Katrina and the gulf oil spill is that neither president did anything to help.

And how do we handle a major crisis today? The government appoints a committee to determine who's at fault, then threatens them, passes a law, raises our taxes; tells us the problem is solved so they can get back to their reelection campaign.

What has happened to the land of the free and home of the brave?

- Ken Huber
Tawas City

From 1944 to Nineteen Eighty-Four

2012-01-09T11:43:00.001-06:00

This article contains George Orwell's commentary on FA Hayek's 1944 book entitled "The Road to Serfdom."

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/from-1944-to-nineteen-eighty-four-3/

Faith in America

2012-01-09T11:22:00.003-06:00

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time," Thomas Jefferson once wrote. "The hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." Among the American Founders, there was a profound sense that faith and freedom were deeply intertwined.
The health and strength of liberty depend on the principles, standards, and morals shared by nearly all religions. What the "separation of church and state" does is liberate America's religions--in respect to their moral forms and teachings--to exercise unprecedented influence over private and public opinion by shaping citizens' mores, cultivating their virtues, and in general, providing a pure and independent source of moral reasoning and authority. This is what Alexis de Tocqueville meant when he observed that even though religion "never mixes directly in the government of society," it nevertheless determines the "habits of the heart" and is "the first of their political institutions."

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/26/morning-bell-faith-in-america/

Equality is not a four-letter word

2012-01-09T11:14:00.001-06:00

Seeing how the Left blathers on incessantly about inequality and dreams of a Harrison Bergersonesque America, some conservatives are wary of equality. Yet no word is more central to the American tradition which we uphold than equality.

Equality is the first self-evident truth proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence and ours is a country "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." By this, of course, we mean equal natural rights and the equal opportunities afforded by free markets and the rule of law.

The real tragedy of inequality in America is not that some earn more than others--class envy is something that afflicts Europeans, not Americans. Rather, it is that big government breeds what Paul Ryan calls "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."

Let us therefore reclaim the mantle of equality from those who've perverted it in the pursuit of equal outcomes.

Thoughts for the Day

2011-12-20T09:41:00.001-06:00

"It [government] covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French historian

"Mankind is at its best when it is most free. This will be clear if we grasp the principle of liberty. We must recall that the basic principle is freedom of choice,
which saying many have on their lips, but few in their mind."
Dante Alighieri (1265-1320) Italian Poet

Peter Schiff's most recent Video blog

2011-12-06T22:09:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7XyC0kcERY

Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead, are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

They used to make things in Wisconsin

2011-12-02T19:28:00.000-06:00

The original war on poverty was a private, mercenary affair. Men like Harnishfeger, Allis, Chalmers, Kohler, Kearney, Trecker, Modine, Case, Mead, Falk, Allen, Bradley, Cutler, Hammer, Bucyrus, Harley, Davidson, Pabst, and Miller lifted millions up from subsistence living to middle class comfort. They did it - not “Fighting Bob” La Follette or any of the politicians who came along later to take the credit and rake a piece of the action through the steepest progressive scheme in the nation.

Those old geezers with the beards cured poverty by putting people to work. Generations of Wisconsinites learned trades and mastered them in the factories, breweries, mills, foundries, and shipyards those capitalists built with their hands. Thousands of small businesses supplied these industrial giants, and tens of thousands of proprietors and professionals provided all of the services that all those other families needed to live well. The wealth got spread around plenty.

http://www.timnerenz.com/2011/11/downward-wisconsin.html

Adam Carolla rant on Occupy Wall Street

2011-12-02T19:08:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq9zga4jcSM

To be take with a grain of Galt

2011-12-02T19:03:00.002-06:00

All around us we see businesses failing, people unemployed and families suffering. The cure for this is less taxation, less government and less regulation. Instead of concentrating on the word ‘fair,’ people should fixate on the term ‘freedom.’ Freedom to succeed or fail, freedom to live as you wish as long as you do not harm others, freedom to create and ascend. Instead, we have turned our faces towards the golden calf of government to take care of us. The only ones that take care of an individual should be himself and God, with family and community as support – not the State.

http://noisyroom.net/blog/2011/11/27/to-be-taken-with-a-grain-of-galt/

Daniel Hannan responds to the Occupy Wall Street crowd

2011-12-01T13:32:00.001-06:00

Daniel Hannan is a writer and journalist, and has been Conservative MEP for South East England since 1999. He speaks French and Spanish and loves Europe, but believes that the European Union is making its constituent nations poorer, less democratic and less free.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100119741/memo-to-the-occupy-protesters-here-are-ten-things-we-evil-capitalists-really-think/

What is Character, and does it matter?

2011-11-26T20:56:00.001-06:00

Comments from Bill Whittle on PJTV

http://www.pjtv.com/s/G4YDIMQ

Thoughts for the Day

2011-11-26T12:09:00.000-06:00

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure,
the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy,
its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.."
-- Winston Churchill

How applicable are these following thoughts?

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them; and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

George Washington's Thanksgiving Proclamation

2011-11-26T12:04:00.000-06:00

George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to"recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.

Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-26T11:53:00.002-06:00

The entitlement mentality of The Occupy Wall Street movement summarized in a photo. JFK would be rolling in his grave.

Professor Jennifer Burns on Ayn Rand

2011-11-21T10:42:00.000-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/LearnLiberty?v=WZgVUCGva8w&feature=pyv&ad=8301426609&kw=ayn%20rand

Thoughts from Ayn Rand

2011-11-21T09:48:00.002-06:00

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed."

"The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time."
-- Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Author

Peter Schiff on the European Central Bank, the Super Committee and inflation

2011-11-21T09:44:00.001-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7G3rT3G2wQ

Keynes vs. Hayek II -

2011-11-18T17:29:00.002-06:00

In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes, the most influential economist of the last century, and future Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek engaged in a legendary battle of ideas about the role of the government in ending and causing economic downturns.

Last year, George Mason University economist Russ Roberts and director-producer John Papola retold that debate in the form of a rap video, "Fear the Boom and Bust," in which Hayek and Keynes fight it out over the causes of the Great Recession.

In a new video, the battle continues: Should government juice spending via massive stimulus or "do nothing" once a recession is underway? And did World War II end the Great Depression? Whatever side you take, the video, which pulled over 500,000 views in its first week, is sure to entertain and edify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQnarzmTOc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NIyCJC9ehQ

Andrew Klavan on Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-16T14:41:00.000-06:00

Political satire at it's best - enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3uH3GQdX_I

Great video commentary on the Occupy Wall Street movement

2011-11-16T14:29:00.002-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAOrT0OcHh0

The Occupation Devolution

2011-11-15T11:18:00.001-06:00

Marxist philosophy, literature and signage are ubiquitous at Occupy Oakland. A visit to the Party for Socialism and Liberation's website -- a Marxist group well-represented at Occupy Oakland events -- explains the mindset of the Occupiers best:

The existing government and state -- the military, police, intelligence agencies, courts, prisons, bureaucracy and so on -- defend the interests of the capitalist class. Racist, anti-working-class police brutality is rampant. A monstrous state machine has imprisoned more people in the United States than in any other country.
The only force capable of putting an end to this criminal system is the organized working class. Capitalism cannot be voted out of power -- it will take a revolution. (www.PSLweb.org)
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/11/the_occupation_devolution.html

Ode to the Welfare state - 1949

2011-11-15T10:52:00.002-06:00

This was published in the NY Daily News Friday, November 4, 1949

DEMOCRATIC DIALOG

Father, must I go to work?

No, my lucky son.

We're living now on Easy Street

On dough from Washington

We've left it up to Uncle Sam

so don't get exercised.

Nobody has to give a damn

We've all been subsidized.

But if Sam treats us all so well

And feeds us milk and honey,

Please, daddy, tell me what the hell

He's going to use for money.

Don't worry, bub, there's not a hitch

In this here noble plan

He simply soaks the filthy rich

And helps the common man.

But, father, won't there come a time

When they run out of cash

And we have left them not a dime

When things will go to smash?

My faith in you is shrinking, son,

You nosy little brat;

You do too damn much thinking, son,

To be a Democrat.

The Clear Language of the Austrian School of Economics

2011-11-09T18:30:00.001-06:00

The modern world is anything but a free market. It is blanketed with volumes of regulations while forced to operate under the regime of fiat money, central-bank interest-rate setting, and monetary pumping. The economy lurches through a continuous maze of distortions — soaring asset bubbles followed by gut-wrenching crashes — and lingering high unemployment and inflation masked by understated official statistics issued by government agencies.

http://mises.org/daily/5796/The-Clear-Language-of-the-Austrian-School

Jimmy O'Bama

2011-11-07T13:48:00.002-06:00

This clip represents the antithesis of Ronald Reagan's confidence and optimism in the American people and ideals

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-tZq4CWLi0

The Twelve Year Sentence

2011-11-07T12:53:00.000-06:00

You look at the parade of mindless dopes and dopers that make up the Occupy protesters and think: What is wrong with these people? They are mostly kids. They don’t have jobs. Most don’t even look employable. Those who are employable can’t find work at a wage they are willing to accept. Instead, they meander around in a mob at all hours, spouting inanities and imaging themselves to be radicals.

They don’t even know what they are protesting, not precisely, anyway. They oppose injustice, inequality and they like, but what does this mean? It means: The people in the buildings have money, and they do not. They are against that.

Meanwhile, they walk around with iPhones and Androids with fat data contracts paid for by moms and dads, all while agitating against the capitalist system that put these miracles in their palms in the first place. They claim to be against the suits, but they demand that the suits have more power to regulate, tax, redistribute, inflate, interfere and centrally plan.

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/the-twelve-year-sentence/

Thought for the Day

2011-10-21T11:43:00.002-05:00

To make any kind of gain in life....You must make a commitment of money, time, love, something. That is the law of the universe. Except by blind chance, it cannot be circumvented. No creature on earth is excused from obedience to this pitiless law. To become a butterfly, a caterpillar must grow fat; and to grow fat, it must venture out where birds are. There are no appeals. It is the law. Max Gunther

The Real Reasons for the Uprising

2011-10-21T11:26:00.001-05:00

And what exactly is causing our economic problems? In short: inflation. Both the creation of new money unbacked by productive activity — literally, conjured up from nothing at the whim of a central banker — and the artificially low cost of borrowing to expand the amount of debt…again, thanks to central bankers buying government debt with the money they create in order to shove interest rates down.

Inflation erodes the value of savings. It causes middle-class wages to rise more slowly than prices over time. The well connected — mainly, commercial banks — get the money first and benefit, while their spending of the new money causes prices to rise. Everyone else has to beg and hope for cost-of-living increases to their wages.

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/the-real-reason-for-the-uprisings/

Steve Jobs and Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-20T14:03:00.000-05:00

The death two weeks ago of Steve Jobs, co-founder and longtime head of Apple Inc., is a great loss, but it offers a valuable teachable moment.

In a way it’s not surprising that protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street have been, as far as I can tell, silent about Steve Jobs because his death was so recent. At the same time, it’s a little surprising to me that Occupiers haven’t used the opportunity to condemn someone who has been one of the leading members of the “1%” — corporate billionaires — against whom they have expressed such disgust. From the perspective of most (though not all) of them, Jobs should have been Exhibit A in the case against capitalist exploitation. Even though his personal wealth is said to have exceeded $8 billion, I haven’t been able to find very much in the way of outrage against him or his company.

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/steve-jobs-and-occupy-wall-street/

Peter Schiff's biweekly video blog

2011-10-16T14:23:00.001-05:00

Comments on Herman Cain's 9-9-9 plan and Occupy Wall Street

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iJvtQpyx1A

Why the State Demands control of Money

2011-10-16T13:53:00.001-05:00

Because you can create paper money out of thin air, you can also create credit out of thin air. In fact, because you can create credit out of nothing (without any savings on your part), you can offer loans at cheaper rates than anyone else, even at an interest rate as low as zero (or even at a negative rate). With this ability, not only is your former dependency on banks and the banking industry eliminated; you can, moreover, make banks dependent on you, and you can forge a permanent alliance and complicity between banks and state. You don’t even have to become involved in the business of investing the credit yourself. That task, and the risk involved in it, you can safely leave to commercial banks. What you, your central bank, need to do is only this: You create credit out of thin air and then loan this money, at below-market interest rates, to commercial banks. Instead of you paying interest to banks, banks now pay interest to you. And the banks, in turn, loan out your newly created easy credit to their business friends at somewhat highe,r but still submarket, interest rates (to earn from the interest differential). In addition, to make the banks especially keen on working with you, you may permit the banks to create a certain amount of their own new credit (of checkbook money) in addition and on top of the credit that you have created (fractional-reserve banking).

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/why-the-sate-demands-control-of-money/

Occupying Wall Street - Why are the Fed, Treasury and Capitol Ignored?

2011-10-05T14:05:00.001-05:00

The protesters most likely fail to appreciate that everything associated with the Great Recession is a product of a long-standing and deep-seated partnership between big influential business/financial interests and government – the corporate state. Through most of American history, banks and other financial institutions have operated in league with government, especially since the Federal Reserve opened its doors nearly a century ago, and that this money-manipulating cartel has facilitated war, cheap credit to favored interests, and bailouts.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/occupying-wall-street/

Proposed List of Demands For Occupy Wall Street Movement

2011-10-04T10:16:00.004-05:00

These proposals are the antithesis of Free Market Capitalism!

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

Occupy Wall Street: A Story without Heroes

2011-10-04T10:12:00.001-05:00

Although there is no single ideology uniting the movement, it does seem to have a general philosophical thrust, and not a very good one at that. OccupyWallStreet.org has a list of demands, and while the website does not represent all of the protesters, one could safely bet that it lines up with the views of most of them: A "living-wage" guarantee for workers and the unemployed, universal healthcare, free college for everyone, a ban on fossil fuels, a trillion dollars in new infrastructure, another trillion in "ecological restoration," racial and gender "rights," election reform, universal debt forgiveness, a ban on credit reporting agencies, and more power for the unions. Out of over a dozen demands there is only one I agree with — open borders — and, ironically, many on Wall Street probably favor that as well.

http://mises.org/daily/5746/Occupy-Wall-Street-A-Story-without-Heroes

Political Humor

2011-09-30T12:24:00.002-05:00

John was in the egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called 'pullets', and ten roosters to fertilize them. He kept records, and any rooster not performing went into the soup pot and was replaced.
This took a lot of time, so he bought some tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone, so he could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now, he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report by just listening to the bells.

John's favorite rooster,Obama, was a very fine specimen, but this morning he noticed Obama's bell hadn't rung at all! When he went to investigate,he saw the other roosters were busy chasing pullets,bells-a-ringing, but the pullets, hearing the roosters coming,would run for cover.

To John's amazement,Obama had thought of a way to do it without work, he had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one.

John was so proud of Obama, he entered him in the Chicago County Fair and he became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result was the judges not only awarded Obama the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well.

Clearly Obama was a politician! Who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention.

Vote carefully next fall, the bells are not always audible.

Jon Voight calls out Barack Obama

2011-09-29T12:44:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=253PiA7zIl4

Quotes for the Day

2011-09-28T11:19:00.002-05:00

"...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document. The First Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet. The Second Amendment doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman plants a bomb. The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the profile of a terrorist. The government has no right to interfere with any of these freedoms under any circumstances." -- Harry Browne
(1933-2006) American libertarian writer, politician, and free-market investment analyst. Libertarian candidate for US President 1996 & 2000

"If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave."
-- Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."

Central Banks aren't Banks

2011-09-28T10:57:00.000-05:00

The Fed is not a business. It has powers that no ordinary bank has. It has privileges that no ordinary banks have. It doesn’t compete with other banks. The government created the Fed. The government gave it power to create fiat money. The government can alter the Fed’s organization and powers at any time. The Fed’s so-called independence from the government is mythological. It is that of a dog on a long leash. The only independence the Fed has is from the public.

http://whiskeyandgunpowder.com/central-banks-aren%E2%80%99t-banks/

Newest Federal Reserve Strategy - Operation Twist

2011-09-26T12:41:00.002-05:00

Like all state bureaucracies, the Fed is in fact struggling with problems that are predominantly of its own making. The Fed is the reason we are in this crisis. Or, more specifically, the present economic crisis is the inevitable consequence of the political decision to adopt a system of unconstrained, constantly expanding fiat money, in which the central bank, in its role as lender of last resort, systematically encourages bank lending and thereby the extension of credit on the basis of money printing rather than true savings. This system came into full bloom only in 1971, when Nixon severed the last link to gold and thus initiated, for the first time in history, a global system of unrestricted fiat-money creation.

http://mises.org/daily/5678/Operation-Twisted-Logic

Those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat it

2011-09-24T17:32:00.005-05:00

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama Presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their President. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their President." unknown author

"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions . . . . Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome's, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.' Julius was always an ambitious villain, but he is only one man."

- Roman philosopher and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero

In support of Capitalism - a cartoon commentary from 1948

2011-09-23T11:24:00.002-05:00

This cartoon was produced in 1948 from Harding College in Arkansas. It essentially illustrates a simplified comparative analysis of Capitalism vs. other "Isms". Hat tip brother Jim.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SbjR3ypUho

Thoughts for the Day

2011-09-23T11:05:00.001-05:00

"Do we desire to be cradled, and then carried throughout life to our graves by this partisan propelled bureaucratic monstrosity? ...as individuals of sovereign dignity, are we now so terrified, bewildered, and impotent that our main purpose is to seek asylum from the potential hazards of freedom? Have we no faith in our natural strengths and abilities?" Sergei Hoff, former Montana Deputy Sheriff
Source: 'Our Fears and Denials Will Enslave Us' by Sergei Hoff, October 23, 2004

"The Republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it ...This will remain the land of the free
only so long as it is the home of the brave." Elmer Davis, (1800-1858), American writer, commentator

Government as Venture Capitalist

2011-09-22T10:56:00.003-05:00

Whether or not you would vote for him for president, this piece, written by Ron Paul, is worth reading!

http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1913:government-as-a-venture-capitalist&catid=62:texas-straight-talk&Itemid=69

Peter Schiff on Operation Twist

2011-09-21T21:00:00.002-05:00

Desperate Fed grasps for Policy Straws - listen to Peter's commentary

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCYGVKBOcCo

Surprising Facts about the America's Poor

2011-09-17T09:44:00.001-05:00

Interesting information from the Heritage Foundation's Morning Bell blog regarding the Poor in America

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/13/morning-bell-surprising-facts-about-americas-poor/

Solyndra scandal ends Green job myth

2011-09-17T09:38:00.001-05:00

President Barack Obama’s solution for America’s unemployment woes has been a stubborn campaign to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on economic “stimulus”–much of it on so-called “green jobs.” Report after report has shown the approach to be a total failure. And now, a new scandal involving Solyndra, a bankrupt solar panel company in California, should be the final nail in the coffin for the government’s meddling in the free market.

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/09/16/morning-bell-solyndra-scandal-ends-green-jobs-myth/

Ron Paul Hearing on Restoring Sound Money

2011-09-17T09:31:00.000-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J2_opPwfqc

Peter Schiff reacts to the Obama "Jobs" speech

2011-09-11T10:06:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou9d6Q9_9W4

Commentary from Alfonzo Rachel - Zonation

2011-09-11T09:37:00.002-05:00

I thought this PJTV Video:" Whiny, Bitter, Complainers: Zo Smacks Down Anti-Capitalist, 'YouTube' Liberal" was interesting and hope you do too.

http://www.pjtv.com/s/GU2TSMY

A Different Perspective on 9/11

2011-09-10T21:48:00.002-05:00

"Farce, gross incompetence, and tragedy is the hallmark of big centralized government, wherever it develops. Big centralized government has developed in the United States year after year since the 1930s, and it has both solidified and metastasized since 9-11. Today, we live at the will and by the grace of a dystopian and grasping government. There is not an exceptional amount of time left before this government collapses, but before it does, we the people will suffer far more than we have suffered to date. Banking collapses, mortgage fraud at the highest levels, government bailouts, currency printing, and inflation in food and energy are just a foretaste of the future, led by the same Washington public-private cartel we have suffered for decades. . . .

"I believe our government -- outdated, unrestrained by the Constitution and soon to default on every debt it has taken on in our name -- cannot long endure. But unlike those who run and benefit from our modern American nationalism, corporatism and socialism, I do not fear average Americans seeking self-government, rule of law and liberty.

"That's why on Sept. 11, I will not be celebrating America's undeclared wars on countries that had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 attacks 10 years ago. I will not be attending remembrances of victims of that day, because those remembrances refuse to count American liberty, rule of law and freedom of trade and movement uppermost on that list of the sacrificed. I will not attend any program offered by a religious or political organization that seeks to ride a federal government bandwagon to confirm some imperative of war against Islam halfway around the world, or that seeks to promote the false concept of a culture war as somehow God's intent for America.

"On this 10-year anniversary, I intend to go about my business as usual, and say a prayer of gratitude for the small freedoms I have left. In the afternoon, I'll be in Charlottesville, Va., learning about local apprenticeship and crafts demonstrations. In the evening, I'll check the livestock and gather the eggs. I won't allow what I personally experienced that day in the Pentagon, nor the subsequent government drumbeats for war, waving the Sept. 11 banner, to diminish my awareness of the meaning of liberty. . . .

"The real battle for Americans today is a battle to reassert our independence from an overbearing and unsustainable state. Today, we can all celebrate that there are fundamental cracks in the federal state's veneer, and we can be grateful for the options we still have in our own lives to live free, to practice charity and faith, creativity and productivity and to rediscover our own power as individuals and communities."
-- Karen Kwiatkowski
(1960-) retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, included duties as Pentagon desk officer and a variety of roles for the National Security Agency, author, columnist
9 Sep 2011

Thought for the Day

2011-09-10T10:21:00.003-05:00

"I have the right to do whatever I wish with my property. If I own a pile of wood, I can set fire to it even if it is currently nailed together in the shape of a barn. Cigarettes may not be healthy for me in the long run, but I have the freedom to smoke them anyway. Drinking alcohol may or may not have negative side effects, but even if it does, the government has no authority to prohibit you from consuming it, even if it is "in your own best interest." Since when do we let the government decide what is or isn't good for us? What the hell does Congress know about nutrition, anyway? (For that matter, what does Congress know about the Constitution?) If the government can use force whenever something is "in our best interest" then government should force everyone to wake up at 6am every morning for calisthenics in the front yard. Fast food establishments should be torn down and replaced with bars that serve carrot juice and alfalfa sprouts, since - "it's in your best interest." This paternalistic attitude that "the government knows best" and that you are merely a helpless child is insulting and reprehensible. Hitler used the same attitude to persuade the Germans to subjugate themselves to the "Fatherland." " -- Michael Badnarik
(1954- ) American software engineer, political figure, and former radio talk show host
Source: Good To Be King, 2004.

"Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the supineness or venality of their constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to show, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of
parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."
-- George Washington (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, 'Father of the Country'

Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism

2011-09-01T22:25:00.001-05:00

As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.

Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.

Read on for the Shelby Steele analysis:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904787404576532623176115558.html

Liberal Psychoses

2011-08-30T14:37:00.001-05:00

Good piece by Victor David Hanson

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson082511.html

Should I buy Gold and/or Silver?

2011-08-29T18:05:00.002-05:00

From the Gold Money Foundation

Jim Sinclair interviewed by James Turk - conversation about gold

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF24atvN

Eric Sprott interviewed by James Turk - conversation about silver

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt7EQTv3wy4

The Endless Vacation

2011-08-27T12:18:00.002-05:00

The Hypocrite in Chief

2011-08-25T23:42:00.005-05:00

These words may come back to bite the president. In this clip, Obama calls President Bush "unpatriotic" for adding to the national debt. Obama has added almost as much to the national debt in 3 years as Bush did in eight! That's "really unpatriotic". When President George W. Bush took office, our national debt was $5.768 Trillion. By the time Bush left office, it had nearly doubled, to $10.626 trillion. Bush's record on deficit spending was awful. During his presidency, the national debt rose by an average of $607 billion per year. How does that compare to Obama? During Obama's presidency to date, the national debt has risen by an average of $1.723 trillion per year. That amounts to a jaw-dropping $1.116 trillion more, per year, than under Bush.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyLmru6no4U

Markets react to S&P Downgrade

2011-08-22T21:32:00.001-05:00

most recent video blog from Peter Schiff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9O-k5MX0EI0

The Poisoned Fruit of Social Democracy

2011-08-19T13:15:00.000-05:00

It is difficult not to notice that most of the financial, economic and societal problems making headlines in the world today are centered in Europe and the United States. The reality is that the "West" has finally reached the point of saturation wherein its economies and societies can no longer afford to guarantee a certainstandard of living for the citizens of these countries in exchange for votes.

These nations have two factors in common: 1) they are all either confirmed to be or determined (as in the case of the United States) to become socialist democracies; and 2) they have evolved into overwhelmingly consumption-based societies, greatly diminishing their goods-producing sector (which generates the real wealth of a nation), thus eroding their job-creation ability as well as the nation's wealth and tax base. Yet the governments of all these countries continue to deficit spend, over-tax (chasing wealth and job-creation off-shore) and borrow in an effort to meet the expectations of the people.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/the_poisoned_fruit_of_social_democracy.html

Liberal Logic

2011-08-19T13:00:00.001-05:00

In a bid to stem taxpayer losses for bad loans guaranteed by federal housing agencies Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac, Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) proposed that borrowers be required to make a 5% down payment in order to qualify.

His proposal was rejected 57-42 on a party-line vote because, as Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn) explained, "Passage of such a requirement would restrict home ownership to only those who can afford it."

Obama's Paradoxes

2011-08-16T21:04:00.001-05:00

When Barack Obama won the election in 2008, he was quite right that the old system needed fixing. America’s debt, its poorly educated youth, its imbalances in trade, its counterproductive tax system, its out-of-control annual spending, its culture of entitlement and subsidies, all in perfect-storm fashion were starting to coalesce and weaken America from within and the perception of America abroad. The statesmanlike thing to do — in the manner of a once-naïve Harry Truman, who woke up to the threat of Soviet-inspired global Communism, or of a Bill Clinton, who finally addressed some of the contradictions of the welfare state and deficit spending — would have been to overhaul the tax system, recalibrate Social Security and Medicare, cut spending, lecture the citizenry on personal responsibility, and address the therapeutic curriculum in our failing schools. With a 70 percent approval rating and supermajorities in both houses of Congress, Obama could have done almost anything throughout 2009.

Instead, he chose the path of Jimmy Carter and the pre-1995 Bill Clinton — even more redistributive state programs, more stifling regulations, more petulant talk about “them,” more class warfare, more debt, and more failed big government.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274706/obama-s-paradoxes-victor-davis-hanson

(Un)Happy Birthday, Fiat Money

2011-08-15T23:58:00.001-05:00

Forty years ago today, on the morning of Sunday, August 15, 1971, the US president, Richard Nixon, declared the inconvertibility of the dollar into gold.[1] The 20,000 tons of the yellow metal deposited in Fort Knox in 1944 had decreased substantially due to the high military costs of the Vietnam War. The United States — the leading global economic power — could not honor its financial commitments. This meant the end of a historical and monetary rule that, from the dawn of civilization, had made money a general medium of exchange and also a store of value. It began a new era of historical abnormality — that of fiat currency and central-bank monopoly, where the ability to provide credit and financing becomes as boundless as the production of legally enforced paper printed by the issuing bank.

http://mises.org/daily/5543/Unhappy-Birthday-Fiat-Money

Obama's Vision and The Constitution

2011-08-14T14:50:00.001-05:00

It is hard to say just what Obama's vision of America is or whether he has a vision at all. More often than not, his is a negative vision. From his perspective, America is wrong in so many ways that it stands in need of radical change. At the heart of this negative vision is Obama's idea that America is not a "just" nation. Obama believes that fairness demands redistribution of wealth to the point that every citizen of the United States is entitled to a middle-class standard of living as a matter of right.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/obamas_vision_and_the_constitution.html

A Tottering Technocracy

2011-08-12T10:52:00.001-05:00

We are witnessing a widespread crisis of faith in our progressive guardians of the last 30 years. These are the blue-chip, university-certified elite, employed by universities, government, and big-money private foundations and financial-services companies. The best recent examples are sorts like Barack Obama, Eric Holder, Larry Summers, Peter Orszag, Robert Rubin, Steven Chu, and Timothy Geithner. Politicians like John Kerry, John Edwards, and Al Gore all share certain common characteristics of this Western technocracy: proper legal or academic credentials, ample service in elected or appointed government office, unabashed progressive politics, and a free pass to enjoy ample personal wealth without any perceived contradiction with their loud share-the-wealth egalitarian politics.

http://victorhanson.com/articles/hanson081111.html

Revenge of the Gods of the Copybook Headings

2011-08-12T10:45:00.002-05:00

All of our economic woes, more or less, have come from defiance of what Rudyard Kipling called the Gods of the Copybook Headings. These are the nonpartisan, scientific, and implacable laws of economics and human behavior.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/the_revenge_of_the_gods_of_the_copybook_headings.html

"The first ten amendments were proposed and adopted largely because of fear that Government might unduly interfere with prized individual liberties. The people wanted and demanded a Bill of Rights written into their Constitution. The amendments embodying the Bill of Rights were intended to curb all branches of the Federal Government in the fields touched by the amendments—Legislative, Executive, and Judicial." -- Justice Hugo L. Black (1886-1971)

US Supreme Court Justice Source: Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 71 (Dissent) (1947).

Obama's New Bill of Rights

2011-08-11T15:02:00.000-05:00

Thought for the Day

2011-08-11T15:01:00.001-05:00

"All men have equal rights, but not to equal things." -- Edmund Burke
(1729-1797) Irish-born British statesman, parliamentary orator, and political thinker

To Pig to Fail

2011-08-09T21:47:00.001-05:00

Thoughts on the Welfare State

2011-08-09T12:13:00.001-05:00

"Welfare mostly subsidizes people in poverty, helping few escape from it. In their hearts, most people who are poor would like to be rich, or at least self-sustaining, but this president never talks about how they might achieve that goal. Instead, he criticizes those who made the right choices and now enjoy the fruits of their labor. Rather than use successful people as examples for the poor to follow, the president seeks to punish the rich with higher taxes and more regulations on their businesses." Cal Thomas Columnist 2011

"It is precisely this clinging to victimhood as a means of demonstrating one’s
virtue and advancing one’s well-being that has led us into a society in which
welfare and quotas are “civil rights,” government handouts are “entitlements,”
and payment to girls having babies out of wedlock are “compassionate,” while
hard-working, ambitious people are “greedy,” punishment of crime is
“oppression,” and an independent thinker who stands for courage and
self-reliance is dismissed as an “Uncle Tom.” J. Tucker Alford

"Capitalism and communism stand at opposite poles. Their essential difference is this:
The communist seeing the rich man and his fine home says, “No man should have so much.”
The capitalist seeing the same thing says, “All men should have as much.” "
Phelps Adams (1903-1991) Chief Washington correspondent for The New York Sun (1928-50), adminstrative vice president for United States Steel (1950-67)

The Debt Sky

2011-08-07T09:08:00.001-05:00

Although advocates of government projects try to appropriate the aura of market investment, their schemes can’t escape being acts of consumption. They are guided not by market prices and expected consumer preferences but by politicians’ wish to be reelected. The funds won’t be acquired by consent and therefore put to a market test, and the services won’t be offered on the market to free consumers with the power to say no thank you. Rather, resources will be acquired either by taxation, that is, by the threat of force, or by borrowing, which is possible only because the government has power to tax. Any resulting services will be provided not on the market but through the political process in which some are compelled to subsidize others. Costs are severed from benefits.

The lesson then is that real and dramatic spending cuts through a radical reduction in what government does is the authentic way to stimulate economic growth, not to mention expand individual freedom.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/tgif/the-debt-sky/

Peter Schiff on S&P AA+ rating of US Sovereign Debt

2011-08-07T07:47:00.001-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgNLTb58K_Y

American Animal Farm

2011-08-03T13:52:00.001-05:00

The original vision of an entrepreneurial, capitalist republic has devolved now to a social democratic nightmare where government programs actually suffocate initiative and enterprise. Literal, and figurative, industry is now vilified from the Oval Office. At the local level, especially in urban areas, social democrats thrive in dysfunctional, one-party towns. These urban blights cannot afford incompetence, even; it must be subsidized.

Fifty percent of the population pays no income taxes, but they do have the vote. This constituency has no skin in the game except, maybe, to collect a government check. There's no incentive for fiscal prudence when deadbeats can be bought with other people's money.

The American crisis was not created by reformers or conservatives. It was created by a bovine electorate and a porcine federal government -- a horrible model that actually cultivates social pathologies for political purposes. More than four out of ten dollars spent by Washington must be borrowed to finance what now amounts to an American "Animal Farm." Indeed, George! The pigs have taken over again. Napoleon and Squealer are back.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/the_american_animal_farm.html

Why Capitalism is worth Defending

2011-08-02T13:02:00.001-05:00

As Obama demonizes the wealthy and pitches a dozen plans to restructure the economy, opponents of this program need a reminder of what exactly we're fighting for. We are resisting bureaucracy, central planning, and encroachments on our freedom and communities. But this does not get to the heart of the matter. We are not only an opposition movement, countering the president and his partisans' agenda. More fundamentally, we stand in defense of the greatest engine of material prosperity in human history, the fount of civilization, peace, and modernity: capitalism.

There is a myth that capitalism is the dominating doctrine. It seems almost everyone believes this, most finding it at least somewhat unfortunate, which itself should tell you there's a problem with assuming capitalism's unchallenged popularity. In fact, capitalism has few authentic defenders. Conservatives pretend to support it but make exceptions for education, energy, agriculture, labor, central banking, borders, intellectual property, and drugs, to say nothing of national defense and criminal justice. Even worse, many conservatives of the anticorporatist, localist variety are more protectionist and economically nationalistic than the establishment Right. They will sacrifice property rights for their cultural preferences on guns, religion, so-called family values, and certainly patriotism. With friends like these, capitalism needs truer allies.

http://mises.org/daily/5505/Why-Capitalism-Is-Worth-Defending

Why the debt ceiling "compromise" should have been opposed

2011-08-02T12:41:00.002-05:00

This deal does nothing to fix the overreaches of both parties over the past few years: Obamacare, TARP, trillion-dollar wars, runaway entitlement spending. They are all cemented into place with this deal, and their legacy will be trillions of dollars in new debt.

The deal:

Adds at least $7 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years. The deal purports to "cut" $2.1 trillion, but the "cut" is from a baseline that adds $10 trillion to the debt. This deal, even if all targets are met and the Super Committee wields its mandate - results in a BEST case scenario of still adding more than $7 trillion more in debt over the next 10 years. That is sickening.
Never, ever balances.
The Super Committee's mandate is to add $7 trillion in new debt. Let's be clear: $2.1 trillion in reductions off a nearly $10 trillion,10-year debt is still more than $7 trillion in debt. The Super Committee limits the constitutional check of the filibuster by expediting passage of bills with a simple majority. The Super Committee is not precluded from any issue, therefore the filibuster could be rendered moot. In addition, the plan harms the possible passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment. Since the goal is never to balance, having the BBA as a "trigger" ensures that the committee will simply report its $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan and never move to a BBA vote.
It cuts too slowly. Even if you believe cutting $2.1 trillion out of $10 trillion is a good compromise, surely we can start cutting quickly, say $200 billion-$300 billion per year, right? Wrong. This plan so badly backloads the alleged savings that the cuts are simply meaningless. Why do we believe that the goal of $2.5 trillion over 10 years (that's an average of $250 billion per year) will EVER be met if the first two years cuts are $20 billion and $50 billion. There is simply no path in this bill even to the meager savings they are alleging will take place.

Betrayed Again

2011-08-01T13:13:00.001-05:00

The Tea Party has been maligned, abused, falsely accused, mocked and derided for standing for freedom and fiscal responsibility. 22 stood against Boehner’s suicidal plan that was nothing more than cover for a revisit to the McConnell/Reid monstrosity. We will remember these heroes and what they stand for.

So what do Republicans do? Why they come up with pointless plans that in reality are no different from the Democrats. Don’t talk to me about a Balanced Budget Amendment. They aren’t serious, they only put in a provision to get a chance to vote on it. It will never materialize that way. It’s another lie. And the cuts are a joke – they will not happen. Forget about capping spending – the Cloward and Piven frenzy of spending continues its suicidal dance, capering gleefully toward the chasm’s edge.

And some of those we believed to be true Tea Party patriots have been seduced by the dark side. They caved at the first opportunity and turned away from those who helped elect them. Spines we thought were forged from steel morphed into slinkies in record time.

“If ye love wealth better than liberty,
the tranquility of servitude
better than the animating contest of freedom,
go home from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or your arms.
Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.
May your chains set lightly upon you,
and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams

Congress is still deadlocked on the budget. God help us if the horrific McConnell/Reidplan goes through empowering a Super Congress, raising the debt ceiling by 3 Trillion with staggered cuts that will almost assuredly never materialize. But if it does not go through, I believe Obama will opt for an Executive Order, using the 14th Amendment as cover, ushering us into a dictatorship with an iron grip on America’s throat and jackboots dancing an evil jig on the Constitution. Boehner and all the other RINOs are complicit. We are watching what you do, not what you say.

As Boehner and McConnell strike a deal with the devil, the clock ticks on towards the Tuesday deadline. As for me, I take the conservative stand come hell or high water. Patriots prepare. Progressives be damned.

Peter Schiff - straight talker

2011-08-01T12:16:00.002-05:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t01xdDphC4

14 minutes of valuable information - if you don't have time to listen to it all, fast forward to the last 3 minutes

Mt. Debtmore

2011-08-01T11:27:00.006-05:00

The entire US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for 2010 was $14.62 Trillion. The US debt ceiling currently stands at $14.294 Trillion, which was exceeded in May of 2011. Obama and Congress will be raising the debt ceiling well above our US GDP. Does this make America economically stronger or weaker? To say that our government is simply spending more than it takes in is an understatement when it comes to the out-of-control spending we’ve experienced under President Obama; what he’s doing is dangerous. He has spent about $12.2 Trillion in just 3 years; that’s $5.15 Trillion more than the approximate $7.05 Trillion that was given to him by taxpayers. Let’s look at it another way… It took roughly 220 years for our nation to accumulate $5.181 Trillion in debt which occurred in 1996. From 1996 to the end of 2008 (12 years), another $4.473 Trillion was added to our national debt, which is why we screamed for Bush to stop spending. Obama is adding $5.15 Trillion in just 3 years.

Cloward-Piven Paradise?

2011-08-01T11:14:00.002-05:00

Combine class warfare, demonizing the rich, getting as many people onto the welfare rolls as possible, and pushing the economic system to collapse and you have a flawless formula for Cloward-Piven 2.0 -- and a vehicle that ensures Obama remains in power. The premise of the Cloward-Piven collective/anti-capitalist gospel decried "individual mobility and achievement," celebrated organized labor, fostered the principle that "if each finally found himself in the same relative economic relationship to his fellows ... all were infinitely better off."

The duo taught that if you flooded the welfare rolls and bankrupted the cities and ultimately the nation, it would foster economic collapse, which would lead to political turmoil so severe that socialism would be accepted as a fix to an out-of-control set of circumstances.

The idea was that if people were starving and the only way to eat was to accept government cheese, rather than starve, the masses would agree to what they would otherwise reject.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/08/cloward-piven_paradise_now.html

Truthful Accounting and the Debt Ceiling Debate

2011-07-30T12:43:00.001-05:00

The debate over raising the $14.3-trillion debt ceiling to some higher number is what Congress will discuss and the media will report over the next 30 days. What will be missing, however, is debate about the nation's real debt burden. Our calculations show it's more than $76 trillion, consisting of Treasury securities recognized under the debt ceiling and the unfunded promises we've made to our seniors, military veterans, and federal workers. Add to that the federal guarantees for everything from coastal flood insurance to expected bailouts for Fannie, Freddie, and the too-big-to-fails, and the nation's total obligations may exceed $100 trillion.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/07/truthful_accounting_should_be_the_first_objective_of_any_debt_ceiling_compromise.html