Category Archives: Free Speech

UPDATED: Grand Delusions of Democracy

America, Democracy, Free Speech, Government, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Ron Paul

On ‘Criminalizing Protest in the States,” RT reports: “Last month that H.R. 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, had overwhelmingly passed the US House of Representatives after only three lawmakers voted against it. On Thursday this week, President Obama inked his name to the legislation and authorized the government to start enforcing a law that has many Americans concerned over how the bill could bury the rights to assemble and protest as guaranteed in the US Constitution.”

Under the Trespass Bill’s latest language … someone could end up in law enforcement custody for entering an area that they don’t realize is Secret Service protected and “engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct” or “impede[s] or disrupt[s] the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions.”

All the while, the US preaches about the demos and its rights to the rest of the world.

At first, it was reported that, “The only members of Congress to reject this alarming evisceration of the First Amendment were two Tea Party Republicans– Reps. Justin Amash of Michigan and Paul Broun of Georgia, and GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul of Texas.”

Another later news item has it that Paul “ABSTAINED on the final vote.” Is this possible? Please find out. I am finding it hard to believe.

UPDATE: Thanks, MyRon Pauli. Dr. Paul did not let us down, after all.

Oh Contradictory Canada!

Canada, Economy, Free Speech, Homeland Security, Law, Liberty, Regulation

“Canada’s balance sheet is healthier than those of other developed nations,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Canada’s federal deficit is just 1.9% of gross domestic product,” and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty “aims to reduce that to zero by 2016 with new cuts in his annual budget, expected next month.”

Unlike the states stateside, the Canadian provinces are aiming to balance their books, as they ought to. “Ontario, the largest province in terms of population, released an independent report recommending 362 spending cuts, from increased school class sizes to fewer hospitals, to rein in a 16 billion Canadian dollar (US$16 billion) budget deficit and balance its books in five years.”

Alas, a show of responsibility on the part of some Canadian leaders has met with opprobrium from mooching members of the public. “Critics of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party have accused the government of using austerity to push through one of its political goals: smaller government.”

OMIGOD. What could be worse than shrinking the state , which invariably grows society? Those arguing against cutting the “oink sector,” so as to ensure these strong fundamentals persist defer to Keynesian political economy, of course. The need for the state to stimulate the delirium of demand, rather than allow the necessary slowdown in consumption that is associated with liquidation of bad investments and increased savings.

…austerity threatens jobs and saps demand at home. It also shuts down a source of global demand that the world needs more than ever amid slower-than-expected growth almost everywhere else in the developed world.

Ludwig von Mises, who wrote the “Theory of Money and Credit” (1912) well in advance of Keynes’ “General Theory,” showed that the Keynesian cure—inflating the money supply in order to stimulate demand—causes depressions.

Writes Peter Schiff: “Stimulus merely numbs the pain of economic contraction, as the underlying trauma gets worse. Austerity might slow an economy down, but at least the wounds are able to heal. America has chosen the former and Europe the latter, albeit not quite as large a dose as needed. The fact that in the short-run Europe is suffering more than the US does not vindicate Washington’s approach. On the contrary, this is exactly what is to be expected.”

Economic good news aside, Canada, on the other hand, boasts draconian anti-free speech laws. One of the most oppressive instruments in the Canadian state is the Human Rights apparatus. “The Human Rights Commission, a Kangaroo court, operates outside the Canadian courts, affording its victims none of the defenses or due process the courts afford. For example, mens rea, or criminal intention: the absence of the intent to harm is no defense in this ‘court.’ Neither is truth.”

To top that, as RT reports, “Lawmakers in the Great White North are debating a bill that will pulverize what’s left of online privacy for Canucks.”

The Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act (Bill C-51) is legislation that isn’t new to Canadian Parliament, but after a series of additions and other changes, lawmakers there are expected to begin discussion on it this week. If passed, law enforcement there will be able to monitor all Internet and telephone activity from anyone, anywhere in the country, without having to obtain a warrant.

Edifying or Stupefying?

Business, Economy, Free Speech, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Media, Propaganda

Omitted from the suspects lined-up in my WND column, “Fox News And Its Truth Deniers,” was U.S. Representative for New York’s 15th congressional district, Charlie Rangel. A more repulsive character to make himself at home on the “dueling perspectives political panel” would be hard to come by. A moral vacuum would open up, says Rangel, if the streets are swept clean of the Occupy Wall Street human and other detritus. Rangel apparently thinks that blocking access to the subway and disrupting business, which is what’s afoot, amounts to speech. Is this the opposite of edifying or what?

UPDATE III: On The Political Cesspool: Argument Über Alles (The White Al)

Free Speech, Ilana Mercer, Ilana On Radio & TV, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Old Right, Propaganda, Race, Racism, Reason, South-Africa

I will be talking Pat J. Buchanan, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot,” flash mobs and the Occupy Wall Street “sleepover,” with Keith Alexander and Bill Rolen of The Political Cesspool. Time: 4:00 Pacific. Day: Oct. 29.

The hard left is baying for Mr. Buchanan’s blood for his recent appearance on the controversial show. Buchanan is standing his ground. He’s no Imus. Boy, is Patrick J. Buchanan refreshingly forceful.

In my prior visit with these broadcasters, I found them to be intelligent and courteous. If James Edwards and Bill Rolen were hostile to an individualist’s perspective, they did not let on. Both Bill and James addressed the arguments advanced in my book. That’s the sum-total of a good interviewer.

Ultimately it’s all about the argument. My position is that one cannot properly undermine a claim by undermining the motives, character or associations of its claimant. To undermine my book, the politically correct (left, libertarian, etc) will have to deal with its arguments (which the paleo establishment has so far conveniently skirted). The rest amounts to smear tactics, a variant of the ad hominem fallacy.

UPDATE I: ROUTE TO FREEDOM. Sorry to disappoint, but it was a terrible interview. I was handed over to a gentleman who wanted to emphasize a racial angle in the conversation, in crude terms too. I did not cope well. I think I reflect Western man’s disdain for race as an organizing principle, and for broad generalizations. Good luck with organizing modern westerners around race. I prefer to beat back the state so that individuals regain freedom of association, dominion over property, the absolute right of self-defense; the right to hire, fire, and, generally, associate at will. That’s the route to freedom.

UPDATE II: It’s just not in a civilized person’s nature to speak as though he were a negative image of Al Sharpton. Would you not agree?

UPDATE III (Oct. 31): To the kind comment below: On his MSNBC show, Al Sharpton behaves just like my host conducted himself. The white Al talked over me constantly, went with his own angle, rather than with the book’s tack, and made it virtually impossible for me to defend my perspective or speak to individualism and to the points made in my book—a grisly, gory book which glosses over nothing in terms of the color and cure for crime in SA and beyond. I’ve been re-reading sections such as “Racial Voting Coming to a Polling Station Near You.” The well-sourced, analytical points made in that section deserve to be elicited by an intelligent interviewer. The same holds for other sections.

I’m done with intellectually incurious dim bulbs who want to promote their perspective, rather than explore another. How is that edifying? And how is it civilized to railroad an invited guest? And how like Al that is.