Constitution, Ethics, Family, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Ron Paul
Economic Policy Journal juxtaposes Ron Paul and Rand Paul with resepct to what will, one day, be recognized as one of the defining issues of our time: EDWARD SNOWDEN’s whistleblowing bravery.
Ron Paul on Edward Snowden:
We should be thankful for individuals like Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald who see injustice being carried out by their own government and speak out, despite the risk.
Rand’s equivocation makes me miss Ron Paul even more. Read it at EPJ.
Argument, Constitution, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Intelligence, Law, Liberty, Rights, Socialism, Terrorism, The State
If we accept state aggression based on prior restraint arguments, then aggress we must ad absurdum. Why not stop all statists from procreating, lest they sire proponents of state theft and aggression? Such a program would at least be in furtherance of liberty. (And we could all do with fewer Meghan McCains.)
Prior restraint arguments are being galvanized as justification for nation-wide information sweeps conducted by the state for over a decade. Another cow, “Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching,” said “that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future.”
It is quite telling that the story about the “NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily” was broken by Glenn Greenwald (an American) writing for The Guardian (British).
Most serious libertarians have been shouting about state snooping from the rooftops for over a decade. Now you’re listening! I already told you weeks back that there was absolutely nothing new about state snooping.
Via The Guardian:
Under the Bush administration, officials in security agencies had disclosed to reporters the large-scale collection of call records data by the NSA, but this is the first time significant and top-secret documents have revealed the continuation of the practice on a massive scale under President Obama.
The unlimited nature of the records being handed over to the NSA is extremely unusual. Fisa court orders typically direct the production of records pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets.
The Guardian approached the National Security Agency, the White House and the Department of Justice for comment in advance of publication on Wednesday. All declined. The agencies were also offered the opportunity to raise specific security concerns regarding the publication of the court order.
The court order expressly bars Verizon from disclosing to the public either the existence of the FBI’s request for its customers’ records, or the court order itself.
“We decline comment,” said Ed McFadden, a Washington-based Verizon spokesman.
(I believe “Entertainment Interruptus,” published on November 28, 2001, was my first column touching on the The Patriot Act.)
Democracy, Ethics, Etiquette, Individual Rights, Morality, South-Africa
Miguel write:
Mrs Mercer:
I purchased your book Into the Cannibal’s Pot and have just started reading it.
From your book and other sources on your website, I understand that you and your family (particularly your father) held an anti-apartheid stance.
Your book however, describes the current situation in SA, particularly after the multi-racial, democratic elections of 1994, as having resulted in a borderline lawless state.
My question to you is: Did you believe, prior to 1994, that the an end to the apartheid regime would bring a more beneficial political and quality of life process to SA.
Thanking you advance
It goes without saying that I make a point of replying to almost all letters I get, provide they’re polite. Thousands, since I began writing. As George Will once wrote, “manners are the practice of a virtue. The virtue is called civility, a word related—as a foundation is related to a house—to the word civilization.”
I’ll address in a future post the issue of what failing to answer your mail says about you. For now, here’s my reply to Miguel:
Hello Miguel,
Thank you for reading Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa.
I believe that nowhere in my book do I state the belief below. Moreover, from the fact that I oppose state-enforced apartheid—it does not follow that I support what I call in The Cannibal, a “raw, ripe democracy.”
By the end of the book, you will better understand this perspective. My involvement in SA as a young woman was humanitarian, not political.
You are correct in your assessment of my father’s thinking.
ILANA Mercer
Free Markets, Individual Rights, Republicans, Ron Paul, Taxation
One of the reasons the Internal Revenue Service will only ever accrete in size and scope is the thugs that man it. Watch this YouTube clip of a representative cross-section of the IRS workforce, no doubt, at a “training conference.” Look at these ugly, off-putting beasts getting their freak-on at your expense. They dress and look like crap, butts and crotches wiggling all over the place, and they sound like crap.
You don’t imagine that such a gross-out of a group—repulsive both physically and mentally—could add value to a company that is vying for the consumer’s voluntary vote, do you? “Give me a break.”
Although no Ron Paul in his understanding of American liberty, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and not Sen. Rand Paul, has come closest to articulating the solution to the agency of legalized thuggery called the IRS.
The IRS ought to be abolished. Working Americans ought to be liberated from its deforming and deadly clutches.