Category Archives: Individual Rights

UPDATED: Statism Starts With YOU! (Chuckie Misses Bush)

Debt, Economy, Healthcare, Individual Rights, libertarianism, Liberty, Morality, Political Economy, Political Philosophy, Republicans, The State, Welfare

The following is from “Statism Starts With YOU!”, now on WND.Com:

“Why did federal regulators not intervene sooner? A tragedy could have been averted. That was the first demand made following the accidental death of 8 spectators, and the injury of 12, at the California 200 off-road race. The derby was held in the Mojave Desert, in the Lucerne Valley. The driver of one of the racing trucks lost control of his vehicle, flipped and landed on bystanders, who are in the habit of getting as close as they possibly can to the tracks.”

“Evidently, what draws fans of desert racing to the sport, attest Phil Willon and David Zahniser of the Los Angeles Times, is the ‘the danger, dust and noise of watching 3,500-pound trucks roaring past — close enough almost to touch — and then rocketing into the air over treacherous jumps with nicknames like ‘the rock pile.'”

It’s all great fun until something goes terribly wrong. Then it’s someone else’s fault.” …

This tragedy, off-the-beaten-track, well illustrates the dynamics of state encroachment. Statism always and everywhere begins with The People.”

The complete column is “Statism Starts With YOU!”

Read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

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UPDATE (Aug. 20): “I miss Bush intensely,” said one of the main Republican ideologues, Charles Krauthammer. “Iraq ended this week fairly successfully. And the economy, Obama purchased with the stimulus; it’s his economy.”

That’s the depth of the thinking of your above-average Republican.

UPDATED: Gold Is Bad For Government Health (Remember Executive Order 6102)

Business, Debt, Economy, History, Individual Rights, Inflation, John McCain, Regulation, Rights, Socialism, The State

The health scare bill is the gift that just keeps giving—giving-up individual freedoms to government. From a “TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE” to a “SURCHARGE ON HIGH INCOME INDIVIDUALS” to “STUDENT LOAN REFORM”; it’s all there, designed to leave little room for voluntary, peaceful exchanges. But we missed another provision among the thousands of sections the H.R.4872 Reconciliation Act of 2010 sports:

A “tack-on provision to the law that puts gold coin buyers and sellers under closer government scrutiny.”

Gold is a necessary financial hedge in the survival on the road to serfdom.

UPDATE (July 24): Gold Confiscation coming? FDR, idolized by BHO and McMussolini alike—by almost all offshoots of the duopoly, in fact—forbade “the Hoarding of Gold Coin, Gold Bullion and Gold Certificates” at pains of punishment: a fine of “not more than $10,000, or “imprisoned for not more than ten years or both.”

Bureaucrats To The Border

Federalism, IMMIGRATION, Individual Rights, Law, Nationhood

POLITICAL PARTICLES IN MOTION, SUSPENDED IN GAS. With the midterm elections looming, politicians have accelerated their Brownian motion—that is “the random movement of microscopic particles suspended in gas or liquid.” BHO is sending the promised bureaucrats to the border, to act in a “command-and-control’ and other support positions.” Presumably, to supervise local troopers and make sure they do not use force against aggressors:

FoxNews:

Administration officials on Monday announced that the 1,200 National Guard troops pledged weeks ago by President Obama will deploy to the southwest border starting on Aug. 1 as part of an effort to bring the region “under control.”
Alan Bersin, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the troops would “support” the work of Department of Homeland Security personnel already operating on the border.
“The Guard has been a tried and tested support to law enforcement … and I’m confident they’ll prove it again in this instance,” Bersin said.
He said the deployment will coincide with a boost in surveillance technology in the region.

The rights of life, liberty and property are meaningless—rights in name only—unless defended vigorously and forcefully against aggressors.

Life, Liberty and Property Stronger (State Rights, Not So Much)

Constitution, Federalism, GUNS, Individual Rights, Natural Law, States' Rights

As someone who doesn’t believe the Constitution gave the government the right to enforce the Bill of Rights in the states, the Supreme Court’s latest gun-rights decision presents with the usual dilemma. The SCOTUS has decided that “the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms applies to every jurisdiction in the country – throwing doubt on a Chicago law that bans handguns in the home.”

Still, and overall, the ruling will revive the eroded, immutable right to defend life, liberty and property. (The title of John Lott’s op-ed encapsulates exactly that: “Court’s Gun Decision An Important Win for Americans Who Want to Defend Themselves.”) This is a war. Progressives have left little of the original Constitutional scheme. A victory for natural rights in the rights-violating society we inhabit is a good thing. The good guys won. A toast to the patriots who fought the good fight: a besieged black man from Chicago and his lawyer.