Category Archives: libertarianism

Yes, The ‘Banksters’ Are Bad, But So Is Greek Profligacy & Sloth

Debt, Economy, EU, Europe, Federal Reserve Bank, Labor, libertarianism

After midnight, tonight, Greece will turn into a pumpkin. The Eurozone nations won’t be bailing the country out again after the deadline. Or so they say. For the life of me, however, I can’t understand why some ostensibly rational libertarians have joined Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert at RT in shaking the fist at the “banksters,” on behalf of the Greeks robbed.

Because EU manipulations have hurt Greece the most, some libertarians have concluded that Greece is the most victimized. That’s but part of the picture. True, the “apparatchiks of the EU” have aimed to create “one nation under inflation.” The EU superstate is especially bad for the unproductive Greeks. The same can be said for the effects of the European central bank and its beneficiaries: they harm the Greek people most.

But why discount the simpler realities of Greek’s political economy? As even this (unhinged) article concedes, “Greece had been on a steady path toward bankruptcy for 25 years.” Why not Germany, the workhorse of Europe?

Greece is among the least productive and most profligate EU countries. It’s a messy habit of mind that ignores this reality in favor of an analysis of macroeconomics alone. Thus, for example, Greece has a population of about 11 million, close on one million of whom were in the employ of the public sector, in 2009.

Is that 10 percent?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Do you know what kind of liability that creates in perpetuity in terms of pensions and perks? The sovereign debt crisis has since forced the government to fire some parasites, but you get the drift.

As far as I know, Greeks have not voted to leave the EU and restore their own currency. This would indeed make them more competitive. And the Greek people have elected a socialist government that is resisting cuts to the public pension system, changes in the parasites’ retirement age (ridiculously young), and flexibility in sclerotic labor markets, socialized by the people’s choice. Would the Greeks rather starve than work? It seem so.

More Greece facts: “Greece deal: Seriously, what’s holding it up?”

UPDATED: #JoshDuggar And His Folks Give Me The Heebie-Jeebies (Want Sympathy? Stay Off The Grid)

Celebrity, Family, Law, libertarianism, Sex

Don’t make me write about the simpering, sanctimonious Duggar family, and their priapic son who preyed on his many sisters.

Their enabler, Megyn Kelly, noticed not at all the Freudian slips tumbling from the mouths of these “parents” (and doesn’t the whiny mom give you the heebie-jeebies?):

‘The girls didn’t want their ‘record’ revealed. They wanted to tell their own story.” The girls don’t have a “record.” I was under the impression that the girls were victims of the son (and their fruitful, multiplying parents). And all that, “Over their clothes”; boy Josh Duggar only “touched his sisters over their clothes.”

Look, we libertarians like it when family, church and local authorities handle problems “in-house.” But this was not THAT!

As to Kelly! The woman was so eager to finesse the excesses and phoniness of these parents that she forgot, oops, to mention that Josh’s mentor was later charged with child pornography.

Yuksters all.

UPDATE (6/4): WANT SYMPATHY? STAY OFF THE GRID.

This is the first time I’ve heard of these people. But now that I have, let me say that I have as much sympathy for the Duggars for suffering a legal leak as I have for the Duggar parents for marketing their family, breeding for the cameras; as I have for celebrities who take images of their snatches, upload to some Cloud (cuckoo) and bitch about the theft of these pics. Who cares. Rule of law? What law! Stay private. Stay off the grid.

What #RandPaul Gives With One Hand, He Takes Away With The Other

Homeland Security, Intelligence, libertarianism, Regulation, Ron Paul, Terrorism, The State

Sen. Rand Paul went astray. His rousing remarks against the renewal of the PATRIOT Act were softened by a call for “the hiring of a 1,000 more FBI agents.” “We need more FBI analysts analyzing data,” said Paul.

Moreover, and as reported at Target Liberty, it is the legal opinion of Judge Andrew Napolitano “that the US government is lying to the American people with the claim that the mass surveillance would be suspended upon the expiration of the PATRIOT Act provision used to justify the mass surveillance program.”

Essentially, the Patriot Act will be revamped, only to reemerge as the USA FREEDOM Act.

Napolitano states:There are two other provisions in the law that the NSA relies on which will cause it to continue to spy on Americans even if section 215 of the PATRIOT Act does expire. One of those is a section of the FISA law called section 702, and one of them is a still-existing executive order signed by President George W. Bush in the fall or 2001, which has not been tinkered with, interfered with, or rescinded.

By Robert Wenzel’s telling, the “best analysis of the Patriot Act renewal and the USA Freedom Act” comes courtesy of “Glenn Greenwald in discussion with Jameel Jaffer, the Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU,” at The Intercept.

The question of whether “the sunset of Section 215 will be a meaningful step towards reform” is especially informative:

GREENWALD: That’s what I was going to ask next, actually.

JAFFER: That’s a good question. The problem –

GREENWALD: Let me just interject there: the argument that people make, and I’m sympathetic to it, which isn’t the same thing as saying I agree with it, is how significant would it really be?

The NSA has all of these other authorities. They can cite executive orders and other things, on top of which they’ve done a really good job of co-opting laws in the past. We had this FISA law that said you can’t eavesdrop on Americans’ communications without a warrant, and they did it anyway.

They invented this incredibly radical interpretation of the Patriot Act – of 215 – that says “This lets us collect everything we want,” and that was the interpretation the Second Circuit, ten years later, rejected, finally, just a couple of weeks ago.

So given how adept they are at kind of co-opting the process to do what they want – the other authorities – and their propensity to circumvent the law or even break it to do what they want, how significant would it really be?

… MORE.

UPDATE III: Liberty Vs. Conspiracy: The #Left Hates #PamelaGeller, But Why Do Some #Libertarians?

Conspiracy, Free Speech, Islam, libertarianism, Liberty, Neoconservatism

“The Charlie Hebdo Hypocrites” floated the idea that “the double standard toward what is perceived as rightist speech (Pam Geller’s) and left-wing freedom of expression (Charlie Hebdo’s) is a holdover construct of communism,” during which right-wingers were demonized and targeted for destruction. There is no other difference “between Charlie Hebdo’s defiance of Islamic blasphemy laws and Geller’s defiance of the same laws.”

For his part, Jack Kerwick also pinpointed leftist favoritism as the reason “legions of people from around the Western world were clamoring to ‘stand with Charlie,’ while Geller and her organization have been condemned …”

Look, Pamela Geller is a consummate neoconservative; Israel über alles. These things can annoy libertarians; myself included. (About her person, moreover, I can say only this: She has dabbled briefly in writing about South Africa. In the process, Geller made sweeping errors, but has never cited my work on the topic. And when I asked her to reciprocate a “Follow” on Twitter, and tweet out my “Charlie Hebdo Hypocrites,” written in her defense, she failed to reply. She continues to send me fundraisers.)

In any case, what, pray tell, is the reason behind the long-standing, obsequious and convoluted stand, adopted by some libertarian leaders against what is a quintessential part of living freely and unafraid? About one of the defining libertarian issue of our times—speaking and publishing under the threat of injury or death—some of my libertarian friends are acting weirdly, have been for some time. (Geller’s event was on private property.)

As Jack put it, “You don’t need to agree with her, or even like her, in order to recoil at the utter hypocrisy of Pamela Geller’s [leftist] critics.”

What about her libertarian detractors?

What do I mean? See “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block” and Lew Rockwell’s May 4 Facebook post.

LEW:

Lew Rockwell
May 4 at 10:50am :

Just because ISIS is a propaganda dream come true for the US empire and its Middle Eastern satraps does not mean it was funded, like other convenient Arab groups, by the CIA, Al Mukahbarat, Mossad, MI6, or DGSE. And now ISIS–after the shootings in Texas–will be used to promote further not only US world dominion, but a full-scale federal police state.

Were the shooters patsies in classic agent provocateur fashion? I’m only sure of one thing: it is not a good idea to seek to offend someone’s religion. Apparently the Texas cartoon show was not, like Charlie Hebdo, mainly aimed at Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church, but it’s still a vile notion. Nor, note, would free speech be used to defend a show of anti-Semitic, anti-black, or anti-gay cartoons. But if haters are promoting the state’s foreign and domestic tyranny, why anything is OK.

UPDATE I: As I’ve often stated, some libertarians are social reductionists. All problems they reduce to “The State Made Me Do It.” More accurately, the US State made me do it. It’s of a piece with the Left’s denial of individual responsibility. Thus, the acting out by Muslims is not the fault of the individual and his muse, the Islamic faith, to these libertarians; rather, it’s due to US imperial overreach.

I prefer to say that American aggression is likely a necessary condition for the hatred of America, but it is insufficient a condition. As for a person like Pam or Wielders who wants to depict the truth about Mo: We’re Americans! We speak our minds. Pam’s eff you attitude is 100% fabulous. It’s actually very Israeli/Jewish. We call it Dufka in Hebrew: In other words, tell me I can’t do something benign and righteous, and by golly, I’ll do it. Way to roll! If libertarains persist in being such effetes, they won’t get dates and will go extinct.

UPDATE II (5/6): LIBERTY VS. CONSPIRACY.

Libertarianism is predicated on the non-aggression axiom. It’s quite clear which party is the bully and aggressor here, and which party wishes to force the other to live within its own byzantine boundaries. Geller is right.

UPDATE III (5/19):

Jack Kerwick writes: “From what I’ve been able to gather, the only evil many of these libertarians recognize is that of “the State,” more specifically, the US government. PG is to be despised b/c she is a prop of the State, a neocon, Israeli-Firster, etc. Muslims, however, like all people of color, are simply responding to American imperial aggression, and so forth. There is an air of unreality about it all, the shade of the same PC fantasy for which the left is known.”