Category Archives: libertarianism

Oh For The Privileges Of A ‘Registered Provisional Immigrant’ (RPI)

Classical Liberalism, Government, Homeland Security, IMMIGRATION, libertarianism, Nationhood, Taxation, The State, Welfare

“Immigration Bill A Statist’s Dream” is now on Economic Policy Journal, which, given its traffic rank and the intellectual vitality of its authors and editor, is fast usurping all others as the premier libertarian site on the worldwide web.

To the analysis offered by the column (always circumscribed by a word count), I’d like to add the following points for your consideration:

What is there to like about the fact that the new, privileged wards of the state will enjoy protections unavailable to nationals or to immigrants who’re in the US on merit?

Ask egalitarians of the libertarian and liberal left.

There is not much you and I can do—much less our corrupt representatives in the House—if General Keith Alexander’s National Security Agency and apparatus sics his spies on us. The same goes for our rights under the successors of Lois Lerner and Sarah Hall Ingram, at the Internal Revenue Service’s tax-exempt division.

But woe betide the NSA or IRS agent who does unto a “registered provisional immigrant” (RPI) what he did to a tea-party patriot. The “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” promises to name and shame this wicked government worker. Caught in the improper use of a registered provisional immigrant’s personal data, the agent will incur a criminal penalty.

The Bill (the lengthy summary of which is linked here) specifies that snooping on beneficiaries of S.744 will be permitted only for the purpose of determining benefits. These, to quote the EPJ column, are “carved out of the hides of taxpaying Americans, immigrants included.”

To prevent any “errant” law-enforcement officer from daring to quiz a suspicious registered provisional Democrat about his status, a “document of special protection while waiting” will be issued to The Protected One.

Oh for the privileges of a ‘Registered Provisional Immigrant’ (RPI).

I suppose that we-are-the-world libertarians can rejoice in the fact that the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” makes “illegal alien” a thing of the past—not due to the promised defense of this country’s borders, but because of a near abolition of the legal versus illegal distinction.

As this column has written, “Would that the American Welfare State did not exist. But since it does and is, unfortunately, likely to persist for some time to come, it must stop at the Rio Grande.”

The same source has also done the work your US representatives won’t do—can’t we export them?—and that is: Read and honestly distill the Immigration Bill.

‘Are We Rome?’ Was A Question Asked and Answered Long Ago

Ancient History, Government, Iraq, libertarianism, Military, Taxation, The State, War

To the hackneyed question, ‘Are We Rome?’, John Stossel replies, “Not yet.” He is completely wrong, just as he was wrong to dismiss the “National Security Administration tracking patterns in our emails and phone calls,” to quote.

Mr. Stossel takes comfort in the fact that “we don’t kill people for sport. When we go to war, misguided or not, we don’t conquer or plunder. And when we win, we usually leave.” (July 18, 2013)

Who is he kidding? The US hunts down and kills very many innocents abroad by drone. It’s a bit of a sport—so much so that decadent New Rome has even established a “new medal that honors drone pilots and computer experts” for their long-distance killing prowess.

Courtesy of Uncle Sam, war-time slaughter has just been industrialized, streamlined, made more efficient in our times.

Compare the demographic and economic indices of countries the US has invaded—for their own good, of course, but without their consent—before and after the “merciful” intervention. You’ll get a better idea of the carnage than John Stossel allows.

Libya is no longer. Ditto Iraq. Afghanistan is not doing much better since Rome set up camp there.

Read “Casualties of the Iraq War.”

Read “Civilian casualties in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present).”

Read “Deaths caused by Coalition forces” in Libya.

Again, contrary to the Stossel assertion, the latter-day Rome has mechanized the warfare-state’s killing and has refined its propaganda wing to an art—so fine an art that John Stossel has bought it hook, line, and sinker.

No-one attempting to tackle the ‘Are We Rome?’ question should be allowed to get away with failing to mention Cullen Murphy’s book by that name. This is a question that was asked and answered already. Superbly.

A 2010 column I wrote highlighted “the unflattering parallels between the imperial rule of ancient Rome and that of modern America,” as illustrated in Murphy’s book, “Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of Rome.”

The federal payroll in Washington Murphy pegs at 360,000 (BO: Before Obama), calling this estimate a “convenient deceit,” as an “even larger number of people in the Washington area — about 400,000 — work for private companies that are doing government work.” Add to the above a quarter million people who live in the vicinity and feed off the government directly or indirectly; the lawyers and lobbyist, the wonks and accountants, the reporters and caterers and limousine drivers and panegyrists, and all the aides and associates whose job it is to functions as someone else’s brain.”
Don’t forget that the D.C. hood is home to your favorite oh-so gritty media personalities, who gather inside or near the Bubble to reap “the benefits of being at the center of the Imperium.” Back to their role model, Rome:
The biggest component of [Rome’s] prodigious intake was something called the annona, an in-kind tax levied by Rome on everyplace else, and collected in the form of grain, which was used to provide free bread for most of Rome’s inhabitants. … Eventually, the annona was expanded beyond grain to include olive oil and wine. If you think of the annona as tax revenue, which it was, then the revenue not only accomplished its stated purpose of feeding the city; it also supported large swaths of private-sector activity, from shipping to baking to crime. Some of this activity was encouraged with tax breaks and grants of citizenship. There was great wealth to be had off government contracts. … the annona remained [the Empire’s] essential lifeline, preserved at all costs.
“All life in Washington today derives ultimately from the capitals’ own version of Rome’s annona — the continuous infusion not of grain and olive oil but of tax revenue and borrowed money. Instead of ships and barges there are banks, 10,000 of them designated for this purpose, which funnel the nations’ tax payments to the city. This ‘never-ending flow of revenue creates a broad level of affluence that has no real counterpart anywhere in America.” Says Murphy: “Washington simply doesn’t look like the rest of America.” But its residents “fail to view this as bizarre.”

UPDATE III: The Colosseum of Courtroom Cretins (Walter Block Adjudicates)

Affirmative Action, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Intelligence, Law, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism

“The Colosseum of Courtroom Cretins” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

… In the course of doing her journalistic due diligence, Van Susteren stumbled upon another falsity peddled by the administration’s front man, Attorney General Eric Holder, mass media and the rest of the “Racial Industrial Complex.”

The slick-tongued Holder had told his primary constituency, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, that “people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat,” and that “‘Stand Your Ground’-style laws —such as the one that figured into the George Zimmerman case—’undermine public safety,’ and ‘create dangerous conflicts in our neighborhoods.'”

Why then did the “Instructions read to the Zimmerman jury by The Honorable Debra S. Nelson, Circuit Judge,” state the reverse? Again, I excerpt from Justice Nelson’s instructions on the “Justifiable Use of Force”:

“If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in anyplace where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.”

It just so happens that Zimmerman was unable to retreat. As the facts showed, conclusively, Tryavon Martin was atop, pounding Zimmerman into the ground. By trial’s end, the prosecution no longer disputed this unassailable fact.

Holder’s lie was compounded by the fact that, as Van Susteren discovered in the course of digging in federal statutes, the law generally recognizes the right of the person who is not the aggressor to stand his ground. …

The complete column is “The Colosseum of Courtroom Cretins.” Read it on WND. .

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UPDATE I: Greta Van Susteren is investigating “The Zimmerman arrest affidavit,“ belatedly, about which a Colorado law-enforcement officer wrote the following last year:

“…is so deficient in properly sourced factual information and full of unsubstantiated, unsourced conclusions, I am appalled that a State’s Attorney would even give it a second look. …”

MORE.

UPDATE II: JIMMY CARTER. I would have expected that an old “white guy” like Jimmy Carter would have a bit of the Cartesian logic in him and come down on the side of the fine jury Zimmerman had. Indeed, here is Former President Jimmy Carter on the George Zimmerman trial:

“I think the jury made the right decision based on the evidence presented,” Carter told Atlanta station WXIA-TV.
“The prosecution inadvertently set the standard so high that the jury had to be convinced that it was a deliberate act by Zimmerman that he was not at all defending himself.” he added.
“It’s not a moral question, it’s a legal question and the American law requires that the jury listens to the evidence presented.”

MORE.

UPDATE III: Walter Block Adjudicates The Law In A Just Society Over at Economic Policy Journal:

Zimmerman was akin to a private (hence justified) cop. He had every right to do what he did. Martin had no right to resist. The only problem I have with this is that Zimmerman should have had some sort of uniform, or badge. Let’s change [the] scenario slightly. Suppose Zimmerman was a real (unjustified govt) cop. There’s no doubt there would not have even have been a trial.

John Kerry’s Irate Constituents … In Syria

Classical Liberalism, Foreign Policy, libertarianism, Rights

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was confronted by his irate constituents … in Syria.

The consequences of the US’s long-standing adventurous foreign policy are that “Angry Syrian refugees … demand [that] the United States and the international community to do more to help opponents of President Bashar Assad’s regime, venting frustration at perceived inaction on their behalf,” Yahoo reported.

They should talk to the rebels. As sad as this is,

“…the US government’s duties in the classical liberal tradition are negative, not positive; to protect freedoms, not to plan projects. … distinguish we must, moreover, between the [Syrians’] right to be free and our obligation to free them.
We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty, and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because (supposedly) upholding the negative rights of the world’s citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—their lives, liberties, and livelihoods. The classical liberal government’s duty is to its own citizens, first. ….
Again, the duty of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory” is primarily to its own.

(From “Classical Liberalism And State Schemes”)

On the other hand, while “compassionate pickpockets” of the left are eager to conscript the country into inefficient and unethical policies, we should all agree to say a big, “YES TO US AID, NO TO USAID”:

As private individuals, we can give to the Syrian people as much as we like. It is far more efficient, provided one finds a private charity operating in the region.

Proof that USAID seldom reaches the people for whom it is intended: “the situation remains unchanged” in the refugees camps even though,

The U.S. has provided nearly $815 million in humanitarian aid to Syrians through the United Nations. Of that, $147 million has been directed to relief agencies working in Jordan, which is home to about 600,000 displaced Syrians.