Category Archives: libertarianism

Update III: Palin Pooh-Poohs CPAC (& A Third-Party Plan)

John McCain, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin

BRAVO. Is this divorce? I hope so.

Politico: “Palin is declining an invitation to address the Conservative Political Action Conference next month because, a source said, she does not want to be affiliated with the longtime organizer of the traditional movement confab.”

This is Palin’s first significant act of political separation from the “GOP RIP”—and from “politics as usual,” that hackneyed term she and “McMussolini” kept using on the campaign trail. Palin embodied unusual politics on a local level.

Stay tuned. There’s more, and it involves Sarah and Farah, WND’s CEO and chief. Developing.

Update: Palin will be headlining the First National Tea Party Convention, scheduled for February 4-6, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. The formidable Michele Bachmann will join her. And, as David Shyster of MSNBC advertised (negatively), WND’s founder will speak too. (WND announced it as well.) As you all know, I write for WND.COM; have done so going on a decade.

The mainstream swamp of a media is framing Palin’s decision, as is their wont, as one that is based on some womanly whim—the fungus press is feminist only when it comes to ladies of the left. I hope, for Sarah’s sake, that this “break” with the GOP corpse is philosophical. In light of the fact that late last year Palin endorsed the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman for the 23rd Congressional District of New York, I do believe she is breaking with the GOP.

(I’ll have surprisingly good things to say about her book, which I grabbed at an airport, and have almost finished.)

Losers are those who’re pointing toward the need to revive the rotting, rigor-ridden corpse that is the GOP. Not possible. Not desirable.

A third party is the solution. However, for this to happen in earnest, the (Ron) Paul and Palin factions must commence serious ideological cross fertilization (my diplomatic way of urging Palin to heed Paul), gather the best people around and launch.

To be frank, as someone who considers herself a Paulite—and who has been called “the most persuasive Paul booster” by one of the most perceptive paleos—I see the libertarian Campaign for Liberty falling into the methodology of the GOP. By this I mean the penchant to close ranks and invite into the inner sanctum only strict and obedient adherents, as well as non-entity groupies with zero gravitas (often blond).

How like the GOP.

Good people need to elevate themselves above tribal and ego-bound instincts and gather around the best and the brightest, lots of us—not only five bright sparks, 50 mediocrities, and 500 sparkly, dim bimbos.

I was asked by the Paul Campaign to endorse Ron Paul. He’s my president of choice, so I did. Here is the blurb that was used during the campaign. I was asked to pen a position editorial for said campaign explaining why Ron Paul was VERY GOOD for Israel. I did that too.

Still, when the Campaign roles into town—my town—I am not even invited to the occasion.

I am no seeker of publicity or inclusivity. I’m independent. What matters to me is the integrity and longevity of my writing. Nevertheless, I do believe that by ignoring people with gravitas (just becasue they are independent-minded, but not always like-minded); choosing instead to embrace groupies, lightweights and other anon riffraff—good people with a good cause contribute to the dumbing down of the liberty movement.

Let’s hope Palin can avert this echo-chamber instinct and gather around her a coalition of Buchananites, Bachmannites, Paulites, Beckians, etc.

Update II: Also to be mindful of is the danger of gentrifying a grassroots movement. What you have in the tea party swell is an inchoate, energetic thing with great promise. Politicos, always eager to turn a protest into a constituency, could seize the movement, as a stepping stone to power, and corrupt it. The movement has to be given solid philosophical contours, but how do you keep the Republicans away. Especially when they’re packaged as appealingly as Sean Duffy is. Duffy’s a Hamiltonian (not a good thing) GOPier.

Update III (Jan. 9): The Democratic and the Republican Parties are one and the same thing. Each is a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging forever from one putrid entity to the other.

The balance is kept by bamboozling (successfully, as it would appear from posts on this blog) respective supporters. The mesmerizing momentum will endure forever; will keep the colluding quislings in power in perpetuity, and continue to sell books for their respective fascistic philosophers.

The philosophical foot soldiers for the duopoly have their own game going. Whether they are shouting “liberal this; liberals that” all the way to the bank, or suddenly discovering the Constitution when the rival faction is in power—they help maintain status quo.

I think it was my WND colleague Vox Day who pointed out how the Republican reptiles move to the left when in power, and the Democratic dogs shuffle to the right when they get their turn.

Ultimately the creeps converge.

If what I am saying is true—and it is—then the assertion that the Republican Party can be reformed is a lie, a pie-in-the-sky; not pragmatism but falsehood. People who help elevate the characters involved in this cruel farce; who promulgate The Lie are, thus, either stupid or venal.

There is a scene in “Dangerous Liaisons” where the protagonist, a lying schemer, is “booed and disgraced by the audience at the opera,” and retreats to her boudoir never to emerge again.

This is the appropriate metaphor for the characters involved in American politics.

If our society had an ounce of moral fiber, this would be the fate of the Ann Couters, Rush Limbaughs, Levines—the blood-lusting vampires of the Republican War Machine, whose bitch-hot talk helped send gullible young men to their death.

This would be the fate of the grand designers behind the Democratic welfare apparatus.

A Third Party option is not for the quick-fix quacks among us. It will be slow and laborious. But it is the only way.

The Third-Party road involves a planned strategy whereby support is withdrawn from all candidates running for the duopoly. It involves the meeting of the smartest minds, with the most integrity. That the “Campaign for Liberty” has not called on myself, Vox, and other marginalized voices with sizable (WND) platforms, despite our tireless work for liberty, demonstrates that its movers and shakers are moving and shaking like a cult; not like a force of nature.

What I like about Palin is that she is a force of nature. And she has lived the quintessential American life. She is everything that is good in America. Can she bury the Republican corpse and do what I suggest? I honestly don’t know.

About her book at a later date.

Update III: Palin Pooh-Poohs CPAC (& A Third-Party Plan)

John McCain, libertarianism, Political Philosophy, Republicans, Ron Paul, Sarah Palin

BRAVO. Is this divorce? I hope so.

Politico: “Palin is declining an invitation to address the Conservative Political Action Conference next month because, a source said, she does not want to be affiliated with the longtime organizer of the traditional movement confab.”

This is Palin’s first significant act of political separation from the “GOP RIP”—and from “politics as usual,” that hackneyed term she and “McMussolini” kept using on the campaign trail. Palin embodied unusual politics on a local level.

Stay tuned. There’s more, and it involves Sarah and Farah, WND’s CEO and chief. Developing.

Update: Palin will be headlining the First National Tea Party Convention, scheduled for February 4-6, 2010 at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel in Nashville, TN. The formidable Michele Bachmann will join her. And, as David Shyster of MSNBC advertised (negatively), WND’s founder will speak too. (WND announced it as well.) As you all know, I write for WND.COM; have done so going on a decade.

The mainstream swamp of a media is framing Palin’s decision, as is their wont, as one that is based on some womanly whim—the fungus press is feminist only when it comes to ladies of the left. I hope, for Sarah’s sake, that this “break” with the GOP corpse is philosophical. In light of the fact that late last year Palin endorsed the Conservative Party’s Doug Hoffman for the 23rd Congressional District of New York, I do believe she is breaking with the GOP.

(I’ll have surprisingly good things to say about her book, which I grabbed at an airport, and have almost finished.)

Losers are those who’re pointing toward the need to revive the rotting, rigor-ridden corpse that is the GOP. Not possible. Not desirable.

A third party is the solution. However, for this to happen in earnest, the (Ron) Paul and Palin factions must commence serious ideological cross fertilization (my diplomatic way of urging Palin to heed Paul), gather the best people around and launch.

To be frank, as someone who considers herself a Paulite—and who has been called “the most persuasive Paul booster” by one of the most perceptive paleos—I see the libertarian Campaign for Liberty falling into the methodology of the GOP. By this I mean the penchant to close ranks and invite into the inner sanctum only strict and obedient adherents, as well as non-entity groupies with zero gravitas (often blond).

How like the GOP.

Good people need to elevate themselves above tribal and ego-bound instincts and gather around the best and the brightest, lots of us—not only five bright sparks, 50 mediocrities, and 500 sparkly, dim bimbos.

I was asked by the Paul Campaign to endorse Ron Paul. He’s my president of choice, so I did. Here is the blurb that was used during the campaign. I was asked to pen a position editorial for said campaign explaining why Ron Paul was VERY GOOD for Israel. I did that too.

Still, when the Campaign roles into town—my town—I am not even invited to the occasion.

I am no seeker of publicity or inclusivity. I’m independent. What matters to me is the integrity and longevity of my writing. Nevertheless, I do believe that by ignoring people with gravitas (just becasue they are independent-minded, but not always like-minded); choosing instead to embrace groupies, lightweights and other anon riffraff—good people with a good cause contribute to the dumbing down of the liberty movement.

Let’s hope Palin can avert this echo-chamber instinct and gather around her a coalition of Buchananites, Bachmannites, Paulites, Beckians, etc.

Update II: Also to be mindful of is the danger of gentrifying a grassroots movement. What you have in the tea party swell is an inchoate, energetic thing with great promise. Politicos, always eager to turn a protest into a constituency, could seize the movement, as a stepping stone to power, and corrupt it. The movement has to be given solid philosophical contours, but how do you keep the Republicans away. Especially when they’re packaged as appealingly as Sean Duffy is. Duffy’s a Hamiltonian (not a good thing) GOPier.

Update III (Jan. 9): The Democratic and the Republican Parties are one and the same thing. Each is a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging forever from one putrid entity to the other.

The balance is kept by bamboozling (successfully, as it would appear from posts on this blog) respective supporters. The mesmerizing momentum will endure forever; will keep the colluding quislings in power in perpetuity, and continue to sell books for their respective fascistic philosophers.

The philosophical foot soldiers for the duopoly have their own game going. Whether they are shouting “liberal this; liberals that” all the way to the bank, or suddenly discovering the Constitution when the rival faction is in power—they help maintain status quo.

I think it was my WND colleague Vox Day who pointed out how the Republican reptiles move to the left when in power, and the Democratic dogs shuffle to the right when they get their turn.

Ultimately the creeps converge.

If what I am saying is true—and it is—then the assertion that the Republican Party can be reformed is a lie, a pie-in-the-sky; not pragmatism but falsehood. People who help elevate the characters involved in this cruel farce; who promulgate The Lie are, thus, either stupid or venal.

There is a scene in “Dangerous Liaisons” where the protagonist, a lying schemer, is “booed and disgraced by the audience at the opera,” and retreats to her boudoir never to emerge again.

This is the appropriate metaphor for the characters involved in American politics.

If our society had an ounce of moral fiber, this would be the fate of the Ann Couters, Rush Limbaughs, Levines—the blood-lusting vampires of the Republican War Machine, whose bitch-hot talk helped send gullible young men to their death.

This would be the fate of the grand designers behind the Democratic welfare apparatus.

A Third Party option is not for the quick-fix quacks among us. It will be slow and laborious. But it is the only way.

The Third-Party road involves a planned strategy whereby support is withdrawn from all candidates running for the duopoly. It involves the meeting of the smartest minds, with the most integrity. That the “Campaign for Liberty” has not called on myself, Vox, and other marginalized voices with sizable (WND) platforms, despite our tireless work for liberty, demonstrates that its movers and shakers are moving and shaking like a cult; not like a force of nature.

What I like about Palin is that she is a force of nature. And she has lived the quintessential American life. She is everything that is good in America. Can she bury the Republican corpse and do what I suggest? I honestly don’t know.

About her book at a later date.

Update IV: Joe Arpaio, Patriot

Constitution, Democracy, IMMIGRATION, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Nationhood, Reason

Judging by the way the muck-media treat Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, you’d think he was breaking the law, or something. Arpaio uses “minor misdemeanors to catch dope dealers, seize drugs, DUIs,” then inquires about the perp’s immigration status and enforces immigration laws on the streets.

HORRORS!

In response to these so-called controversial “crime sweeps,” the 77-year-old sheriff hero must contend with outsiders—“activists” who rush to the scene (you didn’t think they had jobs!) to snap him in action, as he goes about protecting the people of his country, who, incidentally, continue to re-elect him.

Yes, the Moron Media remain mum about that pesky thing called democracy. When practiced on a local level, democracy is at its purest and fairest. Correction: that is the only form democracy should take. “Democracy must be confined to a ‘small spot’ (like Athens).”

In any event, Kris W. Kobach, one of the most brilliant constitutional immigration legal minds allowed occasionally on the fool’s lantern, confirms that “state police, exercising state law authority only, [can] make arrests for violations of federal law.”

In follows from “states’ status as sovereign entities,” that “[t]hey are sovereign governments possessing all residual powers not abridged or superseded by the U.S. Constitution. The source of the state governments’ power is entirely independent of the U.S. Constitution.”

the enumerated powers doctrine that constrains the powers of the federal government does not so constrain the powers of the states. Rather, the states possess what are known as “police powers,” which need not be specifically enumerated. Police powers are “an exercise of the sovereign right of the government to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort, and general welfare of the people

Wait a sec, didn’t I say something similar in “Aliens In Their Hometown”?

Take this to the bank: Arpaio is a patriot. And read Prof. Kobach’s entire analysis.

Update I: To the libertines who cannot abide the idea of a drug dealer on the corner of the street of a poor neighborhood (like Nancy Pelsoi, libertines live away from the madding crowds) being stopped for any reason: try picturing a Venn Diagram, if you’re vaguely inclined to reason. The overlap between dealers, drunk drivers (scroll down for sacrificial lambs), and other evil-doers and illegality is quite fantastic.

By selecting for these life-style choices I’ll call them—I don’t wish to offend libertines—Arpaio seems to stop the right people each and every time. Want proof that the old, common-sensical bugger has nailed it? Arpaio stands accused of rational profiling, a badge of honor; when in fact, all he has done is select (apparently representatively) for assorted petty, and non-petty, crime.

Update II: Another reminder to the pansy libertines who galvanize the argument from Hitler when their panties get in a knot: In a free society, rooted in private property rights, land owners along the border would have likely formed militias to repel trespassers from their land or neighborhoods. The local patrol, whether under private property, or in the founder’s republic of blessed memory, would work very much as Arpaio works it—and certainly not as the typical effete of the libertarian left posits.

In a free society based on absolute private-property rights, the natural tendency of men—a tendency that is most conducive to peace—is to live among their own, but to trade with any and all. In such a society, commercial property owners will tend to be far more inclusive than residential property owners. As libertarian theorist Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe notes, owners of retail establishments, like hotels and restaurants, “have every economic incentive not to discriminate unfairly against strangers because this would lead to reduced profits or losses.” Still, they will have to consider the impact of culturally exotic behavior on “local domestic sales,” and will impose codes of conduct on guests.
Seeking low-wage employees, employers would also be partial to foreigners but, absent the protectionist state, the employer would be accountable to the community, and would be wary of the strife and lowered productivity caused by a multiethnic and multi-linguistic workforce. All the more so when a foreign workforce moves into residential areas.
In short, reasons Hoppe, in a natural order—absent government—there will be plenty of “interregional trade and travel,” but little mingling in residential areas. Just as people tend to marry along cultural and racial lines, so they maintain rather homogeneous residential neighborhoods. This is how the chips fall in a highly regulated society, so much more so in a free society, based on absolute property rights. Is this contemptible? To the left-libertarian open-border purist it is—else why would he be lending ideological support to the state’s efforts to upset any semblance of a natural order and to shape society in politically pleasing ways?

[From “LOVE-IN AT THE BORDERS”]

Update III (Jan. 5): The Constitution delegated to localities a lot of discretion in determining the way they want to live. The 14th tampered with that discretion. Still, like it or not, law enforcement is a local function and the only legitimate duty of government.

I note that our esteemed reader Myron has opted for the liberal, high-pitched strategy: accuse a man who resides in the community he protects of things he has not done or aspired to do, in the hope that something sticks; and so that the lodestar of leftism is obeyed: complete license all the time. “Oh, my G-d! Someone has stopped someone else from doing exactly what he likes on street corners, even though no one was hurt!”

It’s early for me to be fully compos mentis, but an analogy for MP’s rant about Arpaio’s alleged trespasses is to lump every mild mannered man who ever spoke unkindly to his wife with OJ Simpson, on a continuum of wife abuse. The bailiwick of lefty feminists. Moreover—and conveniently—in the process of trying to get something to stick, drug dealing was omitted in favor of accusing Arpaio of going after lone tokers.

Still, I always appreciate heated opposition to what I put forward.

Update IV: WHERE WERE HIS ROCKS? How dare this border patrolman defend himself! I’m appalled. Israelis are expected to retaliate with rocks when they’re assaulted with same, why was this U.S. Border Patrol agent in southern Arizona unprepared to rock it?

To the good news: “the agent and his dog encountered [and illegal alien] in the area of ‘D’ Hill just outside of Douglas. The man assaulted the agent with rocks and the agent shot back.”

This reminds me of the iconic scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Challenged to a duel by a scimitar-wielding enemy, Indiana Jones draws a pistol and dispatches the swordsman without further ado.

Updated: The Barbarian West

Europe, Free Speech, Islam, Jihad, libertarianism, Terrorism, The West

What’s another bout with a 48-hour flu, my second this season, compared to the ordeal the heroic Kurt Westergaard—illustrator of the the 12 Jyllands-Posten cartoons, depicting the connection between Muhammad and the violence that disfigures the Muslim world—must live with day-in and day-out.

Satire is a highly civilized and refined way of exposing “folly, vice, or stupidity,” to follow the dictionary. For lampooning the connection between Muhammad, author of Islam, and the savagery and atavism that grip the Muslim world today, Westergaard’s life has been continually threatened.

“On Friday night, a 28-year-old Somali man, armed with an ax and a knife, tried to enter the home of Kurt Westergaard in Aarhus Denmark. Westergaard was at home with his visiting 5-year-old granddaughter when he heard the suspect trying to break in. ‘I locked myself in our safe room and alerted the police.'” (The Examiner.com.)

“Unable to smash the front door with his ax, the suspect was shot once in the knee and once in the hand by police. The wounds are not life-threatening.” [Why not?]

AND:

“Police were aware of the Somali suspect’s background from previous activities in east Africa and had a permit to live in Denmark.”

A pattern.

I’ve said it again and again: This is not a failure of Jihad; Jihad is doing just fine for itself, functioning as it ought to. Rather, attacks on the lives of the likes of the late Theo van Gogh, Geert Wilders, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Westergaard, and Wafa Sultan showcase the West at its miserable emasculated worst.

Contrary to some libertarian opinion, a free society is not one in which civilized courageous, peaceful human beings fear for their lives, but one in which such individuals thrive, as their assailants cower in dank corners, hunted and exterminated like vermin.

Updated (Jan. 4, 2010): A little timid for my taste, but well worth a read: “Heeere’s Muhammed!”