Category Archives: Liberty

UPDATED: The Despot’s Bag of Tricks

Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Liberty, Military, Terrorism, The State

In apartheid South Africa, denial of due process very often took the form of detention without trial. But, as I observed in Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa, the South-African model of detention-without-trial is slowly becoming a fixture of the American legal landscape.

Via the Tenth Amendment Center:

Congress just passed, and the President just signed, a bill that gives legal authority to the President to kidnap and perpetually imprison persons, including American citizens, without the benefit of due process. …

The relevant sections of the bill are 1021 and 1022.

* Section 1021 asserts the President’s authority to arrest suspected (not convicted) terrorists and gives him the option to choose whether or not they even get a trial, and if so, what kind of trial.

* Section 1022 requires that a certain class of terrorist get no trial. Instead they must be held in military prisons, for as long as this President, or any future President desires.

SECTION 1021

Section 1021 is very expansive in its reach. It “includ[es] any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.”

* Who is “any person?”
* What is a “belligerent act?”
* What is “direct support?”

One could be safe in assuming these words mean whatever a creatively-minded prosecutor, a flexible judge, and an ignorant jury define them to mean — EXCEPT THAT, UNDER THIS ACT, ONE MIGHT NEVER GET AS FAR AS A COURT HEARING.

These terms will be defined by the bureaucrats in power.

Note who the bill’s co-sponsor is: McMussolini.

UPDATE: RT: “He will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law.”

These harsh words come courtesy of the executive director of the ACLU, formerly a supporter of the president but also just one of the many dissenters who have since grown disillusioned with an administration tarnished by unfulfilled campaign promises and continuous constitutional violations.

Paul In Black, White & Pink

Gender, libertarianism, Liberty, Multiculturalism, Political Philosophy, Race, Republicans, Ron Paul

A December 2011 poll (16-18), taken by CNN/ORC, reveals that Ron Paul’s favorability among non-whites mirrors that of other GOPers. Hence, the fantasy that minorities will flock to liberty is just that, a fantasy.

While Barack Obama takes 72- and 57 percent respectively of the non-white and female vote, Ron Paul gets 25 and 41 percent of the same constituency. All the oozing over young Paul supporters aside, these numbers are yet more evidence that females and young voters lean left-liberal and are thus a hindrance to liberty: Obama garners the support of 53% of voters aged 18 to 34, to Paul’s 47%.

What was said in “RIP GOP” obtains: As the GOP goes, so goes the libertarian movement. Smug, self-satisfied left-libertarians like to dream that their constituency is differently derived, but the demographic facts are straightforward. The upshot of continued, unfettered, mass immigration—as it is currently practiced and preached by American central planners—is the triumph of tribalism, pillage politics, and left-liberalism.

Freedom Speaks

Elections, libertarianism, Liberty, Ron Paul, Science, Sex

When he “stands tall” and unapologetic for the principles of freedom, Ron Paul is unbeatable. Just because Chris Wallace frames Paul’s ancient comments about AIDS, in the book Freedom Under Siege, as “controversial”—it doesn’t make them so. Here Paul states clearly the scientific facts about sexually transmitted diseases—facts that have been known for hundreds of years—and the implication of personal responsibility in a free society.

As to the future of the Paul campaign: Once people make the arduous journey to liberty and arrive at an understanding of it, they cleave to the Truth. So Paul’s numbers will be sustained—and rise.

Next Wallace makes a stupid point, accusing Paul of legislative ineffectiveness because of the 620 measured sponsored, only four of which ever made it to the House floor. The fact that Ron Paul’s attempts at passing legislation to repeal other legislation have fallen short is not an indictment of the Congressman, but of Congress. He fulfilled his mandate to try and beat back the state.

Here is the scrappy, assertive Ron Paul:

No Tats, Toots

Classical Liberalism, Drug War, Elections, Foreign Policy, libertarianism, Liberty, Natural Law, Political Philosophy, Rights, Ron Paul

Yes, it’s all very endearing and cute: Young college kids, most of whom are not self-supporting, are supporting Ron Paul, age 76. Paul’s “college-aged volunteer army” has “descended on Iowa from around the nation to coax people to the state’s Republican caucuses.”

Are these kids mere libertines, more committed to toking it up than cutting an overweening state’s reach and spending? It doesn’t appear so. The New York Times believes that, “For the students, much of Mr. Paul’s appeal derives from civil libertarian views like ending the federal ban on marijuana and other drugs, as well as his desire to end foreign wars and his small-government credo.”

I have never been in favor of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, smuggled into the Constitution by statute. The Amendment artificially swelled the ranks of Democratic voters, which has further eroded any protections the Constitution afforded to private property, and swayed the balance of power in favor of those who “vote for a living,” as opposed “those who work for a living.”

However, if Ron Paul’s youthful devotees are voting for negative, leave-me-alone rights—then, by all means, hop on board and bring along your pals on the Left.