Category Archives: Ron Paul

The News In Brief

Debt, Democrats, Economy, Glenn Beck, Ilana Mercer, Labor, Liberty, Ron Paul, Taxation

• “The first national Tea Party convention opened its doors Thursday night amid widespread interest and some controversy,” reports CNN. I’m not sure what CNN considered controversial, other than that Anderson Cooper and his house boys had not been invited. Naturally, I worry about the direction of the Tea Party’s leadership. I see that no leaders from Ron Paul’s platoons have been invited. On the other hand, since I am unlikely to be asked to partake, having been excluded from at least one of the forums, I don’t intend to sweat the issue.

• When he spent more than he had stolen from taxpayers, Bush simply raised the ceiling on a whopping $6.8 trillion national debt. At the same time, Mr. Bush made a loud commotion about returning plunder to the people in the form of a tax cut. Barack has followed suit. House Democrats voted yesterday to raise the nation’s debt ceiling to more than $14 trillion. This time, Republicans opposed the move.

• The WSJ’s uneasy headline today reads:

U.S. Payrolls Slide;
Jobless Rate at 9.7%

The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly declined to 9.7% in January, but the economy shed 22,000 jobs, casting doubt over the labor market’s strength.

* Opinions Split on Job Creation
* Immigrants Top Ranks of Jobless
* CEOs Remain Hesitant to Hire

Unlike Glenn Beck, the WSJ, at least, had not forgotten to add immigrants to the unemployment miasma (I have not read further, but, no doubt, perfunctory excuse-making will follow).
Glenn put on an informative show today, examining “what puts states with progressive policies at greater risk than states with more conservative ideal,” except that Beck omitted the illegal immigrant variable, the expenditure on which would pretty much overwhelm all other considerations.

***

My weekly, WND column will be back next week. In the meantime, do read (which means purchase) my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material. Get your copy (or copies) now!

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.

Updated: Time Mag’s Mafioso Of The Year

Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Inflation, Ron Paul

Is The “Fed Head.” The dubious honor Ben Bernanke has earned for counterfeiting more money than any other figure in the “history of the world”; for being more powerful than the president—who “at least has to come before Congress” every now and then when demanding funds—for enjoying complete freedom from any oversight, and for being an instrument of fiat, easy money, inflation and the business bubbles (or cycles).

Still, Ron Paul, that impish giant—also a “student of the Fed” and its most effective critic—remains positive, while insisting that Ben Bernanke is Time’s Man of the Year not because he saved us, but because he afflicted us with ever easier money and lower interest rates; doubled the money supply and has hastened the collapse of the dollar.

Update: Ron Paul again on the work of the Money Mafioso:

Legal tender laws force the people to become subject to this risk for the benefit of the rulers. Artificial demand for currency allows the authorities to create arbitrary amounts of it to pay for wasteful projects, like frivolous wars and an ever-expanding public sector. This saps the private economy of jobs and purchasing power, yet the temptation proves too great for politicians, time and time again. Our government is no different. Although our dollar has taken nearly a century to lose 98f its purchasing power, the fact that we are all obliged to participate in this slow burn of the economy on pain of imprisonment is anathema to the principles of liberty.

I introduced the Free Competition in Currency Act last week to free the people from these governmental threats. HR 4248 would repeal legal tender laws, prohibit taxation on certain coins and bullion, and repeal certain laws related to coinage. The prospect of people turning away from the dollar towards alternate currencies should provide incentive for Congress to regain control of the dollar and halt its downward spiral.