Category Archives: The State

Update II: How Shall I Praise Thee, Oh Bloody Congress?!

COINAGE FOR CONGRESS. In the post titled “Energy Independence Isolationism”, reader Steve protests my uncharacteristic choice of language for Congress members.

I responded by asking him what else would he have me call them? I have run out of adjectival niceties. Maybe readers have some, but I’m all out.

I’ve been in the trenches for over a decade, and have been pretty polite throughout. (Okay, in “Bush’s 16 Words Miss the Big Picture,” I likened Bush’s “Bring ‘Em On” grin to “the grimace on the face of a demented patient with end-stage syphilis.”)

Have the Leaders returned the courtesy? Have they refrained, at the very least, from bloodletting and thieving and all other manner of immorality and dishonor? No.

To everything there is a season, it is written in Ecclesiastes. The time is ripe to call a F-ck Face a FF.

I’ll tell you what: I’ll change “Congressional Cockroaches” to “Congressional Creeps.” I was being grossly unfair to cockroaches.

Updated (June 24): Steve has forgiven me (although he posted his reply to the wrong post). He writes:

Ilana, touché. No need to pull punches. They are f-ck faces. Libertarian small-g goddess-hood intact. Now, I just have more than your intellect by which to be intimidated. My use of the f bomb tends to be more mundane and unimaginative, and almost universally traffic-related. Props!

Thanks for feeling my pain, Steve. I’m glad my fall from grace has been halted. As a first-time offender (scroll down), let me say in my defense that mitigating circumstances were–are–in abundance. Actually, believe it or not, christening Congress as I did was no “crime” of passion. I had thought of removing the risqué moniker, and then decided that the time was ripe to “Out [these] damned spots.”

Update II: Has anyone noticed that this is blog number 666? The Number of the Beast. Speaking of the Devil. (The Number of the Beast Iron-Maiden style is cool).

By the way, in case of a misunderstanding, the honorifics in this post apply, naturally, to members of both Houses (sans Ron Paul). A pox on both Houses.

The Goods On Gas

Capitalism, Energy, Free Markets, The State

From my latest WND column, “The Goods On Gas”:

“The Mouths on television tell you to blame gas speculators, ‘profiteers’ or foreign producers for gas prices—anyone but your government. By their post hoc illogic, the price of fuel is causing prices to rise.

Fuel is fueling, but not causing, price hikes.

The deliberate and destructive policies of deficit spending are responsible for the steady rise in the prices of all commodities, crude included. This is so because deficit spending is “accompanied by an enormous increase in the stock of money…”

The general trend, then, of price increases is a consequence of government-generated inflation and the $9.5 trillion trifle known as the national debt. Unless these are curtailed, the trend will persist.

The particular price of fuel, concomitantly, is determined by supply and demand. … Absent legislative barriers to exploration, enterprising capitalists would have defied central planners and turned from tinkering with ethanol to drilling for—and refining—oil…”

Ultimately, “The more efficient the source of energy, the less waste and pollution are involved in its conversion into energy. Think of the totality of the production process! The fewer resources expended in bringing a fuel to market, the cleaner and cheaper is the process.”

Comments are welcome.

Lexicon Of Lies

Elections 2008, Political Philosophy, Politics, Propaganda, The State

“The prolix presidential candidates and their aids and enablers have a supply of misleading phrases. These verbal obesities are meant to throw the American voter off-scent.”

In my new WND column, “Lexicon Of Lies,” I offer a run-down of some of those “pitch-perfect platitudes.“ Examples are “comprehensive immigration reform,” and “reaching across the aisle to get things done.” You get the unlovely picture.

Update 3: State Had No Right To Seize FLDS Children!

Criminal Injustice, Family, Justice, Law, The State

I said so in my April 15 column, “They’re Coming For Your Kids.” At the same time, my good friend and colleague, the heroic attorney and broadcaster Jerri Ward, rushed to defend an FLDS father pro bono. Now the Third Court of Appeals in Austin agrees.

Did the malpracticing, mindless media that never swims upstream ever interview Jerri or myself when we said what ought to have been plain to any clear-thinking, liberty loving individual? Of course not. Nancy Grace, Bill O’Reilly and the rest were busy fulfilling “their providential purpose” in this case, evangelizing for state overreach.

We will be talking today, at 12:42 Pacific Time, about the case vis-à-vis these new developments. I am a regular, fortnightly commentator on Jerri’s marvelous “I Object!” show. Be sure to follow our schedule here.

Update 3 (May 24): We covered the issues on the blog after the publication of “They’re Coming For Your Kids,” which in itself pretty much said it all. Trace the discussion here. Nothing has been added to the debate since the column, other than a couple of legal technicalities, such as that the Abduction Department treated the compound as one family, instead of investigating individual cases. The assigning of collective guilt–tribal justice–bears no resemblance to the law as the Rights of Englishmen would have it.

This is both sickening and retarded. I covered it; re-read the post. We’re not rehashing the same thing over again, especially in light of the general reluctance, because chronically incurious, among posters to read all background material on the Mother site: Barely A Blog is a companion to the main site, IlanaMercer.com. What has changed is that a month hence, the Court has agreed with us. However, even if the Appeals Court had not agreed with us, we’d still be right. Natural justice is immutably true.