Category Archives: The State

Impeachment Uninteresting To A Certain Kind Of Libertarian

Constitution, Democrats, Law, libertarianism, Republicans, The State

As a libertarian, I’m not in the least interested in the impeachment proceedings and process.

Democrat or Republican initiated, impeachment as we’ve come to know it intimately, showcases the might of the American Administrative State in all its muscular display of extra-constitutional powers. There is nothing constitutional, and very little that is naturally licit, in this process, despite all the “solemn” references to the poor, unused document.

That the participants wrap themselves in the toga of constitutionality makes the process all the more  farcical.

To quote from my “Moral Of The Mueller Inquisition, Part 2″:

“As a scrupulously honest broadcaster, Tucker Carlson recently confessed to ‘looking back in shame’ for having originally supported Kenneth Starr’s independent counsel investigation of President Clinton. (Good libertarians have always opposed the very existence of the OSC. This writer certainly has.)”

Another comment, relating to the above and to the imperative to, at the very least, denounce the last two impeachment productions undertaken by the extra-constitutional Office of Special Counsel (OSC):

I like Jonathan Turley a lot. But I am shocked that he supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I am beginning to suspect that Turely, despite repeated denials, is a Republican through-and-through. Why not say so, sir?

Here is Jonathan Turley, in 1998.

In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker; it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. The allegations against President Clinton go to the very heart of the legitimacy of his office and the integrity of the political system. As an individual, a president may seek spiritual redemption in the company of friends and family. Constitutional redemption, however, is found only in the company of representatives of all three branches in the well of the Senate. It is there that legitimacy, once recklessly lost, can be regained by a president.

NEW COLUMN: White Guilt: Where Does It Originate And How To Fight It

Christianity, Hebrew Testament, IMMIGRATION, Judaism & Jews, Nationalism, Race, The State, The West

NEW COLUMN IS “White Guilt: Where Does It Originate And How To Fight It.” It’s on The Unz Review and on WND.COM.

An excerpt:

Is white guilt a Christian affliction? Edward Gibbon would probably say so.

Gibbon was the genius who wrote, in 1776, the 12 volumes that comprise “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” wherein he saddled nascent Christianity with the downfall of the Roman Empire, no less. (I read the 1943 version, which was “condensed for modern reading.”)

By so surmising, Gibbon brought upon himself the wrath of “bishops, deans and dons”—not to mention that of the great Dr. Samuel Johnson’s biographer, James Boswell. Boswell called Gibbon an “infidel wasp” for “the chapter in which he showed that the fall of Rome was hastened by the rise of Christianity.”

And indeed, Gibbon seems to point toward Christianity’s self-immolating, progressive, pathologically inclusive nature, remarking on the courting by early Christians of “criminals and women.” [Not my words.]

Even more infuriating to his detractors was Gibbon’s prodigious scholarship. “No one could disprove Gibbon’s basic facts,” notes American author Willson Whitman.

Whitman, who wrote the 1943 Foreword to the abridged version, remarks on how “Gibbon outraged the Christians of his era by suggesting the ‘human’ reasons for the success of Christianity.”

“Among these reasons [Gibbon] noted that Christianity … attracted to its ‘common tables’ slaves, women, reformed criminals, and other persons of small importance [Whitman’s words, not mine]—in short that Christianity was a ‘people’s movement of low social origin, rising as the people rose.” [His words, not mine.]

To go by Gibbon, Christianity might be called the Social Justice movement of its day. Gibbon certainly seemed to suggest so.

In no way was Gibbon, who “professed Church of England orthodoxy,” diminishing Christianity’s centrality to Western civilization, or its essential goodness and glory. He was just following the evidence.

With Gibbon’s historical analysis in mind, it’s difficult to dispute that America, once identified as a staunch Christian country, seldom stands up for and safeguards Christian interests.

Trust Tucker Carlson to take note. On April 22, 2019, less than two minutes into this broadcast, the TV anchor observed that American foreign policy imperils the already imperiled Christian communities across the Muslim world. For one, the ancient Iraqi Christian community is a shadow of what it was under Saddam Hussein.

To their own dwindling, Western flock, American and European Christian leaders seldom offer succor and support. More often than not, church leaders are inclined to scold Westerners and berate them for insufficient procreation.

Take Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput. For outbreeding Christianity, Chaput offered praise for Islam as a civilization—as if civilizations are great because of huge numbers, rather than human capital—namely, people of superior ideas, abilities and sensibilities; people capable of innovation, exploration, science, philosophy, to say nothing of mercy and charity.

Has not Christianity’s great heart been instrumental in ameliorating famine, and thus enabling Muslim Africa’s population explosion? …

…  READ THE REST. NEW COLUMN, “White Guilt: Where Does It Originate And How To Fight It,” is on The Unz Review and WND.COM.

 

 

Warfare State More Dangerous Than The Welfare State

Democrats, Elections, Socialism, The State, War

Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is not a “vanity project,” but Democrats, and their idiot entertainer friends, are demanding that “long-shot 2020 hopefuls to quit ‘vanity projects’ and drop out.”

Gabbard has an important mandate: Stop the Warfare State, which is more dangerous than the Welfare State. But the Democrats are now the War Party, too.

FROM MY WARTIME SOCIALISM:

The finances for the war, of course, will come from the private economy. For every dollar the government spends, a dollar is suctioned from you and me. For every new smiling military recruit sitting pretty with a home, a porch, and a pension, some poor sod will join the army of (nine million) unemployed.

* Image courtesy of the Mises Institute

READ WARTIME SOCIALISM.

If You Support Nation-State Sovereignty, You Must Reject US Extradition Overreach

Canada, China, Foreign Policy, Iran, Law, Nationhood, The State

Poor Julian Assange’s kidnapping from the Ecuadorian consulate in England, earlier this month, at the behest of American prosecutors, has faded from Fake News’s fleeting collective memory.

Assange is next due to appear before court via video link on May 2, in relation to a US extradition request over allegations he conspired with former military analyst Chelsea Manning to download and disseminate classified material.
That appearance will be a short mention, with US prosecutors expected to issue a more detailed argument for extradition in June that could include further charges.

Likewise, the US has instructed Canada, supposedly a sovereign nation, to extradite Meng Wanzhou, “a senior executive of Huawei, a telecommunications giant, and the daughter of its founder. The action was taken at the request of American prosecutors, who accuse Ms Meng of scheming to sidestep sanctions against Iran.”  (The Economist,

Am I the only one bothered by American global overreach? Left or Right, does anyone really think it’s OK for the US to tell China who to trade with? Do we really believe that the US, because supposedly good, should be able to bend the laws of sovereign nation-states to its will?

If you support such illiberal use of American power in overriding national sovereignty around the world—you can hardly claim the mantle of a populist, concerned for the survival and sovereignty of nations states.