UPDATE II: Judge Andrew Napolitano: Some Libertarian (A Good Lawyer Counters)

Individual Rights, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Private Property, Religion

The much-lauded Judge Andrew Napolitano, a feature speaker on some heavy hitting libertarian forums; quoted ad nauseam by these outlets too—does not appear to believe in the most basic of liberties: absolute freedom of association and the rights of private property. The Judge—supposedly a libertarian who should support the spirit of a law in furtherance of freedom of association and property rights—objects to giving individuals who want to exercise these individual rights, however, obnoxious, a legal standing to argue their case in a court of law.

WATCH.

UPDATED I: FACEBOOK THREAD & The Cult of Personality.

I suggest people listen again to the Judge. Moreover, it’s so stupid the way these TV personae acquire their fans who will defend them no matter. I’ve been following the Judge long enough to know he is a Reason-type, left-libertarian, who supports Civil Wrongs legislation. Look at the hot mess he made here.

UPDATE II: Jim Ostrowski is excellent, as always. Listen to a good lawyer as opposed a blowhard TV persona:

As I understand Indiana law, the only plausible libertarian position is to support the (very wimpy) religious defense statute. All laws banning private discrimination are to be opposed. This statute carves out a small slice of liberty in an otherwise loathsome legal regime. Liberty always trumps equality, including equal protection of the laws. It does sound like the Judge opposes this statute which position is NOT libertarian.

Also, as I argued on my page, the liberty required to carry out one’s religious obligations is far more that the right not to be shot on the way to church. The pioneers of liberty, many of whom were deeply religious, understood this and supported liberty in the fullest sense of the word (the right to do what you wish with what you own) precisely in order to meet one’s one religious obligations.

Further thoughts on Indiana–

Sandy Beach, WBEN.com, is a social moderate but fiscal conservative who opposes a religious exemption to civil rights laws. He appears not to realize that the very same principle that allows progressives to force business firms to serve this or that designated group, that is, the state’s right to force its alleged values on individuals, ALSO justifies all the taxes and regulatiions that Sandy presumably objects to, e.g., Obamacare. Liberty is seamless and so is progressivism!

Sandy made the point that being forced to do business with this or that group doesn’t threaten their religion. He misses the point. To be able to carry out one’s religious views, one needs liberty in all things, e.g., to be charitable, one needs the fruits of one’s labor. To raise your children properly, one needs the fruits of one’s labor as well. To visit the sick or prisoners, one needs time, energy and even money. All state coercion interferes with one’s religious moral duties.

Now that the progs have made quick work of several uber-conservative politicians, they smell blood in the water and will now go after religious groups more aggressively. You may laugh but I know the progressive mind fairly well. They start out attacking a thing but soon end up banning it.

Carly Fiorina Kills It

Business, Economy, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Politics

Former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina, soon to be a presidential candidate, comes across as a genius compared to the low IQ Hillary Clinton (as Ann Coulter diagnosed The Hildebeest).

As libertarian economist Murray Rothbard reminded, there “are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth”—the economic means is honest and productive, the political means is dishonest and predatory. … but oh so very effective. Democrats, who respect only the predatory political way of making a living—will hammer Fiorina for her business career.

Fiorina is eloquent in this candid interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace.

WALLACE: Amid a crowded 2016 Republican field, the challenge now becomes finding a way to stand out. If she runs, former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina would have no trouble doing that as the only woman in the GOP field. In recent weeks, she has also become a leading critic of Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

Ms. Fiorina, welcome back to “Fox News Sunday.”

CARLY FIORNIA, FORMER HEWLETT PACKARD CHIEF: Great to be with you. Happy Palm Sunday.

WALLACE: Well, thank you.

What are the chances that you’re going to run for president?

FIORINA: Very high.

WALLACE: You’re a former businesswoman. Give me a number.

FIORINA: Higher than 90 percent.

WALLACE: Really?

FIORINA: Yes, sir.

WALLACE: So what would prevent you? Why aren’t you willing to announce right here today, I’m a candidate for president?

FIORINA: Well, because, you know, we need — as other potential candidates are doing, we need to make sure we have the right team in place, that we have the right support, that we have the right financial resources lined up, just as all the other potential candidates are doing.

WALLACE: And when would you announce?

FIORINA: Probably late April, early May.

WALLACE: If you run, and it would be in a field of current and former governors, several current senators, why should Republican voters pick you?

FIORINA: Because I have a deep understanding of how the economy actually works, having started as a secretary and become the chief executive of the largest technology company in the world because I understand how the world works and know many of the world leaders on the stage today because I understand technology, a transformational tool, because I understand bureaucracies — how they work and how you need to change them and our government is a huge bureaucracy, and because I understand executive decision-making, which is making tough calls in tough times with high stakes for which you’re prepared to be held accountable.

WALLACE: OK. Let’s talk specifically about your experience as a business executive. Beyond the typical Republican talking points, not to say that they’re wrong, but what are your ideas that are different about the economy and about dealing with our national debt?

FIORINA: Well, I think we have two fundamental structural problems in our economy. One is that we have tangled people up in a web of dependence from which they can’t escape. We’re leaving lots of talent on the field. Secondly, we’re crushing small businesses now.

Elizabeth Warren is right, crony capitalism is alive and well. Big business and big government go hand in hand. But for the first time in U.S. history now, we are destroying more businesses than we are creating. And so, while we have 10 banks, too big to fail, now have become five big banks too big to fail, 3,000 community banks have gone out of business, and that’s where family-owned and small businesses get their chance. That’s important because small businesses create two thirds of the new jobs and employ half the people.

So, if we want mainstream and the middle class going and growing again, we’ve got to get small and family-owned businesses going and growing again. Washington, D.C. has become a vast unaccountable bureaucracy. It’s been growing for 40 years. We have no idea how our money is spent.

I think there are two things that would help tremendously. One, zero base budgeting, so we know where the money is spent. We’re talking about the whole budget and not just the rate of increase.

And two, pay for performance in our civil service. We have — how many inspector general reports do we need to read that say, you know, you can watch porn all day and get paid exactly the same way as somebody who is trying to do their job?

WALLACE: But, Ms. Fiorina, and you know this is coming, your record at head of Hewlett Packard, and you were the CEO for five and a half years, and you were the first woman to lead a Fortune 100 company, is going to be controversial. Let’s put up some of the things on the screen.

During your five and a half years, you laid off — the company laid off more than 30,000 American workers, many of those jobs went to India and China, and Hewlett-Packard stock fell 49 percent and the board of directors fired you.

Isn’t that a record that you’re going to get hammered with?

FIORINA: Well, I’m very proud of our record. We took Hewlett-Packard from about $44 billion to $88 billion in six years. We took the growth rate from 2 percent to 9 percent. We tripled the rate of innovation to 11 patents a day. We quadrupled cash flow.

We went from a market laggard to a market leader in every product category and every market segment. And we grew jobs.

It is true that I managed through the worst technology recession in 25 years. You will remember the NASDAQ has only now recovered to its dotcom boom highs after 15 years. So, virtually, every technology stock was down over that same period.

And while it’s true that in a technology recession, we had to lay people off, many of those people were in Europe and elsewhere, and the truth is we outsourced more California jobs to Texas than we did to India or China, demonstrating we have to compete for every job.

WALLACE: But you know what’s going to happen. If you were the nominee, exactly what happened to Mitt Romney. There were 30,000 American jobs that were lost and they can get two or three or 200 people to go on and say, well, Carly Fiorina got a $20 million severance package, I lost my job. I mean, they’ll make you look like an unfeeling multimillionaire.

FIORINA: Well, first, I think you’re reading the Democratic talking points because it was not all American jobs. But of course, laying people off is the last resort. It’s a terrible thing to have to do.

But when you are managing through the worst technology recession in 25 years, sometimes there are tough calls that need to be made for the overall health of the enterprise. And in the end, we took a company that was really struggling and turned it into an exceedingly successful company where overall jobs grew.

WALLACE: You seem to take special delight in going after Hillary Clinton. And here is one of your greatest hits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIORINA: Unlike Mrs. Clinton, I know that flying is an activity, not an accomplishment. I have met — I have met Vladimir Putin, and I know that his ambition will not be deterred by a gimmicky red reset button.

Mrs. Clinton, please name an accomplishment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That’s pretty good stuff. What is your basic case against Hillary Clinton?

FIORINA: Hillary Clinton lacks a track record of accomplishment. She is not candid, which suggests her character is flawed. And I think now in e-mail gate, we not only have a situation where she is clearly not being candid. I mean, her saying all those e-mails she erased were just her and Bill chatting is a little bit like Richard Nixon saying those erased moments on the tape were he and Pat talking. That’s ridiculous. There’s more than that.

But I also think there’s a confidence issue now. Anyone in 2015 to say you can’t have two e-mail accounts on a single device obviously doesn’t understand technology. When she talks about we had Secret Service agents guarding our server, for heaven’s sakes we’re not concerned about the server being stolen. We’re concerned about the server being hacked.

WALLACE: All right. Let me pick up on that, because Clinton’s lawyers, the latest development is late Friday, they told the House Benghazi committee, there’s no point going after the server because we have wiped clean all of the e-mails and so all of those 30,000 private e-mails, so-called private e-mails are gone. One, what do you make of it? Two, what do Republican investigators do now?

FIORINA: Well, I think it was part of the plan all along that the Clintons had. Look, I think it was very deliberate that they had a private server. I think it was very deliberate that she used a personal e-mail account. I think this clearly was a deliberate effort to shield her communications.

I don’t quite know what the investigators can do at this point, but I know this, we need a nominee who will bring this up in the general election. The reason Benghazi was not enough of an issue in the 2012 election is because, unfortunately, our nominee pulled his punches when he had an opportunity to remind the American people of the Benghazi tragedy and scandal.

WALLACE: So, what are you saying, you won’t pull your punches on Hillary?

FIORINA: Oh, I will not pull my punches — not now and not in a general election.

WALLACE: Some people have suggested, even as I ask it, it sounds sexist, you’re really running to be the running mate, that you would the person to lead the attack against Hillary Clinton. It would be easier for you as a woman attacking another woman and that you would in a sense neutralize the vulnerabilities the Republican Party has with women?

FIORINA: You know, I come from a world outside of politics where track record and accomplishments count, words don’t. If I run for president, it’s because I can win the job and it’s because I can do the job.

WALLACE: Would you even consider being the running mate?

FIORINA: Well, when you start asking all the other candidates that question, then maybe we’ll have that conversation.

WALLACE: Fair enough. Carly Fiorina, thank you for coming in. Always good to talk with you. And we will be following your big decision.

FIORINA: Thank you so much, Chris, for having me.

WALLACE: Please come back here, and let us know.

FIORINA: All right.

Ron Paul On The Indiana Law

Ann Coulter, Private Property, Religion, Ron Paul

Ron Paul on the right of private property vs. the demand to be served; the freedom to associate at will vs. forced association:

Although there are differences between your average housebroken conservative and his emphasis on religious freedom, as opposed the libertarian emphasis on property rights and the right of the individuals who own and control these businesses to use their property as they wish—Ann Coulter is thoughtful on the topic.

Watch her.

RELATED: “Free Spaying For Stalinists”

South Africa’s ‘Best & Brightest’ Stage A Poo Protest

Education, History, Propaganda, Race, Racism, South-Africa

The once proud University of Cape Town (UCT), my husband’s alma mater, is now home to the sort of students who collect their own bodily waste so as to throw it at a statue of Cecil John Rhodes, the man who donated the land upon which UCT stands. (Rhodes also founded the global mining giant De Beers, an enormous source of racial quota shakedowns for black South Africans, Black Economic Empowerment, or BEE, as affirmative action is known in my old homeland.)

If you wish to understand the fraught history behind the propaganda, helped along by US media, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa” is a must read. The section titled “Tot Siens (Farewell) To The Taal (The Language),” in Chapter 2, explains what’s underway in poo-poo land.

An excerpt:

“He who controls the past controls the future.” So wrote Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The ANC now commands past, present and future. … It may be a trifling issue to deracinated sophisticates, but landmarks in the country’s founding history are slowly being erased, as demonstrated by the ANC’s decision to give an African name to Potchefstroom, a town founded in 1838 by the Voortrekkers. Pretoria is now officially called Tshwane. Nelspruit, founded by the Nel Family (they were not Xhosa), and once the seat of the South African Republic’s government during the Boer War, has been renamed Mbombela. Polokwane was formerly Pietersburg. Durban’s Moore Road (after Sir John Moore, the hero of the Battle of Corunna, fought in 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars) is Che Guevara Road; Kensington Drive, Fidel Castro Drive. Perhaps the ultimate in tastelessly hip nomenclature is Yasser Arafat Highway, down which the motorist can careen on the way to the Durban airport. …

MORE.