UPDATED: Snowden As A Litmus Test For Libertarians

Propaganda, Rights, Russia, Technology, Terrorism, The State

If you have not been rooting for Edward Snowden to evade his tormentors–you are not a libertarian.

If you have not been praying (it’s a figure of speech, not a statement of religious faith) for Vladimir Putin to stand firm against the biggest bully in the world—you are no libertarian.

Today, those proverbial prayers have been answered. The man who has been the laughing stock in US media (a laughable proposition in itself) for his displays of machismo has manned up.

“Although President Vladimir V. Putin and President Obama both sought to avoid a direct diplomatic clash over Mr. Snowden, Mr. Putin and other officials here made clear they would under no circumstance extradite him, despite direct appeals from Secretary of State John Kerry and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.”

And finally, on August 1, 2013, “Russia Granted Snowden 1-Year Asylum,” reports the New York Times.

Russia’s decision, which infuriated American officials, significantly alters the legal status of Mr. Snowden, the former intelligence analyst wanted by the United States for leaking details of the National Security Agency’s surveillance programs. Even as those leaks continued, Mr. Snowden now has legal permission to live — and conceivably even work — anywhere in Russia for as long as a year, safely out of the reach of American prosecutors.
Mr. Snowden, 30, departed Sheremetyevo Airport unexpectedly at 3:30 in the afternoon after his lawyer, Anatoly G. Kucherena, delivered to him a passport-like document issued by the Federal Migration Service on Wednesday and valid until July 31, 2014.

Let us hope that this young man remains free, and that “the temporary refugee certificate” is renewed, or is a loadstar for other countries thinking of following Putin’s lead.

UPDATE: “Manning, Snowden and Assange were the ones who took risks to expose crime.” This is a bit of a dumb statement:

Manning’s supporters expressed relief that he was found not guilty of the most serious charge, aiding the enemy, which would likely have carried a sentence of life in prison. He was convicted on 20 of 22 charges, and could face up to 136 years in prison. The sentencing hearing is underway.

To Moron-In-Chief, Tax Cuts Mean Moving Money Around For Votes

Barack Obama, Private Property, Socialism, Taxation

What is it about private property that Obama does not get? EVERYTHING!

Via USA Today:

“During a jobs speech at an Amazon shipping facility in Chattanooga, Tenn. Obama proposed cuts in corporate tax rates – a Republican priority – in exchange for more money for jobs programs, a priority of the president.
“I’m willing to work with Republicans on reforming our corporate tax code — as long as we use the money from transitioning to a simpler tax system for a significant investment in creating middle-class jobs,” Obama told Amazon employees. “That’s the deal.”

A tax cut is a reduction in tax rates. It means letting a poor sod (or serf) keep more of his rightful earnings, be he an individual, a shareholder or a group of them. That’s not what the Ass With Ears (AWE) is talking about. So if he proposes a reduction in tax rates on the condition that “The Money” gets moved to his pet, make-work, government schemes, what sort of tax cut is this?

Moving money around for votes is what the moron-in-chief is proposing.

To borrow from a great American, Frank Chodorov, Obama’s glib talk about property not his amounts to the following declaration:

“Your earnings are not exclusively your own; we have a claim on them, and our claim precedes yours; we will allow you to keep some of it, because we recognize your need, not your right; but whatever we grant you for yourself is for us to decide.”

Welfare For The World Even When The Law Says ‘No’

Barack Obama, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, Law, Welfare

Even US law on occasion provides a way out of welfare for the world. Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act is a case in point. But not on Obama’s watch:

“Many laws are complicated, but Section 508 of the Foreign Assistance Act isn’t,” explains Noah Feldman at Bloomberg. “It reads: ‘None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended to finance directly any assistance to any country whose duly elected head of government is deposed by military coup or decree.’ In other words, money spent to aid a foreign country such as Egypt can’t be spent if there has been a coup. There is no loophole in this language. … ” MORE.

Isn’t it time the ponces of the press compile a comprehensive survey of all the instances in which this president has flouted the law of the land? Of course not. What was I thinking?!

Thomas Jefferson & The Tyrants

Classical Liberalism, Fascism, Founding Fathers, libertarianism, Paleolibertarianism, Political Philosophy, Private Property

“During a joint meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang,” last Thursday, reports the Washington Times, “President Obama … made the absolutely ludicrous assertion that ‘Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

A fine book on “the political theory of Thomas Jefferson” is “Liberty, State, and Union” by Marco Bassani, professor of history and political theory at the University of Milan, Italy. In it, Bassani notes that all sorts of hideous tyrants (whom Obama joins) have appropriated the decidedly classical liberal thinking of Thomas Jefferson for their own ends.

Still, I wonder if we libertarians do protest too much in an attempt to finesse some of Thomas Jefferson’s philosophical missteps? By way of an example, consider the debate, on the Tenth Amendment Center’s site, expanded upon by historian Tom Woods.

I remain unpersuaded. I believe that Felix Morley, great writer and scholar of the Old Right, was also in no two minds about early Americans having been undeniably influenced by Jean Jacques Rousseau. There was, noted Morley in his magnificent “Freedom and Federalism,” some admiration in America for the manner in which the common democratic will found expression in revolutionary France. The influx of Marxist ideas much later from Europe further cemented America’s ideological immolation.”

I am also not inclined to finesse the odd “slip” that saw this most brilliant man—as Thomas Jefferson no doubt was—replace “property,” in The Declaration, with the “pursuit of happiness.”

The “Virginia Declaration of Rights,” written by George Mason in 1776, harmonizes “property” and the “pursuit of happiness”:

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

Elsewhere, Jefferson affirmed the natural right of “all men” to be secure in their enjoyment of their “life, liberty and possessions.” But in the Declaration, somehow, he opted for the inclusiveness of “the pursuit of happiness,” rather than cleave to the precision of “property.”

Unforgivable.