The Hounds @ Fox News Approve IRS Hounding Of Lauryn Hill

Conservatism, Media, Private Property, Taxation

Meta-analysis interests me, as you know; the coverage of the coverage. Far more revealing to me than the quotidian details of Lauryn Hills’ hounding by the IRS was the manner in which Fox News, the so-called conservative network, framed Ms. Hill’s failure to pay her taxes.

After all, Hill’s story is humdrum—that of the theft of private property by the state (anyone still want to argue that taxes are not paid at the point of a gun? “Forfeit your private property or lose your liberty”).

Both Shepard Smith and Megyn Kelley gloated that the threat of prison did the trick and compelled the singer to fork over close to a million dollars in taxes owed. At Fox News, this was a good-news story.

The Good “Guy” here is Ms. Hill. Taxation rejects a man’s absolute and natural right to his property and vests property rights in the political establishment. The 16th Amendment (“The Number of The Beast”) does just that.

Hands-Off Syria

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Middle East, Neoconservatism

It’s not often that I agree with Barack Obama, but his hands-off Syria policy, if it is to be believed, is, I’m sorry to say, the right one. It is unlikely, unfortunately, that the US is uninvolved in some covert operation in Syria. One “international affairs and defense analyst” told RT that “since 2012, if not earlier, weapons have been supplied to the rebels … a covert supply of weapons, of course – through Turkey and with the assistance of Saudi, Qatari and Turkish intelligence services.”

As for Israel’s strafing of Syria, what triggered this Israeli strike? The “crisis in 2006 was triggered by cross-border raids on Israel by Hamas in Gaza and by Hezbollah in Lebanon.” Journalist and Middle East expert Ali Rizk is searching for provocation (as we libertarians ought to):

Has there been any military action, has Israel been attacked by any side, whether it be Hezbollah or Syria? Has Israel been attacked by any side whatsoever? Israel has not been attacked.
So we hear this talk about game-changing weapons. But that doesn’t give the right or justification for such escalation…I have to emphasize, the clear message if anyone had any doubts I think now it has become clear: Israel wants Bashar Assad to fall. That is Israel’s choice. Netanyahu himself has said time and again: “Syria is the linchpin between Iran and Hezbollah.”

BBC News’ Jonathan Marcus thinks he’s found justification. Neoconservatives will concur. “According to US intelligence sources,” he reports, “the target of the first of these latest Israeli attacks [inside Syria] which took place overnight on Thursday was a shipment of ground-to-ground missiles at a warehouse at Damascus airport.”

…these latest air strikes underscore Israel’s equal worry about sophisticated conventional weapons being passed to Hezbollah. This includes sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, anti-shipping missiles, or accurate long-range ground-to-ground missiles. Such concerns are longstanding. … The missiles, which had been shipped from Iran, according to the sources, were Fateh-110s – a mobile, highly accurate solid-fuelled missiles with the capability of hitting Israel’s main population centres, like Tel Aviv, from southern Lebanon.
…What’s not clear, American officials admit, is exactly who the missiles were intended for – the Syrian army or Hezbollah. But the airport warehouse is said to have been under the control of personnel from Hezbollah and Iran’s paramilitary Quds Force.

UPDATED: Dhimmis Seek ‘Dignified’ Burial For Tamerlan Tsarnaev (Carrion For A Hungry French Vulture?)

America, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, EU, Europe, Islam, Jihad, Morality, Political Philosophy, Russia, Terrorism

His relatives refuse to give the Boston butcher a Muslim burial, so–what do you know?—Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s dhimmi victims are obliging. Apparently interring the dead is another one of those inviolable American values. And not only that, but giving this detritus of humanity a burial that comports with his faith is an obligation as well. All nonsensical, if not plain immoral. Incinerating Tsarnaev’s remains is the moral thing to do. (I was going to write that cremation was a “perfectly American” thing to do here, but I am unsure if we act as a moral people would any longer.) Cremation conserves resources and leaves (almost) nothing behind.

Via Fox News:

Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlor, agreed to handle the funeral arrangements. He told Fox News:

“They can protest, but what do you do? In this country, we bury the dead.” Stefan said everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of their death and said he is prepared for protests. But he added that arrangements have yet to be worked out, and finding a final resting plot for the body – which Islamic law says must not be cremated – could prove difficult.

UPDATE (May 5): Carrion For A Hungry French Vulture? Speaking of the detritus of humanity, philosophically, at least: The French are a people whose revolution was a precursor to the Karl-Marx inspired Russian Revolution and the Nazi menaces. During the Reign of Terror, and by popular demand, thousands of the country’s best and brightest—clergy, the aristocracy, and the educated—were guillotined in assembly-lines. This was a dress rehearsal for the industrialized, mass killing of the Communists and Nazis.

Fast forward to France of 2013. Due to EU central planners’ rulings, the vultures of France (the good kind; the birdies) are without carrion. The poor animals are starving. They did what they do best: clean up after human beings. And now French farmers, who can’t survive sans state subsidies (but expect vultures to), want to eradicate the Griffon vultures.

Cut vulture some slack. Can we not send a certain slab of putrefying flesh to poor these scavengers?

Communism Is Conducive To Cannibalism. What’s New?

America, Colonialism, Communism, History, Political Correctness, Private Property, Propaganda

Is communism conducive to cannibalism? Of course. Immoral systems give rise to more of the same. Food shortages and starvation are byproducts of communism. The rest follows as sure as night follows day. Taboos fall by the way when one is starving. The Plymouth pilgrims, circa 1623, abandoned private property for communal ownership of the means of production. They starved.

CNN:

Archaeologists revealed Wednesday their analysis of 17th century skeletal remains suggesting that settlers practiced cannibalism to survive.
Researchers unearthed an incomplete human skull and tibia (shin bone) in 2012 that contain several features suggesting that this particular person had been cannibalized. The remains come from a 14-year-old girl of English origin, whom historians are calling “Jane.”
Photos: Cannibalism evidence Photos: Cannibalism evidence
Scholar: Settlers ate each other
Studying the history of cannibalism
Cannibalism in colonial America?
There are about half a dozen accounts that mention cannibalistic behaviors at that time, although the record is limited, said Douglas Owsley, division head of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of National History.
The newly analyzed remains support these accounts, providing the first forensic evidence of cannibalism in the American colonies.

Good luck in finding a discussion of native culinary appetites and practices in the Americas. But now that archaeologists are implicating the Christian Jamestown settlers with cannibalism, you’ll never hear the end of it.

As was observed in “Rousseau’s Noble Savage – Not on this Continent”, “The Americas are scattered with archeological evidence of routine massacres, cannibalism, dismemberment, slavery, abuse of women and human sacrifice among native tribes. Why, the Northwest Territories Yellowknife tribe eventually disappeared as a direct result of a massacre carried out as late as 1823. …”

Still, I’d like to read a response to this news item from a real historian. Kevin Gutzman? Tom Woods?