A Storm in a Nanny State

Democracy, Government, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Journalism, Liberty, Media, Private Property, Propaganda, The State

Take this post to be part of the blog series, “What They Do In Dictatorships.” In a highly evolved Managerial State such as ours, where the population has been cowed into submission, storms—even—Category 1 storms—give rise to forced evacuations. Just about half the country has been terrorized, or threatened into fleeing. It’s called “leadership,” and subjects seem to apprecaite being coaxed from their homes by lazy bureaucrats and oink-sector workers who’d rather run themselves, than stick around and do the job taxpayers pay them to do: rescue taxpayers.

In “bad” dictatorships—Libya being the latest one the US and its allies have just voided of a dictator—people might have been left in their homes. OMG. The horror! But not in the US, because the American Managerial State is so much more efficient in encroaching on its citizens than are these tin-pot dictators, whom we have built-up into mega-monsters in our infantile, Disneyfied minds.

In any case, the crappy media in this country forms a cartel of cretins. Such is the nature of this monopoly that all news outlets can safely decide to hype one story—in this case, the storm that petered out—and none of these media see the need to hedge their bets, or moderate the level of hysteria on this most fickle of topics: weather.

Here’s the definition of a “Category 1 storm”:

They “usually cause no significant structural damage; however, they can topple unanchored mobile homes, as well as uproot or snap trees. Poorly attached roof shingles or tiles can blow off. Coastal flooding and pier damage are often associated with Category 1 storms. Power outages are typically widespread to extensive, sometimes lasting several days. Even though it is the least intense type of hurricane, the storm can still produce plenty of widespread damage and can be a life-threatening storm.”

UPDATED: John McCain Is Scum (The Biggest Bully on the Block)

Foreign Policy, John McCain, Just War, Middle East, Neoconservatism, Republicans, Terrorism, War

I’ve dubbed him McMussolini, and a serial killer by proxy. John McCain, concurs Larry Auster, is simply “the worst man in America.” Adds Larry: Americans who’ve gone along with John McCain’s latest criminal endeavor, the war of choice against Libya, “share in his guilt”:

McCain has justified the war on Libya because Kaddafi “has blood on his hands”–a reference to the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. But, as shown on MSNBC last night by the man substituting for Lawrence O’Donnell, McCain visited Libya in 2009 and had a friendly meeting with Kaddafi. The meeting is shown in photographs, and there is a transcript. At one point McCain expresses his support for “progress in the bilateral relationship” between Libya and the U.S.
So in 2009 McCain had put Pan Am 103 behind him, as he had no choice to do, given that the U.S. had made peace with Kaddafi following his abandonment of his WMDs programs in 2003. But in 2011, the “script” had changed (that ever-changing “script” which tells liberals who is the oppressive villain and who is the saintlike victim in any given situation), and under this new script Kaddafi was suddenly a terrible enemy again and had to be destroyed, and it was as though the 2003 peace, and the good relations Kaddafi had maintained with the U.S. since 2003, including his friendly meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Tripoli in 2006, had never existed.
I repeat that if we had destroyed Kaddafi in 1988 in retaliation for the Lockerbie bombing that would have been just and right; but we did not do that; we let it pass, for 15 years, and ultimately we made peace with Kaddafi, as a part of which he paid substantial monetary damages to the families of the victims. On the political level, the Lockerbie bombing was a closed account, and no U.S. leader had the right in 2011 to bring it up again and say that we had to punish Kaddafi over it.
During the course of his career Kaddafi has been known as a whimsical tyrant. But in our war against Libya, it is not Kaddafi, but the U.S., which has behaved with the whimsicality of a tyrant.
John McCain is the worst man in America; but to the extent that we have gone along with this criminal war we all share in his guilt

UPDATE (Aug. 29): THE BIGGEST BULLY ON THE BLOCK. Huggins wrote: “That Khaddffi needed to be eliminated is not up to debate.” By who? God=USA? In he same vain the (pale) imitation of a Huggins over in the Arab world is saying, “That Bush needed to be eliminated is not up to debate.” And he’d have a solid point. Start seeing matters from both sides, and then you’ll come back to my position: quit invading these backward and benighted regions. What we’ve done—and are doing—to them is way worse than anything these people are capable of doing to us.

UPDATED: Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy

America, Colonialism, Conspiracy, Debt, Democracy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Government, Inflation, Middle East

Was Moammar Gadhafi promoting a gold-driven monetary revolution? Did he, somehow, contravene the American creed of cruising on credit? Is it entirely within the realm of conspiracy to posit that the war against Libya had at least something to do with taking down “a pesky, persistent Arab gold bug?”

The following is from my new column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” now on WND.COM:

“In 2009—in his capacity as head of the African Union—Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi had proposed that the economically crippled continent adopt the Gold Dinar. I do not know for sure if Colonel Gadhafi persevered in the plan he had hatched to ditch the dollar and adopt a ‘Gold Dinar.’ … Had a gold revolution engulfed oil-rich African and Persian-Gulf states this would have spelt trouble for the debt-strapped West.

If only symbolically, a gold revolution across Arabia and Africa would have outweighed by far the significance of a democratic revolution.

A Gadhafi-driven gold revolution would have, however, imperiled the positions of central bankers and their political and media power-brokers. The former surreptitiously print away the fruits of the people’s labor; the latter scramble their brains so that they don’t know they are being robbed blind.” …

The complete column, “Gadhafi A Gold Bug? Finally, A Believable Conspiracy,” is now on WND.COM.

My new book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon.

A newly formatted, splendid Kindle copy is also on sale.

If you’re interested in syndicating my weekly, WND column, kindly email me for details at ilana@ilanamercer.com. “Return to Reason is WorldNetDaily’s longest standing, exclusive libertarian column.

UPDATE (Aug. 28): The late Elizabeth Wright had an interesting tidbit about the twisted relationship between Muammar Gaddafi and “the foolish Europeans”:

When Libya’s cynical Muammar Gaddafi laughs at the foolish Europeans, who have encouraged the emigration of millions of Third World aliens, and offers Europe’s leaders a financial deal to keep more of the mob out of that continent, are American conservatives taking notes?
As literally tens of thousands of African refugees in boats try to reach Italy, the Libyan navy has been instrumental in keeping them out, thanks to an agreement with the Italian government. “We don’t know,” the bemused Gaddafi is quoted as saying, “if Europe will remain an advanced and united continent or if it will be destroyed, as happened with the barbarian invasions.” And then he comes right out and says it: Your continent is turning into Africa.

What They Do In Dictatorships

Democracy, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Ethics, Individual Rights, Journalism, Justice, Law, Media, Middle East, Private Property

The courts, stacked as they are with judges who work for the dictator, want to put a brave rebel behind bars for shooting a predator on his property. The rebel shot and killed a wild, extremely dangerous animal that thrives in the dictator’s country. All the tribesman did was to aggressively repel from human habitat a creature that had become brazen, making itself at home near the man’s children as they played. It used to be that these tribesmen instilled fear in encroaching creatures. But thanks to decades of cultural and legal emasculation under the dictator, the queered men folk are no longer licensed to protect home and hearth. If they do, they lose their liberty.

I bet you thought this was Anderson Cooper reporting from Libya, botching the job of journalism, as is his wont.

No, this is about an American, one among many (Jeremy M. Hill, 33), who pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court to killing a grizzly bear with a rifle on his 20-acre property near Porthill, Idaho, at the Canadian border.

Jeremy Hill has six kids, ranging in age from 14 years old to 10 months old. At least five were home when the grizzly was killed, Mike Hill said. The bears had gone after some pigs in a pen that the kids had been raising, Mike Hill said.

I wonder how many Libyans have been arrested for shooting wild animals that threatened their families.

If given the choice, I’d choose the right to defend my life and property over the vote, any day.