Lincoln Lied, People Died

Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, History, Republicans, States' Rights, War

The following is excerpted from my latest WND.COM column, “Lincoln Lied, People Died”:

“Tomorrow is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Familiar Lincoln idolaters will gather to celebrate the birth, on Feb. 12, 1809, of the 16th president of the United States and finesse his role in “the butchering business” – to use professor J. R. Pole’s turn-of-phrase. Court historian Doris Kearns Goodwin is sure to make a media appearance to extol the virtues of the president who shed the blood of brothers in great quantities and urged into existence the “American System” of taxpayer-sponsored grants of government privilege to politically connected corporations.

On publication, in 2002, of the book “The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War,” the “Church of Lincoln” gave battle. The enemy was the author, Thomas J. DiLorenzo, who had exposed Lincoln lore for the lie it was – still is. DiLorenzo had dared to examine the Great Centralizer’s role in sundering the soul of the American federal system: the sovereignty of the states and the citizenry.

Steeped as they were in the Lockean tradition of natural rights and individual liberty, the constitutional framers held that the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property were best preserved within a federal system of divided sovereignty, in which the central government was weak and most powers devolved to the states, or to the people, respectively, as stated in the 10th Amendment. If a state grew tyrannical, competition from other states – and the individual’s ability to switch allegiances by exiting the political arrangement – would create something of an agora in government. This was the framers’ genius.

The concentrated powers Lincoln sought were inimical to the founders’ loose constitutional dispensation.” …

The complete column is “Lincoln Lied, People Died,” now on WND.COM.

Babes In Nosebags

Democracy, Feminism, Gender, Islam, Middle East, Propaganda

Has anyone spotted women in secular attire among the crowds of protesters in Egypt? I’ve seen one or two in the footage (via the Guardian). More often than not, when one does see women on the streets, they’re wearing the traditional nosebag. I understand that the self-celebrating media wants us all to slobber in unison over the protests. Fine. Whatever floats the people’s boat. (The conditions of my slobber were stipulated in “Frankly, My Dear Egyptians, I Don’t Give a Damn.”) Still, I’d like to know how representative are the images transmitted from the Egyptian street, and whether the presence everywhere of women in these nosebags correlates with their mistreatment.

Feminist Phyllis Chesler has a photo essay featuring Cairo University graduates in 1959, 1978, 1995, and 2004. I can see what she means when she observes that “the female graduates in 1959 and 1978 had bare arms, wore short sleeved blouses, dresses, or pants, and were both bare-faced and bare-headed. By 1995, we see a smattering of headscarves—and by 2004 we see a plurality of female university graduates in serious hijab: Tight, and draping the shoulders.”

Chesler equates the trends with “a regression really, in terms of women’s rights.”

A June, 2010 Pew opinion survey of Egyptians confirms that Egyptian society is thoroughly Islamized:

Fifty nine percent said they back Islamists. Only 27% said they back modernizers. Half of Egyptians support Hamas. Thirty percent support Hizbullah and 20% support al Qaida. Moreover, 95% of them would welcome Islamic influence over their politics….Eighty two percent of Egyptians support executing adulterers by stoning, 77% support whipping and cutting the hands off thieves. 84% support executing any Muslim who changes his religion…When this preference is translated into actual government policy, it is clear that the Islam they support is the al Qaida Salafist version.

I agree that the demos must have its say. But must we American prance about like fools pretending that there are no concerns about popular rule in Egypt?

DiLorenzo Dishes It Out To Subcommittee On Domestic Monetary Policy

Business, Debt, Economy, Federal Reserve Bank, Healthcare, Individual Rights, Inflation

Pearls before swine? Probably. Still, the freedom movement is gaining momentum. First came Randy Barnett’s powerful testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee (read “Turning Citizens Into Subjects: Why The Health Insurance Mandate Is Unconstitutional”). My good friend Thomas DiLorenzo, Professor of Economics at Loyola University in Maryland, followed. Tom tried to explain to members of the Committee on Financial Services (Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology) that the “Fed’s monetary policies tend to create temporary and unsustainable increases in employment while being the very engine of recession and depression that creates a much greater degree of job destruction and unemployment.”

Here’s an excerpt from “How the Fed Fuels Unemployment”:

When the Fed expands the money supply excessively it not only is prone to creating price inflation, but it also sows the seeds of recession or depression by artificially lowering interest rates, which can ignite a false or unsustainable “boom” period. Lower interest rates induce people to consume more and save less. But increased savings and the subsequent business investment that it finances is what fuels economic growth and job creation.
Lowered interest rates and wider availability of credit caused by the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy causes businesses to invest more in (mostly long-term) capital projects (primarily real estate in the latest boom-and-bust cycle), and there is an accompanying expansion of employment in those industries. But since the lower interest rates are caused by the Fed’s expansion of the money supply and not an increase in savings by the public (i.e., by the free market), businesses that have invested in long-term capital projects eventually discover that there is not enough consumer demand to justify their investments. (The reduced savings in the past means consumer demand is weaker in the future). This is when the “bust” occurs.
The economic damage done by the boom-and-bust policies of the Fed occur in the boom period when resources are misallocated in the ways described here. The “bust” period is actually a necessary cure for the economic miscalculations that have occurred, as businesses liquidate their unsound investments and begin to make decisions on realistic, market-based interest rates. Prices and wages must return to reality as well.
Government policies that bail out businesses that have made these bad investment decisions will only delay or prohibit economic recovery while encouraging more of such behavior in the future (the “moral hazard problem”). This is how short recessions can be turned into seemingly endless ones. Worse yet is for the Fed to create even more monetary inflation, rather than allowing the necessary economic adjustments to take place, which will eventually set off another boom-and-bust cycle.

MORE.

Prominent Neoconservative Admits Europeans Ahead On Multiculturalism

Affirmative Action, Europe, IMMIGRATION, Islam, Multiculturalism, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Racism, Republicans

Which is what I said back in … 2005, in the column titled “Get With The Global Program, Gaul”. At the time, the famed Francis Fukuyama, Frederick Kempe, and Jonah Goldberg—neoconservatives all—had fingered the French for racism and snobbery in marginalizing their Muslims, who were running riot across France. All nonsense on stilts, naturally. The French simply rejected what we Americans embrace: submerging aspects of their identity for their mad-as-hell Maghrebis. As I wrote then:

“To her credit, France has no institutionalized multiculturalism. Integrating individuals, not communities, is how the French have approached their émigré population. They say their republican values proscribe affirmative action. But since America’s republican values haven’t hindered racist quotas here, says our neoconservative troika, the French should get with The Program.”

“Schadenfreude tinged with a sense of American superiority,” is how I characterized this neoconservatives response to the destruction Muslims visited across France. Their recommendations for the errant Europeans? Perfect yourselves by following us Americans; through affirmative action programs; through fashioning a spanking new national identity; do some “nationl building.”

Now, Dr. Daniel Pipes admits to finding the European anti-Islamist stance encouraging. Those of us who have family in Europe are well-aware that this position is widely shared by Europeans. In the Netherlands, for example, they vote in large numbers for Geert Wilders, an influential Dutch parliamentarian working against the spread of Islam in his country, and roundly condemned by most on the American “right” as a fascist.

Dr. Pipes’ is a welcome conversion, although he is simply lauding politicians for catching up with the people they are supposed the represent. Writes Dr. Pipes:

The stirring speech by British prime minister David Cameron on Feb. 5, in which he intelligently focused on what he called the “hands-off tolerance” of “Islamist extremism,” including its non-violent forms, exactly fits this pattern.
In similar fashion, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany last October deemed multiculturalism to have “utterly failed.” A referendum in Switzerland about minarets manifested the concerns of that country’s population – and polling around the continent showed those sentiments to be widely shared.
The rise of respectable political parties primarily focused on the issues surrounding Islam – with Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands at the forefront – is perhaps the single most encouraging sign, compelling legacy parties like the British Conservatives to pay attention.