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Wednesday December 4th, 2013
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Tuesday December 3rd, 2013
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Crony Capitalism Drives Airport Security
posted 12/03/2013, 12:59 AM (Wendy McElroy)
[Category: Commentary]
There is yet another reason not to fly into or within the US. “Nazi-style detention pods” – that's what opponents of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have called the new “exit pods” being tested at the Syracuse (NY) airport. But the pods are not primarily a rape of civil rights. Their import is equally ominous but more subtle. Their main purpose seems to be profit rather than the flexing of arbitrary power, althou... (more) |
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Monday December 2nd, 2013
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Copyright Monopoly Disintegration Inevitable As It Only Takes A Single Country
posted 12/02/2013, 12:25 AM (Rick Falkvinge)
[Category: Commentary]
The emergence of experimental legally autonomous startup zones in Honduras and other places is one of the most exciting developments in a long time, and forebodes the collapse of the copyright industry’s tyranny over culture and knowledge.
I believe in competition. I believe in experimentation to see what works best and what can be predictably repeated – call it the scientific method applied to society, if you like. This has been a problem geopolitically, as the United States has... (more) |
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Saturday November 30th, 2013
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Debunking the Myth of the Hero Cop
posted 11/30/2013, 10:16 PM (Daily Anarchist)
[Category: Commentary]
 In a recent article at The Independent Political Report, James Gray perpetuates the fairy-tale of the police as heroes to be looked up to. He writes, “One of the most noble public servant positions in our society is a police officer. These men and women often have difficult jobs, and frequently do not get the credit and appreciation they deserve.” If police were these he... (more) |
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Tuesday November 26th, 2013
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Don't Be Thankful for Tyranny
posted 11/26/2013, 1:23 PM (John W. Whitehead)
[Category: Commentary]
I will be the first to acknowledge that there is much to be thankful for about life in America, especially when compared to those beyond our borders whose daily lives are marked by war, hunger and disease. Despite our kvetching, grumbling and complaining, most Americans have it pretty good compared to less fortunates the world over.
Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that all of our so-called blessings will amount to little more than gilding on a cage if we don't safeguard... (more) |
Is Liberty on the Rise?
posted 11/26/2013, 1:20 PM (The Freeman)
[Category: Commentary]
Some libertarians despair at the prospect of shrinking Leviathan. How can we make meaningful change when the system is stacked against us? And how can we be freer when our political leaders only seem interested in growing government and having more control over the economy?
But the fact is that we’ve already made enormous strides. The history of the federal government since World War II tells a tale of increasing freedom and—believe it or not—decreased intervention. In the great ... (more) |
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Monday November 25th, 2013
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Without The State, Who Will Falsely Imprison Teenagers?
posted 11/25/2013, 11:50 AM (Travis Eby)
[Category: Commentary]
 On the night of May 14, 2010 16-year-old Bronx resident Kalief Browder was walking home from a party. He was stopped by police and "identified" by a stranger as a robber. Despite the lack of any evidence whatsoever, Browder was put in prison where he remained for three years. He missed the birth of his cousin, holiday after holiday with his family, and his high school prom. After three years in a cage he was suddenly released. All charges... (more) |
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Thursday November 21st, 2013
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Pirating Creativity: The MPAA Is Going After Schoolchildren
posted 11/21/2013, 12:26 PM (Travis Eby)
[Category: Commentary]
For years now the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been trying its best, unsuccessfully, to enforce its “intellectual property” claims upon those who would dare share and distribute media. They are of course not the only ones trying to get IP enforced; we have seen the same trends in music and gaming. Since it has long become clear that they cannot stop the sharing of media on the internet, the MPAA is going for the gold: Get pirates when they are young. In other words, the MPAA... (more) |
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Wednesday November 20th, 2013
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American Borders Will Be Changing
posted 11/20/2013, 12:47 PM (Wendy McElroy)
[Category: Commentary]
An iron curtain is slowly descending around the borders of America. When it falls, some people will be shut in; others will be shut out. It will be up to bureaucrats and agents with guns to decide which one of those people you are.
Changes in border policy are in the wind. On June 27th, 2013, the 1,300-page Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act passed the Senate and proceeded to the House of Representatives. Debate on the Act has focused on the p... (more) |
The Gravest Threat to Freedom
posted 11/20/2013, 12:46 PM (Jack D. Douglas)
[Category: Commentary]
Sacred Monarchs have been overthrown by military leaders throughout all 5,000 years of statism. Caesarism is ancient. Bonapartism is the modern version of Caesarism. We see it happening every day in the world’s media. The Egyptian Army and secret police just overthrew the first elected, democratic government in Egypt’s history. (I believe for many reasons the CIA is behind this and supplies the vital war materials and money and intelligence to the Egyptian Army, but the U.S. government is openly... (more) |
Closing Gitmo Isn't Nearly Enough
posted 11/20/2013, 12:46 PM (Anthony Gregory)
[Category: Commentary]
Once again we hear calls to close Guantánamo’s prison camp. Every once in a while, Americans see reminders of this detention facility in the news cycle. Months ago, we heard about the hunger strike, yet it was scarcely in the national headlines early in Obama’s presidency, when I first read about it, and today we hear much less about it, although it continues.
The president is taking steps, five years into his administration, toward the promise he had made to close the facilit... (more) |
Taking Pride in State Failure
posted 11/20/2013, 12:46 PM (James E. Miller)
[Category: Commentary]
What do "normal" people want from politics?
Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic contends to know. In a recent diatribe, he slams National Review Editor-at-Large Jonah Goldberg for taking sweet delight in the failed rollout of President Obama's signature health care legislation. In doing so, he misses out at basking in one of the best cases of state incompetence since ... (more) |
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Thursday November 14th, 2013
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Ike Warned Us About This Guy
posted 11/14/2013, 9:03 AM (Douglas French)
[Category: Commentary]
The words of H.L. Mencken rang through my head as I listened to a certain Alabama congressman talk to 40 or 50 shivering supporters the other night: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
The congressman said, “Don’t ever call me moderate” and emphasized that he’s pragmatic. His employer may be broke and $17 trillion in debt, but the ... (more) |
The Cause of Our Violent and Drug-Ridden Society
posted 11/14/2013, 8:43 AM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
We Americans live in a violent society, one in which there are lots of homicides, family abuse, mass murders of people, and other acts of violence.
We also live in a drug-ridden society. The war on drugs has been an absolute failure when it comes to dissuading Americans from using drugs. The number of people taking illicit drugs has to be inordinately high. Otherwise there would be no reason to continue the drug war. Add to that the countless Americans suffering from alcoholism. A... (more) |
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Wednesday November 13th, 2013
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Ringo: The Ex-Pat Dog
posted 11/13/2013, 7:02 AM (The Dollar Vigilante)
[Category: Commentary]
 Ringo is moving to Galt’s Gulch Chile with us.
The big guy wandered up our driveway four years ago in the dark, early hours of a fall morning. My study is just off the foyer, and I was hunkered down over my computer when Bear – a dog since deceased – erupted into a string of barking in the front yard. That wasn't unusual. Bear patrolled the perimeter of our farm every night and he challenged every shadow that dared to move. But... (more) |
None Dare Call It...
posted 11/13/2013, 7:00 AM (John C. Goodman)
[Category: Commentary]
Here is something that is odd.
For the past six years President Obama and the Democrats in Congress have waged a relentless attack on the health insurance industry. In the most recent iteration, the president assures us he is not responsible for the wave of health insurance policy cancellations. The insurance companies are.
Okay, so where is the other side?
When is the last time you saw an insurance industry executive interviewed on a TV talk show, pr... (more) |
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Tuesday November 12th, 2013
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America Honors Hired Murderers
posted 11/12/2013, 7:03 AM (The Dollar Vigilante)
[Category: Commentary]
Today Americans honor those who fought and murdered strangers in return for stolen money. Americans have long been taught from their infancy that killing on the orders of the political elite is the noblest thing a tax slave can do. They are taught that invasion and murder have something to do with the defense of their own homes, lives and freedoms.
"But who would defend us if it weren't for the government and the warrior it pays with the taxes it takes?" we can almost hear the ma... (more) |
Janet Yellen's Mission Impossible
posted 11/12/2013, 7:02 AM (Peter Schiff)
[Category: Commentary]
Most market watchers expect that Janet Yellen will grapple with two major tasks once she takes the helm at the Federal Reserve in 2014: deciding on the appropriate timing and intensity of the Fed’s quantitative easing taper strategy, and unwinding the Fed’s enormous $4 trillion balance sheet (without creating huge losses in the value of its portfolio). In reality both assignments are far more difficult than just about anyone understands or admits.
Unlike just about every other eco... (more) |
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Monday November 11th, 2013
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Obama's "Noble Lies"
posted 11/11/2013, 6:36 AM (Will Grigg)
[Category: Commentary]
President Obama’s repeated assurances that Americans would be able to retain their current health care plans under the ObamaCare program were conscious, deliberate lies. NBC News, tardily performing the kind of journalistic due diligence that should have been done years ago, reports that administration officials were aware that two-thirds – or more – of those currently insured would have their... (more) |
Politicians as Interchangeable Units
posted 11/11/2013, 6:33 AM (Wendy McElroy)
[Category: Commentary]
Why did it take a comedian to demand answers about a blatant double standard embedded in Obamacare? On October 7, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was grilled mercilessly by Jon Stewart, who focused on why businesses can delay enrollment for a year but individuals cannot. Stewart speculated on the reason, saying, “Geez, it looks like because I don’t have a lobbying group.”... (more) |
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Friday November 8th, 2013
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Individualism Trumps
posted 11/08/2013, 6:53 AM (James E. Miller)
[Category: Commentary]
In a recent Dish piece titled, "Can American Conservativism Be Saved?" Andrew Sullivan attempts to carve out a way for his temperamental political outlook to survive among narcissistic collectivism. Reflecting on an essay written by Wilfred McClay, the former New Republic editor describes America's rugged geography as a force that helped, in part, to "unleash the animal spirits of capital... (more) |
A Branding Problem
posted 11/08/2013, 6:53 AM (Logan Albright)
[Category: Commentary]
 Actor/comedian Russell Brand has done what almost all actor/comedians eventually do, having turned momentarily from entertainment to express his opinions about politics. As you might expect, Brand is a committed leftist, railing against capitalism, "the rich," and all the other usual Hollywood boogeymen. However, what makes Brand's case an interesting one is the language that he uses to express his views, language that leads me to believe that maybe there is more common ground between us than o... (more) |
The Industrial Revolution You Haven't Met
posted 11/08/2013, 6:51 AM (Wendy McElroy)
[Category: Commentary]
In textile factories, they were called "scavengers." The typical scavenger was about six years old, and the child's job was to reclaim loose cotton that fell under the machinery. Because the machines kept operating, terrible injuries were commonplace. History points to child labor during the Industrial Revolution as a heart wrenching indictment of the capitalist system – or, rather, specific historians who have been influential have done so. History itself actually frowns upon their interpretati... (more) |
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Thursday November 7th, 2013
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Blinding You With Science
posted 11/07/2013, 3:05 AM ( Jeffrey Tucker)
[Category: Commentary]
It is such a kick to read the transcripts from the White House’s health care “war room” in the first days of release. What a meltdown, and you get to watch it all in real-time.
I’m not trying to be cruel to the kindly despots who have wrecked so much of what worked in the existing system, only to replace it with an unworkable central plan that’s robbing people all over the country.
But still, there is justice in this humiliation.
Somehow, the Republic... (more) |
Stupidity or Plan?
posted 11/07/2013, 3:03 AM (Scott Horton)
[Category: Commentary]
Are America’s disasters abroad a result of stupidity or some elaborate plan? An observer of modern U.S. foreign policy can be torn on that one.
It makes sense that generals, contractors, and other national-security state types will invent and follow a deliberate policy of divide and rule, as well as to create crises to move on to the next big job. But if one looks closely, it does begin to seem that perhaps narrow-minded, shortsighted stupidity is a better overall explanation of t... (more) |
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Wednesday November 6th, 2013
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InformationLiberation Makes Reddit r/Politics' Prestigious Banned Domains List!
posted 11/06/2013, 12:33 AM (InformationLiberation)
[Category: Commentary]
 What an honor, the control freak moderators over at r/Politics have included yours truly on their banned domain list along with a host of other wonderful websites like Infowars, Raw Story, Reason, Techdirt, Breitbart, Drudge Report, WorldNetDaily, Photograph Is Not A Crime, BlacklistedNews and others. I must say I'm flattered to be listed among such prestigious websites... (more) |
An Open Letter to Russell Brand
posted 11/06/2013, 12:32 AM (Jeff Berwick)
[Category: Commentary]
 Russell Brand,
"An unexpected pundit," pundits have called you.
To me, you're something different. You're more in line with the classic comedians of our time, the Bill Hickses and the George Carlins. You are not a pundit.
You've certainly been in the spotlight since you called for revolution on BBC. Some hate you, some love you, but most of all, you got yourself some excellent press. I've got to ad... (more) |
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Tuesday November 5th, 2013
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Obama Proves He's Really Good at Killing People
posted 11/05/2013, 1:34 AM (Jason Lee Byas)
[Category: Commentary]
A new book (Double Down: Game Change 2012, by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann) claims that US president Barack Obama told his aides during his last election that he's "really good at killing people." He's right.
For example, last Friday a drone strike targeting Hakimullah Mehsud of the Tehreek-e- Taliban Pakistan (TTP) reportedly ended his life and at least 25 other lives. As if to provide further proof of the president's status as a successful killer, the death toll from that d... (more) |
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Monday November 4th, 2013
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The State Can't Enforce Its Laws Without Disobeying Them
posted 11/04/2013, 3:26 AM (Kevin Carson)
[Category: Commentary]
I just read that the parents of an autistic high school student arrested in a drug sting operation in Temecula, California last December have filed suit against the school district. The parents were “initially happy their son had made his first and only friend last year at school,” but became suspicious when his “school friend” kept making excuses for not coming over. The “friend,” actually Riverside County Sheriff's Deputy Daniel Zipperstein, “pressured their lonely and vulnerable son with more... (more) |
Obama, NSA Spying and the Dangers of Secretive, Authoritarian Government
posted 11/04/2013, 3:25 AM (John W. Whitehead)
[Category: Commentary]
“The perception here is of a United States where security has trumped liberty, intelligence agencies run amok (vacuuming up data of friend and foe alike), and the once-admired “checks and balances” built into American governance and studied by European schoolchildren have become, at best, secret reviews of secret activities where opposing arguments get no hearing.” – New York Times columnist Roger Cohen Recent reports indicating that President Obama was aware of and per... (more) |
The Noble Lie of Government Healthcare
posted 11/04/2013, 3:25 AM (James E. Miller)
[Category: Commentary]
"If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan."
These words, spoken by U.S. President Barack Obama in various forms and iterations, have become a running joke amidst the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. All across the country, hundreds of thousands of citizens are receiving cancellation notices in the mail. Th... (more) |
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Friday November 1st, 2013
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The Virtue of Vigilantism
posted 11/01/2013, 1:45 PM (Logan Albright)
[Category: Commentary]
 Most of us are brought up believing that we live in a nation of laws, that certain objective rules govern society, and that enforcing those rules is the sole province of government and its agents. When we have a problem, we rely on the police and the courts to solve it, and whatever decisions they make are deemed final and binding. Horror stories about lynchings and mob justice instill an inherent fear of taking the law into our own hands. Leave it to the professionals, we are told. They will ta... (more) |
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Thursday October 31st, 2013
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Hey FDA, Mind Your Own Business
posted 10/31/2013, 12:17 AM (Jonathan Carp)
[Category: Commentary]
One of the first things I learned in my health care career is that pain is an inherently subjective experience. Different people experience different levels of pain in different situations, and everyone has their own idiosyncratic problem areas — one can’t bear dental pain while another finds back injuries unbearable. Because of this fact, backed up by neurological research, I was taught that we cannot take a cookie-cutter approach to pain management and that each patient deserves individual att... (more) |
The War on Americans
posted 10/31/2013, 12:16 AM (David S. D'Amato)
[Category: Commentary]
That the consumption of certain drugs ought to be proscribed by law is probably taken for granted by most people. The presumption in favor of banning some drugs has become so strong, so embedded in the mainstream of popular discourse as to be practically beyond debate — notwithstanding either philosophical or empirical issues that stand in contradiction to the accepted view. But at this stage in the American experiment in drug prohibition, the case for legalizing drugs, for leaving them within t... (more) |
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Wednesday October 30th, 2013
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The Unbearable Lightness of Leaving
posted 10/30/2013, 12:10 AM (The Dollar Vigilante)
[Category: Commentary]
 Memories are a moveable feast.
The thought occurred to me last week while I was walking my dog down the gravel road at the end of my driveway. The trees were a festival of color, the air was crisp, the road was idyllically quiet. I tried to memorize the scene and the feeling.
When I move to the Newer World, I will miss aspects of Canada. My willingness to say goodbye is an indication of how deeply I believe North America has become a careening danger to the freedom ... (more) [Wendy is moving to Galt's Gulch, Chile, a newly created libertarian community outside of Santiago.] |
Movie-Maker John Carpenter's Prophetic Vision
posted 10/30/2013, 12:10 AM (John W. Whitehead)
[Category: Commentary]
"I'm disgusted by what we've become in America. I truly believe there is brain death in this country. Everything we see is designed to sell us something. The only thing they want to do is take our money."--John Carpenter John Carpenter's films, known primarily for their horror themes, inevitably feature pulse-pounding soundtracks, slow-moving camera work and hair-raising jolts to the nervous system as evil pops into the foreground with unexpected intensity. However, whil... (more) |
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Tuesday October 29th, 2013
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The Website is Fixable, Obamacare Isn't
posted 10/29/2013, 12:03 AM (Peter Schiff)
[Category: Commentary]
Since Obamacare made its debut, discussions have focused on Ted Cruz' efforts to defund the law and the shockingly bad functionality of the Website itself. Fortunately for Obama, polling indicates that Senator Cruz has lost, at least for now, the battle for hearts and minds. The President has not been nearly so lucky on the technological front. If current trends continue, the rollout may go down as the worst major product launch in history. But given the government's enormous resources, it's saf... (more) |
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Monday October 28th, 2013
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What Would a Free Society Look Like?
posted 10/28/2013, 12:01 AM (Jacob G. Hornberger)
[Category: Commentary]
Given the enormous role that the welfare-warfare state plays in American life, it is always easy for libertarians to find deprivations of liberty, such as coerced charity, drug-war incarcerations, the IRS, torture, surveillance, and assassination. Infringements on fundamental rights and liberties have become such an integral part of daily life that many Americans have even come to believe that they are all part and parcel of a free society.... (more) |
Market vs. Monopoly: Beating the 'Intellectual Property' Racket
posted 10/28/2013, 12:01 AM (Thomas L. Knapp)
[Category: Commentary]
The strongest argument in favor of the fiction of “intellectual property” is consequential rather than moral: Creators of good things — novels, songs, drugs, what have you — we are told, will essentially go on strike if government doesn’t guarantee their profits by vesting them with monopoly “rights” to ideas. Instead of writing that next blockbuster or producing a cure for cancer, they’ll content themselves with flipping burgers or digging ditches for a living, and we’ll all be worse off.
... (more) |
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Thursday October 24th, 2013
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Is the Drug War Toast?
posted 10/24/2013, 1:07 PM (Anthony Gregory)
[Category: Commentary]
Public opinion now decisively favors legalizing marijuana. Fifty-eight percent of Americans want the war on pot to stop.
Once marijuana is legal, the drug war as we know it will need a new life breathed into it to survive. Pot accounts for the vast majority of arrests and illicit drug users. It is much easier for the federal drug warriors to whip up hysteria over “tens of millions... (more) |
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Wednesday October 23rd, 2013
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Infrastructure is Not “Progressive”
posted 10/23/2013, 10:58 AM (Kevin Carson)
[Category: Commentary]
Frankly, I have a hard time understanding what goes on in the heads of “progressives.” On the one hand, they constantly complain — and rightfully so — about the power of big business and corporate domination of our society and economy. But on the other, their rhetoric is full of nostalgia for the government policies that made corporate domination possible in the first place.
We see it in Rachel Maddow’s 30-second spots on MSNBC standing in front of the Hoover Dam, yearning for the... (more) |
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Thursday October 17th, 2013
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Our World Through Thomas Paine's Eyes
posted 10/17/2013, 11:14 AM (Jeffrey Tucker)
[Category: Commentary]
 I've just spent a harrowing weekend reflecting on Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the pamphlet that came out in January 1776 and turned the public toward seeking independence from Britain. I say harrowing because the distance between the ideals found in this pamphlet and those of today's America is so vast as to be nearly unrecognizable.
The presumption throughout the text is that tyranny should never again be tolerated. Despotism was for the old world. Tyranny was outdated. It belon... (more) |
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Wednesday October 16th, 2013
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Tuesday October 15th, 2013
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It's the Constitution, Stupid
posted 10/15/2013, 11:04 AM (The Dollar Vigilante)
[Category: Commentary]
Arguably, the most important reason why conservatives, populists, and even libertarians have failed to halt and turn back the rise of the American Leviathan state has been largely due to their uncritical acceptance, and often times deification, of the United States Constitution. ... (more) |
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Monday October 14th, 2013
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The Century of the Self: The Untold History of Controlling the Masses Through the Manipulation of Unconscious Desires
Operation Gladio: The Hidden History of U.S. Sponsored False Flag Terrorism in Europe
The New American Century: The Untold History of The Project for the New American Century
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”—Charles de Montesquieu.jpg){kind=small}
Rialto, CA Police Made to Wear Cameras, Use of Force Drops by Over Two-Thirds
Cop Who Karate Chopped NY Judge In Throat Gets Off Scot-Free
Florida Cop Smashes Compliant Woman's Face Into Car -- "Maybe Now You Can Understand Simple Instructions"
VIDEO: Lapel Cam Reveals A Day In The Life Of A U.S. Police Officer (Tasing, Beating, Breaking & Entering, Stomping On Heads... and Laughing About It)
Caught On Tape: Officer Sucker Punches Inmate In Face, Files Report Claiming 'Self Defense'
Insult Person On Twitter, Go To Jail
SWAT Team Brings TV Crew To Film Raid Against Threatening Internet Critic -- Raids Innocent Grandma Instead
Cop Karate Chops NY Judge In The Throat
When the Right to Resist Becomes the "Duty to Submit"
The Missing Lesson From Norway: Never Trust a Man in Uniform