Ultimately, there are only two possible outcomes facing the American people after the Supreme Court rules in this case: 1 - Some Americans will be offended. Or... 2 - Some Americans will be forced into involuntarily servitude at the point of the federal government’s gun. This is really not complicated. SCOTUS will, by judicial fiat, create a de facto new “amendment” to the Constitution, allowing offended persons to enslave those who offended them, or they will simply tell the offended persons to take their business elsewhere. (They could also tell them to bake their own damn cake.) This is not about “equality” to the radical, activist elements of the LGBTQWKRPINCINCINNATI crowd. This is about retribution and backdoor reparations. Yes — homosexuals have been unfairly and unjustly treated by elements of our society, and even by our laws, since before our country’s Founding — but asking for government to force another human into your service is not the moral path to equality. Being offended is not justification for tying up either the courts or another citizen’s hands. I fear this decision. It basically comes down to Justice Kennedy. One man . . . ONE FREAKIN’ MAN(!!!) has the power to either create a new classification of legalized slavery, or tell those offended that some animals ARE NOT more equal than others. There needn’t be religious rights, gay rights, or free speech arguments presented in this case. It’s far more cut-n-dried than that: Do you have the right to enslave a person who offends you? That’s the only question that matters in this case. If the gay couple loses this case, what do they actually lose? (Go ahead . . . take your time. Let me know when you’re done making your list.) If the baker loses the case, what does he stand to lose? (Hmmm?) If this were truly about equal rights, I’d be standing with the gay couple — but it’s not. This is about one group punishing another group for their multi-generational sins, and doing so at the expense of a single individual’s liberty. Their intent is to force the baker into their service, against his will. If he refuses, they want him to pay a fine or lose his business. If he refuses to pay, they want him visited upon by armed agents of the government. If he resists, they want those agents to use force in order to bind and imprison him. If he refuses to be taken, they expect him to be shot. What does the baker desire from the gay couple? Nothing other than to be left alone. Hell . . . he didn’t even want their money. So . . . we can either be offended, or we can be slaves. What say you, Anthony McLeod Kennedy? Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
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LIBERTARIAN BOOK CLUB: Organized Crime - The Unvarnished Truth About Government by Thomas DiLorenzo10/13/2017 We are a monthly book club for anyone who wants to learn more about Libertarianism. We will discuss each book's chapter/section in separate posts, so everyone will be able to read along at their own pace. We typically also focus on books which are available for free so that everyone can participate. Join the Private Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter as we seek to learn more about Libertarianism. Other books we've reviewed can be found here.
Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government by Thomas DiLorenzo
Located here for free. Politics and thieves, coercion and regulation, fascism and the Fed, centralization and liberty, workers and unions, trade and freedom, free-market achievements and government disasters in American history — this book covers it all! Section 1: Coercion and Regulation I thought his synopsis and examples from Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Control: How NOT to Fight Inflation was solid. I’ll be adding it to my reading list. Unfortunately, no AudioBook version! The “DiLorenzo’s Laws of Government” are pretty solid. I’ll need to expound on them later in a longer article and have them somewhere where I can share them easier when I’m arguing with people who want bigger government. They resounded with me as I think they will with others. • DiLorenzo’s First Law of Government- In government, failure is success. Welfare Bureaucracy, Government Schools, NASA tragedies and the Federal Reserve, etc. • DiLorenzo’s Second Law of Government- Politicians will rarely, if ever, assume responsibility for any of the problems that they cause with bad policies. • DiLorenzo’s Third Law of Government- With few exceptions, politicians are habitual liars. • DiLorenzo’s Fourth Law of Government- Politicians will only take the advice of their legions of academic advisers if the advice promises to increase the state’s power, wealth, and influence even if the politicians know that the advice is bad for the rest of society. I also agreed that the price control section was timely after the debate we just endured following Hurricane Irma. I've written EXTENSIVELY about it here on my Steemit blog. How is it that The Continental Congress wisely adopted an anti-price control resolution on June 4, 1778 but it's still up for debate the negative effects? That Resolution read: “Whereas it hath been found by experience that limitations upon the prices of commodities are not only ineffectual for the purpose proposed, but likewise productive of very evil consequences—resolved, that it be recommended to the several states to repeal or suspend all laws limiting, regulating or restraining the price of any Article.” If they knew price controls always failed 240 years ago, why is it even a question today? I blame education, or lack thereof. Chapter 3 Who Will Regulate the Regulators The logic on ‘providing more power to the Fed in order to prevent another Great Recession” was spot on: “One of the biggest governmental lies is that financial markets are unregulated and in dire need of more central planning by government. Laissez-faire is said to have caused the “Great Recession.” Fed bureaucrats have lobbied for some kind of Super Regulatory Authority to supposedly remedy this problem. Th is is all a lie because according to one of the Fed’s own publications (“The Federal Reserve System: Purposes and Functions”), the Fed already has “supervisory and regulatory authority” over the following partial list of activities: bank holding companies, state-chartered banks, foreign branches of member banks, edge and agreement corporations, U.S. state-licensed bank branches, agencies and representative offices of foreign banks, nonbanking activities of foreign banks, national banks, savings banks, nonbank subsidiaries of bank holding companies, thrift holding companies, financial reporting procedures of banks, accounting policies of banks, business “continuity” in case of economic emergencies, consumer protection laws, securities dealings of banks, information technology used by banks, foreign investment by banks, foreign lending by banks, branch banking, bank mergers and acquisitions, who may own a bank, capital “adequacy standards,” extensions of credit for the purchase of securities, equal opportunity lending, mortgage disclosure information, reserve requirements, electronic funds transfers, interbank liabilities, Community Reinvestment Act sub-prime lending “demands,” all international banking operations, consumer leasing, privacy of consumer financial information, payments on demand deposits, “fair credit” reporting, transactions between member banks and their affiliates, truth in lending, and truth in savings.” I had never heard of the non-profit libertarian think tank Competitive Enterprise Institute nor its annual product Ten Thousand Commandments: An Annual Snapshot of the Federal Regulatory State. It outlines the annual effect of regulations on business in the United States. Just checking out the fact sheet was valuable. As someone who thinks government spending and the national debt are keystone issues of our time, I also want to check out Underground Government: The Off-Budget Public Sector, his book written with James Bennett in 1983. Maybe we can get that book into the hopper for the Book Club! Chapter 5: Our Totalitarian Regulatory Bureaucracy “In chapter 5 of F.A. Hayek’s 1944 classic, Th e Road to Serfdom, the Nobel laureate warned that the state need not directly control all or even most of the means of production to exert totalitarian control over the economic life of a nation. He cited the example of Germany where, as of 1928, “the central and local authorities directly control 53 percent” of the German economy. In addition to this, wrote Hayek, private industry in Germany was so heavily regulated that the state indirectly controlled “almost the whole economic life of the nation.” It was through such totalitarian controls that Germany traveled down “the road to serfdom.” As Hayek further stated, “there is, then scarcely an individual end which is not dependent for its achievement on the action of the state, and the ‘social scale of values’ which guides the state’s action must embrace practically all individual ends.” In other words, government regulation was so pervasive that the pursuit of profit, driven by consumer preferences, was mostly replaced by the whims of regulatory bureaucrats.” Well Said: “First, construct a totally unrealistic theory of “perfect” competition that assumes away all real-world competition with assumptions of perfect information, homogenous products and prices, free or costless entry and exit from industry, and “many” firms. Second, compare real-world markets to this utopian Nirvana state and condemn the markets as “imperfect” or “failed. The third characteristic of market failure theories is to recommend intervention by presumably perfect government that is assumed to suffer from no failures and which will correct the failures of the market.” When I read that, it reminded me of this. Section 2 I read DiLorenzo's Real Lincoln which I highly recommend. I like how in chapter nine he describes Rod Blogajevich as an amateur crook compared to Honest Abe. It is not just a matter of businesses contributing to campaigns to get political favors but politicians using threat of regulations to extort contributions. Chapter 11 Good point on the housing bubble: “So when the Fed’s expansionary monetary policy caused the real estate bubble, the extraordinary increases in property values were accompanied by equally extraordinary property tax increases. (After the bubble had burst, local governments were eager to raise property tax rates so as not to lose property tax revenue." Chapter 12 “A principle of public choice economics is that politicians will always do all they can to disguise subsidies to less-than-meritorious groups, such as millionaire corporate farmers. If they can subsidize them through protectionism, or price supports, this is much preferred than simply writing the millionaire businessman a check.” Chapter 13 He discusses Hamilton and I recommend the Tom Woods vs Michael Malice debate (in which I side with Tom. Chapter 15 He expands a bit on the idea he expressed earlier of why exactly mainstream media is so pro-government. Section 3 I agree with DiLorenzo that secession, nullification, decentralization and localism is more effective at achieving liberty than nationalism or universalism, but it is important to understand, “Of course “states” don’t have rights; only individuals do." Since he understands that I think it is confusing that he keeps using the phrase. I definitely agree with him that repeal of the seventeenth amendment would greatly improve our situation. But that that seems highly unlikely to ever happen. Chapter 17 The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. I read this short book a few years ago and highly recommend it. Reclaiming the American Revolution: The Kentucky and Virgina Resolutions and their Legacy
Chapter 21
“The Lacrosse, Wisconsin Democrat newspaper advocate assassination when it editorialized in November of 1864 that “If Abraham Lincoln should be reelected for another term of four years of such wretched administration, we hope that a bold hand will be found to plunge the dagger into the tyrant’s heart for the public welfare.” (Does that violate the NAP?) Chapter 22 DiLorenzo basically says that Abraham Lincoln and Adolph Hitler were brothers from another mother. Chapter 23 He points out that governments are by far the worst killers in history and that in that regard Abraham Lincoln was worse than Pol Pot. Chapter 25 DiLorenzo eviscerates Paul Krugman, which is always fun. “Krugman is right about democracy in a sense: Democracy is essentially one big organized act of bullying whereby a larger group bullies a smaller group in order to plunder it with taxes. The “Civil War” proved that whenever a smaller group has finally had enough, and attempts to leave the game, the larger group will resort to anything—even the mass murder of hundreds of thousands and the bombing and burning of entire cities—to get its way.”
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Chapter 26 and 27 In these chapters he does still more debunking of the Lincoln mythology. I did notice though that he doesn't claim that the War of Northern Aggression was an unmitigated evil - just mostly evil with terrible consequences, but he does acknowledge that the abolition of slavery was the one positive outcome of the war. He also discusses how American government is both fascist and socialist. Chapter 30 – 33 These chapters are all about the evils of central banking. I agree completely and have nothing to add except that coincidentally yesterday, before reading chapter 30, I used a very similar article by DiLorenzo to counter a commenter on this post who was saying that all economists think the Fed is great and that basically Ron is a crank. That post and Brion's book should be of interest to anyone who liked that chapter. Ch 32 reminded me of this meme.
Chapter 34
This chapter debunks the notion that the Federal Reserve is in any way libertarian just because Alan Greenspan was head of it once. Chapter 35 Debunks the myth that the Fed is in any way independent - Fed chairmen basically do the bidding of the president in order to maintain their jobs. President wants loose policy? President gets loose policy, and vice versa. I liked his discussion on the damage done by typical college economics textbooks, particularly Paul Samuelson's, which is most popular. Chapter 36 Explains how government caused the sub-prime mortgage meltdown. This is useful because people often try to blame DE-regulation when nothing could be further from the truth. As an aside, I found The Big Short an entertaining movie on the subject if you have not seen it, but it largely leaves unmentioned government as a cause and this chapter definitely fills in the blanks. Section 5 Chapter 47 Macroeconomists Discover Economics and Debunk the New Deal (Again) is probably the most intriguing to me. Seven decades of economists who have sold us the line that the New Deal and large-scale government spending is what got us out of the Great Depression. It took several decades but macroeconomic model builders, who consider themselves to be the elite of the economics profession, have finally discovered freshman-level principles of economics and have used that discovery to finally debunk FDR’s New Deal. (Beginning in the 1930s Austrian School economists like Henry Hazlitt recognized the truth about the New Deal: It made the Great Depression deeper and longer lasting.) The only wise thing to have done was to have allowed the liquidation of hundreds of overcapitalized businesses to occur, cut taxes and spending, and deregulate. Instead, the Fed increased the money supply by 100 percent in a failed attempt to create another bubble while the president and Congress implemented an explosion of government interventionism. That was the first time in American history that a depression was responded to with government interventionism rather than governmental retrenchment, and the result was a seventeen-year long Great Depression, the worst in history. The essay is solid and I'll need to look into Murray Rothbard's America's Great Depression to learn more. That mainstream macroeconomists and their modeling have come around against governmental interventionism during a depression is great. Now, if the citizenry can learn that before the next bubble pops. I foresee politicians and special interests will use the next crisis as an opportunity to line their pockets. CHAPTER 48 Will Socialism Make You Happier? The Trojan Horse of “Happiness Research”I hadn't heard of this statist argument before but basically "...statists around the world are changing their tune and saying that prosperity doesn’t really matter after all; what matters is how happy we are. And, they say, that is what government can be really, really good at—making us happy. Consequently, they argue, there should be no more limits on governmental powers, for limiting governmental powers will limit our very happiness." In the year this book was published, Bhutan was the 'Happiest' according to the UN-sponsored "World Happiness Report". Yes, Bhutan. This hellhole, ahem, I mean paradise: As an intelligence officer which has experience in this part of the world... No. This year's winner is Norway, which is much more beautiful and bearable.Source:WORLD HAPPINESS REPORT 2017 It's also a lot more socialist, which to be fair, is the point. It's edited by leftist academic Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, what else would you expect? As F.A. Hayek commented in The Road to Serfdom, the end of socialism was always egalitarianism; only the means changed over time, beginning with government ownership of the means of production and transforming to income redistribution through a welfare state and a “progressive” income tax. These happiness researchers never make any mention at all of the well documented pathologies created by welfare statism, such as the destruction of the work ethic, family breakup, the growth of dysfunctionality caused by a welfare state that removes people from the working population, etc. Thus, “happiness research” is part of a crusade to persuade the public that poverty and servitude to the state are superior to prosperity and freedom. It is a new version of what twentieth-century communists referred to as “socialism with a smiling face” during the last, dying days of totalitarian communism. Chapter 49 The Canard of “Asymmetric Information” as a Source of Market FailureGood information on the Nirvana Theory of Markets. I tried to look more into it, but it is unique to only this writing. Nirvana Fallacy— comparing real-world markets to an unattainable utopian ideal (perfect competition), and then denouncing markets because they fall short of utopia or Nirvana. Having “proven” that markets “fail,” the analyst then proposes government intervention under the assumption that no such failures will infect government. Markets may not be perfect, but government is assumed to be. Overall, I liked Section 5 the best. The ease at which he demystifies economic myths is extremely understandable. I just wish it was taken onboard by many voters who refuse to heed the empirical evidence against government intervention. Asymmetric information problem really applies to government not the free market: “In this case we are dealing with the well-established fact that, in their capacity as voters, people tend to be “rationally ignorant” of almost all of what government does. In fact, government is so pervasive that no human mind could possibly comprehend the tiniest fraction of one percent of what government in a country the size of the U.S. does. Consequently, special-interest groups dominate all democratic governments;” A related problem I think is that "public servants" are allowed to keep secrets from their supposed masters. Chapter 51 “Politicians perpetuate the myth of government job creation because the government jobs that are created are seen by the average voter, whereas the private-sector jobs that are destroyed (or never created) are not.” I.e. Hazlitt's seen and unseen as described in Economics in One Lesson Chapter 52 DiLorenzo shoots down the gender wage gap myth. Tom Woods has done a couple of shows on this subject as well, as I recall. Summary DiLorenzo lays out a decent criticism of how Government, corrupted by size and motive, has engaged in forceful and deceitful acts against the populace. To be honest, I really dislike collections of articles such as this and found in other "books". If an author is still alive, such collections are always better to be formed in to a true book that is able to cleanly explain a subject from start to finish. While DiLorenzo's articles are well written (and are quite often sourced with citations! Such a rarity among articles), the execution of the message would have been much better had he taken the time to write these out in to full chapters of their own. The topics covered in the book were good ones to discuss (though I think that the mentions of the Civil war would be better served in a separate book), but I do wish that the author had expanded more on the topics of taxation, subsidies, and the enforcement of victimless crimes. Overall a good read, and some articles were absolutely fantastic. If only the author could have written this out as an actual book and added another hundred pages or so, this could have been something especially fantastic. edit: I've decided to give the book 5 stars, from the original 4. I find that I often go back to the book to re-read certain articles when I come across various topics of discussion. I still wish that the author had written a proper book instead of just compiling a collection of his articles, though. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
We are a monthly book club for anyone who wants to learn more about Libertarianism. We will discuss each book's chapter/section in separate posts, so everyone will be able to read along at their own pace. We typically also focus on books which are available for free so that everyone can participate.
Join the Private Facebook Group and follow us on Twitter as we seek to learn more about Libertarianism.
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Clarence Seward Darrow (1857 – 1938) was an American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union. He wrote books on crime and punishment, as well as on the morality and origins of the system which are classics of the libertarian movement, and a cry for attention about all that is wrong in the legal system. Resist no Evil can be FOUND HERE and HERE.
Foreword by Douglas French I love the fact that Douglas French starts with a truth I've recognized for a long time. I think it foreshadows how the book won't necessarily conform to common allowable opinion. We’re drawn to books that reinforce what we already believe. It makes us feel smarter that an author shares our opinion and provides words we can use to make our case on the off chance that’s required. Specifically he discusses the party politics that are prevalent in the world today. At the time I remember being on the fence, with a slight lean toward supporting capital punishment. The deterrence arguments resonated with me. ... In the end, to not support capital punishment put a person with the bleeding heart liberals, company I didn’t want to be in. But this is the way with so many issues. Instead of analyzing the problem for ourselves, we let the group we identify with make the decision for us as to what we believe. A lazy way to live, requiring no thought, no study, no consideration, no introspection. Clarence Darrow does not allow for that. He does not allow you to sit in the jury box of public opinion and let the other jurors make up your mind. Although written in 1902, Darrow anticipates the prison nation that America is today. The state is set up not to administer justice, but to punish. No victims are compensated, but the state gets its pound of flesh. This reminded me of a Jason Stapleton Program show I was listening to recently. It discussed a Virginia man who was convicted of multiple counts of Grand Larceny (Theft greater than $200). The guy was stealing wheels off of cars and got sentenced to 132 years in prison. Jason Stapleton discussed why our system is apt to just throw people into prison and not have them work to repay the victims. Instead the victims got their tires stolen and THEN had to get taxed to support the criminal in prison for the rest of his life! Why not make the guy work with proceeds in reparations to the victims? Darrow's Introduction sums up well what we all know if wrong with our criminal justice system. CHAPTER I: THE NATURE OF THE STATE "The doctrine of non-resistance" that Darrow refers is generally defined as "the practice or principle of not resisting authority, even when it is unjustly exercised". So if it's the law, you follow it, regardless of morality. Looking historically, Slavery in the 1800s and locking Japanese Americans up during WWII come to mind. Looking at the present times, the examples of throwing people in jail for collecting rain water comes to mind. These Facebook stories usually have an abundance of "Well, don't break the law and you won't go to jail" comments. To wit: Darrow suggests that, philosophically, it is man's highest ideal to live a fulfilled life in peace, not coerced by government force. Endless volumes have been written, and countless lives been sacrificed in an effort to prove that one form of government is better than another; but few seem seriously to have considered the proposition that all government rests on violence and force, is sustained by soldiers, policemen and courts, and is contrary to the ideal peace and order which make for the happiness and progress of the human race. Great analogy comparing the rulers of ancient times- Basically the biggest man got a large club and enforced his rule as chieftain through force over his tribe. He used his power primarily to maintain power not for the betterment of those he ruled over. As one man cannot maintain power for long, he cronied his buddies as lieutenants to maintain power "and they were given a goodly portion of the fruits of power for the loyalty and help they lent their chief." The parallels to today are evident. From the early kings who, with blood-red hands, forbade their subjects to kill their fellow men, to the modern legislator, who, with the bribe money in his pocket, still makes bribery a crime, these rulers have ever made laws not to govern themselves but to enforce obedience on their serfs. CHAPTER 2: ARMIES AND NAVIES How is the authority of the state maintained? Darrow believes it to be maintained by force or the general threat of force. More generally, the power of armed men with all the 'modern implements of death". Specifically, 1) military personnel and 2) courts of justice, police and jails. I don't believe Darrow is being realistic (in his time, or ours) that all countries should not have a standing armies. Sure, idealistically, if there were no wars, these men and women could lead more productive lives and build skills and participate in tradecraft, but ever since Napoleonic times, we are required to have a standing army as long as our neighbor does. I don't see the world's militaries self-disintegrating any time soon. I also found his 'endless wars' rhetoric to be quite interesting considering he wrote it Pre World War I, World War II, Korean War, Sino-Russo War, Vietnam War, Lebanon, Granada, Tanker War, Persian Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, War on Terrorism, etc. The world hadn't seen nothin' yet! The nation that would today disarm its soldiers and turn its people to the paths of peace would accomplish more to its building up than by all the war taxes wrung from its hostile and unwilling serfs. Overall, I agree with the travesties of war, but don't agree with it's pragmatic to think everyone will demilitarize. CHAPTER 3: THE PURPOSE OF ARMIES But in reality the prime reason for all the armies of the world is that soldiers and militia may turn their guns upon their unfortunate countrymen when the owners of the earth shall speak the word. That this is the real purpose of standing armies and warlike equipment is plain to all who have eyes to see. We can see how military equipment has been appropriated to our police forces (Thanks War on Drugs!) but I think the premise Darrow is extolling is something different. But thinking one caused the other is a fallacy of 'Post hoc ergo propter hoc'. Because the rooster crows as dawn, and then the sun rises at dawn, does not mean the rooster causes the sun to rise. That the military is to be called on to directly suppress the free people isn't something that we've seen consistently. I mean, the National Guard is called sometimes for riot control, but Darrow's fears haven't been consistently witnessed throughout the passing of time. CHAPTER 4: CIVIL GOVERNMENT As society reaches the industrial stage, it is easier and costs less waste of energy for the ruling class to maintain its supremacy through the intricate forms and mazes of civil government, than through the direct means of soldiers and guns. Civil governments, like military governments, are instituted and controlled by the ruling class. Their purpose is to keep the earth and its resources in the hands of those who directly and indirectly have taken it for themselves. Darrow begins to build the case of morality here. Just because the courts are decreeing something, it must be obeyed at the threat of impounding property, kidnapping and imprisonment of men or, in some cases, killing the offender. ... the will of the sovereign is law, and the law is made for the benefit of the ruler, not the ruled. Darrow says that even a newly established government receives the historical laws and decrees 'based upon the old notions of properties and rights that were made to serve the rulers' previous. But I find that lazy (mostly because I'm a pro-property rights). Sometimes those are inherited because they are superior based on merit. I love his description of Lobbyists. The man who possesses one sort of power, as, for instance, political privilege, is very friendly to the class who possess another sort, as, for instance, wealth, and this community of interest naturally and invariably arrays all the privileged classes against the weak. I wish that Darrow, instead of just criticizing the natural tendency for some men to desire to rule over others, he could provide some solutions other than 'We should just all live without government and its evils!'. Order is more important than liberty, and at all costs order must be enforced upon the many. Chapter 5 "All punishment and violence is largely mixed with the feeling of revenge, - from the brutal father who strikes his helpless child, to the hangman who obeys the orders of the judge; with every man who lays violent unkind hands upon his fellow the prime feeling is that of hatred and revenge" ^^ and this is what I have against retributive justice. "In some inconceivable manner it is believed that when this punishment follows, justice has been done. But by no method of reasoning can it be shown that the injustice of killing one man is retrieved by the execution of another, or that the forcible taking of property is made right by confining some human being in a pen" "To punish a human being simply because he has committed a wrongful act, without any thought of good to follow, is vengeance pure and simple, and more detestable and harmful than any casual isolated crime". “Such acts as these would almost never be repeated. Genuine repentance follows most really vicious acts, but repentance, however genuine, gives no waiver of punishment.” Do you all feel that it is entirely the act of imprisonment itself and nothing in any violent criminal, whether by nature or nurture, that leads to recidivism? I don't know how it was in 1903, but I recently watched a few minutes of OJ Simpson's bail hearing. His repentance definitely did not waive his sentence, but i think it had a lot to do with his early release. “The safety aimed at through punishment is not meant the safety for the individual, but it is contended that the fact that one person is punished for an act deters others from the commission of similar unlawful acts; it is obvious that there is a large class who are not deterred by these examples, for the inmates of prisons never grow less . . . " I am not for locking in people in cages (nor for the death penalty) but I never thought of imprisonment as a deterrent. If there were any point to it at all, I think it would be to prevent that particular individual from being able to violate others' rights (except perhaps other inmates). If so, then imprisonment is not motivated solely by cruelty and hate as Darrow claims. I did not realize his claim that public executions actually caused people to commit copycat crimes. I believe it but I wish he had actually documented this claim instead of just positing it. Chapter 6 "The last refuge of the apologist is that punishment is inflicted to prevent crime" "The theory that punishment is a preventive to unlawful acts does not seriously mean that it is administered to prevent the individual from committing a second or a third unlawful act." He goes one to talk about how if the punishment is to be a deterrent, then we should logically use only the cruelest methods of punishment, but we don't, so therefore how can we claim that the punishment is a deterrent? His point at the end of chapter VI that the state is constantly trying to "improve" prisons brings to my mind the prohibition in the Bill of Rights against cruel and unusual punishment. I find that a pretty problematic phrase, for who is to say that imprisonment itself is not cruel? I guess the fact that it is so common makes it not unusual. Chapter 7 Darrow discusses, as the chapter title states, the cause of crime, and says that we should ponder on that. I have long felt that this is an important thing to consider, and this is why I am so interested in restorative justice. I feel that we should seek out WHY this crime happened and work to fix that through psychological means if possible. I think he is making the case for nurture as the cause of criminal behavior rather than nature. As such he points to the fact that inmates tend to be poorer than non-inmates. However he throws "mentally deficient" in there as well which is more nature than nurture. He seems to be making a class warfare argument, but I think he overlooks the possibility that more poor convicts than wealthy convicts does not necessarily mean there are more poor criminals that wealthy. That could be a result of disparities in the criminal justice system itself that allow more wealthy people to get away with the crimes they commit. What do you think of his closing in that chapter? To wit: "The jail and the penitentiary are not the first institutions planted by colonists in a new country, or by pioneers in a new state. These pioneers go to work to till the soil, to cut down the forests, to dig the ore; it is only when the owning class has been established and the exploiting class grows up, that the jail and the penitentiary become fixed institutions, to be used for holding people in their place.” **Another class warfare argument**. But you could just as easily flip that. Perhaps it is not until the owning class is sufficiently established in a new settlement that there is enough stuff making it worth the while of the working class to try and steal, thus motivating the owning class to get around to building jails. Chapter 8 "Reason and Judgement as well as an almost endless array of facts have proven that crime is not without its cause. In showing its cause, its cure has been made plain. If the minds and energies of men were directed toward curing crime instead of brutally assaulting the victims of society, some progress might be made" "Nearly every crime would be wiped away in one generation by giving the criminal a chance. The life of a burglar, of a thief, of a prostitute, is not a bed of roses. Men and women are only driven to these lives after other means have failed."
Chapters 9-12
For a trial lawyer, Darrow sure has plenty of criticism for trial by jury. I am looking forward to the part where we get to his alternative. "He cannot understand how a so-called thief should have forcibly taken a paltry sum. He cannot conceive that he, himself, could under any circumstances have done the like.” Not sure if that is universally true. Don't judges frequently consider mitigating circumstances in sentencing? In the film "Inherit The Wind" the jury found Cates guilty, but the judge fined him only one hundred dollars causing Brady to drop dead. Chapter 13-15 I think in the Afterword Riggenbach gives Darrow entirely too much credit when he writes: “This illustrates the extent to which the Clarence Darrow of 1902 was on pretty much the same wavelength as the Murray Rothbard of 80 years later.” On the contrary, I submit that Darrow was the anti-Rothbard and that Riggenbach credits Darrow for things Rothbard wrote but that Darrow did not. Here he comes blatant what was hinted at in the previous chapters- “Most of the laws governing the taking and obtaining of property, which constitute the great burden of our penal code, are arbitrary acts, whose sole purpose is to keep the great mass of property in the hands of the rulers and exploiters and to send to jail those who help themselves and who have no other means within their power." What he is advocating here is closer to anarcho-communism than anarcho-capitalism and would prevent me from ever recommending this book, despite some of the good points he makes about the state and criminal justice earlier. “These crimes are burglary, larceny, obtaining property by false pretenses, extortion, and the like. The jails and penitentiaries of every nation in the world are filled to overflowing with men and women who have been charged with committing crimes against property.” I don't know about 1903, but I would have no complaint if that were actually true today. But actually they are filled with victims of the drug war and people who have committed only various "crimes" against the state. The way he concludes chapter 13 and chapters 14 and 15 are completely at odds with Rothbard's analysis of property rights in *New Liberty*. Chapter 16 was a big letdown Here Darrow claims to offer his alternative to what he spent the last dozen chapters insisting does not work. His alternative amounts to ending punishment and adopting kindness instead. But he offers no concrete examples of how that operate in practice. Say you are a parent and someone pre meditatively rapes and murders your children. What would Darrow say should be done with the offender. Certainly not put them on trial because no one is qualified to sit in judgement nor understand the perpetrator's woes. Apparently the victims' parents are just supposed to show the perpetrator love and kindness. Riggenbach: “I won’t leave you with the impression that Clarence Darrow was an early, unsung Rothbardian, because he wasn’t.” **Talk about an understatement!** Summary There are some quotes in the book I like, especially in the first four chapters when he is trashing the state. But I have previously outlined my criticisms: 1. It is more a polemic than expository. He posits a lot of things without making an argument for them, citing examples to prove his case etc. 2. He spends chapters critiquing the criminal justice system, generating anticipation for his alternative, yet when he gets to that point, there really is not much substance at all. He COULD have advocated restorative justice, sure, but he really did not. 3. In the final two chapters he advocates class warfare - the forced redistribution of the property of the wealthy. Initially I had hoped that this might at least be a book I could recommend to the left to help shake their confidence in the state, but ultimately it is not a book I would comfortable recommending to anyone. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
Please don't do fireworks in your neighborhood
The quote above was actually posted in many forms by my neighbors using the NextDoor App.
Wait, so let me get this straight, my kid can't play with sparklers or a few crackling 'tanks' because you have to get up early?
We've come a long way from 'Land of the Free'. These fines from the City of Fort Worth aren't 'for our safety' or because the government 'cares about your terrier who doesn't like the noise'. They are there because the government wants every chance possible to take money from you. Go read the book Three Felonies a Day. With so many laws on the books, there's ALWAYS something you are doing wrong that they can come fine/arrest you for. Will they? Not necessarily, but you become a nuisance to them, they've got plenty of things they COULD harass you for. No thanks. I moved to Texas to get away from California-style encroachment into my personal business. Also, my kid loves sparklers. Throw your dog in the bathroom with a TV/Radio on, like I do mine. He loves the extra treats he gets NYE and July 4th. Loo, I am all about honoring my neighbors. But there's also personal responsibility. I'm not trying to shoot bottle rockets over my neighbor's house. Got it, that could lead to fire. A fire, I'd rather not be financially liable for. I'm talking about the neighbor who calls the cops on me because I'm sitting in the driveway with my 2 and 4 year old playing with sparklers and throwing snap-crackles at our feet. A neighbor that obviously doesn't understand "Letter of the Law vs Spirit of the Law" common sense. How about we let adults act like adults. If adults shoot a firework and start a fire, let them be liable and accountable for their actions. Adults used to be responsible, now we just use government force to prevent people from doing what they want. I bet you're pretty angry when people infringe on your liberty by using policemen with guns to prevent you from doing something you're extremely capable of doing just because some others don't mind and aren't bothered by the restriction. Worried about the dangers of fireworks? Don't use them. But don't tell others what to do and cheer when laws are passed. Also, fireworks these days are cheap, Chinese variants, not dangerous $1,000 explosions like you see on TV." "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
Who should determine the course of our lives? There is no shortage of people who aim to control others, imposing their will and restricting choice through the force of government.
Self Control or State Control? You Decide by Dr. Tom G. Palmer is the Libertarian Book Club's selection for the month of May. Below is a curated selection of our thoughts and notable quotes from the book. Join our Facebook Group as we seek to learn more about Libertarianism. We are a monthly book club for anyone who wants to learn more about Libertarianism. We will discuss each book's chapter/section in separate posts, so everyone will be able to read along at their own pace. We typically also focus on books which are available for free so that everyone can participate. Chapter 1
I highlighted a good deal in this chapter and I'm sure everyone will excuse me for the heavy quote pasting.
"Free people are not subservient, but neither are they uncontrolled. They control themselves. Taking control of your life is an act of both freedom and responsibility" "Unsurprisingly, they consider freedom frightening. As a consequence, many have believed that order and virtue must be imposed at the expense of freedom. They equate responsibility with submission to the commands of others." "One can never legislate or choose the outcomes directly; all legislators or rulers can do is to change the incentives that participants in social interactions face. Thus, actions may be outlawed because the legislators think they're bad" I think this chapter does a nice job of explaining a few things: 1) My life is mine. Not anyone else's. I really enjoy endurance sports (MMA, bike touring, hiking marathons, and most recently the dreaded Barkley Marathon ("the race that eats its young"). I can not rely on government to keep me safe; it is my responsibility - and mine alone - to keep myself safe. If I'm stupid, then I reap the consequences for that, if I am smart; the benefits. 2) No victim, no crime. I hate drugs. Hate them. I don't want to be around them. I don't want to watch others do them. With that said, it is immoral for me to push this belief on to others, we must look at the proof that the law hasn't prevented drug usage (arguably, it's only gotten worse and created a violent black market around it). There are a few other highlights I liked quite a bit: "Self-control is never perfect, but state control is no improvement" "A harmonious society rests on respect for the freedom of each member" "The rules of the road facilitate the transportation of millions of people to millions of different destinations, all without a central power issuing commands to them; they're not perfect, but rather simple rules of the road help many millions of people to avoid collisions and arrive where they want to be every minute of every day" 'But without police at every street corner, why would anyone follow the law?', the statist asks. Simple: it's in everyone's best interest to follow the rues of the road. Chapter 2
Clearly, the nanny state and the desire to protect us all from ourselves is counter-productive. It seems that society can - and would - flourish much more in a society that allowed individuals to make their own choices.
"The Founding Fathers believed in the unalienable human right to liberty, but they knew it depended on personal responsibility. To be freed from a tyrant's rule, men had to be able to rule themselves: that truth seemed self-evident" "In workplaces, managers scoring high in self-control were rated more favorably by their subordinates as well as by their peers. People with good self-control seemed exceptionally good at forming and maintaining secure, satisfying attachments to other people. They were shown to be better at emphasizing with others and considering thing from other people's perspectives" "When she tested prisoners and then tracked them for years after their release, she found that the ones with low self-control were most likely to commit more crimes and return to prison" Chapter 3
As will be covered more in future chapters, the welfare state brings a host of problems: namely that it keeps the poor, poor.
I really don't like anti-welfare arguments centered around the belief of "they're just lazy" (this is as old as at least the Victorian period. Check out the TV mini-series "Victorian Slum House") as there is a lot more to it than that and the negatives of the welfare state expand much more than just that "some people are too lazy to work." As an aside, has anyone read The Human Cost of Welfare: How the System Hurts the People It's Supposed to Help"? "We are throwing these people a life preserver to keep them afloat, but not pulling them into the boat. They are effectively creating and perpetuating a dependent class". "One of the first things our welfare system does is make people poorer so that they may qualify for benefits. Qualifying for benefits means spending down assets and savings, and that includes vehicles, which is especially problematic". Chapter 5
This chapter breaks down how only Property Rights can prevent overfishing. "Fisheries using Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQs) in places ranging from Iceland to New Zealand have seen fish populations stabilize and even grow along with fishing incomes". But... but .... without fishing licenses controlled by the government, that's impossible!
Additionally, this chapter elaborates on some things Murray Rothbard wrote in New Liberty. "Environmental problems are generally conflicting claims over resources and how they are used. Property rights help to resolve those conflicts by providing a legal institution that prioritizes particular uses—the uses that the owner prioritizes, in the time frame that the owner chooses. For some environmental problems, such as chemical pollution in a self-contained lake, individual ownership of the land that includes the lake is likely to give the owner incentives to maintain the lake’s quality, either for his/her own consumption value or because pollution would reduce the market value of the property." Chapter 7
My favorite chapter thus far! Contrary to a point I made about an earlier chapter, this one does seem to advocate for a stateless society, or at least nearly so:
"It is often assumed that the Catholic Church, because of its social teaching, is committed to high levels of state intervention and regulation. However, in its most authoritative document on such matters, it states: "Another task of the state is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society.”" One wonders why in this quote "sole" could not replace "primary?" "The reaction to the financial crash of 2007–2008 provides an indication of how state regulatory institutions are created and operate. In the wake of the crash, tens of thousands of pages of regulations were written and promulgated. It was estimated that the Dodd–Frank Act in the United States, with its associated regulations, would come to thirty thousand pages. In 2011, some 14,200 new financial regulations were created worldwide. That trend was underway well before the financial crash. It is often asserted that there was a period of deregulation before the financial crash and that the crash was a consequence of deregulation. That is not so, certainly not in the United Kingdom." Not just in the US either. The evidence is quite strong that systems of state regulation have not been successful. Not only did the comprehensive systems of financial regulation that developed in the United Kingdom from 1986 and in the United States from the 1930s not prevent the financial crash, but in many ways they were contributory causes that exacerbated and spread the crisis globally. Many forms of mistaken and reckless behavior that led to the failures of banks and other financial institutions in 2007–2008 were encouraged by regulation." Boy, you can say that again. The dominant historical narrative suggests that, before the twentieth century, urban development was chaotic and that each property owner and developer could do what they wished without regard to the impact of their actions on anyone else. The result, supposedly, was terrible slums, and ugly unplanned development. (A visit to such places as Bath and Bloomsbury might raise doubts about that narrative, of course.)" I was in Bath about a year and a half ago and can confirm. I also love the point made on pages 89-90 how urban sprawl was caused by "muh roads" being taken over by government from private turnpike trusts. "Interestingly, the same people who advance that account also often complain about “suburban sprawl” in the United States without stopping to reflect that such “sprawl” is associated with and largely caused by governmental regulatory regimes. Complaints about the ugliness and poor quality of public and private buildings produced under the pre-1948 regime in Britain are also puzzling when one considers the poor quality of so many buildings that have been produced since that time." Chapter 10
"A free person makes her own choices and manages her own life; an unfree person's life is managed by someone else"
"We are free persons, rather than mere material objects, because we can be held accountable for our acts. We are distinguished as individuals by what we do - the very things for which we are responsible. Responsibility for our actions and the freedom to choose for ourselves foster social cooperation, coordination, and harmony, and when our freedom and responsibility are overridden, social order is disrupted and conflict replaces harmony." "...welfare states tax to provide (frequently monopolistically) through political means what could be provided and chosen voluntarily - from retirement income, to medical care, to housing, to education - and in the process induce people to reduce their savings, engage in riskier behavior, abandon voluntary mutual aid organizations, and pay less attention to securing their own well-being and that of their families and communities." "Replacing self-control with state control rarely generates any of the benefits claimed by its enthusiasts and always generates other, unintended, consequences." Overall
Self Control or State Control introduces the reader to a number of different concepts that they may not be aware of in which the State controls us and the life we wish to live for ourselves. Most of the 11 chapters are written by a different authors, but they all compliment one another well.
This book covers a range of topics, such as the welfare state (how and why it has failed), business regulations, will power, the philosophy of individualism, and others. Overall, I found the book to be an interesting read, and I really liked that each chapter contained numerous references (I'm quite the stickler for this. Without references, a book such as this isn't worth much). I think that this is a fantastic read for those that are new to Libertarianism, and I believe that it is especially good for those that are crossing over from a previously Left-wing ideology. 4½ stars overall, since I found some parts of the chapters discussing individualism to be somewhat dry. Still a great book and a suggested read! Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of (politicians), too plainly prove a deliberate and systematic plan of reducing us all to slavery." -Thomas Jefferson
The problem with the news today is they no longer provide an objective look at what happened. Instead, they provide a biased point of view and then tell you what to think and how to feel about it.
Instead, I'll cover two competing views on Republican Representative Justin Amash's YES vote on the American Health Care Act (AHCA) and allow you to make up your own mind. Haven't read it yet? I'll post it at the bottom of the article in an effort to declutter. We'll first look at his decision and validate it against our Principle of "Constitutionalism". This allows us to determine whether the new AHCA bill is even valid, legal or constitutional. The second way to critique Representative Amash's decision and look at his reasoning. We can then determine if the new AHCA incrementally takes us 'Closer to Liberty' or 'Closer to Tyranny'. Is AHCA even Constitutional?
There is no gray area on this question. The AHCA Bill is either constitutional or it's not. If it's not, Rep Amash took an oath to uphold the constitution and failed by voting YES. A NO vote on an unconstitutional bill is a constitutional vote. A YES vote for an unconstitutional bill is an unconstitutional vote.
The argument from those who uphold this principle of Constitutionality will claim that we even if AHCA is incrementally better than ObamaCare, his vote on a law that violates the Constitution should be an automatic NO. They would also claim that just because this unconstitutional law is slightly better than the previous unconstitutional law, Libertarians have never been about voting for the lesser of two evils, Quite the opposite. So is AHCA unconstitutional? Again, I won't tell you what to think but reading more on it should color your favorability (or not) or Rep Amash's vote. No one has ever been able to clearly articulate to me why the Robert's precedent made ObamaCare constitutional so I'm not the guy to give legal advice. Might I suggest a couple great articles: Is Ryancare’s ‘Lapsed Coverage’ Surcharge Unconstitutional Under Roberts’s Obamacare Precedent? Why I voted NO on the American Health Care Act - Representative Andy Biggs
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Does AHCA Take us Closer to Liberty or Closer to Tyranny?
Those who support Rep Amash's YES vote because "AHCA is incrementally better than ObamaCare" will typically claim that they are 'realists' in the room. They understand that we won't wake up tomorrow living in a libertarian society with a perfectly Free Market Health Care system. They argue that libertarians have to do what we can, when we can, to reduce the size of government, even if incrementally.
Rep Amash knows that a NO vote doesn't repeal ObamaCare, it's the law of the land. Realistically, he notes, a YES vote can at least get us started in a new direction, one towards Liberty. This might be true even though I believe AHCA to be a monstrosity of legal code atop another monstrosity of legal code. The problem is that for for the past seven years, Republicans have run for Congress on a commitment to repeal Obamacare. And now, even though they claim this is it, they are only amending ObamaCare, retooling the subsidies, taking out the individual mandate, and ensuring the government is the one who maintains power of the health care market. The AHCA is bad politics for the Republicans and bad policy for Amash's name to be tied to. Why risk putting your name on a slightly better turd sandwich than the one you inherited? The one they all got elected on promising to repeal? The one they passed very clear Repeal Legislation on more than 50 times when they knew President Obama would just veto? It seems to me that allowing the ill-effects of government intervention into the health care market only empowers those calling for Single Payer, a death knell for individual liberty and one that ensures increased scope of government and decreased quality of product. My principles of Limited Government and Free Markets refuses to support AHCA. Part of me cheers knowing that it's not likely to pass the Senate in it's current form. Conclusion
This is a tough one. I'd love to hear your thoughts below on whether your support the AHCA because 'at least it's a slightly better turd sandwich' or if you'd prefer a NO vote on it because 'Repeal ObamaCare or NOTHING'.
Would you be happy living with ObamaCare for another few years in an attempt to try to get full repeal? I'm not optimistic that any power given to the government is one that you'll see them give back without a long fight and without multiple electoral consequences for politicians. Rep Justin Amash's Response
This is not the bill we promised the American people. For the past seven years, Republicans have run for Congress on a commitment to repeal Obamacare. But it is increasingly clear that a bill to repeal Obamacare will not come to the floor in this Congress or in the foreseeable future. Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
I just want to make it clear that this post has nothing to do with Chip and Joanna Gaines, so if you do not like them, then there's no need to say that here.
That would be missing the point, so just ignore the subject names, if you must. They simply happen to be the writers of a statement that I find very refreshing, considering the anger and vitriol that are roiling our country right now. The article, published in late November of last year, attempted to paint Chip and Jo as people who harbor so much hate in their hearts, they refuse to let people on their show. "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." Look at what they say about differences of opinion and how to handle them. Look at what they say about how to treat people who disagree with us. That, to me, is a very relevant consideration today. If I post something about Obama, liberals frequently comment on my posts to insult conservatives. If I post something about Trump, conservatives--yes, we conservatives are every bit as bad--usually respond by denigrating and insulting the other side. So read this short statement of theirs, and while you do, consider whether this is how you treat people who disagree with you. Do you stick to the facts, or do you simply look for information that supports your position? Are you willing to give the other side the benefit of the doubt? Do you treat both sides equally? If you're liberal, do you treat conservatives respectfully? Do you amicably agree to disagree? If you're conservative, do you treat liberals respectfully? Do you amicably agree to disagree? I know that many of you are inclined to respond to this by comparing Trump and Obama or by simply saying that one side or the other is worse. Is that truly your standard--simply to not be as bad as someone else? If you respond this way, then that's what you're saying. Set a higher standard for yourself, for your parties, and for your leadership than that. If you're a Christian or simply someone who believes in the merit of the Golden Rule, then before you respond telling me about the lies of the other side or how terrible you think the other side or another candidate is, why don't you first consider whether that is treating the other side as you yourself prefer to be treated? Why don't you first consider whether that qualifies as "turning the other cheek"? Perhaps you're right: perhaps the other side doesn't treat your side fairly. So what. Why can't that change start with you? It is, after all, the height of hypocrisy to demand that the other side change its ways while you yourself are unwilling to take the first step. Stop criticizing the merit of the other side. Instead, set an example yourself. Stop seeing your fellow Americans as the enemy simply because some of them disagree with your policy preferences. Americans are on the same team, and sometimes teammates don't agree. That doesn't make them enemies though. If you want enemies, then look outside our nation's borders, and I assure you that you'll find plenty of enemies arrayed against your team. Like it or don't, but we are all in this together. “This past year has been tough. In my lifetime, I can’t recall humanity being more divided. Plenty of folks are sad and scared and angry and there are sound bites being fed to us that seem fueled by judgement, fear and even hatred. Jo and I refuse to be baited into using our influence in a way that will further harm an already hurting world, this is our home. A house divided cannot stand.” Follow libertyLOL on your favorite social media sites:FacebookYoutube Tumblr Pintrest Countable: Government Made Simple Steemit blog on a blockchain Patreon Gab.ai libertyLOL's Liberty Blog RSS Feed We also run a couple twitterbots which provide great quotes and book suggestions: Murray Rothbard Suggests Tom Woods Suggests Jason Stapleton Suggests Progressive Contradictions MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
With the effectiveness of their thought-control mission breaking down all around them, leftists are going hysterical.
Last week the San Francisco teachers' union, the United Educators of San Francisco, released a "lesson plan" for students in the wake of Donald Trump's election. It is exactly what you would expect. Nobody other than leftists has a point of view worth respecting. Everyone is a "racist" and "sexist." Here's how it begins: "Tomorrow, I hope that you will take the time to put all lessons aside and talk to our students about what has happened and how they feel. Please, let them speak and be heard. Let them say what is on their minds, this is crucial for our school and our community. Let us please not sidestep the fact that a racist and sexist man has become the president of our country by pandering to a huge racist and sexist base." And now, the "objectives," followed by my translation: "Students express their concerns and voice their thoughts/feelings." Of course, they'd better be the correct thoughts, or they'll be reeducated by the San Francisco teachers' union until they turn 18 or die of lunacy, whichever comes first. "Students gain empowerment/hope." Students are taught that bullhorns, marches, and political activism are the best way to improve their lives, and are not juvenile, demeaning, or dehumanizing in any way. "Students feel safe and respected." What this will mean for any student who, in this atmosphere of intimidation, dares utter a thought that diverges from the herd, is unclear, but given the tone of this document, this provision is chilling. "Anti-Racist/Anti-Sexist/Anti-Islamophobic/Anti-Homophobic (etc.,) teaching lenses are magnified and put into full use tomorrow and students should come away with an understanding of this through discussions held in class/norms established." No one will be allowed to mention racial crime statistics. No one will be able to mention differences between men and women -- we have declared, a priori, that there can be no such differences. All income differences among races and sexes is attributable exclusively to "discrimination" and "white supremacy." Although criticism of Christianity is of course welcome, no one may wonder about any aspect of Islam, which is an unalloyed good not to be questioned. And anyone who thinks commercial transactions -- cake baking, to choose an example at random -- should occur peacefully and without threats of violence, is "homophobic." "Students gain a working knowledge of context of American racial violence, sexism etc." Can't imagine any bias coming through here. I'm sure the Ron Unz article on racial killings will be assigned, for balance. On the off chance that it isn't, I link to it here. The instructions continue: "Let the students speak one at a time. PLEASE VALIDATE STUDENTS FEELINGS. Example: 'What you are saying is valid,' or ' hear you,' 'I support you, I understand you,' 'you are right and this is unjust.' Let them speak, guide the discussion, use a talking piece if necessary." Huh. Well, suppose someone said, "I personally think the likelihood of war with Russia is now diminished, and this is more important to me than whether the president says sweet things to me before sending me off to die." Would that student's feelings be validated? In my view, the more the left pulls stunts like this, the better. Americans are getting a valuable education in the true nature of the left. Any fool watching television, even with a biased media, can see where all the hate is coming from. Then this warning not to instruct students to avoid bad language: "(I know that they might curse and swear, but you would too if you have suffered under the constructs of white supremacy or experienced sexism, or any isms or lack of privilege. You would especially do so if you have not yet developed all of the tools necessary to fight this oppression. It is our job to help them develop these tools, ie the language etc., Let’s not penalize and punish our youth for how they express themselves at this stage.)" Of course: white privilege. Let's test that theory. What race would anyone in his right mind want to belong to when applying to college? Has any black student ever lied and claimed to be white on a college application? If not, why not? Then we read, in bold: DO NOT: Tell them that we have LOST and that we have to accept this. We do not have to accept ANYTHING except that we must and will fight for justice against an unjust system and against unjust people. What exactly would minority folks in America's inner cities have "lost," exactly, by the election of Donald Trump? All those world-class schools black and Democratic mayors and city governments have built for them? Those enviable, crime-free neighborhoods they've had over the past 50 years of Democratic rule? What, exactly, are they losing? Finally, the Resources section of the lesson plan is drawn from Michael Moore and other leftists, and is replete with horrified outrage that convicted felons can't vote. The point of education, in other words, is to make students think a certain way. An inane, fact-free way, to boot. Trump Derangement Syndrome is bringing it out of them more brazenly than ever. Everyone has a tipping point. For some of you, maybe it's this. Maybe it's the next thing. But whenever that tipping point comes, your liberation is one click away: http://www.RonPaulHomeschool.com Tom Woods "Get the equivalent of a Ph.D. in libertarian thought and free-market economics online for just 24 cents a day." MORE FROM LIBERTYLOL:
Ok so Trump won.
Now that the election is over, what do we do now? Those of us searching for a Hero of Liberty during the primaries held our noses Election Night or didn't vote at all. Jason Stapleton tells us that we need is to be uncompromising. Now. Progressivism has slowly eroded our freedoms. They demand all guns be banned and then compromise toward a position that has less freedom and liberty than where we started. Our goal should be what some would call 'obstructionist'. Not one more inch. Progressivism is successful becuase they are playing the long game.
Check out Jason Stapleton's quick take on how we should be orienting ourselves as Liberty Lovers who believe in Free Markets, Limited Government, Peace, Tolerance, and Individualism:
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I can't help myself.
I've written another free eBook. This one is in response to all of you who have asked about how to start a podcast, or self-publish a book, or be an affiliate marketer, or whatever. I've learned a lot about that stuff, having done it all myself, and I know how to teach it. After all, between the Tom Woods Show and Contra Krugman, I've released well over 800 podcast episodes. You can trust that I know something about it. Here's a step-by-step overview of exactly what I do -- both in podcasting and in making a living online in general. And yes: all these things can be monetized, if you know what you're doing. You don't have to monetize them, of course. I blogged for years as a pure labor of love. But in my case, with five children and family health issues to cope with, I'm not upset when I'm compensated for something I enjoy doing. Who in his right mind would be? Believe me, over the years I've made a lot of mistakes and gone down a lot of dead ends. You can save yourself the same fate by reading this book. Get it here: http://www.PathsToIncome.com Tom Woods PS. Tom Woods has also put together an amazing resource where you can learn about Liberty, Free Markets and Economics all while commuting to work. Be a smarter libertarian! Check it out! More from LIbertyLOL: |
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