Principles of "Good Government" (BJ Lawson)

Even though "good government" is an oxymoron, this is a pretty nice article by BJ Lawson on the shady tactics of those who claim to "represent" us:

When people ask why I’m running for Congress, I start with a summary of my four primary questions about our federal government, and Congress in particular:

1. Most people assume that our elected Representatives and their staff actually read the bills before they vote on them. They don’t.


2. Many people assume that our lawmakers limit legislation to a single topic at a time. They don’t do that, either.


3. Most people assume that our elected Representatives actually write legislation. Increasingly, they don’t.


4. Finally, many people assume that Congress follows rules concerning what our federal should, and shouldn’t, do. Not any more.

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Washington's Intervention Addiction (Ron Paul)

Here's Ron Paul latest Texas Straight Talk:

One problem with politicians is that when problems they create come to a head, they typically feel this irresistible urge to DO something, rather than to UN-do something, or to simply back off to avoid exacerbating the situation. Too often, that which they end up doing has very little connection to the cause of the crisis, but plays well in the press and superficially makes everyone feel better. Bills that are rushed through Congress under duress are never studied enough, providing too tempting an opportunity to quietly slip in unrelated provisions that erode freedoms in ways that would never pass as a stand-alone bill. We famously saw this with the PATRIOT Act, but Washington learned nothing from that.

The current housing crisis and the corresponding big government fix are another prime example. First of all, the so-called solution will actually make the problem worse. The problem stems from easy credit and a rush to flood the housing and mortgage markets with money. Relaxed or non-existent lending standards led many into mortgages and houses they could not afford. As more foreclosures hit, the lending institutions will continue collapsing like dominoes under the weight of all the bad paper they underwrote. Some are reacting and reintroducing lending standards. Thus the number of buyers in the market for homes is beginning to shrink back to its natural size, and hyper-inflated prices are falling back down to earth. In these ways, the market is trying to correct itself in the wake of the mistakes government intervention encouraged them to make through easy credit. However, this correction is causing pain, especially to Wall Street investors and those who bought homes at the top of the market bubble, never expecting it to crash, always assuming they would easily be able to refinance.

Some mistakenly identify the falling home prices as the disease instead of merely a symptom – which they plan to fix with more easy credit and more liquidity to push more unqualified buyers back into the market for homes they still cannot afford. This is akin to the drug addict identifying withdrawal symptoms as his problem and searching for another fix as his solution. The cycle continues and the problems compound themselves. The addiction deepens.

Addicts are told the first step to recovery is to admit their problem. To cure this addiction to intervention we have to honestly admit the problem and once and for all, kick the habit. That will involve some pain, without a doubt. There is no easy, painless solution to the mess the disastrous economic interventions of the past have wrought. The question is – do we allow some lending institutions to collapse, or do we allow the dollar to collapse? To extend the metaphor, do we endure the temporary discomfort of withdrawal, or do we continue on until there is a fatal overdose? We can delay the agony, but only for a little while, and then we will all end up paying the price for the mistakes of a few.

With the final passage of the Housing Bailout Bill quietly on a Saturday in the Senate, and the President’s signature, our government has unfortunately chosen the latter…

Elijah vs. the State (Laurence Vance)

Laurence Vance on the group of murderous thieves known as "government," any why those of us who oppose the state need to develop the backbone of the Old Testament prophet Elijah:

The state has always been a lying, stealing, and killing machine.

We know this is true of the Soviet Union under Stalin, Nazi Germany under Hitler, and Red China under Mao, but as I showed in "The Lying State" and "The Murdering State," and as Jeff Knaebel recently laid out in great detail here, this is just as true of the U.S. government as it is of any other.

The reason that many people don’t accept this fact is because they have the mindset that lying to, stealing from, and killing foreigners in their countries doesn’t really count.

Christians seeking to justify their support for, or the participation of their friends and relatives in, the U.S. government’s latest military adventure often recite the mantra, "Obey the powers that be," a loose paraphrase of Romans 13:1, as if that somehow means that Christians should blindly follow whatever the government says. But because the state is, as Murray Rothbard described it, a "bandit gang writ large," Christians should always remember the reply of the apostles when they were told to stop speaking in the name of Jesus: "We ought to obey God rather then men" (Acts 5:29). The Bible alone is the word of God, not congressional legislation or resolutions, Supreme Court decisions, the Code of Federal Regulations, or presidential executive orders. God trumps the state every time.

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Police Impersonators: Never There When You Need One (William Grigg)

William Grigg explains why criminals are increasingly using the technique of impersonating police to pull off their crimes, and why being pulled over by these impersonators may actually be safer than being pulled over by the cops! An excerpt:

As law enforcement becomes increasingly authoritarian, and the public grows more docile, the practice of police impersonation by criminals is becoming more commonplace.

"You wave a badge at someone and tell them to pull over and you'd be amazed at how many people are going to obey," observes psychologist Dr. Naftali Berrill, head of the New York Center for Neuropyschology and Forensic Behavioral Science. "They disarm their victims by appearing to be cops." (Emphasis added.)

It is potentially fatal for an individual to allow himself, or herself, to be psychologically disarmed by someone who wears a costume and carries a gun. This is certainly true where street criminals are concerned. But in historic terms, it is even deadlier to allow one's self to be disarmed, in any sense, by agents of the State.

All of the world's private criminal syndicates combined have never killed as many people as were slaughtered in the late century by the public criminal organizations called "governments."

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Lower Labor Costs Now! (Lew Rockwell)

Lew Rockwell on ways the state could dramatically lower labor costs and help the economy:

Official data are starting to reveal what close observers have suspected for some time. Layoffs are increasing. Unemployment is on the rise. It now stands at a four-year high of 5.7 percent, which is not high by historical standards, but it stings when you consider that the rate dipped below 4 percent in the late 1990s.

What worries people is the trend line. This is the seventh straight month of reported job declines. Job instability is the number one factor that leads to public panic. It is more pressing than stock-price declines, general price increases, and a host of other bad trends, because it hits people in the most direct way by threatening to end the flow of money that puts bread on the table.

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Good for the Blind and the Sighted (Ron Paul)

Ron Paul has another reason why we need competing currencies:

Statement before the Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Domestic & International Monetary Policy, Hearing on Examining Issues Related to Tactilely Distinguishable Currency, July 30, 2008

Mr. Chairman,

We would not be here discussing this topic today if we had a truly free monetary system. It is well known that I am a proponent of sound, commodity-backed currency. Anyone who has ever felt the heft of a gold or silver coin, noticed the variation in size and design among different denominations of precious metal coins, or examined the different types of reeding, incusing, and other edge designs, recognizes that coins are far superior to paper bills in terms of their ability to be distinguishable solely by touch.

Due to what many people deem the impracticality of carrying around coins, paper bills have over the course of time replaced coins in everyday commerce. However, a system of competing currencies would ensure that blind or near-blind citizens have access to currency. If we had a truly free market in currency, private currency producers could produce coins or bills that are tactilely distinguishable, with bills incorporating different sizes, shapes, raised geometric patterns, etc. It is not inconceivable to imagine that a privately issued currency incorporating such features and making itself available to all Americans might obtain a dominant position as a preferred currency.

What prevents such a scenario from occurring is the US government's attempts to maintain the monopoly of the dollar. Through a multifaceted legal barrier consisting of legal tender laws, anti-counterfeiting statutes worded to prevent the private issue of notes and coins, and punitive taxes on precious metals that would form the backing of a commodity-backed currency, the government has ensured that alternative currencies, such as the Liberty Dollar, have to face an often insurmountable legal hurdle. While nothing prevents many point-of-sale transactions today from being carried out in euros or pounds, legal tender laws ensure that Gresham's law, that bad money drives out good, remains in effect.

The recent court ruling against the Treasury Department has been advertised as having a potential cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars. It would be far more economical to eliminate the legal restrictions on private currencies and enable the market to find a solution to the problem of currency for the blind. Competitive private currencies would have the added benefit of keeping the US government honest by forcing the government to stop the limitless increase of money, which is inflation, thereby removing the government's ability to run up large trade deficits, half trillion dollar budget deficits, and an enormous national debt. Allowing currency competition would aid in lifting burdens not only from the blind, but also from all American taxpayers.

Citizen Journalism vs. Golden LEAF (BJ Lawson)

BJ Lawson on those who would bring the vastly expensive and dangerous research lab known as the National Bio Agro-Defense Facility to North Carolina, as well as those supplying its propaganda:

Those attempting to bring the National Bio Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) to our backyard earned some press coverage two weeks ago when they received an unprecedented grant of $262,248 from the Golden LEAF Foundation, which is tasked with disbursing North Carolina’s tobacco settlement money for public benefit:

In the few months before the Department of Homeland Security announces where it will build a controversial, $450 million federal disease research lab, proponents in the five contending states, including North Carolina, are trying to outspend, outbid and out-promise the others in hopes of landing the project.

The financial stakes got higher Tuesday, when the N.C. Consortium, an influential group of biotech companies, agribusiness interests, universities and government agencies, received more than a quarter-million dollars in public funds to pay for an “educational” campaign touting their views about siting the National Agro and Bio Defense Facility in Butner.

The Golden LEAF Foundation board awarded the $262,248 grant to the consortium, the first time in the foundation’s nine-year history that its funds have been allocated to a public relations campaign, according to a review of grantees listed on the foundation Web site.

Although the board awarded the grant with the stipulation that the disseminated information be “impartial and factual,” by their nature, PR campaigns are neither. It is also unclear who would judge the impartiality and veracity of the campaign.

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Ron Paul on Insane Military Spending

Ron Paul's statement on HR 6599:

Statement on H. R. 6599, Military Construction/Veterans Affairs Appropriations

1 August 2008
Madam Speaker, I rise in reluctant opposition to this appropriations legislation. It is unfortunate that my colleagues have decided to combine the necessary appropriations contained in the Veterans Affairs portion of this bill with the bloated and unconstitutional military construction appropriations. In the past I have voted in favor of Veterans Affairs appropriation bills when they were not combined with unwise and wasteful spending of other appropriations like military construction.

This appropriation will allocate $9.5 billion to close bases in the United States while spending nearly $12 billion building other facilities overseas! As a matter of fact, any construction of new bases in the United States is prohibited by this bill. While I am not necessarily in favor of building new bases in the United States , we certainly should not be spending money to close existing domestic bases in favor of constructing new bases overseas.

The bill will transfer more than $200 million to NATO, an organization with no purpose that should be disbanded immediately, for the construction of NATO facilities in countries where we have no business having our military in the first place.

We have been told that we will have no permanent bases in Iraq , but then again we have no “permanent” bases in Korea either even though we have had a military presence there for more than 50 years. It is unclear how much of this $12 billion will go to building new facilities to maintain an indefinite presence in Iraq , but any such expenditure will be counterproductive to US national interests.

This appropriation increases construction funds to the service branches by as much as 50 percent over current levels, which is financially dangerous and unsustainable particularly in view of next year’s record budget deficit.

Madam Speaker, it is a tragedy that necessary spending to keep promises to American veterans should be held hostage to this out of control spending on maintaining an unnecessary and dangerous US empire overseas. We are doing no favors to today’s veterans or to future veterans – or to the US taxpayers -- with this appropriations bill.

Ron Paul Opposes "Academic Bill of Rights"

Ron Paul's statement on HR 4137:

Madame Speaker, anyone in need of proof that federal control follows federal funding need only examine HR 4137, the Higher Education Opportunity Act. HR 4137 imposes several new mandates on colleges, and extends numerous mandates that previous Congress imposed on colleges. HR 4137 proves the prophetic soundness of people who warned that federal higher education programs would lead to federal control of higher education.

Opponents of increasing federal control over higher education should be especially concerned about HR 4137’s “Academic Bill of Rights.” This provision takes a step toward complete federal control of college curriculum, grading, and teaching practices. While this provision is worded as a “sense of Congress,” the clear intent of the “bill of rights” is to intimidate college administrators into ensuring professors’ lectures and lesson plans meet with federal approval.

The “Academic Bill of Rights” is a response to concerns that federally-funded institutions of higher learner are refusing to allow students to express, or even be exposed to, points of view that differ from those held by their professors. Ironically, the proliferation of “political correctness” on college campuses is largely a direct result of increased government funding of colleges and universities. Federal funding has isolated institutions of higher education from market discipline, thus freeing professors to promulgate their “politically correct” views regardless of whether this type of instruction benefits their students (who are, after all, the professors’ customers). Now, in a perfect illustration of how politicians use the problems created by previous interventions in the market as a justification for further interventions, Congress proposes to use the problem of “political correctness” to justify more federal control over college classrooms.

Instead of fostering open dialog and wide-raging intellectual inquiry, the main effect of the "Academic Bill of Rights” will be to further stifle debate about controversial topics. This is because many administrators will order their professors not to discuss contentious and divisive subjects in order to avoid a possible confrontation with the federal government. Those who doubt this should remember that many TV and radio stations minimized political programming in the sixties and seventies in order to avoid running afoul of the federal “fairness doctrine.”

I am convinced that some promoters of the “Academic Bill of Rights” would be unhappy if, instead of fostering greater debate, this bill silences discussion of certain topics. Scan the websites of some of the organizations promoting the “Academic Bill of Rights” and you will also find calls for silencing critics of the Iraq war and other aspects of American foreign policy.

Madame Speaker, HR 4137 expands federal control over higher education; in particular through an “Academic Bill of Rights" which could further stifle debate and inquiry on America’s college campus. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to reject this bill.

Cool Shots of Solar Eclipse

Solar eclipse as seen in China:



Here's the total eclipse: