The NSA: 'The Abyss from Which There Is No Return'"The National Security Agency’s capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If a dictator ever took over, the N.S.A. could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back." — Senator Frank Church (1975)
We now find ourselves operating in a strange para... (more)
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An Empire in PanicA cornered rat has a deadly bite, or so says the lore from the 19th century, when rat baiting was common sport. The same is true of a cornered empire today. Every hour that goes by presents the evidence. It's getting absolutely dangerous out there for anyone who dares to stand up against the empire and for basic human rights, which is to say that it is dangerous to corner the rat.
Recall the NSA's Edward Snowden blockbuster revelations that the U.S. national security state has bee... (more)
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Decline and Fall: The Second Stage is AngerNot too long ago, I predicted that if I live to the average American male lifespan of 76 — I’m 46 now — I’ll have outlived the United States as we know it.
At the time, I feared I was being over-optimistic, but lately I’m leaning the other way and thinking that my timetable may have been unduly timid. The United States may be something quickly receding in history’s rear view mirror by the time I start getting junk mail from AARP (“you’re 50 — join now!”).
The recent... (more)
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Yes, We Live in a Communist CountryAbducted by bounty hunters, imprisoned without cause, denied due process of law, cleared of all charges yet forbidden to go home, scores of innocent men in the Guantanamo Bay gulag have been driven to resist in the only way they can – by staging a hunger strike.
Finding themselves irretrievably in the hands of an immensely powerful enemy that is entirely... (more)
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Ten Reasons the U.S. Is No Longer the Land of the FreeWhile each new national-security power Washington has embraced was controversial when enacted, they are often discussed in isolation. But they don't operate in isolation. They form a mosaic of powers under which our country could be considered, at least in part, authoritarian. Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic ind... (more)
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How to Fight the Modern StateIn this 1997 speech by Hans-Hermann Hoppe, now available as an ebook from the Mises Institute under the title What Must Be Done, Hoppe presents a plan of action for anarcho-capitalists against the modern state.
... (more)
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The Phony Trade-off between Privacy and SecurityMost people take it for granted -- because they've heard it so many times from politicians and pundits -- that they must trade some privacy for security in this dangerous world. The challenge, we're told, is to find the right "balance." Let's examine this.
On its face the idea seems reasonable. I can imagine hiring a firm to look after some aspect of my security. To do its job the firm may need some information about me that I don't readily give out. It's up to me to decide if I l... (more)
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How Medical Innovation Redefines Our WorldOn a Sunday afternoon swim, a 6-year-old boy was bugging me in a sweet sort of way. He rode up and down the handrail on the stairs in the shallow end of the pool where I was trying to sit in peace. He was laughing and talking, but I couldn't understand a word through the giggles.
I spoke to him to try to engage him in conversation.
His mother was sitting on the side of pool and said to me, "He can't hear a word you are saying."
I thought by that she m... (more)
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"Punishment Has Been Achieved" “Punishment for this offense has been achieved.”
With those words, which are found near the end of an August 8 motion to dismiss a spurious battery charge against Sandpoint, Idaho resident Rita Hutchens, the author – Bonner County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Shane Greenbank – incriminates himself.
For about a year, Greenbank tirelessly pursued a charge he knew to be entirely devoid o... (more)
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The United States Government Does Not Want Americans To Travel AbroadNo other government on the face of this Earth wants to make it’s citizens more ill-at-ease, deathly afraid, or made to feel so guilty for stepping outside of it’s national boundaries as the United States of America. Rather than encouraging Americans to embrace overseas travel as one of the most educational, enjoyable, and emotionally and spiritually satisfying endeavors that people can undertake in the course of our painfully short lives, U.S. government departments and institutions are notoriou... (more)
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Social Pressure as a Means of Keeping OrderWe tend to think of the law as one, big monolithic thing, a unified system under which we all must live. The rules governing what we can and cannot do may change over time, but the system itself is a constant, maintained by a centralized body of enforcers. Force is the operative term here, because the threat of force is really the only weapon the law has at its disposal to curb behaviors it deems undesirable. Break the law and you will either be fined, imprisoned or, in extreme cases, killed.... (more)
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How Anarchism Can Solve Social Problems: Gary Chartier at Freedom Fest 2013
"Once states get a footing, they tend to crowd out alternatives," says philosopher and La Sierra University professor Gary Chartier, author most recently of Anarchy and Legal Order. "Also, I think they tend to colonize people, ideologically."
Reason Magazine's Matt Welch caught up with Chartier at this year's Freedom Fest to discuss his extensive writings on... (more)
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Are Police in America Now a Military, Occupying Force?Despite the steady hue and cry by government agencies about the need for more police, more sophisticated weaponry, and the difficulties of preserving the peace and maintaining security in our modern age, the reality is far different. Indeed, violent crime in America has been on a steady decline, and if current trends continue, Americans will finish the year 2013 experiencing the lowest murder rate in over a century.
Despite this clear referendum on the fact that communities would... (more)
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Lynne Stewart: Convicted of Supporting the Declaration of IndependenceFormer New York City attorney Lynne Stewart is back in the news. Having been convicted in federal court of being a terrorism supporter, she is currently serving a 10-year sentence in a federal penitentiary. According to an article in today's New York Times, the 73-year-old Stewart's recent req... (more)
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Abolish Your Local PoliceTwo gangs gathered near a home in California. The man who lived there avoided one, and was severely beaten by the other.
Ronald Weekley, Jr. , a 20-year-old college student from Venice, California, was riding his skateboard on the “wrong side” of the street in front of his house when he was assaulted by four armed gangsters and severely beaten. The assailants then abducted the victim and accused him of a criminal o... (more)
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Truth as TreasonIf I were to use the phrase "When Truth Was Treason," you might think that I was referring to the cases of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden. Your assumption, of course, would be entirely reasonable given that that's what they did -- they disclosed the truth about the U.S. national-security state's lies, crimes, and secret surveillance schemes, for which they have been labeled as criminals and traitors.
But actually the phrase is the title of a fascinating book about a group ... (more)
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Snowden's Father Calls Out Obama On Nuremberg CrimesPredictably, the corporate media, the official propaganda outlet for the establishment, has refused to post or publish an open letter sent to Obama by Lon Snowden, the father of Edward Snowden. This callous refusal should finally convince any who may have had any doubt that the United States is anything but a tyrannical national security state with a state-run media no different than the one in Cuba, China or Iran.
Edward Snowden’s unwarranted persecution and vilification by the g... (more)
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We Must Be Anarcho-Capitalists: The Brazilian Philosophy Magazine Dicta & Contradicta Interviews Hans-Hermann HoppeWould the change from a statist to a libertarian society help or hinder the production of high culture?
Hoppe: A libertarian society would be significantly more prosperous and wealthy and this would certainly help both low and high culture. But a free society -- a society without taxes and tax-subsidies and without so-called “intellectual property rights” – would produce a very different culture, with a very different set of products, producers, stars and fail... (more)
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Committing War Crimes is a Duty; Reporting Them is a FelonyBradley Manning is the only combat veteran of the Iraq war whose service is worth honoring. Like hundreds of thousands of servicemen, Manning carried out unlawful orders to participate in an illegal war. Unlike any of the rest, he took necessary action to expose discrete criminal acts committed in the larger context of that illegal enterprise.
While serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, Manning sometimes felt as if he were “watching nonstop snuff films,” according to a New ... (more)
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The Real Criminals Under Our National-Security State SystemLet's recap the situation regarding criminal conduct within the U.S. national-security state, just to see how the national-security state has succeeded in corrupting the morals and values of our nation.
People Who Are Considered Heroes by the National-Security State
1. The officials who devised the scheme that plunged America into the illegal world of torture.
2. The officials who actually committed the crime of torture.
... (more)
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Manning Show Trial Exposes the Fraud of Representative DemocracyMajor Ashlend Fein, US Army prosecutor in Bradley Manning’s court martial, caught my attention when he referred to Manning as an “anarchist” in closing arguments. As an anarchist, I’d be proud to share that label with Manning. But I’ve never heard from any reliable source that he considers himself one.
Manning — if indeed guilty of supplying thousands of military and state department documents to Wikileaks — has certainly helped to promote anarchism. Exposing the corrupt reality o... (more)
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The Truth About Bradley Manning
Stefan Molyneux breaks down the truth about the Bradley Manning trial and situation.
This video was recorded prior to the verdict.
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Why Not Just Abolish the NSA?Notice that all the public discussion about the NSA's super-secret, massive surveillance scheme assumes that the NSA has become a permanent part of American life. The debate revolves around what restrictions, if any, should be placed on the NSA's authority to spy on people.
But the real question that Americans should be debating is: Why not simply abolish the NSA?
The NSA was brought into existence as part of the national-security state apparatus that was engrafted ... (more)
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