Opting Out of the StateAnother election is behind us, and some people are still basking in the glow of democracy. You know those people — Chris Matthews of MSNBC comes to mind — who think there is nothing better in life than being able to vote for who will run the government. (Sometimes they say “run the country!”)
"Consider yourself blessed," they say. "In other parts of the world, people can't do what you have the right to do." This implies that the most important thing those other people lack is the ... (more)
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The Best News of the Election: It's OverWelcome to the first day in two years in which vast amounts of wealth stop being squandered on the big battle for what gang of thugs will gain some small portion of control over the leviathan state that has been swelling out of control for a century. The result is: the same gang of thugs that ran things for the last four years.
What a waste.
... (more)
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Life, Risk, and MoralsIn the wake of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy, the New York Times saw it fit to declare "A Big Storm Requires a Big Government." The premise was simple: government is the only entity capable of saving the people. When it comes to disaster, it must be up to public servants to swoop in, remedy the situation, and leave things just as pristine as they were before the damage. Massive coordination on the part of private individuals isn't enough. In other words, centralized, bureaucratic ... (more)
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Don't DespairIf ever a president had to go, it's Barack Obama. His progressive fascism has prolonged the recovery for four solid years in a row. From Dodd-Frank and the auto bailouts to stimulus spending and Obamacare, he is easily the most economically interventionist president since the LBJ-Nixon years. In addition to this, he is one of the worst presidents on civil liberties in U.S. history, establishing some of the worst legal precedents imaginable concerning executive detention and even the power of the... (more)
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Democratic PrideOn the evening of November 5 in Madison, Wisconsin, the crowds had already gathered for the long-awaited event. They lined up peacefully, and the lines went around the block. The people were not impatient. They were laughing and talking, grateful for their freedom to choose, and happily participating in the great democratic process of voting in a manner that expresses their own values and outlook on their future. They were flush with pride that they possessed the power to determine their own fut... (more)
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Presidential Election 2012: Analysis From a Space AlienIn this article I am going to present a rather unique way of interpreting the recent election results. I’m going to present them from the point of view of a space alien philosopher. I’m choosing to use this point of view because it is completely disconnected from any cultural programming. I want you to think outside the box. I want you to try and think about what I’m saying in a way that a person who is completely unfamiliar with human political systems would view them.
*Dons ... (more)
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What If We Had To Vote On The Food We Bought At The Grocery Store?Imagine if people voted on what groceries to buy. Rather than go to the store and pick out what you specifically want, everyone in the United States decided every four years in massive elections what food everyone will be forced to buy. What would we be forced to fill our cart with? Doritos, sodas, kool-aid, cookies, ice cream, and all sorts of other popular cheap garbage.
Let's say you want to eat healthy organic produce, well, tough luck. You don't like it? You just need ... (more)
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But Who Will Build The Roads?One of my favourite movies is Mike Judge’s Office Space. For those who haven’t seen it, I won’t spoil anything. The only reason I bring it up is because there’s a scene where a character named Tom Smykowski is, essentially, being interviewed for the job he already has. It seems that Tom’s job consists of being a middle man between customers and engineers. Here’s a sample of the scene. Somebody has created a meme for this scene, replacin... (more)
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How the State Subverts ResponsibilityOne of the most destructive influences of "the State" upon society, is the way it subverts responsibility.
In order to understand the nature of this subversion, one has to understand what "the State" really is, and the irrational paradigm in the minds of its subjects which its agents rely upon to sustain their diabolical power to rule over others without individual consent.
"The State" is in fact a non-entity that exists only in the imaginations of individuals cau... (more)
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Cue the Permanent CampaignYou probably won’t read this column until after the 2012 US presidential election, but I’m actually writing it the day before. I can do that because the content of the column will remain the same regardless of who wins that election, or the 400-odd other federal elections (for US House and Senate seats) held on the same day (for the record, I predicted an Obama win in the electoral college and a net pickup of one or two seats in the US Senate for the Democrats. How did I do?).
Any... (more)
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Has Voting Ever Been a Right Worth Dying For? "People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use." - Søren Kierkegaard
Ah, election season! If there is any one time that guarantees a radical libertarian a barrel of laughs, it is the periodic selection of slave masters, masquerading as a key component of freedom. For the record, selecting which arrogant, well-connected megalomaniac will: kill foreigners (supposedly) on your behalf; redistribute your ... (more)
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Life without FEMA?Advocates of big government never miss a chance to capitalize on a natural disaster. Even before the storm has passed, they will boast that without activist government, recovery would be impossible. Peddlers of this line ask us to imagine what life would be like today — in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy — without FEMA and the state and local emergency agencies. This, they say, is the condition to which opponents of big government would reduce the country.
But the statists lack... (more)
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Hurricanes and Socialism Two articles in the New York Times last week exemplify perfectly why our nation is in such bad shape. Both articles concerned the devastation from Hurricane Sandy. The first was a Times editorial, entitled “A Big Storm Requires Big Government.” The other article was in the form of an op-ed entitled “Grover Cleveland’s Hurricane” by Matthew Algeo.... (more)
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Democracy Is a Terrible System, PeriodThe election year of 2012 reminds us of the sheer waste and lunacy of democracy. Like soccer's World Cup or the Summer or Winter Olympics, presidential elections in the United States come every four years. The campaign is a carnival that begins the minute after a winner is declared in November.
Each successive campaign is said to be dirtier than the last. Each candidate touts change and hope, but delivers neither. No matter who wins, the government is elected, every time. Thousand... (more)
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The Eight Stages of VotingI'm thinking that there are probably some common stages that most people go through with respect to voting (akin to the Kubler-Ross model of grief) -- and that individuals have to recognize them before they can address the underlying personal problem of why they put any credence in the voting process.
1. You believe in the story you’ve been fed about the system; you enthusiastically research the candi... (more)
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Ignoring the Unseen Consequences of the Dole Mocking Mitt Romney’s shifting positions on the auto bailout, the New York Times editorializes that the bailout turned out to be a huge success because “nearly 1.5 million people are working as a direct result of the bailout. G.M.’s American sales continue to increase, and Chrysler said this week that its third-quarter net income rose 80 percent.”
We begin with the pr... (more)
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Looking Beyond Election Day: The Issues That Threaten to Derail the NationWhile it may be months before the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy can be fully resolved, Americans cannot afford to lose sight of the very real and pressing issues that threaten to derail the nation.
What follows is an overview of the major issues that both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, despite their respective billion dollar war chests, have failed to mention during their extensive campaign trail stumping and televised debates. These are issues that aren’t going away anyt... (more)
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Obama and Civil Liberties: The Prospect of Four More YearsMost voters prioritize the economy and far behind that comes foreign policy, where both major presidential candidates offer more of the same. One can make arguments that on these important issues, one side is worse than the other. But another important set of issues, those of civil liberties, has gotten much less attention than jobs, health care, or war. This is unfortunate because precedents set today on questions of law enforcement, presidential power, detention policy, surveillance, and the r... (more)
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Doug Casey on the Election of 2012 Editor's Note: Your editor caught up with Doug Casey backstage at the New Orleans Investment Conference, where we both had just given talks.
L: Doug, I know you're no fan of either presidential candidate – a pox on both their houses – but we got more questions today about what would happen to our investments if one or the other would win than just about anything else. So, what do you think – does it matter? Should we play things diff... (more)
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Americans Proudly Voting for EvilAs our society continues to rapidly decay, we have a presidential election in which the zombies will be out there in droves voting for the two statists, Obama and Romney. The conservatives continue to support an aggressive and belligerent foreign policy – despite all its blowback – that includes indiscriminate drone bombings and murders of innocent foreigners. So much for being "pro-life."
These days, warmongers who claim to be Christian have lost ... (more)
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Russell Means: Renegade, Patriot, Freedom FighterConfined to a barren prison camp in Washington, the displaced Paiute Indians were dying. The Interior Department had promised to send rations, but they never arrived. After being exposed to the elements during the winter of 1880, fifty-eight of them had died – including thirty children -- and many more were seriously ill.
James Wilbur, the pious fraud who served as Indian Agent at Fort Simcoe, wouldn’t exert himself to see that his prisoners were cared for, and wouldn’t ... (more)
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Is It Time to Bomb Iraq Again?Uh, oh! The time might be approaching when the U.S. government will need to invade and bomb Iraq again, with the intent of, once again, achieving regime change and installing a regime that is obedient, submissive, and loyal to the U.S. Empire.
The grounds for this possibility are set forth in an op-ed in today’s New York Times entitled, “Time to Get Tough on Iraq,” authored by Nussaibah Younis, an International Security Program Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer... (more)
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In Praise of GridlockI want gridlock. If the House of Representatives and the Senate both go Republican, as I expect they will, then the best chance for political paralysis may be a hostile Democrat in the White House. I want an angry Congress and a president with fingers itching to veto.
Ironically, a second-term presidency for Obama could well be America’s shining hope for fewer laws in the next four years. And less law is a situation to be devoutly desired, especially since it would come with a wea... (more)
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Is There A Choice Between Rights and Security?In an impromptu interview with Luke Rudkowski of the media organization WeAreChange, MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell was asked why he has failed to report or comment on President Obama's use of the Espionage Act and the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act. O'Donnell claims, quite unbelievably, that he knows very little about the acts and the unprecedented use of the former by... (more)
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Government Targets the BreedersIt occurs to every kid of a certain age. Let’s say the kid has a hamster, and then two, and they make babies. New value, new commodities. This is fantastic! Maybe the kid can breed hamsters, sell them, and make a few bucks. The capital investment is low and the returns are potentially very high and ongoing. Forget those expensive pet stores. Anyone can get into this business. And especially with the Internet, wow, there is real potential here!
Remember that the commercial marketpl... (more)
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