I read frequently among the lesserly neuronal of the supposed honor of soldiers, of the military virtues of courage, loyalty, and uprightness – that in an age of moral decomposition only the military adhere to principles, and that our troops in places like Afghanistan nobly make sacrifices to preserve our freedoms and democracy. Is not all of this nonsense?
Honor? A soldier is just a nationally certified hit-man, perfectly amoral. When he joins the military he agrees... (more)
When it comes to American propaganda about the Middle East, this New York Times article — detailing U.S. plans to bolster its influence in the region after it “withdraws” from Iraq — is a masterpiece. Here’s the crux of the new American strategy and its ostensible rationale:
With an eye on the threat of a belligerent Iran, the administ
The European Union’s bailout of Greece will only delay the inevitable because it doesn’t get to the root of the problem — Greece’s welfare state, along with the fierce refusal of the Greek citizenry to abandon the welfare-state way of life.
It’s amusing to watch Greek citizens protest so vehemently against Germany, whose taxpayers have just been plundered to bail out the beleaguered Greek government. It’s also amusing to watch those same Greek citizens protest any reductions in... (more)
I have come to the conclusion that Big Brother's subjects in George Orwell's 1984 are better informed than Americans.
Americans have no idea why they have been at war in the Middle East, Asia and Africa for a decade. They don't realize that their liberties have been supplanted by a Gestapo Police State. Few understand that hard economic times are here to stay.
On October 27, 2011, the US government announced some routine economic statistics, and the president of t... (more)
Hardly a week goes by without me seeing another think piece on the question: “Are we winning the war on drugs?”
That depends on who “we” is. The War on Drugs has certainly served some very powerful interests in our society. Between the Drug War and the War on Terror, we’ve militarized police culture with SWAT teams, turned the Fourth through Sixth Amendments into toilet paper, and created the biggest prison-industrial complex in the world. From the standpoint of those who push the... (more)
"If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future."
This panegyric to what is commonly called "American Exceptionalism" could have been composed by any of a number of GOP-aligned media figures, such as Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, or their legions of local imitators. Those words were actually spoken by Madeleine Albright in 1998, when she was the Clinton administration... (more)
Ten years ago today, President Bush signed the Patriot Act into law. It passed with the support of all but 66 members of the House of Representatives and one Senator.
We were told at the time that it was an absolutely necessary law to give federal intelligence and law enforcement authorities the tools they needed to fight terror. This sweeping legislation generally beefed up federal “anti-terrorist” police powers, dramatically skewed surveillance procedures in the direction of exe... (more)
As a P.T. (often referred to as perpetual traveler, permanent tourist or prior taxpayer), I have traveled to nearly 100 countries. During those travels there has always been one defining moment, upon entry into a country, which shows that the country is what is generally thought of as a "third world country".
It is the moment when, upon arrival, you are charged a fee to enter the country. The reason generally being that the government of the country has so destroyed the economy ... (more)
When President Obama announced the killing of Osama bin Laden on the evening of May 1, he said something which I found so striking at the time and still do: “tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history.” That sentiment of national pride had in the past been triggered by pu... (more)
Murder Inc. was the nickname of organized crime groups in the 1930s that murdered for the Mafia. Although many of the organization’s killers ended up dead or in prison, their modern-day counterparts are free to come and go as they please, play with their dogs, and vacation with their families. They are even lauded by many Americans as heroes. The difference now, though, is that they work for the CIA and murder for the government.
President Obama announced today that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of the year, and this announcement is being seized upon exactly the way you would predict: by the Right to argue that Obama is a weak, appeasing Chamberlain and by Democrats to hail his greatness for keeping his promise and (yet again) Ending the War. It’s obviously a go... (more)
The "occupy" protest movement is thriving off the claim that the 99% are being exploited by the 1%, and there is truth in what they say. But they have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine that it is the 1% of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact, that 1% includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the country – the people who invent, market, and distribute material blessings to the whole population. They also own the capital that sustains productiv... (more)
It’s no secret the Obama administration has a close relationship with the big media companies when it comes to making “intellectual property” policy.
In 2010 Joe Biden — formerly Senator from MBNA, now Vice President from Disney — hosted a “Piracy Summit” consisting entirely of content industry representatives, where he stated that “stealing” content was no different from a “smash-and-grab at Tiffany’s.”
Shortly thereafter, a special Homeland Security IP task force... (more)
The downgrading of US debt this summer didn’t have huge economic consequences, but the psychological ones were truly devastating for the national elites who have run this country for nearly a century. For a State that regards itself as infallible, it was a huge blow that market forces delivered against the government, and it is only one of thousands that have cut against the power elite in recent years.
Another recent example was the vanishing of the much-vaunted Ob... (more)
The DOJ card players have a credibility problem. 17 well-publicized "terrorist" plots since 2001 have been federal setups that never approached the professionalism of an early talent screening for American Idol. The federally micromanaged Fast and Furious gun running operation purposely ran guns to Mexico, and then blamed it on the 2nd Amendment. After it became known that over 200 people were killed a... (more)
As a dual citizen, I answer to more than one government, not including the third I may be living under at a given time. You may also include the fourth “international” government whose norms may also apply. After all, NATO troops are stationed thirty minutes from my grandparent’s rural village in one of the countries of my citizenship.
One of the governments I am a citizen of leaves me completely alone, I have not heard from nor been solicited by this entity in any way. E... (more)
The protesters of the "occupy" movement imagine themselves to be in the spirit of history's great radicals — speaking truth to power and all that. As many have said, the movement seems blind to the real source of power in society, else they would be protesting government bureaucracies and the Federal Reserve.
Actually, however, it is even worse than that. The protest movement is not just blind to the actual driving force behind impoverishment and injustice. The main ethos of the m... (more)
In Cleveland and other American cities homes are being demolished because four years after the housing bust there is nothing better to do with them. Therein lies a lesson in Austrian business cycle theory.
In a world of uncertainty, waste — the destruction of value — is inevitable. Human action, which aims to replace inferior circumstances with superior circumstances, often involves laboring to transform scarce resources from a less useful form to a more useful form. For example, ... (more)
Today we have a pleasant and exceedingly rare surprise: a major media outlet noting that the very behavior which the U.S. Government and all Serious People are now righteously condemning is behavior in which the U.S. itself routinely engages. From The Los Angeles Times Editorial Page, entitled “Iran’s plot — and a U.S. double standard?”:
Since September, a public-school district in Florida has been taking fingerprint scans at the entrance to schools as a way to monitor attendance. The scans are compared against a database of students to detect truants. As in most highly intrusive school policies, parents are thrown a bone of control by allowing them to request an “opt out” for their children. An opted-out s... (more)
If you reside in America and it is dinnertime, you have almost certainly broken the law. In his book Three Felonies a Day, civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate estimates that the average person unknowingly breaks at least three federal criminal laws every day. This toll does not count an avalanche of other laws — for example misdemeanors or civil violations such as disobeying a civil cont... (more)
Manufacture some terrorism, launch another war! Yay!
Iranians charged in U.S. over assassination plot
(Reuters) - The United States accused Iran on Tuesday of backing a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to Washington, escalating tensions with Tehran and stirring up a hornet's nest in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia and Iran have long jostled for power.
In this episode we speak with Doug Casey of CaseyResearch.com
Topics include:
- The traditions of anarchism and economics
- How Doug started out with anarchism
- Treasurehunting
- Why most libertarians are poor as church mice
- If the empending bankruptcy of the US government is a good thing
- Doug and th... (more)
I have to say that I share most — if not all — the goals of the honest Left, which would be embodied in a constantly rising standard of living for the lowest economic classes. I often find myself watching Democracy Now for its antiwar, free-speech, and anti-death-penalty stances. But the big problem with the honest Left is their absolute and obstinate refusal to learn the most basic economic principles. The "Occupy Wall Street" movement is no dif... (more)
Recently I wrote about how some people use the armed, compulsory powers of government to restrict the rights and economic activities of others as a means of protecting one’s own selfish economic interests, profits, etc. That includes the unions and minimum wage laws, and big corporations such as those among Big Pharma in their legal restrictions against generic and supplement makers.
Let me begin with a quote from an article that my old friend Ralph Raico wrote some 15 years ago:
Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek are widely considered the most eminent classical liberal thinkers of this century. They are also the two best known Austrian economists. They were great scholars and great men. I was lucky to have them both as my teachers.… Yet it is clear that the world treats them very differently. Mises was denied the Nobel Prize for economics, which Hayek w
Famous libertarian author Tom Woods discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the Occupy Wall Street movement on Freedomain Radio. Topics include the growth of fascism, financial deregulation, the Federal Reserve, the evils of fiat currency, and the path to genuine peace and justice.
It’s fascinating to juxtapose America’s reverence for Steve Jobs’ accomplishments and its draconian drug policy with this, from the New York Times‘ obituary of Jobs:
[Jobs] told a reporter that taking LSD was one of the two or three most important things he had done in his life. He said there were things about him that people who had not tried psychedelics -- even peo
