Who Exactly Is Government Helping?Almost everyone believes that government is an essential institution, necessary to protect us from those threats we cannot counter on our own. But even if we accept that justification, it rarely describes what American government actually does, whether at the local, state, or federal level.
What exactly is the government protecting -- and from whom?
Local Protection from Food Trucks
Late last year, Rachel Kennedy wanted to bring a Cub... (more)
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Ron Paul: Politicians Exploit School Shooting While Ignoring Bombing VictimsFollowing the recent Oregon school shooting, many politicians rushed to the microphones to call for new gun control laws. President Obama even called on gun control supporters to “politicize” the shooting, while some members of Congress worked to establish a special commission on gun violence.
The reaction to the shooting stands in stark contrast to the reaction to the US military’s bombing of an Afghanistan hospital run by the international humanitarian (and Nobel Peace Prize win... (more)
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Charles Murray's Tepid RadicalismCharles Murray thinks that government has become arbitrary and tyrannical. In doing so, it has betrayed the “Madisonian” heritage of America, which strictly limited the power of the government to interfere with individual liberty. “As I [Murray] got into the book, I discovered I had to find a label less cumbersome than ‘people devoted to limited government’ … my first impulse was to call us Jeffersonians, but Jefferson was well to the libertarian side of the spectrum, and I wanted to include adv... (more)
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A Decisive Shift in The Power Balance Has OccurredThe world is beginning to realize that a seachange in world affairs occured on September 28 when President Putin of Russia stated in his UN speech that Russia can no longer tolerate Washington’s vicious, stupid, and failed policies that have unleashed chaos, which is engulfing the Middle East and now Europe. Two days later, Russia took over the military situation in Syria and began the destruction of the Islamic State forces.
Perhaps among Obama’s advisors there are a few who are ... (more)
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The Impulsiveness of US PowerWashington's impulsive use of power is a danger to America and to the world. Arrogant Washington politicians and crazed neoconservatives are screaming that the US must shoot down Russian aircraft that are operating against the US-supplied forces that have brought death and destruction to Syria, unleashing millions of refugees on Europe, in Washington's effort to overthrow the Syrian government.
Even my former CSIS colleague, Zbigniew Brzezinski, normally a sensible if sometimes mi... (more)
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A Major Win For The Opponents of The 'War On Drugs'The War On Drugs.
It's no secret that most people are tired of war on drugs. In fact, one police department is refusing to arrest drug offenders – offering help instead of incarceration. So many lives have been ruined by this ‘war'. Teenagers have been shot and killed by police over the mere suspicion of having marijuana. Tens-of-thousa... (more)
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33 Heroes Are Possibly Dead and No One Cares Because They Aren't CopsThe sinking of the cargo ship El Faro off the Bahamas on October 1 gave the public a tragic reminder of the largely unappreciated dangers of commercial shipping, which is vital to the consumer economy. All thirty-three crew members -- twenty-eight Americans and five Polish nationals — were apparently lost in the space of... (more)
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This Has Become RoutineIn his comment on the mass shootings at the Oregon community college, President Obama said: "This has become routine."
So have police shootings of unarmed and unresisting Americans.
So have numerous other undesirable and deplorable happenings, such as the foreclosure on the homes of millions of Americans, while the "banks too big to fail" are bailed out with trillions of dollars, and such as foreign policy lies that have destroyed seven countries, bringing the US an... (more)
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I Wish Nobody Was Bombing SyriaThe US regime change policy for Syria has been a catastrophe. More than 200,000 killed and an entire country reduced to rubble at least partly because President Obama decided that “Assad has lost his legitimacy.” How is it that the president of a country 6,000 miles away has the authority to decide whether another leader belongs in office or not? What if Rouhani in Iran decided that Obama had lost his legitimacy for killing a number of American citizens by drone without charge or trial? Would we... (more)
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'Neutralizing' John Lennon: One Man Against The 'Monster'“You gotta remember, establishment, it’s just a name for evil. The monster doesn’t care whether it kills all the students or whether there’s a revolution. It’s not thinking logically, it’s out of control.”—John Lennon (1969)
John Lennon, born 75 years ago on October 9, 1940, was a musical genius and pop cultural icon.
... (more)
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The Menace of EgalitarianismA sharp Martian visiting Earth would make two observations about the United States–one true, the other only superficially so. On the basis of its ceaseless exercises in self-congratulation, the US appears to him to be a place where free thought is encouraged, and in which man makes war against all the fetters on his mind that reactionary forces had once placed there. That is the superficial truth.
The real truth, which our Martian would discover after watching how Americans actual... (more)
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College Campuses Are Not Gun-Free ZonesWishing for something to be true does not make it true. Declaring an area to be gun-free is wishful thinking. I know campuses are not gun-free zones because I see news reports of campus shootings.
Declaring an area to be a gun-free zone discourages law-abiding citizens from carrying guns there, but it encourages people who intend to commit crimes with firearms because it gives them some assurance they will not meet with armed resistance from law-abiding citizens.
Ev... (more)
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Why is Washington Against Russia Bombing ISIS and Al-Qaeda?On Wednesday the Russian military became active in the fight against ISIS and al-Qaeda in Syria. Pursuant to a request from the Syrian government, Moscow first began deploying military equipment and trainers as well as humanitarian assistance. Then the Russian parliament approved the use of force, and force was indeed used on Wednesday.
The Obama Administration is not happy about this development.
The US has been bombing Syria for a year without permission from ... (more)
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The Curse of American ExceptionalismNothing seems to cause one of the neocon talking heads to fall into a rage more than discussing a politician or political candidate who "doesn't believe in American exceptionalism!!" Sean Hannity seems especially unhinged under such circumstances. This is because "American exceptionalism" has long been the ideological underpinning of -- and justification for -- the American empire and all of its military adventures. As shills for the American military/industrial complex and the empire that it... (more)
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Obama Deifies American HegemonyToday is the 70th anniversary of the UN. It is not clear how much good the UN has done. Some UN Blue Hemet peacekeeping operations had limited success. But mainly Washington has used the UN for war, such as the Korean War and Washington’s Cold War against the Soviet Union. In our time Washington had UN tanks sent in against Bosnian Serbs during the period that Washington was dismantling Yugoslavia and Serbia and accusing Serbian leaders, who tried to defend the integrity of their country against... (more)
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Governments Don't Kill, People Do"When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don't care if they are shot themselves." - Herbert Spencer
Stalin and his government never starved a single Ukrainian. Hitler and his government never gassed a single Jew. Mao and his government never beat to death a single Chinese peasant. And even though the senseless, immoral, unnecessary, and unjust invasion and occupation of Iraq resulted in a pile of a million dead ... (more)
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Catalonia Succession: What Would Lincoln Do?Now that Catalonia has voted to secede from Spain, the U.S. government must be contemplating a response. Fresh off the pope’s worshipful quoting of Abe Lincoln before Congress, and giving a speech from one of Abe’s own lecturns in Philadelphia, our politicians must be asking themselves (and answering): What would Lincoln do?
The answer is obvious. If he were the Spanish government, he could call up an army of at least a million men to invade Catalonia, bomb and burn its cities ... (more)
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