Kiss Your Safety & Liberty Goodbye
by Andrew P. Napolitano
What a week we have all just endured! While the Democrats were re-writing the federal takeover of health care behind closed doors, the public face of the federal government was fixated on denying and then explaining all the gaps in its intelligence gathering. The Obama administration has been finger-pointing over who in the government let a murderous thug on a plane in Amsterdam that he tried to explode over Detroit. First, the government said that the system worked. Then the President said it didn’t. Then he announced that the intelligence communities and security people would start to talk to each other so the bad guys could be kept out. Weren’t they supposed to be doing this all along?
At Newark Liberty Airport last Sunday, a TSA agent left his post, and a young man walked past it to kiss his girlfriend good-bye. Then the young man turned and left the secured area and left the airport. So far no harm, no foul. But because the government’s surveillance cameras in the airport didn’t work, the feds panicked and ordered over 10,000 passengers to leave the terminal, go out into the 15-degree Newark, NJ cold at night, and then re-enter the airport. Flights were delayed and missed, kids did not get to school on Monday morning, and soldiers were listed as AWOL. All because the government overreacted to a kiss. This humiliated the feds: New Jersey’s 86-year-old senior Senator Frank Lautenberg demanded that the guy who kissed his gal be hunted down and prosecuted because of the chaos he caused. He caused? Let’s see; the government has cameras that watch us every time we scratch our noses, and when those cameras don’t work, the government blames the person whose picture it was taking? Come on.
All this, of course, brings out the false argument of liberty versus security. And we hear that the government must take our freedoms in order to keep us safe. That’s hogwash.
Iraq War Veteran: “Our enemy is not 5,000 miles away, it is right here at home”
By readers’ request: The following is a preview of one article that will be in the next print edition of The Liberty Voice, to be released on January 12, 2010…make that January 15, 2010.
by Mike Prysner
Transcribed by The Liberty Voice Transcription Service
…and I tried hard to be proud of my service, but all I could feel was shame. The racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation. These were people. These were human beings.
I’ve since been plagued by guilt, anytime I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn’t walk, who we rolled onto a stretcher and told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children, like the one who cried hysterically, and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl, like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.
We were told we are fighting terrorists. The real terrorist was me, and the real terrorism is this occupation. Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation and torture of another people.
Racism is a vital weapon employed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank a bomber or a battleship. It’s more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a tomahawk missile.
Our Second Anniversary Edition is Released!
On November 11, 2009, we released our second-anniversary edition of The Liberty Voice. If you would like our little newspaper delivered to your home or business, be sure to go to our subscription page and take advantage of this fiercely independent news resource. While you’re at it, get The Liberty Voice delivered for a friend or loved one as a gift for the holidays!
Our printed edition stories include:
How States Can Finance Their Own Recovery
Obama Endorses Bush Era Warrantless Wiretapping
Who’s Afraid of The New World Order?
Marriage License & Registration Please
These Things Are NOT Negotiable
Climate Change, Socialized Medicine and Population Control
Future Prospects for Economic Liberty
How States Can Finance Their Own Recovery
By Ellen Brown
Truthout
President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan has so far failed to halt the growth of unemployment: 2.7 million jobs have been lost since the stimulus plan began. California has lost 336,400 jobs. Arizona has lost 77,300. Michigan has lost 137,300. A total of 49 states and the District of Columbia have all reported net job losses.
In this dark firmament, however, one bright star shines. The sole state to actually gain jobs is an unlikely candidate for the distinction: North Dakota. North Dakota is also one of only two states expected to meet their budgets in 2010. (The other is Montana.) North Dakota is a sparsely populated state of less than 700,000 people, largely located in cold and isolated farming communities. Yet, since 2000, the state’s GNP has grown 56 percent, personal income has grown 43 percent and wages have grown 34 percent. The state not only has no funding problems, but this year it has a budget surplus of $1.3 billion, the largest it has ever had.
Why is North Dakota doing so well, when other states are suffering the ravages of a deepening credit crisis? Its secret may be that it has its own credit machine. North Dakota is the only state in the Union to own its own bank. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) was established by the state legislature in 1919, specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. The bank’s stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota.
The Advantages of Owning Your Own Bank
So, how does owning a bank solve the state’s funding problems? Isn’t the state still limited to the money it has? The answer is no. Chartered banks are allowed to do something nobody else can do: They can create credit on their books simply with accounting entries, using the magic of “fractional reserve” lending. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explains on its web site:
“Banks actually create money when they lend it. Here’s how it works: Most of a bank’s loans are made to its own customers and are deposited in their checking accounts. Because the loan becomes a new deposit, just like a paycheck does, the bank … holds a small percentage of that new amount in reserve and again lends the remainder to someone else, repeating the money-creation process many times.”
Bombs and Bribes
by Ron Paul
What if tomorrow morning you woke up to headlines that yet another Chinese drone bombing on US soil killed several dozen ranchers in a rural community while they were sleeping? That a drone aircraft had come across the Canadian border in the middle of the night and carried out the latest of many attacks? What if it was claimed that many of the victims harbored anti-Chinese sentiments, but most of the dead were innocent women and children? And what if the Chinese administration, in an effort to improve its public image in the US, had approved an aid package to send funds to help with American roads and schools and promote Chinese values here?
Most Americans would not stand for it. Yet the above hypothetical events are similar to what our government is doing in Pakistan. Last week, Congress did approve an aid package for Pakistan for the stated purposes of improving our image and promoting democracy. I again made the point on the floor of the House that still no one seems to hear: What if this happened on US soil? What if innocent Americans were being killed in repeated drone attacks carried out by some foreign force who was trying to fix our problems for us? Would sending money help their image? If another nation committed this type of violence and destruction on our homeland, would we be at all interested in adopting their values?
Sadly, one thing that has entirely escaped modern American foreign policy is empathy. Without much humility or regard for human life, our foreign policy has been reduced to alternately bribing and bombing other nations, all with the stated goal of “promoting democracy.” But if a country democratically elects a leader who is not sufficiently pro-American, our government will refuse to recognize them, will impose sanctions on them, and will possibly even support covert efforts to remove them. Democracy is obviously not what we are interested in. It is more likely that our government is interested in imposing its will on other governments. This policy of endless intervention in the affairs of others is very damaging to American liberty and security.
Another Gitmo Believe it Or Not!
October 26, 2009 WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge has ordered the release of a Kuwaiti man held at Guantanamo Bay and rebuked the United States government for relying on scant evidence, witnesses that were not credible and coerced confessions to hold him for more than seven years.
In an opinion declassified Friday, the judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court here, said government lawyers had presented a “surprisingly bare” record in four days of classified hearings last month to oppose the man’s request for release.
She said that the man, Fouad Al Rabiah, an aviation engineer; was being held almost exclusively based on confessions that were obtained through abusive techniques and that his own interrogators repeatedly concluded were not believable.
“Incredibly, these are the confessions that the government has asked the court to accept as truthful in this case,” Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a 65-page opinion that was partly redacted to remove classified material. She called the coerced confessions “entirely incredible” and said they “defy belief.”
“If there exists a basis for Al Rabiah’s indefinite detention, it most certainly has not been presented to this court,” the judge found.
Whose Town Hall Is It Anyway?
By Kevin OBrien
Cleveland Plain Dealer Columnist
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
I’m surprised — and not necessarily pleasantly — to see so many of you here. And so very well-dressed.
I really thought that scheduling a town hall at 4 a.m. in the worst part of town I could find would cut down on attendance, but it looks as if we’ve got a lot of early risers here in the district.
We’ve got refreshments in the back. Help yourself. It’s all decaf. Wouldn’t want anyone to go on a caffeine rampage, would we? Heh-heh.
Before I really get to bobbing and weaving in earnest, Marilyn from the AARP is here to provide me a little cover and set the tone for this morning’s session. How about we have her come on up and tell the old folks who are here today to just put a sock in it and do as they’re told?
Thank you, Congressman. First of all, if you’re over 50, please consider signing up for an AARP membership. There’s power in numbers and we use your dues money to work really hard for you in Washington. Now, rather than boring you with a lot of details about HR 3200, I just want to remind you that elderly people who ask too many questions are senile and get sent to the home. Congressman?
Future Prospects for Economic Liberty
by Walter Williams
The following is adapted from a lecture delivered on August 2, 2009, during a Hillsdale College cruise from Venice to Athens aboard the Crystal Serenity.
One of the justifications for the massive growth of government in the 20th and now the 21st centuries, far beyond the narrow limits envisioned by the founders of our nation, is the need to promote what the government defines as fair and just. But this begs the prior and more fundamental question: What is the legitimate role of government in a free society? To understand how America’s Founders answered this question, we have only to look at the rule book they gave us—the Constitution.
Most of what they understood as legitimate powers of the federal government are enumerated in Article 1, Section 8. Congress is authorized there to do 21 things, and as much as three-quarters of what Congress taxes us and spends our money for today is nowhere to be found on that list. To cite just a few examples, there is no constitutional authority for Congress to subsidize farms, bail out banks, or manage car companies. In this sense, I think we can safely say that America has departed from the constitutional principle of limited government that made us great and prosperous.
On the other side of the coin from limited government is individual liberty. The Founders understood private property as the bulwark of freedom for all Americans, rich and poor alike. But following a series of successful attacks on private property and free enterprise — beginning in the early 20th century and picking up steam during the New Deal, the Great Society, and then again recently — the government designed by our Founders and outlined in the Constitution has all but disappeared. Thomas Jefferson anticipated this when he said, “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”
Climate Change, Socialized Medicine and Population Control
By Adam Murdock, MD
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
The quote above is from the book Ecoscience published in 1977. In this book is detailed a plan for a “planetary regime” that would regulate the global population. According to the authors, this regime would be empowered to create specific “compulsory population-control laws” in order to accomplish this aim.
What specific population-control laws did they have in mind? For starters, the authors propose that this regime should have the power to:
1. Compel inferior mothers to either give up their children or have abortions.
2. Sterilize the population through putting “sterilants” into their water and food supply. According the authors of Ecoscience this would be okay as long as “pets” or “livestock” are not harmed.
3. Forcibly implant a sterilizing capsule which would only be removed with “official permission.”
It is clear that the above methods will be successful at curtailing the population if implemented. There is just one problem: How will they convince the people to go along with the program? Their solution is to demonize people that have too many children as having irresponsible “resource-consumption patterns.” They, therefore, need to be compelled to behave more responsibly in order to save the planet and to spread the earth’s finite resources more equitably. An additional rationale is that since government already regulates marriage, why not family size?
Despite these rationales for population control, it is clear that many people are unlikely to be convinced. Therefore, how will such unpopular measures be enforced? In the end, the only way the authors foresee fulfilling their dream will be through the creation of a “planetary regime” and international “police force.”
I don’t know about you, but these proposals are beginning to sound to me like the sick vision of some early twentieth century eugenicist.
These Things Are NOT Negotiable
By Chuck Baldwin
Published 10/14/09
In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies.”
I would argue that we, like our patriot forebears, have also endured “patient sufferance.” For at least a half-century, we have patiently endured the erosion and abridgment of our freedoms and liberties. We have watched the federal government become an overbearing and meddlesome Nanny State that pokes its nose and sticks its fingers in virtually everything we do. We cannot drive a car, buy a gun, or even flush a toilet without Big Brother’s permission. We are taxed, regulated, and snooped-on from the time we are born to the day we die. And then after we are dead, we are taxed again.
In the same way that Jefferson and Company patiently suffered up until that shot was fired that was heard around the world, we who love freedom today are likewise patiently suffering “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” In fact, I would even dare say that these States United have become a boiling cauldron of justifiable frustration and even anger.
Accordingly, it is incumbent upon us to very seriously and thoughtfully examine those principles that we absolutely will never cede or surrender. We have already surrendered much of the freedom that was bequeathed to us by our forefathers.
We are now to the point that we must define those principles that form our “line in the sand” and that we will not surrender under any circumstance. Either that, or we must admit to ourselves that there is nothing — no principle, no freedom, no matter how sacred — that we will not surrender to Big Government.
