An earlier column, “Homo Politicus,” offered an explanation of why Washington does not learn from experience. (Recap: Washington elites rarely operate from observed results. Rather, they mostly emulate higher status members of their society — much as do chimpanzees and other primates.)
Calling “monkey see monkey do” on our high public officials is heresy, of course, because our political system’s legitimacy is based on claims of merit, reason, and effective service. The evidence for such qualities often is flimsy. Homo Politicus (part 1) concluded: “What besets Washington … is an ‘Obedience to Authority‘ problem.” The implications are more dire than suggesting simple mediocrity.
What is an “Obedience to Authority” problem? In 1961, Yale Professor Stanley Milgram proved that, without much overt pressure, about two-thirds of normal people will shock an innocent victim to torturous, and potentially deadly, levels. All it takes is an authority figure directing them.
We have had 30 years of Democrat economics and Republican economics. Both have been different faces of the same scam, and it’s time for a change.
There has in fact been no real economic expansion since 1980. Not one three month period has elapsed where the economy expanded faster than did total debt from 1981 to 2009. From 2002-2008 the amount of true inflation, measured against the increase in earnings of the population, averaged nearly 10% a year. Compounded over six years this is enough to destroy 75% of your purchasing power.
That’s the truth from a monetary perspective. It’s why we “needed” an Internet and housing bubble — so you didn’t immediately starve, riot and put a stop to the scams. You, the common person, were played as a rube for the benefit of a tiny fraction of the population in Washington DC and on Wall Street.
2007 and 2008 laid the facts bare; the economy and markets collapsed as the ability of individuals to borrow more and more money came to an end. The economy has not recovered — over the last year on a population-adjusted basis we have in fact lost 1.3 million jobs; 6 million jobs have vanished since the alleged “recovery” began in the summer of 2009.
BURNET, Texas (April 28) – It’s been nearly two years since I began this campaign to earn the Libertarian Party presidential nomination. From the beginning I stated my goal clearly and I’ve stuck to it. I said then that the Libertarian Party faces a critical test in 2012 and I want to make sure we’re up to the challenge. The Libertarian message in 2012 must be a loud, clear and unequivocal call to stop the wars! Stop the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop the war on drugs and alternative lifestyles, stop the war on civil liberties – stop all war.
At every presidential debate, state party convention and event I’ve attended, I’ve asked libertarian activists to join me in saying ‘I am not at war,’ and I’ve been encouraged and inspired by their response. It has been my honor to take part in forums with my fellow presidential candidates. I’ve learned some things from them, and I hope they have learned some things from me.
The only thing that has changed is that today it’s even more critical that the Libertarian Party’s candidate for President of the United States is ready, willing and able to present a clear, principled, unwavering and unequivocal libertarian message that offers Americans radically different answers to our nation’s problems, not variations or modifications of the false solutions promoted by Democrats and Republicans.
I believe I’m the person most qualified to fill that role. I’ve been a libertarian all my life; never have I been anything else. There is no learning curve for Lee Wrights as the 2012 standard bearer. I can wave the Libertarian flag high without exception or compromise.
For years people have been “against” politicians. Many just view them only as a necessary evil. Quite often you even hear people saying that they cast their vote for the “lesser of two evils”. I am sure that you have heard these expressions before. If not than for that reason alone you should not be running, for who wants a president that has been living under a rock all his life.
You are everything they hate about politicians. Voters want a principles person in office. They want one that will make a decision and stick to do it. But you are not that person. You flip flop on every issue so long as you see the advantage going your way. You will say or do whatever is necessary to try to convince that you are on the people’s side when you are really only on your own side. Flip flopping should not come as a surprise to anyone watching you. It is the most typical of political move for a democrat who wants to gain votes where they don’t exist under normal conditions. Proofing for everyone that Republicans and Democrats are so much alike they should be the same party now.
The Occupiers have it right. Oh I don’t mean that they hate you for your wealth, even though that is how the media might portray it. No, I am willing to bet that if you ask an Occupier, none of them would say they hate you because you are rich. They despise you because of how you got it and what you do with it. America was founded with the idea that free people could take some risks and produce something that would make a better life for them. The ethic of working hard to make a better life for one’s self still exist in America but its thieves like you in government that make it nearly impossible to achieve such dreams.
As I was typing My profile information, which I kept limited mostly to My political leanings, I realized that a lot of what I was saying would be a good topic for a first post on here. It was much less about My personal life, on which I decline to comment for reasons of both privacy and an obvious lack of relevance to this blog. That said, this first blog post is as much an about Me post as it is an opinion piece.
At this time in My life, I view the left/right Democrat/Republican paradigm as a tragic joke. It is extremely rare that anything can be so easily summed up in two viewpoints, let alone from extreme leanings toward either. I dislike the idea of political parties in the extreme, but in knowing that we’re not likely to ever be rid of them, and that if we pull it off, that people will simply find other ways to corrupt the political system, I feel that the best approach is to challenge the two-party system. For too long, this bloated monstrosity has ensured that the American public is free to choose from only two narrow viewpoints, rather than to look at the issues that our nation faces, and to determine the best courses of action.
It took a long time to get to My present point of view. My profile details where My political interests began, and what follows is a repeat of what I said there, and an expansion thereupon. By the time that I reached 19 years of age, when I really started to think for Myself on such matters, I became one of those people who agreed much more with the Libertarian stance but felt that nothing could be accomplished outside of one of the two bigger parties. In short, I drank the kool-aid.
Why is Rep. Barney Frank rounding up his liberal legislative militia to oppose the Sound Dollar Act of 2012? This is a bill recently introduced by Rep. Kevin Brady, top Republican on the Congressional Joint Economic Committee. It is co-sponsored by 31 of his House colleagues and has a Senate counterpart from Utah’s Mike Lee.
A panicked Rep. Frank snapped to immediately. He rounded up 26 liberal democrats to sign a letter of opposition. “We believe strongly that the dual mandate should be maintained, and we believe that the Federal Reserve’s actions in pursuit of that mandate have been helpful in dealing with our unemployment problem,” wrote Frank and fellow liberals to committee chairman Spencer Bachus.
Believe it or not, Frank’s beliefs do not always coincide with common sense reality. As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote in 2008:
On Monday May 7th, the Calen Fretts for Congress campaign (First District of Florida, U.S, House of Representatives) ended its drive to gain access to the November general election ballot with final deliveries of almost 2800 voter petitions to county Supervisors of elections offices. These petitions were collected with the help of volunteers from Escambia, Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Walton and 42 other counties across Florida. According to state law, Calen Fretts needs 2298 county validated petitions to qualify.
If successful, Calen Fretts would be the first Libertarian to qualify as a candidate in the First Congressional District, which is widely considered a Republican Party stronghold. The ten-year incumbent, Jeff Miller, routinely gained three quarters of all votes cast in past elections.
Within the conservative movement there is an ongoing war between the Conservatives, closet monarchists all of us, who secretly believe that the King — meaning the Government — can do no wrong, with the Libertarians, who noisily believe that the King can do no right.
The Government gets it wrong so often that it is daunting to keep up Conservative morale. Still, as the Mad Monarchist says:
“Sanity is for the weak.”
It therefore it was noted with pleasure that the legislature of the great state of Alabama, in 2004, officially adopted Whiskey as the state’s official drink. Now, as it happens, according to Netstate.com only 29 states even have official drinks. And, likely due to the Nearly Omnipotent Secret Dairy Lobby most have chosen milk. (Yes, it is the Dairy Lobby, not the Freemasons, nor the Vatican, nor Stephen Colbert, nor even George Soros, and certainly not the US government, that calls the shots. Now you know.)
This weekend there were a few state conventions where delegates were selected to go to the Republican National Convention. Surprise, surprise, Ron Paul comes away with the majority of delegates in Nevada and Maine. He picked up 21 of the 24 delegates from Maine and 22 or the 25 delegates from Nevada. That means he won both states even though Romney won the primaries there.
The media are now starting to take a look at Ron Paul a little more seriously. Of course, they continue with their conspiracy to lie to the people of this country. At first they tried to say he was unelectable, than they refused to give him any press at all, now they are demonizing him for winning. They have ignored the evidence for more than a month and refused to tell the news as a matter of factual reporting. Ron Paul has now officially won two states and is highly likely to win more.
Since the left wing media is doing its best to obfuscate the story I am waiting to see headlines now along the lines of “Ron Paul Steals Convention” or “Ron Paul Cheating His Way To Delegate Victory”. They will demonize him and his followers saying that they are doing something illegal or unfair. Wonder how long it will be before they start saying that Ron Paul is undermining democracy.
How sad of a state this country is in now? How did we the people ever allow it to become like this? Have we heard the lie that we are a democracy so often that we have simply decided to forget that we are supposed to be a republic?
Washington is awash with brains. Here are Think Tanks galore. Here are entire departments of federal agencies given over to nothing but research and analysis of how to solve our national (and local, and world) problems. PhD’s from every college in the land, perhaps world, are more than happy to drop everything to advise Washington “how to.” Brains galore.
Yes, here is inevitable partisanship. And yes, some Think Tanks were doomed at birth to the role of propagandist instead of rigorous analyst. Notwithstanding these systemic glitches, many of “the best and the brightest” hang, virtually speaking, from the chandeliers of our nation’s capital. Washington may lack for common sense, but it doesn’t lack smarts.
Due to the braniac factor one might expect that our Governing Class, however venal, would be implementing solutions to the problems besetting our nation. Surely they are motivated to do so if only to show up, and outcompete, the Other Team, the better to entrench and enhance their own power and perqs.
In an unprecedented move, the United States is now forming a de facto propaganda machine to spread its message of world governance. The State Department’s Bureau of Public Affairs is currently seeking out and actively soliciting for help from “global news coverage service providers” in order to create and disseminate department “news”. This is astounding, I couldn’t believe it when I heard it but proof of these plans can be seen from our own government’s site listing their Statement of Work (SOW).
The winner of the contract will be designed to provide full time, 24/7 service. The goal is to provide global news television coverage of events surrounding the Secretary of State and other officials of the U.S. and throughout the world and send the videos back to the State Department. Then, the Department will distribute the information to all media outlets through whatever methods it deems appropriate.
Underscoring the plan, representatives attending World Press Freedom Day for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised UNESCO for hosting the event. Under the guise of free press worldwide the Administration is making a move to control the press and what gets out to the general public by creating this new propaganda arm of the government. The sneaky trick has
BURNET, Texas (April 21) – Every day during this campaign I’ve become more and more convinced that it’s vitally important for the Libertarian Party to recruit and train good libertarian messengers. At every event I’ve attended, I have met eager, young (and some not-so-young) libertarian activists who are prime candidates for this mission. All they need are tools with which to work and build this party.
Their dedication and enthusiasm always rejuvenates me and gives me the energy to continue my pursuit of the Libertarian presidential nomination. It reaffirms my commitment to make sure that the Libertarian Party’s standard-bearer in 2012 is ready, willing and able to proclaim a loud, clear, and unequivocally principled libertarian message. But more than that, it inspires me to write articles like this, which I hope can serve as tools for training, so that Libertarians can become stronger and more effective libertarian messengers.
Like many libertarians who choose to engage in the political process, I’ve embraced the Libertarian Party as my family. One question I’m asked quite often, by both libertarians and non-libertarians, is “How did you come to join the Libertarian Party?” The reason has nothing at all to do with what anyone said or did. There was no political argument or discussion, no reasoned debate point that convinced me to join the Libertarian Party. Rather, I realized that the Libertarian Party embodied the values and beliefs I already held. It wasn’t a process of me coming to agree with the Libertarian Party; it was coming to the conclusion that the Libertarian Party agreed with me.
Ron Paul supporters complained many a times about how the media has left coverage of him off the air waves. What did they expect? Even the conservative reporters have now expressed their support for the liberal agenda. We don’t have to look too far to see it. Ann Coulter, a stalwart conservative voice of the party in the media endorses socialist megalomaniac, flip flopping Mitt Romney. Just last week she wrote how great Romney Care is in her Article titled “Three Cheers For Romney Care” that appeared on Townhall.com.
When I read her column I thought I must have been mistaken about who the author was. I thought maybe it was actually Michael Moore. Surely it resonates with his previous works. Her double speak in the article is totally bizarre and needs to be read several times to be sure one understands what she is saying, if that is possible. I think she has lost it just as much as the rest of the establishment. Her statement “No one is claiming that the Constitution gives each person an unalienable right not to buy insurance” left me wondering what the heck she was talking about. If anyone understands it please explain it to me.
When I read the Constitution, I don’t see where it gives we the people any rights at all. Did I miss something? When I read the Constitution, it reads as backdrop of measures to protect the natural (unalienable) rights of people from an overbearing government. The way I read Ann’s statement is that if I do not have the right not to buy something, then, the government has the right to force me to buy it. How in any way, shape or form is saying the government can force you to do something supposed to be viewed as being conservative?
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently launched the highest profile assault on the gold standard since President Richard Nixon closed the gold window in 1971. The Wall Street Journal headlined its report “Bernanke Defends Country’s Break With the Gold Standard.”
“The gold standard would not be feasible for both practical reasons and policy reasons,” Bernanke told students at George Washington University on March 20. “I understand the impulse, but I think if you look at actual history the gold standard didn’t work well.”
By Ralph Benko
