Category: Politics

Liberty Watch Episode 21: The Declaration of Independence

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/jaOQYfJCw5k

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I.                    Synopsis

A.                 Context- already at war with Britain

B.                 The colonies would now consider themselves thirteen free and independent states no longer under British rule

C.                 The Declaration of Independence was drafted by the committee of five during the Second Continental Congress

D.                The principle author was Thomas Jefferson

E.                 Sections

1.                 Introduction

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

2.                 Preamble

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

 

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,…

3.                 Indictment

Lists all the grievances against King George III.

4.                 Denunciation

5.                 Conclusion

 

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;…

…And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

6.                 Signatures- 56 total

a)                 John Hancock most famous?

II.                 Context of the Declaration of Independence

The United States Declaration of Independence is the statement adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. The Declaration announced that the thirteen American colonies then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain would regard themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states no longer under British rule. With the Declaration, these new states took a collective first step toward forming the United States of America. The declaration was signed by representatives from New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.  The Declaration was passed on July 2nd with no opposing votes.

III.               Drafting Committee

The Committee of Five:  This Declaration committee operated from June 11, 1776, until July 5, 1776, the day on which the Declaration was published.  The members were Roger Sherman, Robert Livingston, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson.  The original draft was written by Thomas Jefferson and was then edited by the other members before it was presented to the full Congress.

IV.               Source Documents

Jefferson’s most immediate sources were two documents written in June 1776: his own draft of the preamble of the Constitution of Virginia, and George Mason’s draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Ideas and phrases from both of these documents appear in the Declaration of Independence.[83] They were, in turn, directly influenced by the 1689 English Declaration of Rights, which formally ended the reign of King James II.

A.                 Virginia Declaration of Rights

Section 1. That all men are by nature equally free and independent and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Section 5. That the legislative and executive powers of the state should be separate and distinct from the judiciary;

Section 8. That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man has a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.

Section 9. That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Section 10. That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive and ought not to be granted.

Section 11. That in controversies respecting property, and in suits between man and man, the ancient trial by jury is preferable to any other and ought to be held sacred.

Section 12. That the freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

Section 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

Section 16. That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion.

B.                 1689 English Bill of Rights

The Act asserted “certain ancient rights and liberties” by declaring that:

the pretended power of suspending the laws and dispensing with laws by regal authority without consent of Parliament is illegal;

levying taxes without grant of Parliament is illegal;

it is the right of the subjects to petition the king, and prosecutions for such petitioning are illegal;

keeping a standing army in time of peace, unless it be with consent of Parliament, is against law;

the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament;

excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted;

V.                 John Locke 1632-1704 English Political Philosopher

A.                 Second Treatise of Government

Of the State of Nature.  “TO understand political power right, and derive it from its original, we must consider, what state all men are naturally in, and that is, a state of perfect freedom to order their actions, and dispose of their possessions and persons, as they think fit, within the bounds of the law of nature, without asking leave, or depending upon the will of any other man.

THE natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but to have only the law of nature for his rule.

The great and chief end, therefore, of men’s uniting into common-wealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property.

VI.               Text of the Declaration of Independence

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

Introduction:  The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

Preamble:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Indictment:  “Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

“He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness of his invasions on the rights of the people.

“He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

“He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

“He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

“He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

“For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

“For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

“For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

“For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

“For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

“For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

“He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

“In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”

 

Conclusion:  “We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States;…

…And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

VII.            Inspired Martin Luther King

Used the Declaration to highlight how we failed to live up to our creed

Video from the “I have a dream” speech.

Liberty Watch Episode 20: Liberal Media Bias on Display

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/8k0JGczKoxk

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

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Liberal Media Bias- Again

Samantha Bee flies but Roseanne dies

Shows media and corporate double standard

Rosanne Barr

Makes racist remark on twitter
Described former obama adviser valerie jarrett as the product of what would happen if  “the muslim brotherhood and the planet of the apes had a baby.”
Quickly apologizes

“I apologize to Valerie Jarrett and to all Americans. I am truly sorry for making a bad joke about her politics and her looks. I should have known better. Forgive me-my joke was in bad taste.”

gets fired anyway

Samantha Bee

Makes vile remark about Ivanka Trump
Uses the “c” word
makes a fake apology

“I would like to sincerely apologize to Ivanka Trump and to my viewers for using an expletive on my show to describe her last night,” Bee wrote. “It was inappropriate and inexcusable. I crossed a line, and I deeply regret it.”

Bees remark came one day after Roseanne Barr was fired for her offensive tweet.

backtracks on apology during tv academy awards broadcast

“Our piece attracted controversy of the worst kind,” Bee said of the segment about the Trump administration’s immigration and border policies that ended with her calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt” who needed to “do something about [her] dad’s immigration practices.”

 

“We spent the day wrestling with the repercussions of one bad word, when we all should have spent the day incensed that as a nation we are wrenching children from their parents and treating people legally seeking asylum as criminals,” Bee added. “If we are OK with that then really, who are we?”

former comedy central host jon stewart comes to her defense

“I’m going to tell you something about Sam Bee, because I’ve known her for a very long time. You could not find a kinder, smarter, more lovely individual than Samantha Bee. Trust me, if she called someone a cunt…” Steward said, according to the Daily Beast, with a silence allowing the audience to finish his thought.

actress Minnie Driver

Academy Award-nominated actress Minnie Driver said Thursday that Ivanka Trump does not possess the intelligence or personality to be described as a “c*nt,” the profane term used by comedian Samantha Bee.

“That was the wrong word for Samantha Bee to have used,” Driver wrote on Twitter. “But mostly because ( to paraphrase the French ) Ivanka has neither the warmth nor the depth.”

keeps her job

Libertarian perspective

ABC should be able to fire Roseanne Barr

TBS should be able to retain Samantha Bee

If you are offended they did nothing, stop watching the show
Consumers can vote with their feet

Teachers Strike

Several states from West Virginia to Arizona

Asking for more pay and school funding

LMV Perspective

Education should be privately funded

Public schools are a monopoly

Home schooling or private school parents have to pay twice

“Too important to leave to the market”

Food more essential than education
tremendous variety provided by the market

No competition decreases quality

How much to pay teachers?

An example of the mises’ calculation problem
Problem solved by a free market

Teachers compensation underestimated by media

From the fee.org article entitled “How Media Outlets Misinform the Public about Teacher Pay.”

…During recent teacher walkouts in Oklahoma that captured national attention, many major media outlets reported misleadingly small figures for teacher pay. By failing to reveal all aspects of teacher compensation, these outlets hid the true costs to taxpayers—which now amount to an annualized average of about $120,000 for every public school teacher in the United States.

…CNN, for example, published an article by Bill Weir claiming that in “most districts” of Oklahoma, “a teacher with a doctorate degree and 30 years’ experience will never make more than $50,000 a year.” That claim, which CNN neglected to document, is at odds with comprehensive data from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Labor. This information for Oklahoma and the entire nation follows.

 

…For the 2016–17 school year, the Department of Education reports that the average salary of full-time public school teachers was $58,950 in the U.S. and $45,245 in Oklahoma. Those figures generally exclude benefits, such as health insurance, paid leave, and pensions.

…According to the Department of Labor, benefits comprise an average of 33 percent of compensation for public school teachers. Including benefits, teachers’ average annual compensation jumps to $87,854 in the U.S. and about $67,429 in Oklahoma. This excludes unfunded pension liabilities and certain post-employment benefits like health insurance.

…That, however, still doesn’t tell the complete story because full-time private industry employees work an average of 37 percent more hours per year than full-time public school teachers. This includes the time that teachers spend for lesson preparation, test construction and grading, providing extra help to students, coaching, and other activities.

…Accounting for the disparity between the annual work hours of full-time public school teachers and full-time private industry workers, the average annualized cost of employing teachers in the 2016–17 school year was $120,578 per teacher in the U.S. and about $92,545 in Oklahoma.

…There is yet more to this picture because the costs of living vary between states. Adjusted for this, the average annualized immediate compensation of Oklahoma teachers in 2016–17 was about $102,943, or roughly twice what CNN says “a teacher with a doctorate degree and 30 years’ experience will never make” in “most districts” of Oklahoma.

Partial end to Federal marijuana ban?

Trump said probably would support Sen. Cory Gardner(R-CO) bill

Would end Federal prohibition in states that have passed laws already

Gardner had earlier threatened to hold up Trump’s DOJ appointments

Trump quote

“I support Sen. Gardner,” the president said before departing for the G-7 summit in Canada, as quoted by the Los Angeles Times. “I know exactly what he’s doing. We’re looking at it. But I probably will end up supporting that, yes.”

LMV opposition to Federal ban

Violates personal sovereignty

Smoking weed does not violate the non-aggression principle

Not a power delegated to Congress under article one section eight of the U.S. Constitution

Violates states’ rights

States can have a ban provided it does not violate their state constitution

GOP not a small government party

From the reason.com article entitled “Stop Calling the GOP the Party of Small Government.”

There was a time when GOP lawmakers called for the elimination of entire federal agencies. Today, milquetoast promises to pursue smaller government are followed by votes for ever bigger government.

As Milton Friedman noted, the true size of the state is measured by how much money it spends. Budget data show that all modern presidents, regardless of party affiliation, have increased the federal fiscal footprint—but Republican administrations have generally increased the amount spent at a faster rate than Democratic ones.

Under George W. Bush, who was elected on a platform of fiscal restraint, total federal spending increased in real terms by 53 percent. Enabled and encouraged by a Republican-led Congress, his administration adopted the politically self-serving notion that “deficits don’t matter.” No Child Left Behind, Medicare Part D, and bank bailouts serve as a vivid reminder that shrinking the state doesn’t stand a chance.

The only way to decrease the spending?

Cut the purse strings

End coercive taxation

LMV solution:  Constitutional amendment to make all taxation voluntary

Liberty Watch Episode 19: Sports Gambling Legalized

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/UubIS1N8Xl8

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

You can make a donation at patreon.com/libertymanvan

Sports Gambling Legalized?

The libertarian perspective on issue

Does not violate the non-aggression principle

No one takes your stuff without your consent

No one beats you up

Who gets to choose if you gamble on sports?

You

Someone else

The supreme court’s view

Justice Alito writes majority 6-3 opinion

PASPA ruled unconstitutional for wrong reason

The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act

 

The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA) makes it

unlawful for a State or its subdivisions “to sponsor, operate, advertise,

promote, license, or authorize by law or compact . . . a lottery,

sweepstakes, or other betting, gambling, or wagering scheme based

. . . on” competitive sporting events, 28 U. S. C. §3702(1), and for “a

person to sponsor, operate, advertise, or promote” those same gambling

schemes if done “pursuant to the law or compact of a governmental

entity,”

 

And the Constitution indirectly restricts the

States by granting certain legislative powers to Congress,

see Art. I, §8, while providing in the

 

Supremacy Clause

that federal law is the “supreme Law of the Land . . . any

Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the

Contrary notwithstanding,” Art. VI, cl. 2. This means that

when federal and state law conflict, federal law prevails

and state law is preempted.

[Actual text of the article VI clause 2 supremacy clause:

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.]

[Laws passed that are unconstitutional are not the “supreme law of the land.”  Reductio ad absurdum.  Congress passes law that says you must kill your firstborn child.]

 

The legislative powers granted to Congress are sizable[see Madison contradicting statement],

but they are not unlimited. The Constitution confers[should be delegates] on

Congress not plenary legislative power but only certain

enumerated powers. Therefore, all other legislative power is reserved for the States, as the Tenth Amendment confirms.  And conspicuously absent from the list of powers given to Congress is the power to issue direct orders to the governments of the States.[How about the power to prohibit gambling not in article 1 section 8?]

 

…The PASPA provision at issue here—prohibiting state

authorization of sports gambling—violates the anticommandeering

rule.

…It is as if federal officers were installed in state legislative

chambers and were armed with the authority to stop

legislators from voting on any offending proposals. A more

direct affront to state sovereignty is not easy to imagine.

…Congress can regulate sports gambling directly but if it elects not to do so each state is free to act on its own.[Again, no authority in article 1 section 8 to regulate sports gambling]

Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution

Does not authorize much of what Congress has done

Social security

Providing health insurance

Involvement in education

Prohibition of alcohol and drugs

18th amendment established alcohol prohibition
21st amendment repealed the eighteenth amendment

Prohibition of gambling

The text

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

 

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

 

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

 

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

 

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

 

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

 

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

 

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

 

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

 

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

 

To provide and maintain a Navy;

 

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

 

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Comments by the Founding Fathers

Federalist 45- James Madison

“The powers delegated by the proposed constitution to the federal government are few and defined,” not “sizable” as Justice Alito writes in this opinion.

Federalist 39- James Madison

“The local or municipal authorities form distinct and independent portions of supremacy, no more subject in their respective spheres to the general authority than the general authority is subject to them within their own sphere.  In this relation then the proposed government cannot be deemed a national one because its jurisdiction pertains to enumerated objects only and leaves to the states a residuary and inviolable sovereignty over all other objects.”

Federalist 83- Alexander Hamilton

“An affirmative grant of special powers would be absurd as well as useless if a general authority was intended.”

Madison in 1792 on the House floor regarding the Constitution’s commerce clause

“I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.”

 

… “If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare and are the sole and supreme judges  of the general welfare they may take care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county and parish; they may pay them out of the public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post roads.  In short, everything from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police would be thrown under the power of Congress, for every object I have mentioned would admit the obvious application of money that might be called provisions for the general welfare.”

 

LMV:  In other words, the general welfare, necessary and proper, and commerce clauses were not powers of their own but descriptions of the purposes of those limited and enumerated powers already mentioned in the Constitution.

Libertarian Humor

This graphic shows some people crawling under a barbed wire fence.  The caption reads “Look at me crawling under barbed wire to escape free market capitalism.  Said no one ever.”

Reminiscent of the wall separating East Berlin from West Berlin

Reagan “tear down this wall” clip

LMV:  That’s the show.  See you next time.

Liberty Watch Episode 18: Guaranteed Jobs for All

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/UlTXqUEmEuU

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

You can make a donation at patreon.com/libertymanvan

Guaranteed Jobs for All

Outline of proposal thin on details

Provide a $15/hr job AND health benefits or training “for all who want or need one.”

What happens to those making $10/hr at current job?

What happens to employees only worth $8/hr?

Effect on small businesses who can only pay $10/hr?

Will have to be funded by taxpayers

1.              Borrow the money- tax on future generations

2.              Increase taxes today

3.              Force costs on business- individuals will pay through price inflation

Businesses will either

Get a taxpayer funded subsidy

Lose employees

Pay the $15/hr plus health insurance

Layoff employees to meet payroll

Go out of business- will favor big business

II.            Dark Chocolate Please

A new study at Loma Linda University in California show dark chocolate good for health:  The darker the chocolate, the better it is for your health: Bars with more than 70% cacao do wonders for your mind, heart and immune system – and the benefits increase the higher you go

A new study by Loma Linda University is the first to assess specific benefits of cacao levels in something as small as a chocolate bar

They found anything over 70% cacao was much more beneficial than any less

The higher the concentration of cacao, the more beneficial the chocolate was.

Cacao is rich in flavanols – antioxidants found in fruit and vegetables that dampen inflammation.

People who ate chocolate every day were found to have better attention spans, working memory, ability to process speed and verbal fluency.

Experiments showed a daily hit of chocolate for elderly people improved their brain function.

The benefits were most pronounced in those people who had already started to show signs of memory decline or mild cognitive impairment that can lead to Alzheimer’s.

III.          Virgin Ban

 

From a fox news article entitled “Couple caught having sex on transatlantic flight, woman banned from airline.”

A transatlantic restroom dalliance aboard a Virgin Atlantic flight ended with the woman involved banned from ever again flying on the airline.

According to reports, the cabin crew aboard a March 13 flight that departed from Gatwick Airport in London en route to Cancún, Mexico were furious to find a man and woman – both in their late twenties – having sex in the economy cabin bathroom.

Minutes later, the rowdy woman got into a spat with her female traveling companion and reportedly threw drinks around the cabin.

A Virgin Atlantic spokesman confirmed to Fox News that the woman was not banned “as a result of one incident,” but for “repeatedly refusing to comply with crew requests, and for disruptive behavior throughout the flight.”

 Government Sins

A.             Gas Tax Raiders

From an article in Forbes Magazine entitled “The Gas Tax Doesn’t Work Because Politicians Broke It.”

…the gas tax’s problems started when Congress raided the trust fund to keep the government solvent. In 1990 Congress approved an increase in the gas tax but allotted only half of the new revenue to building projects. The other half was dedicated to deficit reduction – which then, as now, was all the rage. In 1993 Congress approved another gas tax hike and again devoted some of the revenue to deficit reduction.

B.             Government Recycling Programs Wasteful

From the mises.org article “Government Recycling Programs Waste Valuable Resources.”

… The government tells us we must recycle all kinds of stuff: bottles, cans, paper, plastics etc. They say that recycling reduces the number of products made from natural resources, which means more resources are conserved and our energy costs are lower.

… Our objective is to minimize the use of resources (including energy) in the manufacturing process for all products. In order to achieve our objective, we must be guided by market prices, without exception. As long as prices are allowed to freely adjust to changes in supply and demand, resources will be allocated to their most highly valued uses, and resource conservation will be maximized. The capitalistic process of profits and losses ensures these outcomes.

Economics of Recycling

In an unhampered market, if it is profitable to manufacture products by recycling plastics, bottles, paper etc., then it will be done, and firms might even pay us to take away our empty containers. However, if such a business is not profitable, then these items would simply be included in our regular household garbage. And by the way, we are NOT running out of landfill space.

… To determine the viability of a recycling enterprise, a free market firm must balance the cost of committing resources (labour, trucks, machines, recycling plants) to the task of recycling against the revenue it receives for its recycled products.

… if the firm does not believe the enterprise would be profitable, it will not proceed with recycling… This is the point constantly overlooked by the public when governments involve themselves in recycling. In our rush to conserve resources, we forget that resources are required for the task of recycling, and we just assume the government is doing the right thing.

… the price for recycling often tends to soar far higher than the combined cost of manufacturing from raw materials and virgin sources and dumping rubbish into landfills. To recycle waste is to use twice the energy and create twice the pollution from factories, trucks, and by-products.

… This is typical of most regulations at every level of government: (1) use propaganda to convince people of the need for a particular program in order to attract votes, then (2) use whatever resources are required to implement and maintain the program, regardless the waste.

 

C.             Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment

From “Twenty years ago today, America apologized for Tuskegee syphilis experiment.” Article dated May 16, 2017.

… In the fall of 1932, the flyers began appearing around Macon County, Ala., promising colored people special treatment for “bad blood.” “Free Blood Test; Free Treatment, By County Health Department and Government Doctors,” the black and white signs said. “YOU MAY FEEL WELL AND STILL HAVE BAD BLOOD. COME AND BRING ALL YOUR FAMILY.”

… Hundreds of men-all black and many of them poor – signed up. Some of the men thought they were being treated for rheumatism or bad stomachs. They were promised free meals, free physicals and free burial insurance. What the signs never told them was they would become part of the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male,” a secret experiment conducted by the U.S. Public Health Service to study the progression of the deadly venereal disease-without treatment.

… The researchers never obtained informed consent from the men and never told the men with syphilis that they were not being treated, but were simply being watched until they died and their bodies examined for ravages of the disease.

… Although originally projected to last six months, the study extended for 40 years. “Local physicians asked to assist with study and not to treat men,” the Centers for Disease Control reported in a timeline of the experiment. “Decision was made to follow the men until death.”

… In 1945, according to the CDC timeline, penicillin was “accepted as treatment of choice for syphilis.” The U.S. Public Health Services created what they called “rapid treatment centers” to help men afflicted with syphilis — except the men in the Tuskegee study.

D.             Why is the State Cruel and Incompetent?

1.              Lack of market forces

a)              No competition

b)              Jobs Program, Hard to end the jobs, constituency created

c)              Success not a requirement

Hillary is Back

E.              Interview with Julia Gillard

1.              Former Prime Minister of Australia

2.              Labor Party

F.              Play video segments

G.             Claims in Interview

1.              Clinton:  “There is still a very large proportion of the population that is uneasy with women in positions of leadership.”

2.              Gillard:  “It just dismayed me that for you this ended up with chants of lock her up or string her up at republican rallies.  String her up.  It is like the Salem witch trials again.”

3.              LMV comments

a)              Clinton refuses to acknowledge the real reason she lost- she was a really awful candidate.  She wants to blame her loss on being a woman.  That had nothing to do with it.  She is no Margaret Thatcher.

b)              The law regarding sensitive high security government information does not state that you must have willful intent to misuse the data.  If you are CARELESS with the information you are guilty.  Anyone else would have been severely prosecuted under the law.

c)              Gillard is typical leftist, makes up “string her up” chant.

(1)            Youtube and google search turns up no such chant

 

Liberty Watch Episode 16: School Shootings Require Gun Control?

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/n7E0W68zQXU

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Liberty Watch Episode 16:  School Shootings Require Gun Control?

 School Shootings Require Gun Control?

About the Shooting

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Broward County FL

17 dead 14 wounded

AR-15 semi-automatic weapon

FBI got a tip before the shooting occurred

Law enforcement had been to shooters home almost 40 times for disturbances

A county Sheriff’s officer assigned to the school was there when the shooting started and did nothing

A second Sheriff’s deputy arrived a few minutes into the shooting and did nothing.  They waited for backup.

It was the local police that went in and faced the gunman.

After the Shooting

Publicity for the shooter.  Massive news coverage.

Calls for gun control.  Survivors on CNN.

The Libertarian Perspective

The failure was with the school system.  They should protect the students.

Decision about what to do should be local.  Security guards?  Police on premises?  Metal detectors?  Bullet-proof compartments?  Teachers with guns?

Why we have the 2nd amendment.

Citizens with guns no match for the military?

Police Cannot Protect You.  Officer at School!

Police or Spy State not the answer

Trumponomics- Steel Tariffs

Do domestic steel companies need a handout?

Nucor $11/share 2003 to almost $70/share today

Domestic manufacturers >70% share of U.S. market

Tariff is just a tax paid by Americans

Effect on consumers

Effect on domestic manufacturers

Hurts exports

“Free Trade” agreements are 1000s of pages long

Tariffs were small and funded federal govt before the income tax

First income tax 1861 to fund the war between the states

Permanent income tax imposed in 1913 by 16th amendment

Sold as a tax on the rich

Gradually came to affect almost all wage earners

Now we have incomes taxes and tariffs

Libertarian Perspective

Tariffs interfere with freedom of exchange

International trade is just trade with people in a different country

Tariffs allow politicians to help one group at the expense of another

Taxes deny self-ownership

Libertarian Humor

Multiculturalism

Definition

The view that the various cultures in a society merit equal respect and scholarly interest.

Used a part of identity politics by the left to garner votes

All cultures are not consistent with American values

Articles

Indonesian Christians flogged outside of mosque for violating sharia law…

…Indonesia publicly caned two Christians in a rare case of non-Muslims punished under sharia law.

 

The two Indonesian Christians – Dahlan Silitonga, 61, and Tjia Nyuk Hwa, 45 – were whipped six and seven times respectively by a masked man wearing a robe, as a crowd of 300 ridiculed and took pictures of them outside a mosque in the provincial capital

Does gambling violate the NAP?  No.

Merkel Admits ‘No Go’ Zones Exist Inside Germany

The existence of no-go zones in Europe had been a matter of debate — with liberal commentators insisting they were a fiction — even after Breitbart London editor in chief published his work on the subject, No Go Zones: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You. The admission by Merkel is a vindication for Kassam and others who have chronicled No Go Zones and their causes for years.

Michigan doctor charged with carrying out female genital mutilation

Jumana Nagarwala is accused of performing FGM on girls aged between six and eight for the past 12 years from a medical office in the Detroit suburb of Livonia

From Wikipedia:  The practice is rooted in gender inequality, attempts to control women’s sexuality, and ideas about purity, modesty and beauty. It is usually initiated and carried out by women, who see it as a source of honour, and who fear that failing to have their daughters and granddaughters cut will expose the girls to social exclusion.[8] Health effects depend on the procedure. They can include recurrent infections, difficulty urinating and passing menstrual flow, chronic pain, the development of cysts, an inability to get pregnant, complications during childbirth, and fatal bleeding.[7] There are no known health benefits.[9]

India state to give life sentences for cow slaughter

Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, and their slaughter is illegal in most states.

 

“A cow is not an animal. It is a symbol of universal life,” Gujarat Law Minister Pradipsinh Jadeja told the state’s assembly.

 

“Anybody who does not spare the cow, the government will not spare him.”

Two men publicly caned in Indonesia for having gay sex…

Two men were lashed with a cane as punishment for having same-sex relations, part of a growing intolerance of sexual minorities that has marked the rise of more conservative Islam in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country.

Saudi campaigners protest over the right to drive

Women campaigners in Saudi Arabia are filming themselves walking silently in the street in an attempt to claim the right to drive.

 

The online campaign is a protest against restrictions, which prevent women from doing everyday things unless they are in the presence of a male guardian.

Pakistan sentences man to death for blasphemy on FACEBOOK…

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive topic in Muslim-majority Pakistan, where insulting the Prophet Mohammad is a capital crime for which dozens are sitting on death row. Even mere accusations are enough to spark mass uproar and mob justice.

 LMV:  That is our show for today.  You can donate to the show at patreon.com/libertymanvan.  Be sure to join us next time on Liberty Watch where we don’t believe you need some guy with a bullhorn to tell you what to do.

Liberty Watch Episode 14: Republicans Pass Tax Reform Bill

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/MxbmJHSdRQQ

You can subscribe to my YouTube channel by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g.

LMV:  Welcome to another edition of Liberty Watch.  I am your host Liberty Man Van.  Today we will discuss the tax reform bill just passed by the Republican controlled congress and signed by President Trump.  Then we will look at a funny, yet sad story to end the episode.

First up, the Republican tax reform bill.  This bill did contain federal tax cuts for individuals in all income brackets and it cut corporate taxes dramatically.  As a liberty minded person I am happy to see tax cuts because they allow people to keep more of the money THEY earned.  You know my position on the subject of taxation:  taxation is theft.  The government is the mafia posing as a human rights organization; less funding of the mafia is better.  However, I would like to have seen the tax cuts coupled with spending cuts but this bill does nothing to cut spending and will continue to explode the federal debt.  Oh, did I mention the federal debt?

Video clip:  Federal debt clock ticking.

LMV:  The proponents of this bill claim it will not have an adverse effect on the debt because the corporate tax cuts will stimulate the economy.  While this true, it will not be enough to offset the revenue losses.  The bill contains a budgetary sleight of hand to make it appear more fiscally responsible.  The trick is to include a sunset provision; the tax cuts are set to expire in 2025.  This make the long term budgetary analysis of the bill look more favorable.  However, when provisions in bill are set to expire they are more often than not just extended by a future congress.

This bill also eliminated the Obamacare individual mandate that requires people to have health insurance.  This means people have more freedom to choose, a positive feature.

In summary, the good news is many of us will get to keep more of the money we earned.  The bad news is that the Rebublicans continue to be totally fiscally irresponsible.

Next, we will look at some of the media coverage surrounding this legislation.  Democrat Larry Summers went on TV to explain how allowing people to make their own decisions regarding health insurance coverage will cause 10,000 people to die.  Here he is.

Video clip:  Larry Summers.

LMV:  To thinkers like Mr. Summers, we are all babies that have to be coddled.  He added the following comments in an article on CNBC.com:

“You have to look at the data of what the patterns are all across the country,” he said. “I don’t see how you can believe that if 10 million or 13 million, whatever exactly the number is, of people are going to lose health insurance, that’s not going to have health consequences.”

LMV:  His wording here is tricky when he says “people are going to lose health insurance.”  Nobody is going to be forced to drop their health insurance by this legislation.  Furthermore, a government study disputes his death claims.  The article continues:

Also, a National Institutes of Health Study from 2009, pre-Obamacare, found no relationship between the mortality risk of the insured and uninsured.

Video Graphic:  “It is not possible to draw firm causal inferences from the results of observational analyses, but there is little evidence to suggest that extending insurance coverage to all adults would have a large effect on the number of deaths in the United States,” the study said.

LMV:  Any time you have a tax cut proposal the big spenders are sure to be opposed to it.  Enter the Grinch.  That’s right.  Remember the Grinch pretends to be Santa Claus giving stuff away but his love of big spending will have to be coupled with big borrowing and big debt.  Who will have to ultimately pay that debt?  Not him, but our children and grandchildren.  Thus, he is stealing from the children, just like the Grinch.  Here’s a clip of the Grinch attacking the tax cut bill.

Video clip:  Bernie Sanders.

LMV:  Whenever there is a tax cut proposal you will always the socialists coming out of the woodwork to explain how it will help the rich more than other groups.  What they never mention is that upper income taxpayers pay the lion’s share of taxes.  That’s  why even if everyone got a 3% tax cut 3% of 5 million dollars will always be more than 3% of $20,000.  Let’s consider who pays the most taxes according to taxfoundation.org data.

Graphic:

  • The share of income earned by the top 1 percent of taxpayers rose to 20.6 percent in 2014. Their share of federal individual income taxes also rose, to 39.5 percent.
  • In 2014, the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.3 percent of all individual income taxes while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.7 percent.
  • The top 1 percent paid a greater share of individual income taxes (39.5 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (29.1 percent).
  • The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 27.1 percent individual income tax rate, which is more than seven times higher than taxpayers in the bottom 50 percent (3.5 percent).

LMV:  This data shows you why a tax cut will “help the rich” more, because they pay more then their share in taxes in the first place.  But those who claim this bill will only help the rich are full of baloney.  Tax rates for all brackets are reduced in the bill.  And how about those who claim the bill will not help the poor?  Baloney.  Consider the following from fee.org:

Graphic:  Despite all their talk about death and destruction, Democrats have overlooked the ways this tax bill could help the lower class. They’ve painted this cut as a handout to the top one percent, but the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank, found that if the Senate bill gets signed into law, all income groups will see an increase in their after-tax incomes in 2018. Per their analysis, this reform would also create 925,000 new jobs, boost economic growth, and lift wages by 2.9 percent. That sounds like it would help the working class, not threaten their livelihood.

LMV:  Will higher wages and economic growth help the poor?  You betcha!  As a matter of fact, some businesses made announcements after the bill was signed into law:

Graphic:

Some of the announcements include:

  • AT&T will see a tax reduction from a 32.7% rate down to a 21% rate. This prompted them to announce that all 200,000 employees will receive a $1,000 bonus.
  • Third Fifth Bankcorp announced that 13,500 employees will be receiving a bonus and minimum wage will be raised companywide to $15 per hour.
  • Wells Fargo also announced that they will be raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour and that they will donate $400 million to charities and non-profits in the coming year.
  • Comcast announced it would be giving $1,000 bonuses to more than 100,000 employees and will be investing over $50 billion in broadband and network infrastructure.

LMV:  So let’s celebrate tax cuts.  They increase freedom by allowing us to keep more of the money we earn.

And finally, we will cover a news story that most will consider funny, but I think it is kind of sad.  The title of this article is really all you need to know.

Graphic:  Pennsylvania Inmate Loses Appeal After Trying to Argue Drugs in His Buttocks Were Not His.

A Pennsylvania inmate who tried to convince the court that the drugs in his rear end did not belong to him lost his appeal last week.

The Pennsylvania judicial panel remained unphased when they ruled that the bag of drugs in Edwin Wylie-Biggs’ buttocks were his, upholding a court ruling that sentenced him to three to six additional years behind bars for the incident, the New York Daily News reported.

Graphic:  When the inmate bent over to be searched for contraband, the corrections officer found “a clear plastic bag containing a small blue balloon could be seen sticking out of his rectum,” according to the court document.

LMV:  This sad part of this story is that what this man did was illegal.  If a man wants to stick a bag of weed up his ass it is none of the state’s business.  After all, whose ass is it?  And if this man wants to pull that weed out of his ass and smoke it whose lungs is it?  Laws that prohibit what you can put into your own body are a violation of personal sovereignty; the begin with the premise that you do not own your own body.

And that’s the show for today.  Thanks for tuning in and be sure to join us next time on Liberty Watch where we don’t believe you need some guy with a bullhorn to tell you what to do.

 

 

Liberty Watch Episode 10: NFL Gone Mad?

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/s1wU8PIM_vQ

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LMV:  Welcome.  In today’s episode we will look at the controversy over  NFL player protests and then look at some stories related to this year’s active hurricane season.

We’ll take the NFL story first.  Last season in 2016 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality against blacks.  In case you didn’t know already, he is a black player.  A few players joined him in the protest last year and many more have joined in the protests this year.  A few of the owners have even joined with the players in solidarity as have some of the head coaches.

As I mentioned, this all started about a year ago with then 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick; he is no longer with that team.

Video 1:  Coverage of initial protests.

Here are some of the comments Kaepernick made following the initial protests:

There’s a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality. There’s people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That’s not right. That’s not right by anyone’s standards.

Niners coach Chip Kelly told reporters Saturday that Kaepernick’s decision not to stand during the national anthem is “his right as a citizen” and said “it’s not my right to tell him not to do something.”

LMV:  Even President Trump has inserted himself into this controversy.  Here is a clip from one of his speeches.

Video clip.

LMV:  The Pittsburgh Steelers team decided to protest by remaining in the locker room before the anthem.  One of their players, former Army Ranger Alejandro Villanueva, refused to join the protest.  He came out of the locker room and placed his hand over his heart during the anthem.

In a post-game press conference his coach, Mike Tomlin, who has never been in the military, was disappointed that Villanueva came out for the anthem.  Here is text from a foxnews article:

Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin appeared to take a swipe at the Bronze Star recipient’s decision in a post-game press conference. Tomlin told the media that, prior to kickoff Sunday, the Steelers held a team meeting and decided, though not unanimously, to not come out of the locker room for the national anthem.

 “Like I said, I was looking for 100 percent participation, we were gonna be respectful of our football team.”
Let’s address several questions here:
  • Are blacks being disproportionately targeted by police?
  • Is Chip Kelly correct?  Does the NFL have any right to tell the players “what to do?”
  • Should the President weigh in on this issue?
  • Who are the winners and losers here?

> Are blacks being disproportionately targeted by police?  According to data just released here at the end of Sept. of 2017 we have these facts:

+ So far in 2017 there have been 10 unarmed blacks killed by police in the U.S., about one a month.  If you are black, you are more likely to have been killed by bees or hornets than by police officers.  That means you are more than 4.5 times more likely to be killed by lightning than to be shot by a cop.  I did the math.  You are 5x more likely to be struck and killed by a train.

+ In 2017 there were 7881 blacks murdered in the U.S. in 2016.  White people committed 243 of those murders.  That means 97% of these murders had nothing to do with white people at all.

+ In 2016 police were 18.5x more likely to be killed by a black person than was a black person to be shot by a cop.  Does the media focus on these numbers?  No, they will barely see the light of day because it does not fit their false narrative of oppression.  As a matter of fact, if a black person does speak out about these alarming statistics they are more likely to be attacked by the media.

Charles Barkley recently called blacks out for killing each other and was called a “black white supremacist” by the left-wing website the Root.  Here is a photo.

Photo of Barkley and a copy of the newspaper with the headline “Charles Barkley is a great example of a black white supremacist.”

If you are Black Lives Matter and are concerned about blacks being shot, you should be focused on preventing other black people from shooting blacks.

> Is Chip Kelly correct?  Does he or the NFL have any right to tell the players “what to do?”  The NFL owners are the employers of the players and have every right to tell them what they can and cannot do ON THE JOB.  This comes down to property rights; the owners own the team and can set whatever policies they like within the limits of the law.  Does UPS want their drivers to deliver a political message when they deliver a package?  Do you want the Wal-Mart greeter to urge you to support state funded abortion?

> Should the President have weighed in on this issue?  Yes and no.  This is a matter between an employer and employee and he has no official business stepping in between the dispute.  That’s the no part of the answer.

The yes part of the answer is that this has played really well with his supporters and has been a political win for him.

Who are the winners and losers here?  The main stakeholders here are the NFL owners and players, the media outlets carrying the games, the NFL fans, and the President.  This has been a loss for all of these stakeholders except President Trump.  The fan reaction towards the protests have been negative.  Some fans have bought fewer game tickets, burned the jerseys of players, cancelled their NFL season ticket for television, etc.

From Zero Hedge article entitled “Blowback?  NFL ticket sales crash 17.9% as owners lose control of players”:

Probably just a coincidence… or just transitory, but The online ticket reseller TickPick told The Washington Examiner that sales have dropped 17.9 percent, far more than the usual Week Three fall…

  • 17.9 percent decrease in NFL orders this week compared to the previous week.
  • Last year the drop was 10.8 percent in orders on Monday & Tuesday following Week Three games.

“We have seen a massive decrease in NFL ticket purchases this past week in comparison to years past. Week 3 seems to usually have less ticket orders than week 2, but this year ticket purchases are down more than 7 percent from this time last year,” said TickPick’s Jack Slingland.

“While we can’t specify if this decrease is due to the president’s comments, player and owner protests, play on the field, or simply the continued division of consumer’s media attention, the conversation around the NFL this week has focused on the president’s comments as well as the players’ and owners’ reaction. As viewers continue to abandon their NFL Sunday habits, both the number of ticket sales and the purchase price of tickets will drop,“ he told us.

And from another article entitled “Angry NFL Fans Lash Out, Burn Jerseys Over Protests: “You Can Take Your NFL And Shove It”:

…Some angry NFL fans have chosen a different way to express their dissatisfaction with the league and some of its players. As Yahoo reports, Steelers’ offensive-lineman Alejandro Villanueva’s jersey becomes an overnight best-seller after he stands for anthem.

…the NFL doesn’t seem to understand that while almost every American can agree that football is a great sport, roughly 50% of them will vehemently disagree with whatever political stance any given player or league exec decides to publicly announce.  And, since the NFL’s future depends on selling overpriced ad spots to massive corporations looking for a consistent number of eyeballs, alienating any group of viewers, for whatever reason, is just bad for business.

But don’t take our word for it…here’s just a couple of examples for what the fans had to say over the weekend.

“It’s a disgrace. It’s disgusting. They’re getting paid to do a job…to play ball and do whatever the fans want them to do.”

“They’re paying these guys to do a job.  They’re not supposed to be involved in politics.”

 “You can take your Kansas City Chiefs and you can take your NFL and you can shove it.”

“Now, think about that and think about the millions a year that you people are making to play a game while we got soldiers overseas that get paid minimum wage to put their lives on the line for that flag.”

“Protest does not belong in our NFL sports.  It’s a game.”

LMV:  And, this angry fan burned an NFL jersey to the tune of the star spangled banner.

Video clip:  Fan burning jersey.

LMV:  So the NFL is shooting itself in the foot with this stuff and it is hurting the league.  They should shut up and get back to playing football.

LMV:  And now for a little libertarian humor.  And the caption reads “Licensing.  When the government takes away your right to do something and then sells it back to you.”

Now that we have focused on the NFL protests let’s move the lens back and take a wider angle view.  Where does this fit into the larger picture?  It is part of a larger scheme by the democratic party to garner votes by the division of America.  They want to gain or keep your vote by pretending to protect you from some form of perceived oppression.  If you are gay they will protect you from the homophobes.  If you are black they will protect you from the white oppressors.  If you are Hispanic and illegally in this country they want to find some way to make you a citizen so that you can vote for them.  If you are a woman they will protect you from the misogynists.

So who is it that is fanning the flames of racial division in this country?  It is groups like Black Live Matter.  Consider the following 4/3/17 article entitled “Black Lives Matter Philly Bans White People from its Meetings”:

Black Lives Matter Philly banned white people from an upcoming event, claiming it is a “black only space.”

The April 15 meeting plans to discuss projects and initiatives for the upcoming year and act as a  place for people to “meet, strategize and organize.” While children are invited to attend, white people are explicitly banned from the meeting, according to the Facebook event page.

When people began questioning the ban on whites over Twitter, Black Lives Matter Philly stayed by their ban, explaining that their meetings are “black centered.”

Anyone who identifies as “African disapora” is allowed to attend, the group explained over Twitter…“African Disapora” usually refers to people who were taken out of Africa during the Transatlantic Slave Trades.

LMV:  Does this sound like actions from a group that is interested in unity or division?  You be the judge.  Surely, the white supremacists are also interested in promoting racial division but their paltry membership gets little traction. But, unlike the white supremacists, groups like BLM get support from the leftist triad of the mainstream media, academia, and Hollywood.

Another article which demonstrates that academia is on board with the division comes from a 6/2/17 article entitled “Colleges Celebrate Diversity with Separate Commencements”.  This article details how many universities such as Harvard, Emory and Henry College in VA., and Columbia are now having separate commencement ceremonies for African Americans.

“…We have endured the constant questioning of our legitimacy and our capacity, and yet here we are,” Duwain Pinder, a master’s degree candidate in business and public policy, told the cheering crowd of several hundred people in a keynote speech.

From events once cobbled together on shoestring budgets and hidden in back rooms, alternative commencements like the one held at Harvard have become more mainstream, more openly embraced by universities and more common than ever before.

“You began college just weeks after George Zimmerman was acquitted in the callous killing of Trayvon Martin,” Professor Terry, an assistant professor of African and African-American studies and social studies, said in his address.

“You were teenagers, like Michael Brown when he was subjected to the Sophoclean indignity of being shot dead and left in the blazing sun. Your world was shaped in indelible ways by these deaths and others like them, and many of you courageously took to join one of the largest protest movements in decades to try to wrest some semblance of justice from these tragedies.”

LMV:  And so it goes, identity politics is alive and well on campus.  And that’s our show for today.  Thanks for joining us.  I look forward to seeing you next time on Liberty Watch where we don’t believe you need some guy with a bull horn to tell you what to do.

Liberty Watch Episode 9: Insights from Charlottesville

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Vll1xJlfuM>

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Insights on Charlottesville

Liberty Man Van:  Welcome.  It is 8/25/17.  In this episode we’ll discuss recent events of violence in Charlottesville where violence was perpetrated by two nasty groups of people- one from the extreme left and one from the extreme right.  The right wing group had been granted a permit to march and protest the proposed removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, VA.  The action started on Friday night 8/11/17.

Video clip: Shows white supremacists marching in Charlottesville on Friday night, 8/11/17.

Liberty Man Van:  Torches reminiscent of the KKK.  The march continued on Saturday when the left extremist group antifa showed up.

Video clip:  Shows antifa picking a fight with alt-right on Saturday, 8/12/17.

Liberty Man Van:  The then took a more violent and tragic turn when a murderer with a car showed up to mow down some folks.

Video clip:  Shows car storming through a crowd of counter-protestors.

Liberty Man Van:  Really nasty stuff.  One was killed and several were injured.  President Trump made these remarks the same day of the tragic events.

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

August 12, 2017

Remarks by President Trump at Signing of the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act

Trump National Golf Club
Bedminster, New Jersey

3:33 P.M. EDT

…But we’re closely following the terrible events unfolding in Charlottesville, Virginia.  We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence, on many sides.  On many sides.  It’s been going on for a long time in our country.  Not Donald Trump, not Barack Obama.  This has been going on for a long, long time.

It has no place in America…

I just got off the phone with the Governor of Virginia, Terry McAuliffe, and we agreed that the hate and the division must stop, and must stop right now.  We have to come together as Americans with love for our nation and true affection — really — and I say this so strongly — true affection for each other.

…Above all else, we must remember this truth:  No matter our color, creed, religion or political party, we are all Americans first.  We love our country.  We love our God.  We love our flag.  We’re proud of our country.  We’re proud of who we are.  So we want to get the situation straightened out in Charlottesville, and we want to study it.  And we want to see what we’re doing wrong as a country, where things like this can happen.

Liberty Man Van:  A couple of days later the President made these remarks:

For Immediate Release

August 14, 2017

Statement by President Trump

Diplomatic Room

12:38 P.M. EDT

…Racism is evil.  And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.

Liberty Man Van:  The next day, 8/15/17, he made these remarks:

For Immediate Release

August 15, 2017

Remarks by President Trump on Infrastructure

Trump Tower
New York, New York

3:58 P.M. EDT

Liberty Man Van:  A couple of days later Trump was asked about the alt-right and its relationship to the violence that had occurred.

…But when you say the alt-right, define alt-right to me.  You define it.  Go ahead.

THE PRESIDENT:  No, define it for me.  Come on, let’s go.  Define it for me.

Q    Senator McCain defined them as the same group —

THE PRESIDENT:  Okay, what about the alt-left that came charging at — excuse me, what about the alt-left that came charging at the, as you say, the alt-right?  Do they have any semblance of guilt?

Let me ask you this:  What about the fact that they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs?  Do they have any problem?  I think they do.  As far as I’m concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day.

Q    Sir, you’re not putting these protestors on the same level as neo-Nazis —

Q    Is the alt-left as bad as white supremacy?

THE PRESIDENT:  I will tell you something.  I watched those very closely — much more closely than you people watched it.  And you have — you had a group on one side that was bad, and you had a group on the other side that was also very violent.  And nobody wants to say that, but I’ll say it right now.  You had a group — you had a group on the other side that came charging in, without a permit, and they were very, very violent.

Q    Is the alt-left as bad as Nazis?  Are they as bad as Nazis?

THE PRESIDENT:  Go ahead.

Q    Do you think that what you call the alt-left is the same as neo-Nazis?

THE PRESIDENT:  Those people — all of those people –excuse me, I’ve condemned neo-Nazis.  I’ve condemned many different groups.  But not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me.  Not all of those people were white supremacists by any stretch.  Those people were also there because they wanted to protest the taking down of a statue of Robert E. Lee.

Q    Should that statue be taken down?

THE PRESIDENT:  Excuse me.  If you take a look at some of the groups, and you see — and you’d know it if you were honest reporters, which in many cases you’re not — but many of those people were there to protest the taking down of the statue of Robert E. Lee.

So this week it’s Robert E. Lee.  I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down.  I wonder, is it George Washington next week?  And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after?  You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?

 Q    Should the statues of Robert E. Lee stay up?

THE PRESIDENT:  I would say that’s up to a local town, community, or the federal government, depending on where it is located.

Liberty Man Van:  Many were quick to criticize President Trump for not denouncing the white supremacists at the rally by name in his first statement.  This is to be expected from the democrats but they are not the only ones who hate Trump.  The establishment wing of the republican party don’t like him either.  The next two clowns get my chicken poop award for being so “brave.”

Video clip:  Paul Ryan makes “brave” statement denouncing bigotry.

Liberty Man Van:  This would have been a brave statement in 1840.  Welcome to the 99% Paul Ryan.  Virtue signaling.  Look at me.  Take note media.  I am against hatred and bigotry.  I am better than Trump.

Video clip:  John Kasich makes “courageous” statement condemning the neo-nazis.

Liberty Man Van:  This is sour grapes.  He lost to Trump in the republican primary for president and will take every opportunity like the democrats to try to make him look bad.  He is a cowardly establishment republican, the type that lost two elections to Barack Obama.  He represents the spineless branch of the republican party, by far the largest branch.

Liberty Man Van:  Let’s contrast that with how the media covers violence from the left, in this case black lives matter.  Is this a hate group that should be condemned?  You be the judge.  Here is the first clip.

Video clip:  Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.

Liberty Man Van:  That’s right, they are chanting “Pigs in a blanket, fry ‘em like bacon.”  Is this hate speech?

Video clip:  What’s better than nine dead cops.  Ten dead cops.

Liberty Man Van:  What’s better than one dead cop.  Two dead cops, etc.  Is this hate speech?  But wait.  That is not all…

Video clip:  What do you want?  Dead cops.  When do we want it?  Now.

Liberty Man Van:  They are chanting What do you want?  Dead cops.  When do we want it?  Now.  Is this hate speech?  If so, wouldn’t that make BLM a hate group?

Video clip:  Denounce BLM violence?  No, CNN commentator makes excuses for the Dallas police sniper.

Liberty Man Van:  Here the commentator blames systemic racism and poverty for black violence.  This is the same old tired argument that has been made for decades.

Video clip:  Denounce BLM violence?  No, Former congressional black caucus leader uses this “gun violence” episode to push for gun control legislation.

Video clip:  Commentator blames cops for the violence against cops.

Text: In barber shops all across America… When I was home with my daddy on the gulf coast of Mississippi, who has been worn in some ways by the history of that state, he said in response a long time ago- It might have been Mike Brown- “If they don’t do something we’re gonna start killing them.  Somebody’s gonna start killing cops if they don’t do something.”  That conversation- I’m giving some insight that white America might not have heard before.  That conversation has been had and it has been had before.  If you are not going to protect us; if you are going to subject us to this, right, then there are going to be elements in our community that are going to respond.

Liberty Man Van:  So here we have a commentator excusing violence against police officers.  In addition, the entire premise of BLM that blacks are more likely to be shot by the police is misleading.  Blacks are proportionately more likely to be shot but they are also more likely to be involved in crimes and thus encounters with police.  If you take criminality into account blacks are not more likely to be shot than whites.  It is simply a myth.

Liberty Man Van:  President Trump was attacked for not condemining right wing extremists early enough and often enough after the events in Charlottesille, VA.  Next, we will contrast President Obama’s response after a left wing extremist sympathetic to BLM killed five police and injured several others in a sniper attack in July 2016.  As we will see, he NEVER condemns this hate group and in fact lends them legitimacy in his speeches following the calculated killings.  In contrast to the spur of the moment vehicular killing carried out by the right wing extremist, the left wing extremist killer in Dallas executed a pre-meditated, racist series of murders.  Let’s get to then President Obama’s comments following the Dallas cop killing spree.  Here are some excerpts from his first speech following the attack.

… We still don’t know all the facts. What we do know is that there’s been vicious, calculated and despicable attack on law enforcement. Police in Dallas were on duty, doing their job, keeping people safe during a peaceful protest.

Liberty Man Van:  Obama and the mainstream media would wear out the phrase “peaceful protest” in the days that followed.  Never mind that many of the BLM protests have been anything but peaceful and have encouraged violent action against cops.  He ignores that important point.

Obama:  These law enforcement officers were targeted, and nearly a dozen officers were shot, five were killed. Other officers and at least one civilian were wounded. Some are in serious conditions and we are praying for their recovery.

… I will have more say about this when the facts become more clear. For now, let me just say that, even as yesterday I spoke about our need to be concerned as all Americans about racial disparities in our criminal justice system. I also said yesterday that our police have an extraordinarily difficult job and the vast majority of them do their job in outstanding fashion.

Liberty Man Van: Comment “racial disparities”, “vast majority do a good job”.

Obama:  … We also know that when people are armed with powerful weapons, it unfortunately makes attacks like these more deadly and more tragic and in the days ahead consider those realities as well.

Liberty Man Van:  Gun control advocacy opportunity not missed.

And let’s look at some of the text of the speech Obama gave at the funeral service for the slain officers:

…For the men and women who protect and serve the people of Dallas, last Thursday began like any other day. Like most Americans, each day you get up, probably have too quick a breakfast, kiss your family goodbye, and you head to work.

But your work and the work of police officers across the country is like no other. For the moment you put on that uniform, you have answered a call that at any moment, even in the briefest interaction, may put your life in harm’s way.

OBAMA: Lorne Ahrens, he answered that call. So did his wife, Katrina, not only because she was the spouse of a police officer, but because she’s a detective on the force. They have two kids. Lorne took them fishing. And he used to proudly go to their school in uniform.

On the night before he died, he bought dinner for a homeless man.

…For a while, the protests went on without incident. And despite the fact that police conduct was the subject of the protest, despite the fact that there must have been signs or slogans or chants with which they profoundly disagreed, these men and this department did their jobs like the professionals that they were.

In fact, the police had been part of the protest planning. Dallas P.D. even posted photos on their Twitter feeds of their own officers standing among the protesters.

Liberty Man Van:  Good, mentions all the slain officers by name tells us something about each of them.

Obama:  …Faced with this violence, we wonder if the divides of race in America can ever be bridged. We wonder if an African American community that feels unfairly targeted by police and police departments that feel unfairly maligned for doing their jobs, can ever understand each other’s experience.

Liberty Man Van:  “Unfairly targeted by police.”

Obama:  …The police helped Shetamia Taylor as she was shot trying to shield her four sons. She said she wanted her boys to join her to protest the incidents of black men being killed.

Liberty Man Van:  “Black men being killed.”  Makes no mention of nuance in these cases.

Obama:  … And today in this audience, I see people who have protested on behalf of criminal justice reform grieving alongside police officers. I see people who mourn for the five officers we lost, but also weep for the families of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. In this audience, I see what’s possible.

…When anyone, no matter how good their intentions may be, paints all police as biased, or bigoted, we undermine those officers that we depend on for our safety. And as for those who use rhetoric suggesting harm to police, even if they don’t act on it themselves, well, they not only make the jobs of police officers even more dangerous, but they do a disservice to the very cause of justice that they claim to promote.

Liberty Man Van:  Here he makes an oblique reference to BLM but does not call them out by name.

(APPLAUSE)

…We also know that centuries of racial discrimination, of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow; they didn’t simply vanish with the law against segregation. They didn’t necessarily stop when a Dr. King speech, or when the civil rights act or voting rights act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know…

(APPLAUSE)

But America, we know that bias remains. We know it, whether you are black, or white, or Hispanic, or Asian, or native American, or of Middle Eastern descent, we have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some point. We’ve heard it at times in our own homes. If we’re honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts. We know that. And while some suffer far more under racism’s burden, some feel to a far greater extent discrimination’s stain. Although most of us do our best to guard against it and teach our children better, none of us is entirely innocent. No institution is entirely immune, and that includes our police departments. We know this. And so when African-Americans from all walks of life, from different communities across the country, voice a growing despair over what they perceive to be unequal treatment, when study after study shows that whites and people of color experience the criminal justice system differently. So that if you’re black, you’re more likely to be pulled over or searched or arrested; more likely to get longer sentences; more likely to get the death penalty for the same crime.

Liberty Man Van:  Blacks are arrested more often and in the same proportion that they commit crimes.  For example, in 2013 blacks were six times more likely to commit murder than non-blacks.

Obama:…When mothers and fathers raised their kids right, and have the talk about how to respond if stopped by a police officer — yes, sir; no, sir — but still fear that something terrible may happen when their child walks out the door; still fear that kids being stupid and not quite doing things right might end in tragedy.

Liberty Man Van:  The vast majority of episodes of blacks being shot by police occur when they are resisting arrest.  Obama might have helped this statistic by saying simply “Stop resisting arrest.”

Obama:  …When all this takes place, more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, we cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid.

Liberty Man Van:  There is that phrase “peaceful protest” again.

(APPLAUSE)

Obama:  …We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and coworkers and fellow church members, again and again and again, it hurts. Surely we can see that, all of us.

Liberty Man Van:  How about having black politicians blame you for black criminality again and again and again.

Obama:  …As a society, we choose to under-invest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs.

Liberty Man Van:  If poverty automatically leads to criminality then why don’t we see a crime spree in Appalachia?

Obama:  …We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.

…Because with an open heart, we can learn to stand in each other’s shoes and look at the world through each other’s eyes. So that maybe the police officer sees his own son in that teenager with a hoodie, who’s kind of goofing off but not dangerous.

…And I understand these protests — I see them. They can be messy. Sometimes they can be hijacked by an irresponsible few. Police can get hurt.

(APPLAUSE)

Protesters can get hurt. They can be frustrated. But even those who dislike the phrase “black lives matter,” surely, we should be able to hear the pain of Alton Sterling’s family.

Liberty Man Van:  He finally mentions BLM but does he call them out as a hate group.  No, he goes out of his way to make excuses for them.

Liberty Man Van:  President Obama mentioned Alton Sterling and Philando Castille in this speech as if they were innocent victims of police aggression. Baton Rouge Police were responding to a call from a complaintant when they encountered Alton Sterling.  Police shouted to him “Get on the ground.  Get on the ground now”.  Instead of getting on the ground instead he resisted police.  He had a gun.  He was shot in the altercation that ensued.  Officers tried to subdue him with a taser but that was not successful.  Sterling continued to resist.  Sterling had been in trouble before.  He was on probation and was not allowed to carry a gun.  Sterling had recently been released from prison and was selling bootlet cd’s, an illegal activity.  Sterling had had many previous encounters with law enforcement.  He was a convicted child sex offender and he owed much in child support that he had not paid.  He was not an innocent victim.

President Obama also mentioned Philando Castile as if he were the innocent victim of a police shooting. Castile lived in Minnesota and a convenience store near where he lived had recently been robbed and photos of the assailants had been posted.  Police pulled him over a few days after the robbery because he looked like one of the robbers.  Catile was with his girlfriend and her four year old daughter from a previous relationship.  There was marijuana in the car.  He had a gun in the car.  He pulled the gun and he was shot.  The officer was already on high alert thinking this guy may have already committed an armed robbery a few days ago.  Castile’s girlfriend starting streaming video after the shooting; we have no video record of what happened prior to the shooting.  Court records showed that Castile had at least 55 Minnesota traffic violations.  He had multiple marijuana arrests including one in which he had over 1.4 grams.  Facebook posts seem to indicate he was involved with or at least sympathetic to the crips gang.

The main topic of our show today has been about mainstream media bias and we will recap what we have learned shortly.  But before leaving the subject of policing I would like to bring a libertarian perspective to the topic.  Who do the police work for?  The state.  If you happen to be shot by a cop who will decide the cop’s guilt or innocence?  The state.  Does this give the cop a “home field advantage?”  I think it does.  One solution to this problem would be to have an independent court system, such as arbitration, that is not run by the state.  Another solution would be to have the police more accountable to the public.  This might be accomplished by contracting policing out to a private company as we do now when we hire private security guards.  If we thought these police were unfairly targeting a minority group we could refuse to renew their contract.  In other words, we could fire the rascals.  We don’t have that option now.  The police could do a totally awful job and the department will still continue to exist.

Libertarian author Murray Rothbard sheds some light on this subject in his book For a New Liberty.  He remarks:

How shall the police allocate their funds which are, of course, always limited as are the funds of all other individuals, organizations, and agencies? How much shall the police invest in electronic equipment? fingerprinting equipment? detectives as against uniformed police? patrol cars as against foot police, etc.? The point is that the government has no rational way to make these allocations. The government only knows that it has a limited budget. Its allocations of funds are then subject to the full play of politics, boondoggling, and bureaucratic inefficiency, with no indication at all as to whether the police department is serving the consumers in a way responsive to their desires or whether it is doing so efficiently. The situation would be different if police services were supplied on a free, competitive market. In that case, consumers would pay for whatever degree of protection they wish to purchase. The consumers who just want to see a policeman once in a while would pay less than those who want continuous patrolling, and far less than those who demand 24-hour bodyguard service. On the free market, protection would be supplied in proportion and in whatever way that the consumers wish to pay for it. A drive for efficiency would be insured, as it always is on the market, by the compulsion to make profits and avoid losses, and thereby to keep costs low and to serve the highest demands of the consumers. Any police firm that suffers from gross inefficiency would soon go bankrupt and disappear.

Liberty Man Van:  In summary, we have learned today about media bias and how political groups on the left and right are treated differently.  We have learned how presidents on the left or right are treated differently.

If you are a left leaning political group, such as BLM or antifa:

 

  • You can perform acts of violence and the mainstream media will make excuses for you.
  • You can show up at a right wing political rally or event, pick a violent fight and have the media blame the right.
  • You can do your best to suppress the free speech rights of the right while at the same time calling yourself “antifacist.”
  • You can engage in hate speech towards cops and never have your group noted by the SPLC or the press as a hate group.

If you are a right leaning political group:

You can be engaged in a peaceful protest, have antifa show up and mace you or throw rocks at you, then have the media blame you exclusively for the violence (Trump rallies, Charlottesville rally).

  • You can have a controversial author such as Ann Coulter or Milo Yiannopolous scheduled to speak at a taxpayer funded university, such as UC-Berkeley, and have your speech suppressed through the threat of violence by antifa.
  • You can have a mainstream conservative author such as Charles Murray threatened off your campus.

If you are a left leaning president, such as Barack Obama:

 

  • You will never be called out for not denouncing “hate speech” if that speech comes from the left (Pigs in a blanket…, What do you want? Dead cops!)
  • You can criticize cops for shooting people with long rap sheets, carrying gun, and resisting arrest without so much as a whimper from the media.
  • You can call into question the motives of police officers during the funeral of police officers and expect crickets from the media.

 If you are a right leaning President:

 

  • The media will always portray your actions in the most negative light.
  • You will be criticized for condemning violence from ALL quarters.
  • Some members of your own party will use any opportunity to make you look bad and engage in virtue signaling.

 

All of this demonstrates how the mainstream media portrays progressives as if they always have the best of intentions and conservatives as if they always have the worst of intentions.

 

I will leave you with a study of news coverage conducted by the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.  They analyzed news coverage of President Trump’s first 100 days in office.  They found the following:

Trump’s coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity. Findings include:

  • President Trump has received unsparing coverage for most weeks of his presidency, without a single major topic where coverage, on balance, was more positive than negative, setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president.
  • Every news outlet in the study was negative more often than positive.
  • Fox was the only news outlet that came close to giving Trump positive coverage overall – though they did not – 52% of news reports on Fox were negative towards President Trump. Only 48% were positive.

Here’s how the various news outlets treated Trump:  Graphic, comment on graphic

 That’s the show for today.  Join us next time for another episode of Liberty Watch.

Liberty Watch Book Review: Anatomy of the State by Murray Rothbard

A video version of this post can be seen at https://youtu.be/AO27tJHLzxk.  Click here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIb4k41f3A1lftMXivcvj5g to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Today we will discuss a short but powerful book that looks at how territories with government came into existence.  America’s declaration of independence states that governments were instituted among men in order to protect men’s unalienable natural rights such as the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”  Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking.  Actually, governments were created for quite another reason as we shall see.  Let’s get started.

From Chapter 1:  What the State is Not

The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service. Some theorists venerate the State as the apotheosis of society; others regard it as an amiable, though often inefficient, organization for achieving social ends; but almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged against the “private sector” and often winning in this competition of resources. With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, “we are the government.” The useful collective term “we” has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If “we are the government,” then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also “voluntary” on the part of the individual concerned.

Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have “committed suicide,” since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. One would not think it necessary to belabor this point, and yet the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or lesser degree.  We must, therefore, emphasize that “we” are not the government; the government is not “us.”

Liberty Man Van:  How many times have you heard a politician say “we did this” or “we did that” meaning the government.  If we take “us” to mean the government then you could say:

  • We have stationed troops in over 140 countries around the globe
  • We have dropped bombs in over 20 countries since WWII
  • We support brutal dictators as long as they do what we like
  • We overthrow democratically elected leaders in other countries
  • We kill thousands of people in other countries every year
  • We engage in torture
  • We incarcerate ourselves more than any other people on earth
  • We always spend more than we take in

If, then, the State is not “us,” if it is not “the human family” getting together to decide mutual problems, if it is not a lodge meeting or country club, what is it? Briefly, the State is that organization in society which attempts to maintain a monopoly of the use of force and violence in a given territorial area; in particular, it is the only organization in society that obtains its revenue not by voluntary contribution or payment for services rendered but by coercion.

While other individuals or institutions obtain their income by production of goods and services and by the peaceful and voluntary sale of these goods and services to others, the State obtains its revenue by the use of compulsion; that is, by the use and the threat of the jailhouse and the bayonet.

Liberty Man Van:  Does his best mafia guy impression.

from Chapter 2:  What the State Is

Man is born naked into the world, and needing to use his mind to learn how to take the resources given him by nature, and to transform them (for example, by investment in “capital”) into shapes and forms and places where the resources can be used for the satisfaction of his wants and the advancement of his standard of living.

Man has found that, through the process of voluntary, mutual exchange, the productivity and hence, the living standards of all participants in exchange may increase enormously. The only “natural” course for man to survive and to attain wealth, therefore, is by using his mind and energy to engage in the production-and-exchange process.   He does this, first, by finding natural resources, and then by transforming them (by “mixing his labor” with them, as Locke puts it), to make them his individual property, and then by exchanging this property for the similarly obtained property of others.  The social path dictated by the requirements of man’s nature, therefore, is the path of “property rights” and the “free market” of gift or exchange of such rights.

The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the above way of production and exchange, he called the “economic means.” The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another’s goods or services by the use of force and violence.  This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method which Oppenheimer termed “the political means” to wealth.

Liberty Man Van:  So, as you can see, the state gains its resources by the confiscation of the wealth of those who earned it.  This theft is done in a variety of ways.

  • income taxes, property taxes, excise taxes, tariffs
  • hunting license, fishing license, drivers license
  • business licenses
  • marriage license
  • building permit

We are now in a position to answer more fully the question: what is the State? The State, in the words of Oppenheimer, is the “organization of the political means”; it is the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory.  The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively “peaceful” the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society. Since production must always precede predation, the free market is anterior to the State. The State has never been created by a “social contract”; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation.

From Chapter 3:  How the State Preserves Itself

Once a State has been established, the problem of the ruling group or “caste” is how to maintain their rule.  While force is their modus operandi, their basic and long-run problem is ideological. For in order to continue in office, any government (not simply a “democratic” government) must have the support of the majority of its subjects. This support, it must be noted, need not be active enthusiasm; it may well be passive resignation as if to an inevitable law of nature.

…the majority must be persuaded by ideology that their government is good, wise and, at least, inevitable, and certainly better than other conceivable alternatives. Promoting this ideology among the people is the vital social task of the “intellectuals.” … The intellectuals are, therefore, the “opinion-molders” in society. And since it is precisely a molding of opinion that the State most desperately needs, the basis for age-old alliance between the State and the intellectuals becomes clear.

…The State, on the other hand, is willing to offer the intellectuals a secure and permanent berth in the State apparatus; and thus a secure income and the panoply of prestige.  For the intellectuals will be handsomely rewarded for the important function they perform for the State rulers, of which group they now become a part.

Liberty Man Van:  In these passages Rothbard highlights the cozy relationship that has always existed between the intellectuals and the state.  Often times the intellectuals in this equation have been the religious or spiritual leaders.  The priests help to prop up the legitimacy of the king’s rule and in exchange the priests receive assistance from the king.  We can see this mutually beneficial relationship at work in the Hebrew Bible with the story of King Solomon’s construction of the temple.  We are told that the crowning achievement of King Solomon’s reign was the construction of a magnificent temple in Jerusalem.

Solomon spared no expense for the building’s creation. He ordered vast quantities of cedar wood from King Hiram of Tyre (I Kings 5:20­25), had huge blocks of the choicest stone quarried, and commanded that the building’s foundation be laid with hewn stone. To complete the massive project, he imposed forced labor on all his subjects, drafting people for work shifts that sometimes lasted a month at a time. Some 3,300 officials were appointed to oversee the Temple’s erection (5:27­30). Solomon assumed such heavy debts in building the Temple that he is forced to pay off King Hiram by handing over twenty towns in the Galilee (I Kings 9:11).

Solomon was not content to live in his father’s house and built a huge palace to house his 700 wives and 300 concubines (1 Kings 7:1-11). It took 13 years to construct, compared to just 7 years for the temple.

Liberty Man Van:  And how did Solomon pay for these building projects?  The same way modern leaders pay for large construction projects- through heavy taxation and borrowing, which is tax on the future.

Again, the point of this story is to show the cozy relationship that has always existed between the intellectuals and the state.  In modern times it is the talking heads who constantly appear on television touting the merits of some new building project, new weapons system ,etc.  The advocates of state power also benefit from it.  We rarely hear the arguments against expansion of state power- the erosion of individual freedom- discussed in the mainstream media.

Back to excerpts from “Anatomy of the State.”

…Many and varied have been the arguments by which the State and its intellectuals have induced their subjects to support their rule…The union of Church and State was one of the oldest and most successful of these ideological devices. The ruler was either anointed by God or, in the case of the absolute rule of many Oriental despotisms, was himself God; hence, any resistance to his rule would be blasphemy. The States’ priestcraft performed the basic intellectual function of obtaining popular support and even worship for the rulers.

…Another successful device was to instill fear of any alternative systems of rule or nonrule. The present rulers, it was maintained, supply to the citizens an essential service for which they should be most grateful: protection against sporadic criminals and marauders…Especially has the State been successful in recent centuries in instilling fear of other State rulers…Since most men tend to love their homeland, the identification of that land and its people with the State was a means of making natural patriotism work to the State’s advantage… This device of “nationalism” has only been successful, in Western civilization, in recent centuries; it was not too long ago that the mass of subjects regarded wars as irrelevant battles between various sets of nobles.

Many and subtle are the ideological weapons that the State has wielded through the centuries. One excellent weapon has been tradition… Worship of one’s ancestors, then, becomes a none too subtle means of worship of one’s ancient rulers.

Another potent ideological force is to deprecate the individual and exalt the collectivity of society. For since any given rule implies majority acceptance, any ideological danger to that rule can only start from one or a few independently-thinking individuals…The new idea, much less the new critical idea, must needs begin as a small minority opinion; therefore, the State must nip the view in the bud by ridiculing any view that defies the opinions of the mass…It is also important for the State to make its rule seem inevitable; even if its reign is disliked, it will then be met with passive resignation, as witness the familiar coupling of “death and taxes.”

… Another tried and true method for bending subjects to the State’s will is inducing guilt. Any increase in private well-being can be attacked as “unconscionable greed,” “materialism,” or “excessive affluence,” profit-making can be attacked as “exploitation” and “usury,” mutually beneficial exchanges denounced as “selfishness,” and somehow with the conclusion always being drawn that more resources should be siphoned from the private to the “public sector.”

Liberty Man Van:  How many times have you heard the same lame argument that if you are not in favor of some new government program that you must be selfish or greedy?  If you are not in favor of government run schools you must be anti-education.  If you don’t believe the climate change dogma you must be anti-environment.  If you are not in favor of government run health care you must want people to die.

Back to the book:

…  In the present more secular age, the divine right of the State has been supplemented by the invocation of a new god, Science. State rule is now proclaimed as being ultrascientific, as constituting planning by experts.

… The unremitting determination of its assaults on common sense is no accident, for as Mencken vividly maintained:

The average man, whatever his errors otherwise, at least sees clearly that government is something lying outside him and outside the generality of his fellow men—that it is a separate, independent, and hostile power, only partly under his control, and capable of doing him great harm… When a private citizen is robbed, a worthy man is deprived of the fruits of his industry and thrift; when the government is robbed, the worst that happens is that certain rogues and loafers have less money to play with than they had before. The notion that they have earned that money is never entertained; to most sensible men it would seem ludicrous.

From Chapter 4:  How the State Transcends Its Limits

… through the centuries men have formed concepts designed to check and limit the exercise of State rule; and, one after another, the State, using its intellectual allies, has been able to transform these concepts into intellectual rubber stamps of legitimacy and virtue to attach to its decrees and actions. Originally, in Western Europe, the concept of divine sovereignty held that the kings may rule only according to divine law; the kings turned the concept into a rubber stamp of divine approval for any of the kings’ actions. The concept of parliamentary democracy began as a popular check upon absolute monarchical rule; it ended with parliament being the essential part of the State and its every act totally sovereign.

… Certainly the most ambitious attempt to impose limits on the State has been the Bill of Rights and other restrictive parts of the American Constitution, in which written limits on government became the fundamental law to be interpreted by a judiciary supposedly independent of the other branches of government. All Americans are familiar with the process by which the construction of limits in the Constitution has been inexorably broadened over the last century.  But few have been as keen as Professor Charles Black to see that the State has, in the process, largely transformed judicial review itself from a limiting device to yet another instrument for furnishing ideological legitimacy to the government’s actions.

… For while the seeming independence of the federal judiciary has played a vital part in making its actions virtual Holy Writ for the bulk of the people, it is also and ever true that the judiciary is part and parcel of the government apparatus and appointed by the executive and legislative branches… the State has set itself up as a judge in its own cause, thus violating a basic juridical principle for aiming at just decisions.

Liberty Man Van:  Think about what the Supreme Court is asked to do in a number of cases- determine a dispute between a state government and the general government.  Through the years the Supreme Court ruling have functioned to gradually move the balance of power from the states to the central government.  This makes perfect sense when we consider the Supreme Court is a PART of the central government.  As Rothbard  says here this is akin to allowing a party in a case to also be the judge.  How could one expect an impartial ruling?

To see an example of the Supreme Court shifting power to the central government.  For example, California passed a law in the 1990’s that made medical marijuana legal.  Angel Raich, a California resident, grew some marijuana for medicinal use and was prosecuted by the federal government.  The case made it all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled in 2005 Gonzales vs. Raich decision that federal government had the authority under the commerce clause of the Constitution to criminalize the production and use of cannibas even in states where it has been legalized.

The ruling of the court in this case goes clearly against the spirit of the tenth amendment.  We see here another case of the federal government being the judge in a case involving itself and ruling in its own favor.  This happen over and over and over and over again.  The end result is that state power has been trampled under foot

Back to the book:

… the standard version of the story of the New Deal and the Court, though accurate in its way, displaces the emphasis. . . . It concentrates on the difficulties; it almost forgets how the whole thing turned out. The upshot of the matter was [and this is what I like to emphasize] that after some twenty-four months of balking . . . the Supreme Court, without a single change in the law of its composition, or, indeed, in its actual manning, placed the affirmative stamp of legitimacy on the New Deal, and on the whole new conception of government in America.

Liberty Man Van:  I will add a little background to Rothbard’s New Deal comments.  The Supreme Court originally ruled some of the new programs being created by FDR and a willing congress were unconsitutional.  Not to be thwarted, FDR threatened to pack the courts by passing legislation that would have created enough new Supreme Court judges, which he would have been able to appoint, to shift decisions in his favor.  The Supreme Court judges, knowing that FDR would make good on his threat, were intimidated into going along with FDR and ruling that previous laws they had ruled unconstitutional were now constitutional; hence vast new powers were granted to the central government.

Back to the book:

… Thus, the State has invariably shown a striking talent for the expansion of its powers beyond any limits that might be imposed upon it. Since the State necessarily lives by the compulsory confiscation of private capital, and since its expansion necessarily involves ever-greater incursions on private individuals and private enterprise, we must assert that the State is profoundly and inherently anticapitalist… the State—the organization of the political means—constitutes, and is the source of, the “ruling class” (rather, ruling caste), and is in permanent opposition to genuinely private capital.

From Chapter 5:  What the State Fears

.. The death of a State can come about in two major ways: (a) through conquest by another State, or (b) through revolutionary overthrow by its own subjects—in short, by war or revolution. War and revolution, as the two basic threats, invariably arouse in the State rulers their maximum efforts and maximum propaganda among the people.

… In war, State power is pushed to its ultimate, and, under the slogans of “defense” and “emergency,” it can impose a tyranny upon the public such as might be openly resisted in time of peace. War thus provides many benefits to a State, and indeed every modern war has brought to the warring peoples a permanent legacy of increased State burdens upon society. War, moreover, provides to a State tempting opportunities for conquest of land areas over which it may exercise its monopoly of force.

… We may test the hypothesis that the State is largely interested in protecting itself rather than its subjects by asking: which category of crimes does the State pursue and punish most intensely—those against private citizens or those against itself? The gravest crimes in the State’s lexicon are almost invariably not invasions of private person or property, but dangers to its own contentment…

Liberty Man Van:  What crimes are most important to the state?  Property crime?  Mass murder?  No.  The three crimes mentioned in the U.S. Constitution are treason, piracy, and counterfeiting.  Of these three, two of them are definitely a threat to state power:  treason and counterfeiting.  State sponsored piracy was common in the eighteenth century.

From Chapter 7:  History as a Race Between State Power and Social Power

… Just as the two basic and mutually exclusive interrelations between men are peaceful cooperation or coercive exploitation, production or predation, so the history of mankind, particularly its economic history, may be considered as a contest between these two principles. On the one hand, there is creative productivity, peaceful exchange and cooperation; on the other, coercive dictation and predation over those social relations.   Albert Jay Nock happily termed these contesting forces: “social power” and “State power.”… While social power is over nature, State power is power over man. Through history, man’s productive and creative forces have, time and again, carved out new ways of transforming nature for man’s benefit. These have been the times when social power has spurted ahead of State power, and when the degree of State encroachment over society has considerably lessened. But always, after a greater or smaller time lag, the State has moved into these new areas, to cripple and confiscate social power once more.

… Of all the numerous forms that governments have taken over the centuries, of all the concepts and institutions that have been tried, none has succeeded in keeping the State in check.

Liberty Man Van:  This is an important point.  No matter what form a government takes- monarchy, dictatorship, representative republic- it always grows with time if it continues to exist.  Look at the U.S. government whose size and scope was supposed to be constrained with a written constitution.   Originally the smallest government in history, it is now the largest government in history with an almost 20 trillion dollar national debt and growing.

Video of national debt clock

Liberty Man Van:  So to recap, what has this book taught us about the state?

  • The state is not “we”.  The state often engaged in activities, such as killing and torture, that we as individuals would find unconscienable.
  • We as individuals must earn our resources through peaceful, voluntary exchange of goods and services; the state gains its resources at the point of a gun.
  • Free market exchange existed prior to the creation of the state.  The state was not born out of a social contract; it was created out of conquest and exploitation.
  • In order to continue to exist, the state must convince the majority of people in its mythology.  This is maintained through its adoption of the intellectual class, which help to distribute its propaganda to the masses.  The intellectual class is handsomely rewarded for its participation.
  • The state is often propped up through the use of shame.  For example, if you are not for government controlled schools you are against education.  If you are not for government controlled health care you want people to die.  Therefore, you are just being selfish or greedy.
  • In earlier centuries, the mass of people thought of wars as being between competing kings and nobles; more recently a sense of nationalism has caused the masses to think of the state’s wars as their own. This sense of nationalism is reinforced through the government run schools.  For example “My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.”  Or how about “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America…”
  • The Divine was once used to endorse the state rulers such as “The Divine Right of Kings”.  More recently the old gods have been replaced by a new God, Science.  We are told that state planning is done using ultrascientific methods by experts.
  • Attempts to impose limits on the state through such devices as a written constitution have proved futile.  State actors, always seeking to enhance power and prestige, always find new and creative ways to bypass attempted restrictions on their power.

That’s our episode for today.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Join us next time to discuss libertarian principles where we don’t believe you need some guy with a bullhorn to tell you what to do.