Liberty Watch Episode 17: Trump Fires Ryan Retires

The following is the outline text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/V2A3_jrB0gk

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I.              Trump Considers More Military Action in Syria

A.             Last week said might withdraw from Syria

B.             Chemical attack in Damascus suburb of Douma

1.              What We know

a)              Residents heard objects falling from sky followed by smell like chlorine

b)              Roughly 70 people died

c)              Syrian government denies involvement

d)              UN has not determined culprit

e)              US believes Assad to blame, has threatened military action

Why US should get out of Syria

2.              Risk of war with nuclear power Russia

3.              ISIS has been defeated

4.              US has already destabilized the whole region with Afghanistan and Iraq invasions

5.              20 trillion dollar debt and rising

6.              Many more civilians will die

7.              War enhances state power

8.              Will do nothing to make Americans safer

C.             Article- “America’s Long History of Trying to Determine Who Rules Syria

1.              1949 CIA coup

The CIA organized its very first coup in Syria in 1949 to overthrow a democratically elected president and install a military dictator. The U.S. has never given up trying to determine who rules Syria…

2.              1986 CIA memo

A CIA document declassified last year exposed a plot to overthrow the Syrian government by provoking sectarian tensions all the way back in 1986.

 

Here are a few juicy excerpts:

 

“Although we judge that fear of reprisals and organizational problems make a second Sunni challenge unlikely, an excessive government reaction to minor outbreaks of Sunni dissidence might trigger large-scale unrest. In most instances the regime would have the resources to crush a Sunni opposition movement, but we believe widespread violence among the populace could stimulate large numbers of Sunni officers and conscripts to desert or mutiny, setting the stage for civil war.”

3.              2007 General Wesley Clark statement

General Wesley Clark made the following statement on Democracy Now in 2007 about a conversation he had with a general in 2001:

 

About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in.

 

He said, “Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.”

…He says, “We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.”

…So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?”

 

And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs”?—?meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office?—?“today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”

4.              2012 beginning of current civil war

a)              U.S. proclaims its desire for regime change

b)              Says Assad must go

c)              U.S. backs rebel groups that include al-qaeda

d)              U.S. public told that rebels were “moderates”

e)              U.S. involvement results in ISIS caliphate once controlling large portions of Iraq and Syria.

f)               Leftover U.S. weapons from Iraq war used by rebels in Syria

D.             Why Trump probably won’t say no to the war hawks

1.              Has been accused of false election collusion with Russia

2.              Show he is not puppet of Putin

3.              John Bolton new head of NSA

a)              Was in favor of regime change in Iraq, says not a mistake

b)              Would like regime change in Iran

c)              Wants to scrap Iran nuclear agreement

Would like regime change in Syria

4.              Strong Israel lobby

a)              Antipathy towards Iran

b)              Have conducted several bombing raids into Syria during civil war

5.              Has already ramped up involvement in 17 year-old Afghan occupation

6.              Lacks knowledge to “be his own man”, will listen to Generals

7.              Ego, tough guy

E.              Excuse for military action?

Excuse will be to protect the people of Syria from the evil Assad

The body count of civilians there will be greater from bombing than from any alleged chemical attacks.

F.              Timing of the attack?

Before any international agency has had time to determine if there was a chemical attack and who was responsible.

G.             Addendum

President Trump has ordered and military has conducted bombing and missile attacks on targets in Damascus Syria.

 

II.            Speaker Paul Ryan Announces Retirement

A.             Comment on Ryan cartoons

1.              Will kill Medicare

Ryan never intended to end the Medicare program and never said he would.  He did talk of reforming the program so as to try to tame the federal debt.  In the end, he nor his Republican colleagues never had the guts.

2.              Will repeal Obamacare and give savings to the rich

This is how Democrats always caricature any attempt at fiscal restraint.  You are just a heartless monster that wants the poor to suffer.

3.              I love deficits

This one has some truth to it.  Although he talked a good fiscal responsibility game he never “walked the walk.”

4.              House under new management, influenced by the far-right

New management did not apply to Ryan.  He was part of the same mainstream Republicans that run huge budget deficits whenever they hold the reins of power.

5.              New budget does not kill Obamacare

True.  Although Trump ran on repealing Obamacare he along with the GOP controlled House and Senate never even came close to realizing the promise.

6.              Medicare recipients watch out!(2 cartoons same message)

Are you kidding?  Medicare reform by either party will never happen before U.S. government bankruptcy.  If minor reform does occur they will simply be re-arranging the chairs on the Titanic that is the federal debt.  Video of federal debt clock.Libertarian Humor

This graphic shows a lifeguard watching as several bodies are floating in the pool.  The caption reads “Libertarians make bad lifeguards.”  This common caricature of libertarians implies that we won’t lift a hand to help people in need.  It is based on the fallacy that if government does not help people no one will.  Never mind that humans had a long history of helping each other long before any government was created.

III.          Campus insanity

Temple University Faculty Members Are Trying to Erase the ‘Gender Binary System’

The gender binary refers to the traditional classification of human gender into two distinct categories, masculine and feminine. Some professors at Temple University are looking to erase this “outdated” classification altogether.

 

Heath Fogg Davis, a professor of political science at Temple, argues in his new book that he wants to live in a world in which everyone uses a “gender-neutral pronoun.”

 

“My argument in the book is not that we try to live beyond gender, but [to minimize] the formal use of gender and gender policies because of the ways it infringes on people’s individual autonomy,” Davis said. “In an ideal world, I wish that we all used a gender-neutral pronoun.”

A.             Students accused of ‘hatred’ for defending traditional marriage

LGBT students are attempting to defund Love Saxa, a Georgetown University student group that supports traditional marriage.

 

Love Saxa’s mission statement says the group “exists to promote healthy relationships on campus through cultivating a proper understanding of sex, gender, marriage, and family among Georgetown students.”

…Jasmin Ouseph submitted a formal notice to the university on September 25, on the grounds that Love Saxa’s definition of marriage fosters hatred and intolerance which would violate Georgetown’s Student Organization Standards.

B.             Feminist prof says ‘traditional science’ is rooted in racism

A feminist professor at the University of California-Davis has vowed to “challenge the authority of Science” by “rewriting knowledge” through a feminist lens.

Sara Giordano argues that “traditional science” relies on “a colonial and racialized form of power,” and must be replaced with an “anti-science, antiracist, feminist approach to knowledge production.”

C.             Harvard Hosts Anal Sex Workshop Entitled ‘What What in the Butt’

As a part of Harvard University’s sex week, the Ivy League Institution hosted an anal sex workshop entitled, “What What in the Butt: Anal 101.” The workshop taught students “how to put things in their butt,” according to a report from The College Fix.

 

As with most proceedings at Harvard, the anal sex workshop placed great emphasis on equality. After the presenter noted that “not all men have penises, not all women have vaginas,” she argued that “the butthole is the great sexual equalizer. All humans have a butthole.”

IV.          The Myth of National Defense

This publication was a collection of essays edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe.  The following excerpts are from one of the essays written by Murray Rothbard.

…The fundamental axiom of libertarian theory is that no one

may threaten or commit violence (“aggress”) against another

man’s person or property. Violence may be employed only

against the man who commits such violence; that is, only

defensively against the aggressive violence of another.1 In

short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor.

Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the

entire corpus of libertarian theory.

 

…This use of violence to obtain its revenue

(called “taxation”) is the keystone of State power. Upon this

base the State erects a further structure of power over the individuals

in its territory, regulating them, penalizing critics, subsidizing

favorites, etc. The State also takes care to arrogate to

itself the compulsory monopoly of various critical services

needed by society, thus keeping the people in dependence

upon the State for key services, keeping control of the vital

command posts in society and also fostering among the public.  Thus the State is careful to monopolize police and judicial

service, the ownership of roads and streets, the supply of

money, and the postal service, and effectively to monopolize or

control education, public utilities, transportation, and radio

and television.

 

…In the modern world, each land area is ruled over by a State

organization, but there are a number of States scattered over

the earth, each with a monopoly of violence over its own territory.

 

…since each State can

mobilize all the people and resources in its territory, the other

State comes to regard all the citizens of the opposing country as

at least temporarily its enemies and to treat them accordingly by

extending the war to them. Thus, all of the consequences of

interterritorial war make it almost inevitable that inter-State war

will involve aggression by each side against the innocent civilians—

the private individuals—of the other.

 

…If one distinct attribute of inter-State war is interterritoriality,

another unique attribute stems from the fact that each State

lives by taxation over its subjects. Any war against another

State, therefore, involves the increase and extension of taxation-

aggression over its own people.

 

…All State wars, therefore, involve increased aggression

against the State’s own taxpayers, and almost all State wars (all,

in modern warfare) involve the maximum aggression (murder)

against the innocent civilians ruled by the enemy State.

 

…In short, the libertarian is

interested in reducing as much as possible the area of State

aggression against all private individuals. The only way to do

this, in international affairs, is for the people of each country

to pressure their own State to confine its activities to the area

which it monopolizes and not to aggress against other State monopolists.

 

…We cannot leave our topic without saying at least a word

about the domestic tyranny that is the inevitable accompaniment

of war. The great Randolph Bourne realized that “war is

the health of the State.”13 It is in war that the State really comes

into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in

absolute dominion over the economy and the society. Society

becomes a herd, seeking to kill its alleged enemies, rooting out

and suppressing all dissent from the official war effort, happily

betraying truth for the supposed public interest. Society

becomes an armed camp, with the values and the morale—as

Albert Jay Nock once phrased it—of an “army on the march.”

The root myth that enables the State to wax fat off war is the

canard that war is a defense by the State of its subjects. The

facts, of course, are precisely the reverse. For if war is the health

of the State, it is also its greatest danger. A State can only “die”

by defeat in war or by revolution. In war, therefore, the State

frantically mobilizes the people to fight for it against another 

State, under the pretext that it is fighting for them.

 

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

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

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 15: Political Division as Diversion

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here: https://youtu.be/Lzkg6IRNHDQ

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

Liberty Watch Episode 15:  Political Division as Diversion

LMV:  Hello again and welcome to another edition of Liberty Watch.  I am your host Liberty Man Van.  Our show for today is entitled “Political Division as Diversion” and will discuss how the differences between Republican and Democratic parties in the U.S. are minor.  While on the surface and to listen to the mainstream media and debates on C-SPAN you would think the parties are worlds apart, the reality is that they are alarmingly similar.  They are both for big government, fiscal irresponsibility, and the continuing rise of budget deficits and the national debt.  Did I mention the national debt?

Video:  National debt clock

LMV:  That’s right, 20 trillion dollars and growing- more than $170,000 per taxpayer.  And that does not include the so-called unfunded liabilities, costs that the government will owe in the future for items such as social security and Medicare.  Including these costs adds another $127 trillion, or over $1 Million per taxpayer.

But important questions such as the national debt hardly make it to the surface of the political and news consciousness.  I don’t believe this is an accident.  The political elites and their willing accomplices in the press don’t want you to focus on these types of issues.  Instead they divert your attention to tabloid events such as the Monika Lewinski sex scandal, the supposed hacking of the 2017 presidential election by the Russians, and the alleged use of the term “shithole countries” by Trump to refer to some third world nations in a meeting.  Meanwhile the continuing U.S. involvement in a 16 year old war in Afghanistan, the starving children in Yemen caused by a naval blockade by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, and the growing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela worsened by U.S. sanctions, and the continuing years long political imprisonment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange go unnoticed.

It is the old Roman bread and circus treatment.  Keep the dummies fed and entertained and they will not notice how they are being manipulated and robbed.  But with the advent of alternative media sources on the internet we no longer have any excuses for being tricked and misinformed.  Evidence the following article I found on disobedientmedia.com entitled “Political Division Is A Hysterical Charade Maintained By Corporate Press.”  From the article:

Graphic:  49% of Americans believe the country is: ‘run for the benefit of a small elite.’

“ The Hill recently reported that a staggering 49% of Americans believe the country is: ‘run for the benefit of a small elite.’ In other words, a vast portion of Americans are at least superficially familiar with the concept that the media representation of US politics does not serve the public at large and it functions to a large extent as propoganda.”

LMV:  Like a professional magician, one hand diverts our attention with a handkerchief while the other hand secretly performs the mechanics of the trick; our attention has been diverted from what is important.  The political parties want us to think as a tribe.  Whatever the other tribe does is all evil.  Whatever my tribe does is all good.  What they don’t want us to see is that they are just fighting over which tribe gets to control us and punish us if we are in the other tribe.  The constant bickering between the parties captures our attention.  Witness the recent days long coverage of if Donald Trump might have referred to some third world countries as “shithole countries” and if he did what that meant.

Video:  “Shithole” comments discussed ad nauseum.

LMV:  And back to the Disobedient Media article:

“Disobedient media recently reported on establishment Democrats’ subversion of the Democratic process in the 2016 Primary race, and their attempts to deflect from the revelation of their corruption by focusing exclusively on the largely discredited Russian hacking narrative. Allegations of Russian hacking, then Russian collusion, then Russian social media trolls consumed corporate media attention for what seemed like the entirety of 2017.”

LMV:  It seems like about all we heard from CNN and MSNBC in 2017 was about how there was some kind of collusion between the Trump team and Russia.  To hear them tell it, Trump was just a puppet of Vladimir Putin.  While they were floating these stories to their loyal tribe members watching on TV no substantive evidence of malfeasance has appeared.  But we do know that the chairman of the DNC during the primaries, Deborah Wasserman-Schultz was doing everything she could to ensure that Hillary Clinton rather than Bernie Sanders won the democratic nomination for President.  The following from Wikipedia.org:

“Wasserman Schultz was elected chairperson of the Democratic National Committee in May 2011, replacing Virginia Senator Tim Kaine.[2][3] On July 24, 2016, Wasserman Schultz announced her resignation from her position after Wikileaks released a collection of hacked emails indicating that Wasserman Schultz and other members of the DNC staff showed bias against the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton’s campaign.[3] Her resignation was finalized on July 28 following the 2016 Democratic National Convention.[4]”

LMV:  While this real life version of rigging an election only lasted in the news for a short time the unproven allegation of hacking by Russia wore on in the news for months.  And this from theintercept.com:

“LEADING CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS have spent the last year relentlessly accusing Donald Trump of being controlled by or treasonously loyal to a hostile foreign power. Over the last several months, they have added to those disloyalty charges a new set of alleged crimes: abusing the powers of the executive branch — including the Justice Department and FBI — to vindictively punish political opponents while corruptly protecting the serious crimes of his allies, including his own family members and possibly himself.

…One would hope, and expect, that those who genuinely view Trump as a menace of this magnitude and view themselves as #Resistance fighters would do everything within their ability to impose as many limits and safeguards as possible on the powers he is able to wield.

…Yesterday in Washington, congressional Democrats were presented with a critical opportunity to do exactly that. A proposed new amendment was scheduled to be voted on in the House of Representatives that would have imposed meaningful limits and new safeguards on Trump’s ability to exercise one of the most dangerous, invasive, and historically abused presidential powers: spying on the communications of American citizens without warrants.

…a substantial minority of GOP lawmakers have long opposed warrantless surveillance of Americans and thus, announced their intention to support new safeguards. Indeed, the primary sponsor and advocate of the amendment to provide new domestic spying safeguards was the conservative Republican from Michigan, Justin Amash…

…To secure enactment of these safeguards, Amash needed support from a majority of House Democrats. That meant that House Democrats held the power in their hands to decide whether Trump — the president they have been vocally vilifying as a lawless tyrant threatening American democracy — would be subjected to serious limits and safeguards on how his FBI could spy on the conversations of American citizens.

…Debate on the bill and the amendments began on the House floor yesterday afternoon, and it became quickly apparent that leading Democrats intended to side with Trump and against those within their own party who favored imposing safeguards on the Trump administration’s ability to engage in domestic surveillance.

…LEADING THE CHARGE against reforms of the FBI’s domestic spying powers was Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee who, in countless TV appearances, has strongly insinuated, if not outright stated, that Trump is controlled by and loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin.”

LMV:  Here is some video of this same Adam Schiff criticizing Trump for foreign influence.

Video:  Adam Schiff

LMV:  That’s right, Adam Schiff voted to continue to give Trump’s FBI to illegally spy on American citizens.  The two tribes will argue with each other because they each want to control the coercive force in D.C. but they never vote to curtail that force or its ability to spy on Americans.   By the way, among the numerous Democrats who voted in favor of giving Trump such unprecedented surveillance ability was infamous former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Disobedient media continues:

“The vote ripped the mask from the pretense of differentiation between the Democratic party and Republicans, and highlighted instead the troubling bipartisan support among lawmakers for increasing the power of the American deep state.”

LMV:  When it comes to increasing state power, the Republican and Democratic tribes are no different.  Likewise, they both agree to continue supporting the carnage in the middle east.  That brings us to another story that has continued for years and has been shielded from public view, the civil war in Yemen and our support of one of the main players in that conflict- Saudi Arabia.  As a part of the war effort, Saudi Arabia has conducted a blockage of Yemen’s ports.  This has prevented sufficient food, water, and medical supplies from reaching the people of Yemen.  It is the weak, the very young and very old, that have suffered the most death from this blockade.  It was started under the Obama administration but has continued with President Trump.  Meanwhile, Trump has signed off on a hundred billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.  Thousands of lives lost to hunger and cholera have underscored the complete lack of difference in foreign policy between two presidents, Trump and Obama, who could not seem more different.

LMV:  There was a time in America when we could point to the antiwar left.  During the Vietnam war there was widespread protest against the war.  As more U.S. soldiers came back in body bags the protests grew louder.  Yes, some of the protesters were simply opportunistic thugs and communist sympathizers who wanted to tear the country apart.  But others were protesting what they saw as a pointless war in a far-away country and were looking out for the young men conscripted to fight in the jungles of southeast Asia; they wanted to bring the boys home alive.

But the days of a solid anti-war sentiment from the left or right side of the political spectrum have vanished.  Neither party, for example, has spoken out about our continued 16 year occupation of Afghanistan.  Politicians don’t speak of ending the war, only of how we should conduct it.  It started under Bush, was continued under Obama, and has continued under Trump.  No matter which party is in power we get the same policy- more war.

Any sane person looking at U.S. military involvement in the middle east since 9/11 can see that it has been an unmitigated disaster.  Since the invasion in Afghanistan over 30,000 civilians have died.  Over 2300 U.S. soldiers have died and more than 20,000 have been wounded.  An estimated 150,000 total humans have died in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 2001 as a result of the war.  No end is in sight.

And how about the 2003 invasion of Iraq?  Americans were told that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and must be toppled from power.  Iraq was defeated, its leader slain, and a new government was installed after elections.  But the continued occupation of Iraq led to an insurgency and after the U.S. military withdrew chaos reigned.  The new power vacuum in Iraq destroyed what had been a counterbalance to Iran in the region.  Iran’s influence in the region has been augmented thanks to the U.S. invasion.  And what to show for it?  500,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, more than 4500 U.S. soldiers are dead and more than 32,000 wounded.

And let’s not forget Libya.  After taking one secular ruler out in Iraq and creating chaos the U.S. president, this time Obama, thought it would a good idea to take out another secular ruler.  This time the victim was Muammar Gaddafi and the result was the same- more bloodshed and civil war.  The result for has been a massive influx of migrants from Africa pouring through Libya and crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Western European countries.

We are given the illusion in the U.S. that because we elect our representatives we have control of the government.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  President Bush, Jr. ran as the anti-war candidate.  Obama ran as the anti-war candidate and for closing Guantanamo bay.  President Trump in his campaign signaled that we should decrease our footprint in the middle east.  Americans vote for less war but only get more war.  Every few years a new puppet is placed in the oval office but nothing changes.  We only have the illusion of control.  As long as we agree to be taxed without our consent our tax dollars will continue to be spent on warfare, domestic spying, and increasing the federal leviathan.

But not everyone has been fooled.  We will end the episode today with a clip from the premiere political sage of our age, George Carlin.

Video:  George Carlin

LMV:  That’s the show for today.  See you 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 Episodes 12, 13: Socialism vs. Communism

The following is the text version of my YouTube video.   You can view part one by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/QQX6j__suyU.

You can view part two by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/jUNFLHgy1dc

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

LMV:  Thanks for joining us for another edition of Liberty Watch.  I am your host Liberty Man Van.

LMV:  Today’s show is called Socialism vs. Communism.  We will look at a definition of each of these ideologies and talk about their differences and similarities.  Why an episode on socialism and communism?  We have recently passed the 100 year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia that ushered in a multi-decade period of communism in that country.  We begin with a definition of socialism according to the Webster online dictionary:

Socialism:

2a. a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b.  a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state.
3. a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.
1a. a theory advocating elimination of private property
b.  a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed
2.  capitalized
a.  a doctrine based on revolutionary Marxian socialism and Marxism-Leninism that was the official ideology of the U.S.S.R.
b.  a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production
c.  a final stage of society in Marxist theory in which the state has withered away and economic goods are distributed equitably

 

LMV:  In other words, let’s just all share and share alike a live in total peace and harmony.  Right?  Not so fast.  What may sound good in theory does not always work out so well in practice.  There are many flaws in socialism or communism.  For a detailed look I recommend “Socialism” by Ludwig von Mises.  One major flaw is that when you deny private property, you put the individual in the vulnerable position of having to get his bread from the state.  This means an individual cannot control his own destiny.  Two other major flaws are the calculation problem and the incentive problem.  How do you calculate the value of goods when there is not free market?  And what incentive does a person have to work hard and maximize their personal production when they have to turn around and hand the fruits of their labor over to the state?  This leads to economic stagnation for the individual and thus for the citizenry as a whole.

Because the state owns and controls the means of production the individual has become totally dependent on the state for his existence.  This state of affairs is antithetical to liberty; freedom is the opposite of dependence.

Our first article on the subject of socialism is entitled “Disaster in Red:  The Hundredth Anniversary of the Russian Socialist Revolution” and was published on the mises.org website.  From the article:

…November 7, 2017, marks the one hundredth anniversary of the Russian (or Bolshevik) Revolution in Russia that happened on that date in November 1917, which lead to the communist “dictatorship of the proletariat” and ushered in an epoch of totalitarian tyranny and mass murder both in Russia and in every other country where socialism was put into practice.

Historians estimate that as many as 150 million people, if not more — innocent men, women and children — were killed in the name of building the collectivist utopia. They were shot, tortured, worked or starved to death in prison cells, in interrogation rooms, in labor camps, or just in the places where they lived. “Socialism-in-practice” created a chamber of horrors in which the individual was reduced to a mere expendable “cog in the wheel” to serve the collective good, or made into “enemies of the people” to be eliminated as the prelude to building the “bright, beautiful communist future.”

…In the name of a “classless society,” communism created the most minute and granulated system of privilege, favor, and power, depending upon where the individual stood in the hierarchies of the Communist Party and the management of the vast central planning bureaucracy.

…The Communist Party did all in their power to control and confine the minds of those over whom they ruled into narrow corridors of knowledge and belief so little or no doubt could arise that theirs was the best of all worlds, and far more “socially just” and materially better than anything existing in the reactionary and corrupted capitalist parts of the globe.

…The nineteenth century French classical liberal economist, Paul Leroy-Beaulieu (1843-1916), gave warning in his important work, Collectivism (1885):

How can liberty exist in a society in which everyone would be an employee of the state brigaded in squadrons from which there would be no escape, dependent upon a system of official classification for promotion, and for all the amenities of life! . . . The employee (and all would be employees) would be the slave, not of the state, which is merely an abstraction, but of the politicians who possessed themselves of power.

LMV:  Don’t take my word about the evils of socialism.  In the following video clips you will hear from a lady who once lived under the Soviet regime.

Video clips of former U.S.S.R. resident

LMV:  A current example of the ill-effects of socialism comes from the country of Venezuela.   These excerpts come from a fee.org article entitled “Venezuela Proves there is no Political Freedom without Economic Freedom.”

…The impact that the field of economics has on our daily lives is not easily recognized by the majority of people. Preoccupied with our immediate needs and daily tasks, the state of the economy not only seems disconnected from our lives, it feels almost completely irrelevant.

…But economics is intrinsically connected to almost every single aspect of our lives. From the clothes we wear to the food we eat, to our jobs and our education: economics is in all things. And without economic freedom, there can be no liberty. Period.

Anyone having any doubts that economic control will necessarily lead to tyranny and oppression, need only look to Venezuela.

…It has always been peculiar to me that socialists believe so fervently in social freedom and yet detest economic liberty. This is why many proponents of socialism and other forms of state control will advocate for economic restrictions, without a concern for civil liberties.

…But once economic control has been seized by the government, the stripping of our individual rights will soon follow.

…The situation in Venezuela has become so dire, it would fit perfectly into the plot of any dystopian novel. What started as an economic crisis has now escalated to a humanitarian nightmare of which there appears to be no end in sight.

…At its height, the country was capable of producing 3.5 million barrels of oil per day. But after Chavez came to power and an oil worker strike ensued, the leader decided to fire those on strike and instead, bring in workers who were loyal to his government.

…And after years of continued mismanagement and poor decision-making at the hand of the state, the oil output began declining significantly.

As Austrian economist Frederick Hayek once warned:  “And whoever controls all economic activity controls the means for all our ends and must therefore decide which are to be satisfied and which not. This is really the crux of the matter.”

And continuing with the fee.org article:

…Food and necessities, like toilet paper, are not only in short supply; they are also completely under state control. Those wanting to acquire these items must wake up long before the sun has risen and stand in long lines. While waiting in these lines, these “consumers,” if you can even still call them that, are sitting ducks for thieves.

It has become common for thugs and others with malicious intent to hold people at gunpoint and rob them of whatever wealth they have left. Last year, one man was killed in line in an attempt to guard his cellphone.

Meanwhile, as he lay dying, the line did not break, because to lose your place in line, even to attend to the wounded, meant that you may not get to feed your family.

LMV:  Despite the astronomical body count and economic failures socialism continues to be espoused in Western countries; it continues to enjoy admirers and apologists from the media, academia, and Hollywood.

Witness this example from MIT press, a children’s book entitled “Communism for Kids.”  That’s right, one of our beloved institutions of higher learning is promoting communism.   So what is communism?  The book tells us the following:

…Communism names the society that gets rid of all the evils people suffer today in our society under capitalism. There are lots of different ideas about what communism should look like. But if communism means getting rid of all the evils people suffer under capitalism, then the best kind of communism is the one that can get rid of the most evils.

LMV:  And what is capitalism?  According to this book…

…Capitalism exists today all over the world, and it’s called capitalism because capital rules…In capitalism, there are certainly people who have more power than others, but there isn’t a queen who sits on a throne high above society and commands everybody. So if people no longer rule over society, who does? The answer may sound a little strange. Things do…They’re just the things that people create to make life easier, to serve them. Strangely, over time, people forget that they made those things, and soon enough, people begin to serve the things!

LMV:  And now an article from Zero Hedge “Millennials Prefer Socialism to Capitalism.”  The article is based on data from the victimsofcommunism.org website.

Graphic:  Annual report on U.S. attitudes towards socialism.

Graphic:  44% of millennials prefer socialism over capitalism.  Do they know what it means?

LMV:  The previous graphic asked if millennials know what socialism is, but as you can see from the next graphic, 70% of Americans as a whole are confused about what socialism is.

Graphic:  7 in 10 Americans either don’t know the definition of communism or misidentify it.

LMV:  I am going to give Americans a pass on being confused about the definitions of socialism and communism.  Let’s take the definition of communism given by this website and compare it to the one given by the online Webster definition earlier.  Here is the victimsofcommunism.org definition:

Graphic with definition of communism:  Socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social
classes, money and the state.

LMV:  Wow!  You mean Marx was an anarchist?  I didn’t know that.  Absence of a state is the definition of anarchy.  Now contrast that with one of the definitions of communism we look at earlier- a totalitarian system of government in which a single authoritarian party controls state-owned means of production.

And britannica.com can understand the confusion.  It makes the following comments:

…Exactly how communism differs from socialism has long been a matter of debate, but the distinction rests largely on the communists’ adherence to the revolutionary socialism of Karl Marx.

…Like most writers of the 19th century, Marx tended to use the terms communism and socialism interchangeably…Marx identified two phases of communism that would follow the predicted overthrow of capitalism: the first would be a transitional system in which the working class would control the government and economy yet still find it necessary to pay people according to how long, hard, or well they worked; the second would be fully realized communism—a society without class divisions or government, in which the production and distribution of goods would be based upon the principle “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

LMV:  In this next graphic we juxtapose the definitions of communism, socialism, and fascism.  Notice how the definitions of communism and socialism do not include any mention of force while fascism includes dictatorial power and forceful suppression of opposition as characteristics?  Yet we see in practice that socialist regimes are all about the use of force.  Remember Mao’s cultural revolution and Stalin’s gulags?

This is not surprising when we consider Marx’s phrase “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”  We could phrase this in another way “Take from those who produce the most and give to those who produce less.”  Did Marx really think that could be achieved without force?  Did he really think people would willfully work their tails off so they could give the fruits of their labor to strangers?  This flies against human nature.  And, contrary to socialist sophists such as Bernie Sanders, it does not make you greedy to want to keep what you have earned.  Despite being taxed heavily for social welfare programs, Americans remain the most giving people on the face of the earth.

LMV:  Now to the punch line of the “Annual Report on US
Attitudes towards Socialism” survey.  More millennials would prefer to live under socialism than capitalism.

Graphic: Millennials prefer socialism.

LMV:  And another alarming finding of the survey is that millennials are the least unfavorable towards communism.

Graphic:  Millennials least hostile towards communism.

LMV:  How can this be?  Is our educational system soft peddling the horrors of communist regimes.  Everyone should know the approximate body count of this evil ideology- 150 million dead and counting.

Graphic:  shows percent in each age bracket that correctly said communism had killed 100 million or more.

LMV:  And finally, there is another form of “socialism” that is practiced by the so-called social democracies such as in Western Europe.  It does not strictly meet the definition of socialism because there is private property and capitalism; the state does not own the means of production.  Although it does not meet the strict definition of socialism it still has many of the same damaging effects because it is based on coercion rather than voluntarism.  In the United States these are programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Aid for Families with Dependent Children and so on.  In Western Europe many countries such as the U.K. have “free” universal health care.

In the United States the so-called “Affordable Health Care Act” or Obamacare is a movement in the direction of socialized medicine.  If you are like me and believe in liberty and free markets, these types of programs should be fought tooth and nail; they are socialistic in nature and result in a loss of individual sovereignty.

LMV:  And because socialism is all about central planning, I will close with this humorous video with a message.

Video:  Serfdom USA.

LMV:  And that’s our show for today.  Join us next time for another exciting episode of Liberty Watch.

 

Liberty Watch Episode 11: Hurricanes and Wein-Stains

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEp6Au3E7lE

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

LMV:  Wow!  Did you like my show intro?  I thought it was pretty cool but then I remembered this intro.

Audio clip:  Intro to Rolling Stones song Brown Sugar.

LMV:  And then I remembered this intro.

Audio clip:  Intro to Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter.

LMV:  So I must confess my intro is not as cool as the Stones’.  Nevertheless, welcome to another edition of Liberty Watch.  I am your host Liberty Man Van.  The hurricane season of 2017 has been a particularly active one.  Coincidentally, the Miami Hurricanes are off to a great start at 7-0.  It seems that every ten years or so we have a bunch of hurricanes in one season and the years in between are relatively inactive.  No matter how many inactive seasons we have someone is sure to attribute the active one to global warming, rather, to climate change.  They used to call it global warming but after several years of cooling recently they have renamed it climate change- that is sure to encompass whatever happens.

Hurricane Harvey, the worse storm of the year hit Texas hard, including staying stationary for a while and dumping megatons of water on the Houston area; massive flooding was the result.  Here is a little of the news coverage from that storm.

Video clips of Hurricane Harvey in Houston.

LMV:  And whenever nature moves to damage an area and citizens, the price gougers are soon to follow.

Video:  Price gouging report.

LMV:  Should these natural disaster entrepreneurs be arrested or fined?  The emotional response is to say “hell yes!”, but a more careful look reveals a more nuanced answer.  Consider the following article from FEE.org entitled “Anti-Price Gouging Laws Make About As Much Sense As Anti-High Temperature Laws.”  The article begins with the typical defense of anti-price gouging laws:

“Many residents in Texas and Louisiana have suffered from the devastating effects of Hurricane Harvey in recent days, and some of those residents are now being unfairly subjected to further suffering from the unconscionable actions of businesses and individuals who are engaged in illegal price gouging for essential goods like gasoline, water, and food.

To prevent residents from being victimized by ruthless and greedy price gougers, Texas law prohibits businesses from charging “exorbitant prices” for gasoline, food, water, clothing, and lodging following natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey.

Despite those price gouging laws, one large Texas retailer was allegedly charging $42 for a case of water and a gas station in the affected area was reported to be charging $99 for a case of water according to the Texas attorney general. Those retailers are now subject to legal prosecution and fines for charging “excessively high” prices in violation of price gouging laws in Texas.”

LMV:  What is the libertarian way to view this question?  In short, the government should butt out and allow the free market to sort out prices.  This approach allows the maximum amount of freedom for people and businesses to sort it out.  In addition, it just happens to be the most humane approach because it allows precious resources to be allocated to those that need them the most.  The FEE.org article continues:

“The artificially low, government-mandated prices will cause distortions and inefficiencies in Texas and Louisiana because the artificial prices won’t accurately and truthfully reflect the economic reality that supplies of critical goods are extremely low at the same time demand for those goods is extremely high.

Price gouging laws create a government-mandated fantasy world with prices that create a complete disconnect between the true measure of a scare good’s value and a fantasy measure of that good’s value.”

“When it comes to maximizing the efficient allocation of resources following a natural disaster like Hurricane Harvey, what we want are accurate, truthful and precise measures of market conditions (supply and demand), and we can only get those measures from market prices, not from artificial, government-mandated price gouging laws.”

LMV:  When I see anti-price gouging laws and sentiment I am reminded of President Nixon’s response to the Arab oil embargo of the early 70’s.  I can remember watching the evening news and seeing the video footage of the long lines at the gas stations.  Nixon’s response was to impose price controls and rationing.  The price controls prevented price gouging and the result was scarcity and prolongation of the crisis.

Whether rising prices are due to an oil embargo or to a natural distaster, if we allow prices to develop naturally rather try to put artificial caps on prices, we are more likely to ensure that people get the scarce resources they need.  Prices convey a vital piece of information.  They tell us where goods are needed the most so that market actors can make accurate decisions and move goods with the maximum of efficiency.   In other words, anti-price gouging laws are counter-productive because they are likely to prolong the scarcity of goods.  Those who are “too greedy” will end up with goods they cannot sell and will be undercut by competitors.  Allowing the free market to determine prices will be more compassionate, more efficient, and allow maximum freedom.

LMV:  That brings us to our next article from the mises.org website entitled “The Broken-Window Fallacy is Alive and Well.”  The broken-window fallacy was passed down to us from nineteenth century French economist Frederic Bastiat.  It goes something like this.  A shopkeeper has a window at his business broken by a careless son and pay a glazier six francs to replace it.  This stimulates the economy because it has put the glazier to work.  Right?  Wrong!  The happy glazier is what is seen.  What is not seen is that the shopkeeper had planned to spend that six francs on a good pair of shoes.  So, not only is the shopkeeper out of six francs but so is the cobbler.  That is a net loss of six francs; that is what is not seen.

Fast forward to 21st century Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.  The mises.org article states:

“As Hurricane Harvey, now tropical storm Harvey, makes its way across the southern US, estimates have already come in as to the cost of the storm. According to AccuWeather, Harvey is expected to cost upwards of $190 billion in damages, one percent of the national GDP. This makes Harvey the costliest storm ever to hit the United States, more than Katrina ($100 billion) and Sandy ($60 billion) combined.

Here Come The Clowns

As in the wake of every disaster, pundits and politically biased economists — including Larry Summers who declared Japan’s 2011 Tsunami would boost economic growth —  will wax elegantly on how Harvey will end up being a boon for “the economy.” CNBC, for example, reports that Hurricane Harvey may ultimately “raise wages.”  It will spawn government spending and insurance payouts to flood victims, we’re told. These victims will spend that money in the economy which will put people back to work, employ the factors of production and so on and so on.

LMV:  This fallacy seems to surface every time we have a disaster but common sense tells us that if you have to spend money to replace something that you already had, you have not created any new wealth.  In fact, you have lost wealth.

You have heard similar logic from historians discussing how World War ll helped end the Great Depression.  After all, didn’t the GDP explode upward during the war?  Yes it did but we must keep in mind that government spending is counted in the GDP numbers.  And does it follow that spending on tanks, battleships, and bombs really adds to wealth?  Surely not.  If a family spends funds on guns and ammunition to protect the home, it means you have less to spend on bicycles or televisions.  In a word, resources used to recover from a natural disaster do not spur economic growth.

LMV:  And now for our final angle regarding this year’s hurricanes.  I have noticed through the years that it seems the same flood prone areas get hit again and again.  And the houses are rebuilt in those same flood prone areas again and again.  Why does this happen?  Why do we never learn from our mistakes?  Why do we continue to engage in this risky behavior?

The short answer is that someone other than the property owners are paying for it.  If the property owners had to pay a market price for flood insurance the cost would be much greater and many of them would be discouraged from rebuilding in the same flood prone areas.

One article that captured the folly appeared in the USA Today and was entitled “Dear Texas, how many times do we have to rebuild the same house?”

From the article:

…Hurricane Harvey offers the clearest lesson why Congress should not perpetuate the federal National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), which expires at the end of September. The ravages in Houston and elsewhere would be far less if the federal government had not offered massively subsidized flood insurance in high-risk, environmentally perilous locales. But this is the same folly that the feds have perpetuated for almost 50 years.

…NFIP embraced a “flood-rebuild-repeat” model that has spawned an almost $25 billion debt. The National Wildlife Federation estimated in 1998 that 2% of properties covered by federal flood insurance had multiple damage claims accounting for 40% of flood insurance outlays, and that more than 5,000 homes had repeat claims exceeding their property value. A recent Pew Charitable Trust study revealed that 1% of the 5 million properties insured have produced almost a third of the damage claims and half the debt.

…NFIP paid to rebuild one Houston home 16 times in 18 years, spending almost a million dollars to perpetually restore a house worth less than $120,000…The Washington Post recently reported that a house “outside Baton Rouge, valued at $55,921, has flooded 40 times over the years, amassing $428,379 in claims. A $90,000 property near the Mississippi River north of St. Louis has flooded 34 times, racking up claims of more than $608,000.

…FEMA has loitered on updating in part because many members of Congress vehemently oppose accurate estimates of the risks and updated, higher insurance rates for their constituents.

…The financial soundness of federal flood insurance will always depend on politicians’ self-restraint in buying votes. In other words, the program is actuarially doomed. There is no constitutional right to federal bailouts for flooded homes. The sooner the feds exit the flood insurance business, the safer American coasts and paychecks will be.

LMV:  In other words, like all government programs, it is to benefit the politicians and their well connected friends that tax money is spent.  There are precious few politicians in D.C. that are taking up for the taxpayers.  The expense is accrued by the many and the benefits to the few.  The is same old tired story we see again and again with government.  Let me say it as I have said it before.  The government always looks out for its best interests first.  It is not there to protect you or to be your congenial benefactor.  Get those ideas out of your head and you won’t be surprised when these types of bad programs continue to exist decade after decade.

LMV:  Our next story is a about big shot Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein.  As you may have heard, he has been accused being a sexual predator over the many years of his Hollywood career.  Here is a snippet from a USA today article:

…Since the New York Times and New Yorker published bombshell reports detailing decades of alleged sexual harassment and assault by producer Harvey Weinstein early this month, dozens of women have come forward with similar claims against the movie mogul.

60 women have accused Weinstein of inappropriate to potentially criminal behavior ranging from requests for massages to intimidating sexual advances to rape.

LMV:  This is not surprising for those of us who are enlightened by our love of rock and roll.  As a matter of fact, the Eagles wrote a song about this activity years ago.

Audio clip:  From the Eagles song King of Hollywood.

LMV:  The fact is, this type of behavior has been well known in Hollywood for decades.  Why is everyone so shocked.  This is old news.

LMV:  And finally, it is time in the show for a little libertarian humor.  Did you ever wonder what the libertarian version of Star Wars would look like?

Video clip:  Libertarian Star Wars.

LMV:  And that’s our show for today.  Thanks for joining us, tell a friend, and 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.

 

 

Liberty Watch Episode 7: Assad chemical attack?

The following is the text version of my YouTube video which can be viewed by clicking here:  https://youtu.be/e6-wJv6iJqc

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

Opening video of Liberty Man Van shows him peeking out from behind his chair.  He wonders out loud if it is safe to come out again.  He is scared because it looks as if Trump may be moving us closer to a war with Russia.  How?  Because on the 100th anniversary of America’s entry into WWI an American warship bombed a Syrian military air base.

  • A town in Syria was apparently hit by sarin gas bombs dropped by Syrian government jets killing dozens, including women and children.
  • Assad and Russia say that a cache of chemical weapons were accidentally hit during a bombing attack on a rebel positions.
  • Many, including President Trump and the mainstream media, immediately assumed that Assad was lying and began lobbying for American military reaction to the event.  (Video of Trump statement.)
  • There were a few cool heads that did not jump to conclusions.  In this video a CNN reporter just can’t believe that Rep. Thomas Massie would question the mainstream narrative that Assad ordered a chemical weapons attack (video clip of Massie interview).
  • Trump immediately ordered a cruise missile attack on a Syrian air base(videos of Trump discussing his decision and of cruise missiles being launched).
  • Trump tweeted multiple times when a similar event occurred in 2013 criticizing Obama for acting too hastily.  Video shows tweet(s).
  • I am not saying and Russia are telling the truth.  All I am saying is that at the time Trump launched the cruise missiles we did not have much information yet.  It seems our reaction was to attack first and ascertain the facts later.
  • Since Trump was elected the democrats have been pushing the narrative that he was cozy with Russia’s President Putin and that Russia interfered by hacking with the election process.  This might have contributed to him being “trigger happy” to show that he is no pawn of Putin.
  • Let’s take a step back for a moment.  One jocular aspect of this story emerged.  Rachel Maddow’s show was preempted by Brian Williams in order to show this breaking news story.  Her fans labeled CNBC “sexist.”   Video of headline.  The left shouts sexist, bigot, racist, homophobe, xenophone constantly.  This story shows why we should consider them the boy that cried wolf.

Now back to the sarin gas story.  The fundamental question remains- Did Assad really gas his own people again?

  • We never got definitive proof that Assad ordered the first gas attack back in 2013.
  • Trump and our Secretary of State had just made statements two days earlier that the international community should accept that Assad is in power.  (Video clip of Secretary of State Tillerson making statement).
  • Assad was already winning the civil war in his country.
  • What incentive would he have to turn international opinion against him and possibly draw the U.S. into the conflict against him?
  • The mainstream media immediately accepted the “Assad is guilty” narrative.  Could it be that war sells more newspapers and creates more viewership?
  • It didn’t take long for the usual suspects to call for the U.S. to “make ’em pay.”(video of Senator McCain and Graham).
  • It was encouraging to see that not all of Trump’s supporters just fell into line after he elected to fire those cruise missiles.  I was surprised by what Ann Coulter had to say(video of Coulter comments).
  • Here we go again?  Every time we take out a secular leader in the middle east it results in utter chaos- Hussein in Iraq, Kaddafi in Libya.  How well have those turned out?  What is the end game this time.  Who we be installed in power?  ISIS?
  • Just a “one off” attack to show he is not a Russian patsy and not the beginning of an ever increasing U.S. troop presence in Syria?  If so, maybe there is still hope and Trump will not get into another unnecessary conflict.  We will give him the benefit of a doubt for now.  Stay tuned.

And now for a little libertarian humor.  Did you ever wonder what a libertarian Jesus would look like?  Video of scene of Jesus admonishing one of his disciples with the caption “I told you to feed the poor… not create laws that steal from people to do it.”

And another scene from the libertarian Jesus.  Video of Jesus to his disciple saying “Blessed are the tax collectors, for true charity comes not from the heart, but through the glory of government confiscation.”

In our last episode I predicted that the GOP’s attempted replacement for Obamacare, the American Health Care Act, would not succeed.  Now we have the results of that effort and it looks like this- show video of plane crashing on take-off.

  • Candidate Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare
  • torpedoed by the House freedom caucus, not the democrats
  • lukewarm bill would have done little to change Obamacare
  • Trump attacks freedom caucus, not moderate Republicans, promises to go after them in the midterm election
  • Too many Republicans don’t really want to repeal Obamacare.  They favor government intervention into the economy.  They give a double meaning to RINO 1) Republicans in name only and 2) repeal in name only.
  • Republicans started from a moderate position.  Contrast this with how the Democrats start negotiations when they are in power.

Liberty Man Van:   I believe that in order to engage in many political discussions it would be wise for folks to have a basic understanding of economics because many ideas proposed by our political leaders show a lack of understanding on this topic.

Our next story is a lesson in economics and it comes from the island of Puerto Rico.   Before we get into that lesson let’s take a brief look at American involvement there.

  • A U.S. territory
  • The Spanish controlled the island until 1898 when the U.S. invaded and the Spanish ceded control to the United States.
  • Roosevelt appointed Rex Tugwell as governor in 1941.  He would serve in that position until 1946.
  • Tugwell was a New Deal economist and part of FDR’s “brain trust”, a group of Columbia University academics who aided with New Deal policy making.  We’ll come back to him in a moment.  Let’s fast forward to today.
  • Puerto Rico is on the verge of bankruptcy.
  • Double-digit unemployment rate has not been below 9.7% in forty years.
  • Its per capita debt is four times that of detroit, which has already gone bankrupt.
  • Almost half of the island’s 3.7 million residents live below the U.S. poverty line.
  • Nearly 40% of households get food stamps.
  • Until recently, the retirement age for government school teachers was as low as 47.

Now back to Professor, rather Governor Rex Tugwell.  He

  • Directed the island from its natural comparative advantage in agriculture and into manufacturing.  After all, the climate seemed right for it.
  • So much for the thriving sugar cane and coffee industries.
  • He lobbied for all the aid and welfare from the mainland he could get and set the tone for decades to come.
  • Other New Dealers would come to the island after he left to offer more of the same- a highly regulated business environment and more welfare.
  • So remember the lessons from Detroit and Puerto Rico and next time you here a politician offer to give you “free stuff.”
  • Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once famously said “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

That’s the show for today.  Be sure to join us next time for another exciting episode of Liberty Watch.