Posted by Streamline on 03/17/09

Patriotism is not blind nationalism. In my view, there is none more foolish than the man who pledges his whole life to a government, only because it currently rules the accidental location of his birth. 

True patriots are not loyal to a land mass, a government, a person, or group of people; they are loyal to ideas–the ideas that nature and history prove righteous to their own reflection, such as self-government and individual liberty. It is not only the flag to which true patriots pledge allegiance, but also the republic for which it stands: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. 

Sadly, these simple lines, which we have recited for as long as we can remember, have nearly lost their meaning for most Americans. 

Perhaps we are so long removed from the origination of a free society that we have forgotten its price. Perhaps we have forgotten what freedom is: the absence of government coercion. Perhaps we have forgotten that truly beneficial policies almost always stand on their own merit, without the aid of massive government enforcement agencies. 

Perhaps we have begun to take liberty for granted, so we allow it to be chiseled away each year by just a few more taxes, just a few more regulations, just a few more unconstitutional spending programs, just a few more harmless potheads turned into untouchable felons, just a few more unwarranted surveillance operations, just a few more troops on our streets to suppress the political dissenters, just a few more unfounded arrests and detainments, just a few more unnecessary casualties in the never-ending war for universal authority, just a few more computerized balloting systems, and just a little bit more government control. 

After all, most of us feel we can still go about our business uninterrupted by these controls and live adequately, if not freely. I fear now that by the time we realize that this is no longer true, by the time our old friends and fellow citizens–educated, hard-working, freedom-loving people of integrity–are declared dangerous enemies of the state, it will be too late to change the authoritarian direction of our nation, and it will be easier for us to act nationalistic and tolerated, silent and unencumbered, compliant and alive, than to be honest and endangered, righteous and imprisoned, patriotic and dead. 

The false patriots will have won, successfully driving freedom out of the only safe harbor it has ever known. American freedom, having long treaded in tempestuous weather, is drowning in the vast seas of prosperity and contentment it produced. Its only lifeline is We The People.

Posted by Streamline on 05/19/09
Last updated 05/19/09

Dear Mr. Clarke:
 
Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding the Federal Reserve Transparency Act and other efforts to audit the Federal Reserve. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.
 
As you may be aware, The Federal Banking Agency Audit Act of 1978 requires the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to conduct regular audits of the three Federal Reserve Bodies. Since 1978, the GAO has conducted over 100 audits of these institutions. The Federal Reserve Transparency act seeks to eliminate certain restrictions on the GAO's auditing capabilities.
 
Please know that I share your commitment to strong financial transparency. I believe strongly that oversight is necessary to ensure that the United States' central bank is held to appropriate standards of openness and fundamental stability. I will keep your support for this legislation in mind as it comes before me in Congress.
 
Thank you again for your correspondence. Also, if you would like to receive information on this and other issues pending before the Congress on a regular basis, I would like to invite you to sign up for my e-newsletter. This newsletter is distributed by my congressional office and covers events going on in Congress and in our Congressional District that may be of interest to you. To sign up, please visit my website: http://patrickkennedy.house.gov. 
 
I hope you will not hesitate to contact me in the future regarding this or other issues of importance to you.
 

  Sincerely,
   
  Patrick Kennedy
  Member of Congress

Spoken Like a True Politician!  I will do all I can to make sure these bums are thrown out in 2010! 

Posted 05/19/09 JamesButabi Pawtucket, RI

What a coincidence! I received the same exact email word for word....and it only took 3 weeks to get to me!

Posted by Streamline on 04/22/09

Why Does America Have a Drug War?
by Jacob G. Hornberger

Given that most people agree that the drug war has failed to achieve its supposed purpose after decades of warfare, an important question arises: Why is the drug war still being waged, especially when we consider all the collateral damage that this federal program has produced? Hasn’t the time arrived for Americans to demand an immediate end to the war on drugs?

Let’s first consider the concept of freedom. There is no way to reconcile drug laws with the principles of a free society.

Under basic principles of freedom, a person has the fundamental right to live his life in any way he chooses so long as his conduct is peaceful and doesn’t violate the equal right of everyone else to do the same.

Thus, most people support laws against such actions as murder, theft, fraud, burglary, robbery, and rape because they involve the initiation of force by one person against another. They involve one person’s violating the right of another person to live his life in a peaceful manner.

But there is a wide range of actions that are risky, dangerous, and even harmful to the person engaging in them, actions that do not involve coercion or aggression against another person but that oftentimes involve severe injury to the person engaged in them.

Consider mountain climbing, which can be very dangerous. Every few years, people are killed climbing Mount Everest, K-2, and other mountains around the world.

The same goes for scuba diving, race-car driving, and even cycling. There are higher-than-ordinary risks to life and limb when people engage in certain activities.

Should the government have the authority to make those activities illegal, in order to protect people from loss of life? An advocate of freedom would say no. Freedom entails the right to engage in high-risk activities, even if most people choose not to do so.

What about activities in which people place their money at higher-than-ordinary risk? For example, investing in start-up companies, the futures market, or oil drilling. Gambling would be another example. Should the government make such activities illegal, in order to protect people’s savings?

Again, most of us would say no. Freedom entails the right to do what one wants with his own money, even if he chooses to risk it all on a spin of a roulette wheel.

What about ingesting harmful substances? Here is where some people’s attitude changes. Somehow they’ve come to the conclusion that freedom should simply be tossed out the window in favor of government protection from one’s peaceful choices when the choice involves the ingestion of a harmful substance.

Yet what is considered destructive or harmful is a highly subjective matter. There are people who consider the consumption of meat to be harmful. Should the government have the authority to outlaw the eating of meat? How about sugar? Fatty foods?

Why shouldn’t people be free to make those choices on their own? Why should a person’s consumption habits be subject to the vote of the majority? Why isn’t the exercise of such choices a fundamental right with which no one can legitimately interfere?

The principle is really no different with respect to the consumption of most products, including alcohol, cocaine, heroin, and tobacco. While most of us would consider the consumption of such things to be unhealthy, the fact is that some people are willing to incur the potential adverse effects of drugs for reasons that are important to them. Why shouldn’t they be free to make that call? Under what moral authority do governmental officials incarcerate them, fine them, or otherwise punish them for making that choice?

Drug-war proponents often argue that a person’s drug use inevitably affects other people, especially his family. The argument is meant to suggest that the principles of freedom don’t really apply here because the drug user is violating the rights of others.

That argument, however, reflects a woeful lack of understanding of freedom. Whenever a family member makes a choice, especially one entailing high risk to his life, limbs, or fortune, the choice has potentially bad consequences for the rest of the family. If a person gets killed climbing Mount Everest, that will adversely affect his family. The same holds true if he loses all his money investing in a start-up company or if he risks all his money at a roulette wheel in Las Vegas.

Thus, the issue is not whether people’s choices adversely affect others. The issue is whether the choice is a peaceful one – that is, one that does not involve the initiation of force against another person (e.g., murder, rape, robbery). If the choice is peaceful, then a free society ensures that its exercise is protected regardless of its adverse effect on others.

The right to be left alone

State law-enforcement agents recently raided the home of Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland. The agents had tracked a package containing marijuana that had been left on the front porch of Calvo’s house. When Calvo got home, he picked up the package and carried it into his house. Armed with a warrant, the drug agents burst into the house without warning, shot and killed Calvo’s two dogs, and bound Calvo and his mother-in-law.

As things turned out, neither Calvo nor anyone in his home had anything to do with the drug transaction, as law-enforcement officials later acknowledged. The delivery of the package was part of a scheme in which drugs were being shipped to addresses of unsuspecting people, where they would be picked up by others involved in the scheme.

Much of the hullabaloo in the press revolved around the fact that the search warrant did not authorize a no-knock raid, that the mayor and his family turned out to be innocent, and that his dogs were killed. Nearly everyone missed the much more important point: What business is it of the state that the mayor might have been consuming a harmful substance in the privacy of his own home? Why isn’t that his personal business? Why should the government have the power to harass, abuse, and punish him for possessing or consuming marijuana or any other drug in his own home?

In other words, under what moral authority do they punish a person who is doing nothing more than ingesting substances that other people disapprove of?

Moreover, it’s not as if there isn’t a bit of inconsistency in all this. As everyone knows, it’s legal for adults to consume alcohol and tobacco, two drugs that have killed many more people than marijuana, cocaine, heroin, or other illicit drugs. Why is it that people are free to ingest alcohol and tobacco and not free to ingest other harmful substances?

The perpetual, destructive war

When I began practicing law in 1975, the drug war was in full swing. In fact, my first trial involved a federal drug case in which I had been appointed to represent an indigent defendant. The assistant U.S. attorney and the drug agents who were involved in the case were committed, devoted, ardent enthusiasts of the drug war. They honestly believed they were serving their country by arresting and prosecuting drug-law violators. They honestly believed that their efforts would bring “victory” in the drug war.

Presumably, those agents are now retiring with their federal pensions. Many of the drug agents who are now serving in their stead are no doubt driven by the same level of commitment that characterized agents 33 years ago. However, there is one big difference: The agents of today have a difficult time arguing with a straight face that their efforts are likely to bring “victory” in the drug war sometime soon.

Most people now view the drug war as a permanent fixture of American life. The fact that it has proven to be such an utter failure seems irrelevant to most people. All that seems to matter is that law-enforcement agents continue making drug busts, raiding homes, arresting people, and filling the prisons. That has become the never-ending measure of drug-war success, even if all those actions do nothing to stem the consumption of illegal drugs.

We also shouldn’t forget all the collateral damage from the drug war. Over the years, the illegality has caused prices and profits to soar, as they usually do in a black market. That has attracted drug lords, drug gangs, and drug cartels, which have then proceeded to engage in deadly turf battles, mostly in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.

Drug addicts have gone on theft and robbery sprees to secure the money to purchase the higher-priced drugs, something that alcoholics or tobacco addicts never do, since the price of their addiction is comparatively lower. There is also corruption in the form of bribes paid to law-enforcement officers and judges.

Prisons are overfilled with drug-law violators. Moreover, the adverse consequences of the drug war fall disproportionately on blacks. As the Drug Policy Alliance Network points out,

Although African Americans compromise only 12.2 percent of the population and 13 percent of drug users, they make up 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted of drug offenses causing critics to call the war on drugs the “New Jim Crow.”

Among the most important adverse collateral damage has been the massive infringement of privacy rights and civil liberties, especially through search and seizure of people’s bodies, homes, automobiles, personal effects, and financial records.

And all for what? Just to keep the drug war going, no matter how much a failure it is and no matter how much damage it causes.

Support for the drug war

Why do people continue to support the drug war after decades of failure and horrible collateral damage? I suspect that the answer is twofold.

First, many people feel that drug legalization would send a message to people, especially the young, that society approves of drug consumption.

How valid is such a reason? It’s not valid at all. After all, in some states adultery is legal and no one worries about whether society is sending a message that people approve of adultery. People have come to believe that freedom entails the right to commit the nonviolent sin of adultery without being punished by the state for it. The same holds true for the consumption of alcohol and tobacco.

Second, many people are still holding out hope that the continuing drug busts will finally produce “victory,” which will enable the state to end the drug war. But that’s just a pipe dream. For one thing, how much freedom would people have to surrender in order to achieve such a “victory”? A few years ago, the Thai government embarked on a deadly campaign to kill all the drug dealers in the country. After killing thousands of drug suspects, Thai officials are still waging a fierce war on drugs and catching lots of people in the process.

Perhaps many advocates of the drug war have good intentions. Perhaps they honestly want to rid society of the scourge of drugs. But what good are good intentions? What do they matter? Even if we ascribe the best of intentions to drug-war proponents, the fact remains: the drug war is an utter failure and an engine of death, damage, and destruction.

Ending the drug war

What would happen if the drug war were ended and drugs were legalized? The first thing that would happen is that the drug gangs, drug lords, and drug cartels would go out of business instantaneously. Such people do well in black markets, when an activity is illegal, but they might well find it difficult to compete against legitimate pharmaceutical companies in a free-market setting.

Wouldn’t putting drug giants out of business overnight be considered victory if it were accomplished through the drug war?

The second thing that would happen is that the number of robberies, muggings, burglaries, and thefts would plummet, because drug users would no longer have to pay the exorbitant and artificially high prices for black-market drugs.

Wouldn’t a reduction in violent crime be considered a victory if it were accomplished through the drug war?

The third thing that would happen is that more drug addicts would be likely to seek treatment, because they would no longer have to hide their addiction for fear of being caught and sent to jail. Rehabilitation usually depends on frank and open discussion of one’s addiction, something that the harsh penalties of the drug war don’t encourage.

Wouldn’t an increase in the number of people seeking drug rehab be considered a victory if it were accomplished through the drug war?

The fourth thing that would happen is that corruption among law-enforcement agents and judges would plummet, because the absence of drug prosecutions would dry up the payment of drug-war bribes.

Wouldn’t a decrease in corruption be considered a victory if it were accomplished through the drug war?

The fifth thing that would happen is that a government program whose adverse consequences fall disproportionately on a racial minority would be removed from American society.

Finally, no longer would Americans have to deal with the constant assaults on privacy and civil liberties at the hands of drug agents, because one of the primary excuses for doing so – the war on drugs – would be non-existent.

It is impossible to reconcile the drug war with the principles of a free society. The war has accomplished nothing positive and has done horrific damage. Enough is enough. The time has come for the American people to lead the world out of the drug-war morass. The time has come to repeal all civil and criminal penalties for possession and distribution of drugs. The time has come to end the war on drugs.

ARTICLE

Posted by Streamline on 03/23/09

Bankruptcy is Economic Stimulus
By Ron Paul

The distraction on Capitol Hill this week has to do with the jackpot bonuses that executives at AIG recently received. The argument is over a relative drop in the bucket. The total amount of bonuses given out was $165 million. The government has put $170 billion into AIG so far. Many now are demanding we get this money back. We ought to be spending our time and effort doing something more worthwhile, like figuring out how the Federal Reserve is handling the trillions of dollars they are creating and pumping into the economy, and how that is affecting the purchasing power of dollars in your pocket.

The big mistake was appropriating the TARP funds in the first place. A Johnny-come-lately bill of attainder won’t stop the spending epidemic. This whole situation is a perfect demonstration of why “doing nothing” and letting failing companies fail would have been much better than sinking valuable money and resources into them.  

When a company makes a profit, it is a signal that it is taking resources and increasing their value while controlling costs. When a company operates at a loss, it is a signal that it is decreasing the value of its resources or letting out-of-control costs outstrip any value it has created. A company operating at a loss is therefore an engine of wealth destruction. Bankruptcies are a net positive for the economy because more productive competitors are rewarded by opportunities to buy up remaining assets at bargain prices to strengthen their operations. In an economy that allows this kind of growth and change, any jobs lost by bankruptcy are soon replaced by new ones as the most efficiently managed businesses gain access to more assets and expand.  

Bankruptcy was the stimulus that we needed in the case of AIG. More bankruptcies would clean out malinvested resources and enable economic growth again.

AIG, by losing money and maneuvering their operations to the brink of bankruptcy, was telling us that they were inefficient. So what did we do? We forced the taxpayer to assume the losses, and now we are supposed to be shocked that it is not working out. Had AIG gone bankrupt, it would have been impossible to hand out these bonuses. The taxpayer would have been fleeced for $170 billion less last year. Had they gone bankrupt, the world would not have come to an end, it would just continue on with one less engine of wealth destruction.

We should have learned from Japan. The 1990’s is referred to as Japan’s “lost decade” because of the zombie banks kept on life support by the Japanese government. Any productivity was redirected through these engines of wealth destruction, resulting in long term stagnation. We should and can avoid this outcome if we come to our senses.  

A recession should be a time of strengthening and regrouping for an economy. But as long as the government insists on maintaining the status quo by propping up failed institutions, we will continue to dig a bigger hole for ourselves.


Posted by Ron Paul (03-23-2009, 11:00 AM) filed under Monetary Policy

Posted 03/23/09 gride huntington beach, CA

Liberty Handbills: print ~ cut ~ fold ~ distribute ~ repeat http://thepressurecooker.com/files/tst_03232009.pdf

Posted by Streamline on 03/20/09

The concept of mandatory national service is a direct violation of the 13th amendment. More to the point, the services we are ordered to "volunteer" are the ones we were told our taxes were paying for. So where did the money go? Why are we paying taxes for services we are now expected to do for ourselves?

In Reponse to the house passing the "Give Act"

Posted 03/20/09 BBLiberty Pekin, IL

Great argument Streamline! Why should we be forced to provide services our tax money was allocated for? I will be asking this question to my representatives.

Posted 03/20/09 rightsman Las Vegas,, NV

Have you ever forced to file a 1040 form? Involuntary Servitude Have you ever been forced to pay into the Social Security Fund? Involuntary Servitude Were you drafted into the Military? Involuntary Servitude Have you ever been forced to purchase a "registration certificate" from your State government for your automobile? Involuntary Servitude Have you ever been forced to purchase insurance for an automobile? Involuntary Servitude Have you ever been forced to purchase a "license" to travel in your own automobile? Involuntary Servitude Have you ever been forced to send your children to a government indoctrination center? Involuntary Servitude Have you ever been forced to help pay for said government indoctrination center? Involuntary Servitude The list is pages long. Thank you, Robert Walker

Posted 03/20/09 illuminati hater Las Vegas, NV

There are, unfortunately, a lot of things in this country that define the terms and conditions of involuntary servitude: -Taxes -Military -Public School -National Service... And the list goes on and on. Rightsman gave a nice amount of examples for us.