Idaho Libertarian Times

In Reference to: Glenn Beck apologizes, critiques and reaches out to Libertarians;

 

Dear Glenn

            To be fair with both sides on this issue of "are you or are you not a Libertarian", it's kind of like how one claim’s their sexual orientation, you are what you are and only you really know the truth. So don’t take it personally that a lot of Libertarians especially from the more anarchist people in the Libertarian Party are openly questioning your sincerity in claiming to be a Libertarian. You have to remember, for going on four plus decades, the Libertarian Party has been marginalized and it's only been with the advent of Ron Paul over the last 20 years that Libertarianism has moved from the fringe toward the more mainstream in politics.

            The result of this is there is a lot of the Libertarian Party Membership who are to put it mildly distrusting of newcomers, especially newcomers who are public figures. An example of this would be Wayne Allyn Root, who as late as May of 2012, in a room in Las Vegas (that I was sitting in) proclaimed loudly he was never going to leave the LP (Libertarian Party). It was late July 2012 that word got back to me that he had quit the LP and went back to Republicans. There are others I could name, but the point is the LP is not as open as many would like to new people because there have been so many pretenders as it were.

            You have to remember people who come to the LP are really dissatisfied with the status quo of the "R's" and the "D's". These are people who have grown weary listening to the platitudes of Republicans and Democrats, promising the world or promising smaller government and delivering nothing on their pledges no matter what direction they are pledging to take it. This is the frustration that you see in the Tea party and what generated the Tea Party. And it's a frustration that's been growing for at least a decade prior to Ross Perot's run for the presidency in the early 90s. And that's the Tea party that is actually causing schism within Republican ranks. The problem is many people who are more aligned with the Tea party, make the mistake of thinking their aligned with Libertarianism. The only thing the Tea Party and the Libertarian Party have in common is the common goal of downsizing the present Federal Government. Other than that to political movements have little in common, and to be honest it was the Tea Party in concert with Republican neocons  who drove Ron Paul and his supporters off the floor in Tampa Florida at the Republican national convention in 2012. So as you can see the Tea Partiers seem to have no desire to be associated with true Libertarian ideals.

The result is Libertarians are very touchy about people claiming to be Libertarian. And as such are vehement in their defending the term Libertarian. Your problem is you have made statements that are more in line with the neocons in the Republican Party and then claimed to be a Libertarian, and that is where your and their angst comes from your embracing the term Libertarian.

            So do not take the personal slights too personally, in fact I would encourage you, if, you are sincere, to truly embrace Libertarian ideals. But I would also strongly urge you to learn what the Libertarian message is, it's not a Republican or Democratic message it is very much a message of a very different political stripe. It is a political message that incorporates the concepts of self-determination and self-responsibility to build a freer society. One of that respects all individuals’ rights so long as they do not infringe upon any other individuals rights. Also if you deign to join the Libertarian Party just remember, this is the only political organization that to join, you have to take a pledge of nonaggression (that means we work for political change through the ballot box, not through violent acts). If you can buy into that, then you can become a Libertarian. But if you hold to the neocon line that we have to attack Iran in order to eliminate it as a threat, or any similar view, then you're not a Libertarian your merely a Neocon.

            Now, if you sincerely want to become Libertarian, it takes more than just reading "Atlas Shrugged". It takes a real embracing of the shortcomings of the present political status quo, and realizing that many things that you and I've been told over the years, may not be as true as you want to think. In fact political lies (from both the R's and the D's) that just like Joseph Goebbels and other tyrants have said, tell them often enough and loud enough, eventually you just take it for granted the lies are true and you believe them. Okay that is a paraphrase, the hard part however is identifying those repetitive lies and separating yourself from the perceptions that you have long held because of those inculcated (ground in) perceptions.

In conclusion, if you're serious, I want you to be a Libertarian. But if you're just out playing some sort of ratings game, like Wayne Allyn Root, I just wish you would go back to the Neocon Republican Party and be done with it.

Herriman, R. (2013, February 23). glenn beck apologizes, critiques and reaches out to libertarians video. Retrieved from http://www.theglobaldispatch.com/glenn-beck-apologizes-critiques-and-reaches-out-to-libertarians-video-51681/ (Herriman, 2013)

Why the War Party Fears Hagel

 

 

 

 

by Patrick J. Buchanan

    In the fortnight since Chuck Hagel's name was floated for secretary of defense, we have witnessed Washington at its worst.

Who is Chuck Hagel?

    Born in North Platte, Neb., he was a squad leader in Vietnam, twice wounded, who came home to work in Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, was twice elected U.S. senator, and is chairman of the Atlantic Council and co-chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

    To The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, however, Hagel is a man "out on the fringes," who has a decade-long record of "hostility to Israel" and is "pro-appeasement-of-Iran."

    Lest we miss Kristol's point, Standard blogger Daniel Halper helpfully adds that a "top Republican Senate aide" said, "Send us Hagel, and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."

    The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens continued in this vein. "Prejudice ... has an olfactory element," he writes, and with Hagel, "the odor is especially ripe." Stephens is saying that Chuck Hagel reeks of anti-Semitism.

    Hagel's enemies contend that his own words disqualify him. First, he told author Aaron David Miller that the "Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up there" on the Hill. Second, he urged us to talk to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. Third, Hagel said several years ago, "A military strike against Iran ... is not a viable, feasible, responsible option."

    Hagel has conceded he misspoke in using the phrase "Jewish lobby." But as for a pro-Israel lobby, its existence is the subject of books and countless articles. When AIPAC sends up to the Hill one of its scripted pro-Israel resolutions, it is whistled through. Hagel's problem: He did not treat these sacred texts with sufficient reverence.

    "I am a United States senator, not an Israeli senator," he told Miller. "I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath ... to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not to a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."

    Hagel puts U.S. national interests first. And sometimes those interests clash with the policies of the Israeli government.

    In 1957, President Eisenhower told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai. Would that disqualify Ike from being secretary of defense because, to quote Kristol, this would show Ike was not "serious about having Israel's back"?

    If a senator or defense secretary believes an Israeli action – like bisecting the West Bank with new settlements that will kill any chance for a Palestinian state and guarantee another intifada – what should he do?

    Defend the U.S. position, or make sure there is "no daylight" between him and the Israeli prime minister?

As for talking to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, what are we afraid of?

    Harry Truman talked to Josef Stalin and read Vyacheslav Molotov the riot act in the Oval Office. Ike invited Nikita Khrushchev to tour the United States three years after he sent tanks into Budapest.

Richard Nixon went to China and toasted Mao Zedong, 20 years after the Chinese were killing U.S. solders in Korea and brainwashing our POWs, and at the same time they were conducting their maniacal cultural revolution and shipping weapons to Hanoi.

Israel negotiated with Hezbollah to retrieve the remains of airman Ron Arad and traded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in a deal with Hamas for the return of Pvt. Gilad Shalit. And we can't talk to them?

If Hagel's view that a war with Iran is not a "responsible option" is a disqualification for defense secretary, what are we to make of this statement from Robert Gates, defense secretary for Bush II and Obama:

"Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur so delicately put it."

If Hagel were an anti-Semite, would he have the support of so many Jewish columnists and writers? If he were really "out on the fringes," would national security advisers for presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Obama be in his camp?

Neocon hostility to Hagel is rooted in a fear that in Obama's inner councils his voice would be raised in favor of negotiating with Iran and against a preventive war or pre-emptive strike. But if Obama permits these assaults to persuade him not to nominate Hagel, he will only be postponing a defining battle of his presidency, not avoiding it.

For Bibi Netanyahu is going to be re-elected this January. And the government he forms looks to be more bellicose than the last. And Bibi's highest priority, shared by his neocon allies, is a U.S. war on Iran in 2013.

If Obama does not want that war, he is going to have to defeat the war party. Throwing an old warrior like Chuck Hagel over the side to appease these wolves is not the way to begin this fight.

Nominate him, Mr. President. Let's get it on.

December 29, 2012

Patrick J. Buchanan [send him mail] is co-founder and editor of The American Conservative. He is also the author of seven books, including Where the Right Went Wrong, and Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War. His latest book is Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? See his website.

Copyright © 2012 Creators Syndicate

Gun Culture

Stefan Molyneux

 

refutation of Donna Brazile's, Republican Party must moderate

Donna is correct the Republican Party does, need to moderate its stance. The problem is, as usual, she doesn't know who really is running the Republicans these days. And that is not uncommon, sadly the media gives such bad coverage and analysis one should not be blamed for not knowing. While I would agree that the Republicans have taken the first step off a tall cliff, Donna is assuming a lot of things in this article.

 

        For starters, Donna makes a common error of assuming that Libertarians are conservatives! And nothing could be further from the truth! The reality of the matter is, unless you really were paying attention to the Republicans and have been for some time, say the last eight years, then you might've or not, noticed the little quiet schism that has been ongoing all that time. Republicans, even Reagan Republicans, tout themselves as the small government party. The reality is the present Republican Party is just as much in love with big government as the Democrats are. Since Barry Goldwater was nominated by the Republicans in 1964 , the conservatives in the Republican Party have pretty much held sway. The result is a party that is very recalcitrant in its view of the world, one that in many ways mentally is still fighting the Cold War. That’s not to say there isn't any threats from terror organizations and other legitimate threats, but it is saying that while there are threats out there, their nature has drastically changed from the good old days.

 

Donna's misunderstanding is typical of people from a left leaning perspective, she doesn't know what a Libertarian is, so I have to forgive her for assuming that Libertarians and tea party people are somehow one and the same. The reality is, had Donna merely done a little homework, and I mean an actual 15 min. worth of reading, she might have learned something. And what would that be?? That my friends would be the actual political positions of tea party people and their very very distant political cousins Libertarians! I say distant because the only thing that the tea party and Libertarians agree on would be on smaller government. You see, Libertarians have very very little in common with the tea party, other than they are both made up of American voters. Other than that, putting Libertarians and tea party people in the same political corner only shows how little you understand either one. And that is a huge part of the problem.

 

Libertarians in the Republican Party are only a caucus or subgroup in the Republican ranks. The problem with using Libertarian Republicans, well in this context anyway, is that the eight year long schism that I mentioned in my opening remarks finally came to a head with the supporters of Ron Paul(the Libertarians) effectively being muzzled by the conservatives in Tampa Florida at the national convention in 2012. The effect was essentially to send the Libertarian wing of the Republican party the showers, saying you're not wanted and your opinion is of no value. This is really why the Republicans lost, what most people don't realize is, is the sheer size of the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. I'm guessing here but they are probably about 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 voters that identify as Libertarian and would be open to Ron Paul on the ballot. Now ask yourself this, what would happen if those 1 million to 2 million people would've showed up on November 6, 2012??

    What cost the Republicans in 2012 election was not that they were pandering to the Libertarians, they were in fact shunning the Libertarian vote because they didn't understand how much they would be cutting their vote tally (throats) by doing so!

 

        The cause of this vote shunning was because of the conservatives and the tea party members could not come to common ground with the Libertarian wing. They and other conservative caucuses of the Republican Party essentially froze the Libertarians and their candidate Ron Paul out of the Tampa convention. The result was fast and done through social media channels like Facebook, twitter and other channels wherein the word was put out "no Ron Paul on the ballot means, no vote November" the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party said you don't want to let us vote for our guy on the convention floor (you know a fair fight of political ideals) in Tampa, then we won't vote for your guy, in November.

 

The numbers says it all, 48.6% went to Romney and 50.5% to Obama, had Libertarian wing of the Republican Party not stayed home on November 6, the outcome would've been different. 1 to 2 million more votes for Romney could actually have changed the electoral outcome, but those votes were not available due to their making the political choice to stay out of this particular election. And we all know results of that choice.

 

What really isn't widely understood by Donna, or any of her peers in the media is who they are talking about. And that's the sad part, because just as I mentioned earlier, it only takes 15 min. to find out anything about these two disparate groups, and then all of a sudden it makes the outcome of things like the November 6 election make more sense. This wasn't about the Republicans pandering to Libertarians in the Republican Party, oh no quite differently, this was a purge of Libertarians from Republican ranks! This is why the Republican Libertarians voted to sit it out at-home and watch the Republicans fall on their own sword.

 

Earlier I mentioned the Libertarians were far removed ideology wise from the tea party, to truly understand where ideologically the Republican Libertarians are, a good place to look is at the Libertarian party(a separate political entity)  website  that has a copy of the Libertarian Party's platform just like the Republicans and Democrats do at their conventions as well. The Libertarians platform is only about 13 pages, where is the Republicans is about 70 pages. Now I can drone on about the differences but it's only 13 pages, and I know Ron Paul and his supporters in the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party (and I know this because I've attended Ron Paul rallies) pretty much hold all the same ideological views, I say pretty much, as Ron Paul supporters consist of a large contingent of right to life supporters, but even including that in the political equation they are still roughly 94% in line with Libertarian parties platforms held beliefs (don't believe me ask a Ron Paul supporter). Now go to the Libertarian parties website read their platform and then you will understand the huge gulf separating the Libertarians from the tea party.

https://www.lp.org/files/LP%20Platform%202012.pdf  

The Tea Party and Libertarians are much more vastly different than what the media pundits would have you believe, find out for yourself, don't let someone else tell what to think. Or try to tell you why November 6th happened the way it did, think for yourself!

 

Butt! it started out so well!

7pm on Tuesday Mitt was leading the polls, but a mere five ours later it was all over but the crying, the acrimony, the finger pointing and the R's wondering how they could lose and some D's wondering how it was they won. It also got me thinking about the election out come and what I had been observing during the run up to November 6th 2012.

 

My theory on the reason Romney lost is actually steeped in the GOP's treatment of Ron Paul in Tampa. The RNC went out of its way to corner, brow beat and otherwise cajole Dr. Paul’s supporters and through changes made on the convention floor the day of the nomination deny them a voice at convention. Thus making it impossible for the Paul supporters to even put Dr. Paul’s name in nomination or to let him speak to the delegates. This was where the R's lost the election, not November 6th, Why and How you ask, well its simple really.

 

The Paul supporters , call them what you will, paulbots, paulies, there's a rather long list of terms for Dr. Paul’s supporters, there was a sharp reaction or realization that came about. I first saw it as early as late April 2012, when Paul supporters realized that they would not have Dr Paul on the ballot for the R's this year. So the reaction started as a meme on facebook and similar sites where they publicly announced they would sit out the November election unless Doctor Paul was the nominated candidate for the Republicans. The common meme was No Paul means No vote.

 

In September I made an effort to reason with the c4l, and other Paul supporting organizations to garner support for the only other Libertarian candidate in the running this year, that being Gary Johnson. To be honest it fell on deaf ears mostly, but that’s my next blog. The result was instead of voting the R's anointed candidate, they withheld consent and allowed a very narrow margin of victory for the status quo / incumbent, an incumbent who under any other circumstance would have fallen to the challenger had all the support that was available been used on his behalf on November 6th.

 

While not a enormous number, the Campaign for Liberty all by itself lists 500,000 members and according to the Hufington post these are the results:

• Obama                 61,173,739 or 50.5%
• Romney             58,167,260 or 48.0%
• Gary Johnson  1,139,562    or  1%

     How many of these were disenfranchised Paul supporters is totally unknown to me, but let me play devils advocate, if 50% of Johnson's tally was from disenfranchised Paul supporters then here is the math. I suspect 95% of those disenfranchised did not participate this year, of those that did I suspect the 5% who demanded to be heard would have voted for Johnson only because there was no one else who even vaguely represented their political sensibility. The normal Libertarian tally election wise is usually .4% or 4/10th of 1%, this year that would have been 455,825 a number similar to 2008, this leaves the other 683,737 votes we tallied this year. Now if 1/2 of these votes or 341868 were say a 5% sample of the rest of the Paul supporters who stayed home then by multiplying that number by 20 you could get an idea of what the R's lost out on. My numbers show 6.83 million votes the R's cost themselves. Lets be honest this is a "SWAG" or a scientific wild ass guess ,, personally I think it should trend closer to 3 million votes, but since I suspect the vast amount of supporters who supported Dr Paul stayed home, while you may dismiss that number, you can't dismiss the results , the Paul supporters stayed home and the Democrats won, not by a large margin, but because the neocon faction in the Republicans are so narrow minded as to drive critical support to the sidelines when they need the most.

 

My only lament is, I wish they would have all voted for Johnson, it would have been interesting to see how many there really are out there.

Government Default: Yes or No?

by Gary North at  Tea Party Economist

Reprinted with Permission
   
   

It is not often that readers get a clear-cut choice between two forecasts. Most forecasts have wiggle room. Not the following.

    1. The United States government will default.
    2. The United States government will not default.

I hold the first position. John T. Harvey holds the second. He wrote a piece for Forbes defending his position: "It Is Impossible For The US To Default".

I regard this as the most fundamental economic issue facing the U.S. government. I regard it as the most fundamental economic issue facing Americans under age 60.

Mr. Harvey begins.

    With so many economic, political, and social problems facing us today, there is little point in focusing attention on something that is not one. The false fear of which I speak is the chance of US debt default. There is no need to speculate on what that likelihood is, I can give you the exact number: there is 0% chance that the US will be forced to default on the debt.

That is the kind of forthrightness that I appreciate. Here is my response. With so many economic, political, and social problems facing us today, it is crucial that we focus attention on something that is both catastrophic and inescapable. The fear of which I speak is the chance of U.S. debt default. There is no need to speculate on what that likelihood is, I can give you the exact number: there is 100% chance that the U.S. will be forced to default on the debt.

UNFUNDED LIABILITIES

Why do I believe this? Because I believe in the analysis supplied by Professor Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University. Each year, he analyzes the statistics produced by the Congressional Budget Office on the present value – not future value – of the unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government. The latest figures are up by $11 trillion over the last year. The figure today is $222 trillion.

This means that the government needs $222 trillion to invest in private capital markets that will pay about 5% per year for the next 75 years.

Problem: the world's capital markets are just about $222 trillion. Then there are the unfunded liabilities of all other Western nations. These total at least what the U.S. does, and probably far more, since the welfare state's promises are more comprehensive outside the USA.

Conclusion: they will all default.

Mr. Harvey thinks that the U.S. government could choose to default, but it won't.

    We could choose to do so, just as a person trapped in a warehouse full of food could choose to starve, but we could never be forced to. This is not a theory or conjecture, it is cold, hard fact. The reason the US could never be forced to default is that every single bit of the debt is owed in the currency that we and only we can issue: dollars. Unlike Greece, we don't have to try to earn foreign exchange via exports or beg for better terms. There is simply no level of debt we could not repay with a keystroke.

There are a lot of people inside the camp of the gold bugs who also believe this. They are probably wrong. They are wrong for the same reason why Mr. Harvey is wrong. They do not understand Ludwig von Mises.

MISES ON THE CRACK-UP BOOM

Mises was a senior advisor to the equivalent of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce after World War I. He understood monetary theory. His book on money, The Theory of Money and Credit, had been published in 1912, two years before the war broke out.

In the post-War edition of his book, he wrote of the process of the hyperinflationary breakdown of a currency. He made it clear that such a currency is short-lived. People shift to rival currencies.

    The emancipation of commerce from a money which is proving more and more useless in this way begins with the expulsion of the money from hoards. People begin at first to hoard other money instead so as to have marketable goods at their disposal for unforeseen future needs - perhaps precious-metal money and foreign notes, and sometimes also domestic notes of other kinds which have a higher value because they cannot be increased by the State '(e.g.the Romanoff rouble in Russia or the 'blue' money of communist Hungary); then ingots, precious stones, and pearls; even pictures, other objects of art, and postage stamps. A further step is the adoption of foreign currency or metallic money (i.e. for all practical purposes, gold) in credit transactions. Finally, when the domestic currency ceases to be used in retail trade, wages as well have to be paid in some other way than in pieces of paper which are then no longer good for anything.

    The collapse of an inflation policy carried to its extreme - as in the United States in 1781 and in France in 1796 does not destroy the monetary system, but only the credit money or fiat money of the State that has overestimated the effectiveness of its own policy. The collapse emancipates commerce from etatism and establishes metallic money again (pp. 229-30).

In 1949, his book Human Action appeared. In it, he discussed hyperinflation. He called this phase of the business cycle the crack-up boom.

    The characteristic mark of the phenomenon is that the increase in the quantity of money causes a fall in the demand for money. The tendency toward a fall in purchasing power as generated by the increased supply of money is intensified by the general propensity to restrict cash holdings which it brings about. Eventually a point is reached where the prices at which people would be prepared to part with "real" goods discount to such an extent the expected progress in the fall of purchasing power that nobody has a sufficient amount of cash at hand to pay them. The monetary system breaks down; all transactions in the money concerned cease; a panic makes its purchasing power vanish altogether. People return either to barter or to the use of another kind of money (p. 424).

Later in the book, Mises discussed the policy of devaluation: the expansion of the domestic money supply in a fruitless attempt to reduce the international value of the currency unit.

    If the government does not care how far foreign exchange rates may rise, it can for some time continue to cling to credit expansion. But one day the crack-up boom will annihilate its monetary system. On the other hand, if the authority wants to avoid the necessity of devaluing again and again at an accelerated pace, it must arrange its domestic credit policy in such a way as not to outrun in credit expansion the other countries against which it wants to keep its domestic currency at par (p. 791).

Mt. Harvey has described just such a policy. He concluded that the United States government can never go bankrupt. It can print its way out of every obligation.

No, it can't.

HYPERINFLATIONARY COLLAPSE

The expansion of the monetary base can go on until such time as commercial banks monetize all of the reserves on their books. Prices then rise to such levels that transactions no longer take place in the official currency unit. The division of labor contracts. The output of capital and labor falls. At some point, people adopt other currency units. They no longer cooperate with each other by means of the hyperinflated currency.

Professor Steve Hanke has co-authored an article on the worst 56 hypernflations. He discovered that most of these in industrial nations were over in a couple of years. The crack-up boom ended them.

No nation can long pursue a policy of hyperinflation. It destroys the currency and destroys the division of labor. The result is starvation. The policy of hyperinflation ends before this phase. Members of society shift to other forms of money.

This is why the policy of hyperinflation is useless in dealing with the 75-year obligations of the federal government to support old people through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and federal pensions. These obligations are inter-generational. Hyperinflation lasts for months, not decades. When the government ends its policy of hyperinflation, it finds that it is still saddled with these obligations.

If the Federal Reserve resorts to hyperinflation, its retirement portfolio will reach zero value unless it shifts to foreign currencies, gold, or other hyperinflation hedges. It will publicly announce that the U.S. dollar is a failed currency, as manipulated by the FED.

If it refuses, then it will oversee Great Depression 2, monetary deflation, and the contraction of the division of labor. The U.S. government will go bankrupt.

If Congress nationalizes the FED, then it will pursue hyperinflation. The crack-up boom will end the experiment.

At that point, all of the obligations to retirees will still remain. But the government will not have the money to pay them. The $222 trillion of present valued unfunded liabilities will still remain unfunded.

The government's obligations are inter-generational. Hyperinflation is not. The latter in no fundamental way reduces the former.

This means that the government will default. This is 100% guaranteed.

CITING ECONOMIC EXPERTS

Mr. Harvey cites the experts. "Don't take my word for it. Here are just a few folks from across the political spectrum and in different walks of life saying the same thing." Then he gives a series of quotations from these men: Alan Greenspan, Peter Zeihan, Erwan Mahe, Mike Norman, Monty Agarwal, L. Randall Wray. Other than Mr. Greenspan, I had heard of none of them. He concludes:

    Mind you, that doesn't mean there might not be other economic or political consequences. Inflation and currency depreciation, for example, are possibilities.

Yes, they surely are, since they are the same thing. But they do not solve the problem of the inevitable default. They merely add to the misery before the default.

    Indeed, we have seen neither hide nor hair of inflation or high interest rates during the current run up of the debt. It is critical to bear in mind, too, that these deficits are not a result of the government trying to buy something it cannot otherwise afford (as would be the case for you or me). Rather, they are setting out to generate sufficient demand for goods and services to employ all those willing to work (that said, not every kind of government spending does this effectively, but that's a different question). As there is no limit to how much debt we can successfully carry, we should be aggressively pursuing the latter goal rather than talking about being "fiscally responsible." There is nothing responsible about leaving over 12 million Americans out of work.

    We have plenty of problems in the world. No point in making one up.

CONCLUSION

This appeared in Forbes. The article cited a list of supposed experts, with Alan Greenspan at the head of the list. Somehow, the author expects us to take his argument seriously. We are also supposed to take his cited experts seriously, beginning with Alan Greenspan. We are supposed to imagine that debts are forever, that they need not be repaid, that credit is eternal, that the Baby boomers are not retiring by the millions, that digits can overcome economic theory, that Medicare is solvent, that Social Security is solvent, and that hyperinflation is always available as a way for the government not to default.

The nation is run by people who share his views. So is every Western nation.

This is a very good reason to prepare for a catastrophe, if we are lucky, or possibly several: (1) mass inflation, stabilization, deflation, depression, and government default, or (2) hyperinflation followed by a default. Take your pick.

September 19, 2012

Gary North [send him mail] is the author of Mises on Money. Visit http://www.garynorth.com. He is also the author of a free 31-volume series, An Economic Commentary on the Bible.
Copyright © 2012 Gary Nort

What Pawlenty's departure really means?

Pawlenty quits as Romney campaign co-chair
story by Oliver Knox, Yahoo! News
According to Yahoo news Tim Pawlenty is quick it Romney's presidential campaign on Thursday switching to become one of Wall Street's top lobbyists in Washington the former governor of Minnesota will head up "Financial Services Roundtable".
This comes amid the Romney campaigns struggled to define itself with just seven weeks left before election day.
"Personal Editorial"
for Romney this really points out that he really doesn't understand the issues, and well, he seems to be a nice enough guy, but he really has never walked a mile in the average guys shoes. Pawlenty's departure, admittedly or not is a symptom of a lack of faith the rank-and-file conservatives have in Mitt Romney. While the Democrats get to rejoice, the rest of us come to an suspicion that the Democrats/Progressives (well-meaning as they are) are probably going to take the election this fall.
Sadly this points out how little difference there is between the two candidates and the two parties. What Mitt Romney doesn't realize is he pretty much sealed his fate with remarks about not getting rid of Obama care completely, and keeping parts of it. And Mitt Romney fails to understand how important it is not only to a lot of Conservative but to a Lot of Libertarians as well. And this is where the Republican Party has failed this year. The Republicans failure, is exemplified by the way they treated Ron Paul in Tampa at convention this year. The Republicans don't understand the Ron Paul crowd and the conservative tea party crowd, which by the way are two separate entities. These two subgroups within the greater Republican Party are vying for control, with the old guard clamoring not to lose that control. The old guards only saving grace at this point is not that it's right, it's that it's got money. But even that money cannot buy the trust that it takes for the voters to pull the lever for your selected party candidates and your platform. The voters who want to depart from the Democrats and supported smaller government lower taxes and more freedom, are now stuck with the party of more intrusive government, intruding into your bedroom, your home buying, your health insurance, no wait you say, not health insurance you didn't support that, didn't Mitt say he wanted to keep some key parts of Obama care?,, Then yes, health insurance is included in that.
The point is, for the last 20 years Americans have become more and more disenchanted with politics as usual. And by rebuking Ron Paul and changing the rules on the convention floor the day Dr. Paul's people try to put his name in nomination for the president, you guys basically just painted yourself into a corner, also that paint will keep you from winning the election box in November. Americans will put up with a lot of political garbage and we do, don't believe me turn on the entertainment division of NBC to the nightly news and you get the watch all the horse shit (falsely labeled as news) that happens daily in Washington DC. And what is not getting through to the Republicans is, that if they don't find the real heartbeat of America, Americans eventually will go to a third party that offers what the Republicans claim to offer, but don't, which is smaller government and lower taxes and more freedom!
In the end I don't believe the Republicans of this particular generation will have the intellectual courage, to step back and really just look at what they're shoveling. Until the Republicans have that moment and step back from their self-righteous behavior, then they're probably not going to win very many elections in the next decade. At least not the presidency. And that works out good for me, as I left the Republicans behind over a decade ago and I've been very happy in the Libertarian party and I'm also very happy with the choice we made this spring for our presidential candidate in Gary Johnson. I also encourage anyone who is a Ron Paul supporter to look at Gary Johnson. No he is not Dr. Paul, but he's got a track record with two terms as Republican Gov. in a highly democratic state with 750 vetoes, more than the other 49 governors combined, he came in with a deficit of over $1 billion and left after eight years with more than $1 billion in excess funds. Just food for thought, he will on all 50 states ballots this fall.

What Pawlenty's departure really means?

Pawlenty quits as Romney campaign co-chair
story by Oliver Knox, Yahoo! News
According to Yahoo news Tim Pawlenty is quick it Romney's presidential campaign on Thursday switching to become one of Wall Street's top lobbyists in Washington the former governor of Minnesota will head up "Financial Services Roundtable".
This comes amid the Romney campaigns struggled to define itself with just seven weeks left before election day.
"Personal Editorial"
for Romney this really points out that he really doesn't understand the issues, and well, he seems to be a nice enough guy, but he really has never walked a mile in the average guys shoes. Pawlenty's departure, admittedly or not is a symptom of a lack of faith the rank-and-file conservatives have in Mitt Romney. While the Democrats get to rejoice, the rest of us come to an suspicion that the Democrats/Progressives (well-meaning as they are) are probably going to take the election this fall.
Sadly this points out how little difference there is between the two candidates and the two parties. What Mitt Romney doesn't realize is he pretty much sealed his fate with remarks about not getting rid of Obama care completely, and keeping parts of it. And Mitt Romney fails to understand how important it is not only to a lot of Conservative but to a Lot of Libertarians as well. And this is where the Republican Party has failed this year. The Republicans failure, is exemplified by the way they treated Ron Paul in Tampa at convention this year. The Republicans don't understand the Ron Paul crowd and the conservative tea party crowd, which by the way are two separate entities. These two subgroups within the greater Republican Party are vying for control, with the old guard clamoring not to lose that control. The old guards only saving grace at this point is not that it's right, it's that it's got money. But even that money cannot buy the trust that it takes for the voters to pull the lever for your selected party candidates and your platform. The voters who want to depart from the Democrats and supported smaller government lower taxes and more freedom, are now stuck with the party of more intrusive government, intruding into your bedroom, your home buying, your health insurance, no wait you say, not health insurance you didn't support that, didn't Mitt say he wanted to keep some key parts of Obama care?,, Then yes, health insurance is included in that.
The point is, for the last 20 years Americans have become more and more disenchanted with politics as usual. And by rebuking Ron Paul and changing the rules on the convention floor the day Dr. Paul's people try to put his name in nomination for the president, you guys basically just painted yourself into a corner, also that paint will keep you from winning the election box in November. Americans will put up with a lot of political garbage and we do, don't believe me turn on the entertainment division of NBC to the nightly news and you get the watch all the horse shit (falsely labeled as news) that happens daily in Washington DC. And what is not getting through to the Republicans is, that if they don't find the real heartbeat of America, Americans eventually will go to a third party that offers what the Republicans claim to offer, but don't, which is smaller government and lower taxes and more freedom!
In the end I don't believe the Republicans of this particular generation will have the intellectual courage, to step back and really just look at what they're shoveling. Until the Republicans have that moment and step back from their self-righteous behavior, then they're probably not going to win very many elections in the next decade. At least not the presidency. And that works out good for me, as I left the Republicans behind over a decade ago and I've been very happy in the Libertarian party and I'm also very happy with the choice we made this spring for our presidential candidate in Gary Johnson. I also encourage anyone who is a Ron Paul supporter to look at Gary Johnson. No he is not Dr. Paul, but he's got a track record with two terms as Republican Gov. in a highly democratic state with 750 vetoes, more than the other 49 governors combined, he came in with a deficit of over $1 billion and left after eight years with more than $1 billion in excess funds. Just food for thought, he will on all 50 states ballots this fall.

No shots were fired

by R. Lee Wrights

Here's a news story you'll rarely read in your local newspaper:

YOUR HOMETOWN (Today) - A masked man armed with a rifle entered a local school today, but left quickly when one of the teachers produced a revolver and ordered him to leave.

No one was injured and no shots were fired in the incident. The gunman is still at large.

Most newspapers, radio and TV stations still operate on the hard-and-fast journalistic rule, "if it bleeds, it leads." You really can't blame the news media for this. Most people like stories about conflict and action. That's why the sports pages are so well read, and we have cable channels dedicated to every competitive activity and sport conceivable -- even golf.

But there are hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of incidents where a firearm was used by a private citizen to prevent a crime or defend against a crime which are never reported to the police and never covered by the news. In a white paper "Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens," the Cato Institute looked at thousands of news reports over an eight year period. Their study found that the overwhelming number of self-defense cases involve situations where the gun is never fired.

These are some of the law-abiding gun owners who were able to save a life, or prevent a rape, burglary or other crime, and no shots were fired:

- An 80-year-old pharmacist on duty in Missoula, Montana who confronted a masked man demanding painkillers. The pharmacist pulled out a pistol and told the criminal to leave. The masked man screamed and left the store.

- An unidentified bystander who saved Gracie Watson when her estranged husband stabbed her repeatedly, doused her with gasoline, and threatened to set her ablaze on a public street in Jackson, Mississippi.

- A Colorado woman who grabbed her .38-caliber revolver when she heard an intruder in her home and shouted, "Who's there, I've got a gun." The intruder fled, but tried the same thing at another house nearby -- and was detained by another pistol-wielding homeowner.

Even the most vehement gun-control advocates admit Americans use guns for self-defense, the study notes. Yet no one really knows how often this occurs. Estimates of defensive gun use range from the tens of thousands to as high as two million each year. That high figure comes from a prominent study by Gary Kleck and Mare Getz conducted in the 1960s, which also concluded that in 91.7 percent of the incidents of defensive gun use the criminal attacker wasn't killed or wounded.

This highlights the true intent and purpose for the Second Amendment which was written to protect the right to bear arms. Despite the rantings of gun-control advocates, the Second Amendment was never intended to justify the initiation of violence but to prevent violence. Guns don't create crime, they stop crime. Guns don't cause crime any more than pencils cause misspellings.

The Cato white paper also bears out this fact, concluding that when a gun owner uses a gun to stop a rapist or burglar "it is very likely that more than one crime has been prevented … because had the culprit not been stopped, he very likely would have targeted other people as well." I have lived in both southern and northern neighborhoods throughout my life. All of them have been populated with gun owners and all of them have been the most peaceful places to live. There never was a need for gunplay in any of them. All those guns, yet no shots were fired. We were safe.

In my own life, I learned at a very early age that self-defense was the most basic instinct instilled in a human being. I also learned that self-defense cannot be trusted to the hands of others, especially to those in alleged positions of authority, who were never around when I really needed them. Police rarely prevent crime; they just show up after a crime has already been committed and pick up the pieces. We are not safe.

Gun control advocates claim that gun laws are for "our own good," to prevent crime and accidents. Yet they frequently and conveniently ignore reality. The first reality is that criminals, by definition, don't obey the law. A second and more fatal reality of gun control laws is that they are often deadly for the most vulnerable in society - the poor, minorities, women and children. Most crime occurs in poor neighborhoods where residents are largely ignored by those sworn to serve and protect them. If there's any doubt that private gun ownership deters crime, drive through any neighborhood and count the number of "This Home is A Gun Free Zone" signs.

Join the Million Vote March to Vote Libertarian and Stop All War

R. Lee Wrights is an editor, writer and political activist living in Texas. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party national committee. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Contact Lee at rleewrights@gmail.com.

Don't be afraid to be who you were meant to be

by R. Lee Wrights

When I was young and just starting out in political life, I believe I
went through the same terrible experience Ron Paul supporters just went
through in Tampa. Part of my political awakening was learning that the
views I held, the belief in individual rights and personal
responsibility, had a name -- libertarian. I also learned that these
views weren't always acceptable in politics. People who held such views,
or dared to speak of such things as individual rights, fiscal
responsibility and limited government, were very often ignored, derided,
mistreated, and sometimes threatened by the leadership of the
establishment parties.

Ron Paul supporters paid their dues to the GOP, played by the rules, and
elected enough delegates to place Dr. Paul’s name in consideration for
nomination for the presidency. But when their grassroots, libertarian
movement was successful, it threatened the status quo. So the GOP
establishment changed the rules, disenfranchised them and made sure
their movement would never be as successful again.

Why were they surprised? I wasn't. Dr. Mike Munger
, a Duke University economics and political science professor and former Libertarian candidate for governor in my home state of North Carolina, explained this phenomenon
exactly. He said complaining about the lack of integrity and corruption in politics is like complaining about dogs eating garbage. "They can't help it. It's what they do."

One of the first things I learned in my early years of political activism was that neither of the so-called major political parties want their members to speak their minds. Their primary goal is not to advance ideas and certainly not to promote liberty and freedom. The primary goals is control and submission, and to gain and maintain power. And in
a two-party state that means everyone in the party must be made to toe the party line.

Just when I had about enough of such treatment, and was about to give up on politics altogether, I found the _Libertarian Party. Here was a group of people who not only believed as I believed, but weren't ashamed to speak their minds. And, they weren't afraid to let everyone else do the same. There was no judgment or condemnation of anyone with a different opinion. And there was no demand that everyone conform for the sake of "party unity."

This was my politician epiphany. I learned a simple truth: Don't be afraid to be what you were meant to be. Don't be afraid to be different, because being different is the only way we can make a difference.

Libertarians are different because we recognize that voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. We're different because we won't vote for someone we don't believe in just to get someone else we don't believe in out of office. 

Libertarians are different because we believe that if it's wrong for someone to spend more money than they earn; and, it is also wrong for government to spend more money than it collects.

Libertarians are different because we believe that if it's wrong for an enemy to torture or mistreat our soldiers, it's also wrong for our soldiers to torture or mistreat the enemy. We're different because we believe that's its wrong for any nation to engage in preemptive war, or "humanitarian" war, and that the only defensible war is a war of defense.

Libertarians are different because we believe that all rights are individual rights, given to every human being by virtue of their existence, and not dependent on any written document or government favor.

We're different because we believe government has no business telling us who to love, who to marry, or what we eat, drink or consume.

Most of all, Libertarians are different because we are not afraid to be who we were meant to be. We're different because we're not afraid to  Live Free.

So this is my message to all Ron Paul supporters: Don't be afraid to be what you were meant to be. You're not alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people who believe as you do and who are not afraid to be who they were meant to be. Join us. We won't change the rules on you.

R. Lee Wrights is an editor, writer and political activist living in
Texas. He is currently the Vice Chair of the Libertarian Party national
committee. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine "Liberty For All"
Contact Lee
at rleewrights@gmail.com


*Join the Million Vote March to Vote Libertarian and Stop All War
<http://millionvotemarch.com/>*

12 Responses to “New Mexico Presidential Poll Shows Gary Johnson at 12%”

By Richard Winger

http://www.ballot-access.org/2012/06/01/new-mexico-presidential-poll-shows-gary-johnson-at-12/

June 1st, 2012

On May 31, a Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, Metz poll was released, for the presidential race in New Mexico. It shows President Obama at 48%, Mitt Romney at 35%, Gary Johnson at 12%, and undecided 5%. The poll has a breakdown by the age group of respondents. Johnson’s strongest age is the 18-29 category, where he is at 18%. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.