Archive for the '2008 Presidential Race' Category

02
Feb

We Will Miss George W Bush. Seriously.

By libertyvini 8 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Constitution, Ron Paul, US Constitution, comedy, commentary, economics, education, energy independence, environment, fascism, foreign oil, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, politicians, politics, protectionism, recommendations, regulation, socialism, technology, terrorism and war
Please, We Should Thank You.

Please, We Should Thank You.

OK, it’s time to come clean. We at LibertyGuys, and many, many libertarians, minarchists, anarchists, war opponents, and other free-thinkers, while relieved that he can finally do no more direct harm to the entire globe on a whim, secretly miss George W. Bush already. Because, you see, deep down in our heart of hearts, we were really, really grateful for his presidency.

What I mean is this. We opposed all the wars, the spying on Americans, the torture, the crony capitalism, the transparent use of the entire Imperial military apparatus for the benefit of connected flunkies, then, finally, the direct transfer of all of our financial futures to his friends on Wall Street, with more than 80% of the people opposed. All of it.

We opposed all the spending, the creation of vast new entitlements, the bailouts for all of the evil f**ks on Wall Street, K Street, and Detroit.  In short, we opposed nearly everything the man stands for or did. But deep down, after every bad thing he did, a little part of us said a small “amen”.

Sure, it was nice to have something to agree with our liberal friends on, the wars, the imperialism, the torture, Katrina, etc. Any and all of those things was reason enough to hate him. But it wasn’t the reason we love him.

The thing, the thing we very much love about George W. Bush is the way he made the case against statism. Every thing the man did included all of the classic statist ingredients; war, demonization of the other (Muslims), socialism, protectionism, polarization and politicization of every sphere, cronyism, and corporatism, covered with a sauce of greed and venality, and served up with a double helping of rank incompetence.

The War on Iraq, the destruction of civilization in Afghanistan, the Katrina disaster, the revelations of massive illegal wiretapping , any one of these would have destroyed a lesser demon, say a Richard Nixon, or a Lyndon Johnson. But not our man George. He plagued us, completely intact, to the very end. Even the collapse of our entire system of corporatism and imperial finance did not unhorse this cowboy. His was a singular reign.

Perversely, this is why we are afraid of the manifestly competent politician who replaced him, the Obamessiah. Our worst fear, all us freedom-loving types who have awakened to the government’s war on civilization, that the man may actually place people of intelligence, merit, and skill in those powerful positions available to his patronage is being realized.

We are alarmed that he has filled his staffs with brilliant, competent idealogues. We might, quite understandably be terrified, absolutely terrified, that Obama, the unitary leader of the biggest, richest, most powerful state ever to exist, might make the trains run on time. Except, we know he can’t.

Oh he will do everything his fans and supporters expect of him. He will mouth all the right platitudes, he will speak “directly” to the people, his armies of PR flacks and press dupesters will dutifully report on his triumphs, while sweeping his failures under a rug. It has been, and will be a brilliant performance.

And none of it will make any difference. The financial crisis is gearing up to become a fiscal and monetary tsunami, one that will sweep away all before it. They, those bright, motivated bureaucrats won’t know what hit them.

But they will enjoy, at least for a while the completely undeserved trust and goodwill of many of the people, even as we all march into the depths of it.

(photo from ratemyeverything.com)

06
Jan

The Destruction Of Gaza - Obama’s First War, or Bush Valedictory?

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Constitution, US Constitution, Uncategorized, commentary, fascism, foreign oil, liberty, police state, politicians, politics, terrorism and war
Obama: "No Comment."

Obama: "No Comment."

Look through these photos (WARNING: The above photo is the LEAST bloody) and try to square them with all of the pro-Israel spin on this horrible piece of business in the major US media. You can’t. It’s cold-blooded mass murder, and the network bobble-heads are calling it “self-defense”. It is exactly analogous to responding to a prison riot with F-16s and cluster munitions.

We harbor no illusions - the Israelis are equipped, trained, and funded by the US, and they do nothing without the dictator’s say-so. So what do our current and future Duce have to say about this atrocity?

President Bush: “I understand Israel’s desire to protect itself,” Bush said in the Oval Office. “The situation now taking place in Gaza was caused by Hamas…Instead of caring about the people of Gaza, Hamas decided to use Gaza to launch rockets to kill innocent Israelis,” Bush said. “Israel’s obviously decided to protect herself and her people.”

Uh-huh. Funny, we don’t hear about the innocent Arabs (yes, Virginia, there are women and children in Gaza, despite what The Ministry Of Truth says)

Future President Obama: “There was no immediate comment on the Israeli air strikes on Gaza from Obama, who is vacationing with his family in Hawaii, or his staff.”

Clearly, Bush has decided to let the Israelis have their head, to attack Gaza when they have really wished to attack Iran.

And Obama’s tepid response indicates not only that he has no problem with this, but that perhaps he is allowing Bush to test the waters for steering America in a new foreign policy direction.

No, not a peaceful one, silly, but a policy where the US simply funds, equips, and trains the soldiers of other countries to do our dirty work. Hmm, I wonder where that’s been tried before?

24
Dec

The Right Way To Think About Corporate Media

By libertyvini 2 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, comedy, commentary, economics, education, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, police state, politicians, politics, protectionism, reference, regulation, socialism, technology and terrorism
SNL Isn't So Funny Now, Is It?

"Friends" Isn't So Funny Now, Is It?

Some friends and I were just discussing this - we all agreed that the proper way to think about NBC, MSNBC,  CNBC, or anything else connected to General Electric is that it should generally be treated as if it were being beamed to earth from the Death Star;
“The Death Star was the code name of an unspeakably powerful and horrific weapon developed by the Empire. The immense space station carried a weapon capable of destroying entire planets. The Death Star was to be an instrument of terror, meant to cow treasonous worlds with the threat of annihilation. While the massive station is evidence of the evil that was the Galactic Empire, it was also proof of the New Order’s greatest weakness — the belief that technology and terror were superior to the will of oppressed beings fighting for freedom.”

Also see this hilarious “Schoolhouse Rock” -style parody about corporate media;

Conspiracy Theory Rock

10
Dec

If Massive Government Spending Is So Important, Why Didn’t They Do It Sooner?

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Ron Paul, commentary, economics, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, politicians, politics, socialism and technology

Katrina VanDenHuevel displays a popular ignorance of economics in this piece, in which she enthusiastically endorses Future President Obama’s proposal to create hundreds of billions of dollars out of nothing (in addition to the trillions in bailouts which US taxpayers have already been obligated to fund) for “infrastructure” spending (refer to our previous piece for the relevant definition).

Am I being petty when I ask why, if government spending on infrastructure is SO important, we haven’t done this before now? Even Ron Paul pointed out in the debates our crumbling roads and bridges as a higher use of the trillions being blown on wars abroad, for instance.

So why wasn’t this already done, particularly in the wake of such catastrophic infrastructure failures as the levies in New Orleans, and the I-34 bridge in Minneapolis? Do the billions of dollars lately wasted on the Big Dig, or being lavished on a tiny handful of residents of Manhattan’s East Side, 1, 2 qualify, and count toward some ideal level of infrastructure spending?  WTF is going on here?

I suspect that a big reason Bush and his co-conspirators “ignored” the need for an “adequate” level of infrastructure spending in this country in favor of invading the world relates to an old, old engineering joke;

Q: What’s the difference between mechanical engineers and civil engineers?

A: Mechanical engineers build weapons, civil engineers build targets.

02
Dec

A VAT Tax? Are We To Be Spared Nothing?

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Constitution, Ron Paul, US Constitution, commentary, economics, education, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, police state, politicians, politics, protectionism, socialism and war

As if the $8 Trillion being stolen from us as I write this wasn’t enough, this jackass is touting a Eurostyle VAT as the solution to reducing the malignant, metastasizing Federal deficit, set to get even worse under the new Obama regime;

It’s called a value-added tax, or VAT, and it’s been used for decades to pay the bills and sustain the immense growth of governments around the world, from France to Mexico to Australia. Created in 1954 by a French economist, the VAT is the most potent, efficient machine for revenue generation yet invented.

And if there’s one thing the U.S. government needs as the federal budget balloons, it’s a ton of new revenue. “The bottom line is that the income tax cannot support the level of spending that’s projected, something other countries faced years ago,” said Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center, a non-partisan research institute.

Number one, this idea, if ever enacted, will rapidly collapse the US economy.

Number two, it won’t matter anyway, because inflation will render the dollar meaningless. Since the feds won’t recognize commodity money, most of the remaining economy will revert to barter and black markets.

Number three, they won’t repeal the income tax, but will simply impose the VAT atop it. Just the thing to do in the face of a Depression. Thanks, President Hoobama!

If this is ever seriously considered and or passed, the US government will have to destroy the last remnants of the Republic in a futile effort to collect it.

Ron Paul, please call your office!

05
Nov

What Does an Obama Presidency Really Mean?

By joeglab 1 Comment
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, fascism, politics and socialism

Ok, enough with the post-election gushing. I personally know a lot of Obama supporters who had lost plenty of sleep over this election and now say that they are relieved as though McCain would have taken away their children.  And now they flaunt “their” victory as though they had placed a huge bet on it. Alas, this is not a football pool. If only they had done a little more thinking about Obama’s platform and a little less blind following in a cult-like trance, they might have seen this.

Barack Obama will enable all Americans to serve:
 Obama and Biden will expand AmeriCorps and the Peace Corps, engage retiring Americans, and set up an America’s Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy.

Integrate service into learning:
 Obama and Biden will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year, and will establish a new tax credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.

So, what we have to look forward to is a fascist-style service to the State (to serve its own ends, not yours) as a condition of citizenship. Please realize that the State does not offer a choice of whether to volunteer or not. Rest assured, Obama will use every ounce of compulsion that George W Bush was able to steal away in his eight years and then some. And for those of us who choose to serve ourselves and our families first, other citizens who exhibit a predisposition toward firearm use will be close by to suggest a more collectivist mindset. But what difference would this really make, anyway? Liberty is for losers … like Ron Paul, right?

02
Nov

Liberty’s Best Week Ever!

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Constitution, Ron Paul, US Constitution, comedy, commentary, economics, education, fascism, liberty, monetary policy, politicians, politics, regulation, socialism, technology, terrorism and war

Ron Paul on Rachel Maddow

NO, I am not talking about the impending undemocratic, non-election about to be perpetrated on us a couple of days hence between Wall Street Candidate A and Wall Street candidate A’ This one has been decided already - ordinary Americans have lost, and the banksters have won.

I am, rather, calling attention to the surprising upside to the continuing global financial collapse. The completely deserted checkout lanes today at my local wholesale club underscored the rapid retreat of consumer spending that’s occurring now. What is occurring now in the public intellectual mind is both thoroughly awful, and blindingly brilliant.

Awful, due to the present and future suffering of millions, nay, billions of people around the world, but brilliant, because the fact is that the economic predictive power of Austrian-School economics has been thoroughly vindicated, no matter what stupid, nonsensical things the Keynesians and Friedmanites say. We were right, we told them all what was coming, and they failed to listen. More Important, we have the correct answers.

And, better late than never, even some mainstream journalists, conservative Republicans, and left progressives are trying to re-orient their thinking in the midst of an unprecedented global financial calamity, where suddenly “Liberal” nor “Conservative” (as we have been brainwashed to call Socialist and Fascist policy ’solutions’) ideas seem to have no discernible relevance at all.

This week two astounding interviews took place, between serious people of the left, and two of the current stars of the Austro-Libertarian movement.

On Thursday, the charming, brainy lefty journalist Rachel Maddow of MSNBC interviewed Ron Paul, focusing on his eerie (not to us of course) prescience on the economic meltdown, and on the significance of his recent campaign, and what it portends for the future of Republican Party as well as the electoral system.

On Friday, Lew Rockwell, founder and president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute interviewed Naomi Wolf on his podcast. This is a MUST LISTEN interview with the principled, thoughtful left-wing journalist. Ms Wolf, author of several books, including “The Beauty Myth”, and more notably “The End of America”, was last heard of in libertarian circles promoting, along with Ron Paul the American Freedom Agenda, calling for an end to America’s belligerent foreign policy and its depredations on domestic liberty.

Listen to her questioning Lew about definitions of libertarianism, and her response to his answers - I half held my breath throughout the unedited 50-minute conversation, waiting perhaps to hear Lew say something to make Ms Wolf ‘fall out of the ether’ as they say in the car business.

He doesn’t, and she didn’t. It is an extended dialog on the principled embrace of universal liberty, in honest, non-agendized terms that will speak to the heart of every thinking, compassionate person on the left, right, or middle. This shows how there is not, and never has been, such a thing as Democrat liberty, or Republican liberty, only Liberty For All.

Do yourself and your loved ones (particularly intelligent, leftish and rightish ones) a favor and get them to listen to this podcast to give them an understanding why you are a principled, onsistent advocate of liberty.

Then go to www.campaignforliberty.com , and get involved.

UPDATE: If you are still, for some unfathomable reason a McCain supporter, PLEASE watch this video of Dr. Paul taking apart McCain’s dumbass foreign policy prescriptions in the St. Petersburg debate;

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q9WzCrLuC4]

27
Oct

Lead Pollution Rules Spiked, Or Why Government Doesn’t Work

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, commentary, economics, fascism, politicians, politics and socialism
What Scares The Bush Administration Sh*tless

Scares The Bush Administration Shitless

The United States Environmental Protection agency’s proposal to tighten permissible lead pollution standards tenfold while also increasing the number of targeted lead air monitoring stations was slapped down by the Bush administration on Thursday. The executive-branch agency, created under Richard Nixon, is charged with guarding and improving the quality of the air that Americans breathe, but here we have pretty stark evidence that this isn’t its real mission.

The new rules were proposed, as they all are, by career bureaucrats within the agency, who probably saw a politically weakened Bush presidency in its final months as an opportunity to push through some in their minds overdue regulation. And it’s true that primary and secondary lead smelting has been getting away with murder, in some cases quite literally, when it comes to their trespassing on the properties of others with their pollution, including their bodies.

But look at how it works;

EPA documents show that until the afternoon of Oct. 15, a court-imposed deadline for issuing the revised standard, the EPA proposed to require a monitor for any facility that emitted half a ton of lead or more a year.

The e-mails indicate that the White House objected, and in the early evening of Oct. 15 the EPA set the level at 1 ton a year instead.

According to EPA documents, 346 sites have emissions of half a ton a year or more. Raising the threshold to a ton reduced the number of monitored sites by 211, or more than 60 percent.

In layman’s terms, under pressure from the lead industry, the Bush White House rejected the EPA suggestion for more site-specific monitoring of the amount of lead pollution spewed by lead smelters, recyclers, battery manufacturers, and steel mills.  In essence, the president rejected any reduction of lead pollution trespass at all, simply by preventing monitoring from being done where it would do the most good.

This particular strategy has a new twist, in that while the tighter pollution trespass standard would fall under the standard regulatory procedure, i.e., tighten a regulation so that small businesses are disadvantaged relative to bigger ones, the new monitoring provisions would have more closely targeted both large and small pollution trespassers, resulting in more monitoring stations being placed at their gates and fence lines, rather than in urban centers at some distance from the plants themselves.

But this shows the government’s hand - they have absolutely no interest in preventing pollution trespass at all. They simply wish to preserve their power to manipulate commercial activity for their own benefit, and that of their favored interests. And it’s a peculiarly bipartisan sort of  manipulation. How, for example, will the agency deal with the likely vast increases in lead smelting and recycling that Federal hybrid car mandates will occasion, for example?

The answer is to reconstitute pollution torts as property-rights violations. Once we stop “permitting” polluters to trespass on our bodies and properties and start prosecuting them, there will be no need for these pointless ‘gotcha’ games within the federal government.

02
Oct

The Bailout Is Pure Economic Socialism

By libertyvini 0 Comments
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Uncategorized, commentary, economics, fascism, liberty, politicians, politics and socialism
Hank Paulson Is A Pu$$y

Hank Paulson Is A Pu$$y

Look - I took a BRUUUUTAL beating recently on some mining stocks. If you believe the powers that be, this bailout is the answer to my prayers, a ‘hail mary pass’ that will rescue the markets, refill our home equity and 401-Ks and IRAs, and everyone will live happily ever after.

Even if ANY of it were true, I STILL say DUMP IT. I am standing on principle, on what I know is right, and I’ll be goddamned if I’ll support something so pernicious and evil, even if it would benefit me in the short run.

Because I know what it means. Bailout means socializing losses and privatizing profits. It means massive new inflation, which means more poverty for millions of people around the world, while Wall Street fatcats and the Merchants of Death, who get to spend it first, reap tremendous profits. And, because the government has to spend the money into circulation, it means unprecedented amounts of military spending, and monstrous wars, wars without end.

And it’s empire that creates such horrible things as nuclear weapons and engineered plagues. The anthrax that was used in the only biological weapons attack ever recorded (except for the settlers giving the Indians Smallpox and Syphilis of course) came from the US government lab at Ft. Detrick, MD. The CDC actually sanctioned an Army scientist to reconstitute the 1918 pandemic flu, which killed more people in the aftermath of WWI than the frickin’ WAR did.

This is the kind of madness that is gripping our government. Will you trust your children’s futures to these people?

Even if my balance goes to zero, I defiantly stand and say to the economic fascists “NO BAILOUT - NO WAY!”

24
Sep

Hank Paulson’s Taxpayer Takedown Strategy

By libertyvini 1 Comment
Categories: 2008 Presidential Race, Austrian Economics, Constitution, US Constitution, commentary, economics, education, fascism, liberty, mercantilism, monetary policy, politicians, regulation and socialism

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50kWy6FaZKA]

(CLIP: Leroy Smith Shows How To Set Up An Opponent For A Takedown.)

My local Ron Paul Meetup (yes, it’s still around) has been loosely organizing a letter-writing and phone campaign against the absolutely unconscionable, immoral, illegal, undemocratic bank-bailout bill  that Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (R, Goldman-Sachs) dragged up the steps of the Capitol the other day.

One writer suggested this emphasis, I thought it good enough to use, initially;

“I am writing to strongly discourage you from supporting the Treasury Secretary Paulson’s “bank bailout” proposal. This bill will ensure the indentured servitude of Americans for generations to come as it will become increasingly certain that the US will never be able to service is debt obligations. Why should I as an honest and responsible citizen be required to bailout the willfully negligent behavior of executives in the financial industry?

Moreover, I find Section 8 of the proposal particularly disturbing:

Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

This bill in effect makes Secretary Paulson a “Financial Dictator” subject to no Congressional oversight and no judicial oversight. He is immune from any future prosecution with respect to his appropriations of bailout funds.”

Later I remembered what my old wrestling coach taught me about executing a takedown, that the most effective setup is often one where you use your opponent’s own reaction to help you execute the move, so I wrote this;

This bill must be defeated, not modified.

This is a classic setup, a case of action - reaction - action.

If you wrestled in high school or college, you will, upon reflection realize that the Paulson proposal is in part a ’set-up’ for a financial takedown.

They tie us up with the banking implosion.

Push us (and our representatives) with this unbelievably egregious proposal.

We (and our congresscritters) push back (”we want mortgage forgiveness, salary caps, blah, blah, blah”).

Paulson and Bush then drop down and “Fireman’s Carry” our asses up into the rafters, and down onto the mat - 4 points, and a pin to win.

We never ever see it coming.

Hank’s real goal is to ensure that the bad debt is bailed out at ‘face value‘, instead of at a steep market discount. This will cost further trillions of dollars (money that we do not have) and prevent market prices of the underlying assets from correcting for years, if ever. The bankers will escape completely unscathed, while the taxpayer watches his money rot.

This is why the proposal must not be modified, but defeated utterly.

If the banking system, and our fiat economy, is ready to collapse, then we must Let It Fall.

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