As a native Minnesotan, born in Minneapolis, recent developments have been a shock to me. There’s a feeling that the country has tipped, and the polarization is too great to overcome. I’ve had a chance to mentally process recent developments as well as the polarizing rhetoric coming from all sides, and I have a thought to leave people with.
The problem isn’t ICE. The problem isn’t conservatives. The problem isn’t liberals. The problem isn’t Democrats. The problem isn’t Republicans. The problem isn’t the left. The problem isn’t the right. The problem isn’t Christians. The problem isn’t Muslims. The problem isn’t Jews. The problem isn’t the average government employee. The problem isn’t immigration. The problem isn’t the masses. The problem isn’t people, per se.
We can go on all day quarreling over some event. In the end, we miss the fact that the problem we are all facing is the financial system itself. It has no ideology. It can amalgamate and incorporate left wing ideas or right wing ideas. Any idea (from the left or right) amalgamating itself with the system, taken to any extreme, can be very destructive. It is important that we not lose our sense of compassion and humanity.
This is spiritual. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Pray for this country. Pray for leaders. Pray for our neighbors.
MarksHosting
A Perfect Hegelian Trap
Just a few weeks ago something really occurred to me. I’m a staunch supporter of free markets, precisely because I care about our country and its inhabitants. For me, it definitely impacts how I strive to live. I don’t support free markets because I hate. I support free markets because I love. I strive to not judge anybody for disagreement over ideas. What occurred to me just recently was how under the current system, the entire federal government, all state and local governments, could be jettisoned, and that would result in nothing close to a free market. Why? It all goes back to the monetary and financial system, which isn’t based on a free market. Sure. We could jettison all government. And what would the result be? We have the uber wealthy elites like Bill Gates and Elon Musk running around with unchecked power. Jettisoning government would result in a loss of checks and balances. Also, anybody who tries to single out some agency or department, like the FBI, as if the FBI is the only corrupt entity, is a demagogue, not a true supporter of free markets. In fact, under the current system, probably the last entity I would start would jettisoning would be the FBI.
Reichsführer-SS Rudy Giuliani vs. Hillary Clinton
WAGING A CORRUPT WAR ON CORRUPTION
I’ve said before that people can criticize others and advocate changes which appear benign, but in reality the purpose is to thrust us deeper into a constitutional crisis. Rudy Giuliani fits that narrative exactly. After watching Rudy Giuliani’s most recent remarks in Reno, the title I feel that is most appropriate for him is Reichsführer-SS. I will explain.
Before Holocaust victims were sent to their deaths, their possessions would be confiscated. After death, gold would be extracted from teeth. Anything of value was to be sent to the Reich. In October of 1943, Heinrich Himmler gave a speech in Poznan before SS officers in which he declared war on “corruption” in the SS. Corruption was defined as an SS officer taking a bribe to let a prisoner escape, or keeping some of the stolen loot for himself rather than sending it to the Reich. SS officers who were caught would be prosecuted and punished severely.
When you think about the seriousness of the crime of the Holocaust, you can see the absurdity of the Hitler regime prosecuting SS officers for keeping stolen loot. The real reason for a criminal regime cracking down on small scale corruption was not because the regime cared about the victims, but to enhance the power of the regime. To the extent SS officers complied with orders to send stolen loot to the Reich, that benefited the criminal regime. To the extent SS officers deviated from policy, they became competitors with the regime by functioning as independent de facto tax collectors.
Applying Caesar’s observation on war, Lysander Spooner neatly distilled the genesis of the state. Any group of scoundrels, as Spooner saliently articulated, having money enough to start with, can form themselves as a state. Because with money they could hire agents. With agents they could steal more money. And so the first use the state always makes of its money is to hire agents to subdue and kill all those who refuse to give it more money.
The government doesn’t sustain itself by satisfying consumer demands, i.e. it doesn’t earn its income. The government sustains itself with compulsory taxation, i.e. it uses violence or the threat of violence to obtain its revenue. That’s why problems inhere with everything the government inserts itself into. It has nothing to do with personalities. It’s the nature of the state. (There’s no better way to crystallize this than to think about how free markets don’t create concentration camps. Nobody would patronize such a place. Governments create concentration camps.) You have to pay the government in order to remain free. If that isn’t the definition of a protection racket, gentle reader, then I don’t know what is.
People often times conflate the violence that ensues between warring tribes and warlords with anarchy. That is not anarchy. That’s the genesis of the state. It’s competing warlords fighting to obtain a territorial monopoly on the use of violence. Eventually, one of them prevails and becomes the government. At that time, their crimes are made legal. And because the violence is directed one way, vertically downwards, that’s called “order”.
Government is, to put it simply, the most powerful group of thugs with guns. The first documented political act that I can think of is when Cain murdered his brother Abel. I’m not saying the government doesn’t do anything good and there aren’t a lot of well meaning people in government. But the good government does in apprehending sporadic criminals is because if the government allowed people to behave the way it does with impunity then pretty soon a different government would replace it. The good government does is incidental to its primary function of maintaining a territorial monopoly on the use of violence.
If the government permitted its own minions to collect bribes its power would be diffused. If the government permitted anybody to steal with impunity, then before long there would be a new government. As we can see with the SS officers, their offense was not in harming people or even stealing, but in trying to compete with the Reich. Reichsführer-SS Himmler didn’t care about the Holocaust victims, just like Reichsführer-SS Giuliani doesn’t care about innocent detainees being tortured to death.
In Reno, Reichsführer-SS Giuliani boasted that he could successfully prosecute Hillary Clinton not for any of her matter of policy crimes, but for selling protection to UBS bank in Switzerland. This is the same Reichsführer-SS Giuliani who blamed Hillary Clinton for creating ISIS not because she actually helped create ISIS (like she did), but because of the alleged troop withdrawal from Iraq (there are troops in Iraq right now). Pursuant to Reichsführer-SS Giuliani’s calculus, criminal policies are not the crimes, but the efforts to circumvent criminal policies are the crimes.
Rather than plagiarize myself, I will post an excerpt from a previous commentary I wrote regarding Jesse Ventura’s anti-libertarian heresy on campaign finance. To make clear, I was still hoping he would run despite my disagreements. I can think of no better way to illustrate how the government’s war on corruption is corrupt. The trend is not for the government to administer justice but to drive up its cost (i.e. drive up the cost of a “bribe” or protection). My rule is to look for the means to further that trend in every political plan. And that’s why the government prosecutes people like the former police chief Willie Lovett, who deserves a Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Jesse Ventura recently posted a commentary about campaign expenditures. Somehow, campaign expenditures get morphed into both the cause of political crises and the crises itself. From that thought pattern, it then follows that curtailing and/or proscribing campaign expenditures is the way to remedy crises.
While Ventura lamented the First Amendment rights of protesters being curtailed, he simultaneously endorsed curtailing the First Amendment rights of campaign contributors and candidates. Hopefully I am able to draw the nexus between the First Amendment and campaign contributions for Jesse Ventura to see.
Newspapers can deputize their editorial boards to write up editorials in favor, or against, candidates. This amounts to nothing less than a campaign contribution. That doesn’t need to be reported as such. Worse yet, newspapers generally endorse candidates who wish to keep all of the other candidates in handcuffs with the very campaign regulations that newspapers are not bound by. Also, newspapers need not register as PACs, and they need not disclose subscriber lists.
Candidates are bound by disclosure laws, contribution limit laws, and so forth. Meanwhile, a newspaper can deputize its editors to endorse or oppose a candidate. That is, objectively, a campaign contribution. Should the political speech of newspapers be regulated? Should Jesse Ventura’s show be shut down? That would violate First Amendment rights. And so, too, do campaign finance regulations. Campaign finance regulations violate the First Amendment rights of candidates and PACs. So, let’s now see the nexus between the First Amendment rights of commentators and candidates.
About the only addition I could make to my previous commentary that I post below is that legalizing bribery on a blanket basis might actually diminish police brutality. Why? Police officers would feel much more beholden to the citizens whose generosity they rely upon. Before dismissing that argument, please read these two commentaries and consider two different cases involving police officers with different outcomes. In one case, a police officer didn’t arrest people for a victimless “offense” and received 7.5 years in prison. In another case, a police officer actually murdered a man for a victimless “offense” with impunity. See: http://libertyeconomics.com/supporting-the-police-who-enforce-sheldon-adelsons-racket/ and http://libertyeconomics.com/a-prediction-on-police-body-cameras/ Under the current system bribery is legal, but only for politicians. Politicians can bribe us with our own money, but we can’t bribe them with our own money.
Ask yourself why anybody would spend, as Ventura would say, “hundreds of millions of dollars” on elections. It’s being spent in the pursuit of power. The problem is the power. Donors are spending a record amount of money on protection from political candidates. And why is that? They are buying protection from a government that’s the biggest it has ever been. Big government creates demand for protection. The way to solve this is not to rein in campaign expenditures, but to rein in government power. It would be undesirable to rein in campaign expenditures while keeping government intact.
By advocating tighter campaign finance regulations – which Harry Reid advocates as well – Jesse Ventura plays right into the hands of the power brokers. What I found to be very amusing was seeing Reid go back to Washington arguing for tighter campaign finance regulations after the entire Whittemore thing came out. As if that was his way of “atoning” for his transgressions. But just think of the government as nothing but a gigantic conspiracy in restraint of trade. Not to claim accolades, but I wrote a great commentary in which I demolished Ventura’s position about as well as anybody could. It would be fun to debate Jesse Ventura on this issue.
From my commentary where I demolish Ventura’s position:
I will never forget the time when I was in Tijuana with a few other Marines in the 1990s. Tijuana wasn’t a place I went to often. It’s not the nicest place in the world and, sadly, that’s largely due to what Americans have helped do to the place. If you want to see what a total gun ban looks like, go to Tijuana.
I was with two other Marines. We had just left a bar and were outside. A Mexican national ran up to one of the Marines I was with and handed him a cup of beer. My Marine friend began to drink down the beer and as he was in the middle of doing so a Tijuana police officer came over and threatened my Marine friend with arrest for drinking a beer in public. That had to be the least of the problems going on in Tijuana at the time. We soon figured out why my friend was targeted.
The same Mexican national who handed my Marine friend the cup of beer appeared to “negotiate” with the police officer to not take my Marine friend to jail. The terms were my friend would hand over $20 to the police officer in order to evade arrest. My friend handed over the money which we noticed afterwards was split with the same Mexican national who handed my friend the cup of beer. In the end, we made it back just fine.
Of course that Tijuana police officer was abusing his authority and engaging in petty corruption. But you know what? The issue wasn’t the money he received to not arrest my friend for doing something so many others were doing. The issue wasn’t that he let my friend “walk”. Whenever I shared this story in the past, I would remind people that it’s not really a bad thing you can buy some justice in Mexico for twenty bucks. Cracking down on police officers who sell justice for twenty bucks will merely raise the cost of a bribe (i.e. justice).
Here in the United States you wouldn’t be able to buy justice like that. You would be arrested, hauled off to jail for a few days, miss work and maybe lose your job, and then get fined a few hundred dollars. After all of the other middle men in the criminal justice system get involved, the price of justice goes way up. I’m not one to say all police officers are anxious to use force, but it does seem nowadays like there’s a chance somebody might get tased over an offense like that. And people would go along with the narrative that’s real justice because the police officer strictly enforced all statutes and ordinances created by politicians.
This brings me to the case of Harvey Whittemore which I felt compelled to write about after seeing the front-running Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in a different state promise to ban members of Congress from ever becoming lobbyists. The more I think about that, the more I get the proverbial butterflies. A proposal like that should send chills down everybody’s spine.
Think about this one. Harvey Whittemore has been prosecuted for skirting campaign finance laws. Is the United States any better off because of that? This should prompt questions. We ought to ask ourselves what, exactly, campaign finance laws beget? In my estimation, campaign finance laws are all about giving the government more power while also curtailing the ability of the people to influence that same government. It’s called power consolidation. Meanwhile, the crimes of the government continue to metastasize.
There’s a paradox in campaign finance laws. While it would be perfectly legal for a wealthy person to self-finance, donating, say, $500,000 to their own campaign, it becomes a crime to donate the same amount of money to another person’s campaign since it’s necessary to use strawman donors due to contribution limits. That wealthy person could run with those funds but they couldn’t use those same funds to help somebody else run. As if the government so cares about donors like Whittemore it had to create these laws to help level the playing field in their own favor.
Let’s take campaign finance laws to their logical conclusion: criminalize all campaign contributions. If all campaign contributions were criminalized, is that going to fix anything? No. The corporate media would have more power to determine the outcome of elections as people find themselves unable to support the candidates they want while the media continues to enjoy its First Amendment right to support and oppose candidates. If somebody wants to run for office they will need to be very wealthy so that they can self-finance. Campaign finance laws are most injurious to the poorer candidates who need to fundraise.
Campaign finance laws are also injurious to candidates who strive to follow the statutes, which places those candidates at a disadvantage compared to candidates who violate campaign finance statutes. In other words, it’s statutory law that created the very system to be gamed. Eliminating donors also centralizes the sources of campaign funding into fewer and fewer hands, compelling politicians to tap more establishment and elite sources of funding. That would beget politicians becoming more and more like carbon copies of one another.
Perhaps that’s why politicians in Nevada who are guilty of far greater crimes than Harvey Whittemore don’t oppose campaign finance laws and have said nothing in Whittemore’s defense. Politicians who even took Whittemore’s money. They’re indifferent to the corruption. What they like is the weaponization of laws, using them selectively to ensnare their political opponents and to remind people they have no business trying to buy some influence. Or maybe prosecutions of people like Whittemore are meant to send a signal to other donors that their contributions better not taper off or else they’re next.
The problem with Washington is not lobbyists per se. We should all be trying to lobby Washington. Restrictions on lobbying and lobbyists drive up the cost of lobbying, putting the less connected lobbyists out of business while also driving up premiums for the services offered by the more connected lobbyists. If we’re so worried about members of Congress being lobbied or becoming lobbyists, then why trust them as members of Congress? Why not just ban what members of Congress are doing to us through legislation and policy? Ban the federal government? Maybe people ought to recognize campaign finance laws were constructed by Congress to keep power entrenched. Which brings me to the real issue: government power.
It’s kind of like government run medicine. It’s inherently inefficient. The solution isn’t for Congress to exercise more oversight over the VA or to get better VA caseworkers. The solution is to get the government out of healthcare, and then veterans can’t be blackmailed with their healthcare. And then there’s no having to decide which candidate, which member of Congress, I must support in order to get the eczema treated.
When it comes to lobbying, I would make the point that if a lobbyist pays a politician $X to do XYZ on their behalf, it’s impossible to say who was bribing whom. Perhaps it’s the power-wielding politicians who play political games, who can threaten companies and people with sanctions, that are bribing people in order to sell their “protection”. Is the campaign contributor buying “protection” or is the politician buying campaign contributions with “protection” from the very schemes that politician creates? Let me distill this even more sharply, and this is “Mark original” writing. Are campaign contributions being used to buy favors or are favors being used to buy campaign contributions?
If you want to curtail lobbying, then curtail government power. It’s not that people try to influence power. It’s the power. The people who prosecuted Harvey Whittemore had the wrong person on the docket. Instead, it should be politicians who are prosecuted for what they are doing to the country as a matter of policy. This is why I’ve never written about alleged kickbacks and payoffs to Reid in exchange for him to do somebody a favor. If Reid can help somebody in exchange for some kind of compensation – no matter how in violation of a statute it might be – it could actually be in the pursuit of true justice. The issue isn’t Reid personally or individually. The real issue is the entire system – a system Reid supports. That’s what makes Harry Reid a criminal.
If you believe that politicians should run everything and that the solution to how everything is being ran straight into the ground is to lock up campaign contributors, you are totally delusional. Things won’t change until we demand governmental agencies and departments get shut down and abolished. For starters, let’s shut down the Department of Homeland Security which trains with paper targets of children. Let’s shut down the VA medical system which is unable to take care of veterans. Let’s end the promiscuous foreign policy of war all over the globe which creates more disabled veterans when we can’t afford to take care of the ones who already exist. By following the Constitution, this would curtail the practice of politicians using favors to buy campaign contributions.
While there are many legitimate reasons to criticize and even prosecute Hillary Clinton, selling protection to UBS bank isn’t one of them. It’s the wrong barrister with the wrong indictment of the right suspect. Reichsführer-SS Rudy Giuliani couldn’t be more mistaken. It’s not the crimes that matter to Reichsführer-SS Giuliani, but that people would sell protection from the crimes. Let’s not forget Reichsführer-SS Giuliani defends Trump on tax avoidance, and I agree with him as it is certainly not in anybody’s interest that billionaires pay taxes to empower government even more so. Tax fairness should not be defined by taxing the rich, but by eliminating taxes on everybody.
This is another example of how Republicans and Democrats engage on the wrong issues in an effort to thrust us deeper into a constitutional crisis. It reminds me of Clinton’s email controversy. Pursuant to the Reichsführer-SS, it’s not the matter of policy crimes committed by Hillary Clinton, but that she isn’t good at securing information which can lead to us mere mundanes finding out about those matter of policy crimes. Hillary Clinton’s carelessness with state secrets might be her main excellence. Call it unintentional transparency. The perfect solution to the Clinton Foundation is to liberalize laws on bribery. If Reichsführer-SS Giuliani can claim accolades for knowing that he could successfully prosecute Hillary Clinton for selling protection to UBS, then I will claim accolades for knowing I could successfully defend Hillary Clinton on those particular charges.
Good people don’t vote for Jeff Sessions
Senator Jeff Sessions recently said that good people don’t smoke pot. Keep in mind this is the same Jeff Sessions who has campaigned with Dick Cheney and very recently with Donald Trump, both of whom are adamantly pro torture. In this commentary, I make the case that good people don’t vote for Jeff Sessions. To make clear, I’m not defending pot use, as it impairs cognitive function, engendering Sessions-style thinking. It’s Dick Cheney – not me – who is nexused with major drug smugglers.
Let’s start with this axiom: an accusation isn’t tantamount to guilt. To say that only terrorists will be denied habeas corpus and tortured would require evidence of guilt anterior to the use of torture. The alleged purpose of torture is to extract evidence. Pre-existing evidence defeats the alleged purpose of torture. More importantly, torture is unreliable to collect valid information.
That the United States government can do whatever it wishes to foreigners runs contrary to both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. Just because citizens of, say, Canada are not protected by the United States Constitution does not permit the United States government to confiscate the firearms of Canadian citizens. The Constitution follows the government wherever it goes. The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and right of habeas corpus applies to foreigner and American citizen alike.
When I was in the Marine Corps, I was not only taught that torture is illegal and that Marines don’t torture, but also that a prisoner of war is sacred. POWs are not to be tried for conduct on the battlefield. Upon conclusion of a war, POWs are to be released.
In the present paradigm, the United States is at war against terrorism. It’s akin to having a war against sin. Sin will always be with us. So, too, will terrorism. There’s no finite enemy and a “war on terror” can never be won and is never ending. Terrorism should be treated as a law enforcement matter, affording suspects due process without demolishing the rule of law. Anything other invites encroachment by the government upon the rights of American citizens.
The “war on terror” is global, which includes the United States. Keep in mind the definition of terrorism seems to be more dynamic than static. I happen to support the Second Amendment. There does seem to be somewhat of an anti-Second Amendment trend and I could see how one day if you believe in the Second Amendment, you could be accused of being a terrorist. Pursuant to Jeff Sessions’s calculus, if you’re accused of being a terrorist then you should be waterboarded until you confess to being a terrorist. The Second Amendment is not safe without the Fifth Amendment and vice versa. Those two Amendments mutually support one another.
Some people might remain skeptics. But think about this. If the government is to completely demolish habeas corpus and implement a domestic torture program, what would the government want to do first? Disarm the people. There are politicians who really do want to disarm us. That’s not a conspiracy theory. Once guns are banned, is it inconceivable that gun owners could be declared terrorists? There are politicians who really do support torturing accused terrorists and denying them habeas corpus. That’s not a conspiracy theory.
It’s unfortunate that so many alleged conservatives are unable to recognize that denying accused terrorists habeas corpus is incompatible with small government conservatism. Many conservatives are too cognitively deficient to figure out the injustice of creating a new class of prisoner that doesn’t quite match the definition of a POW or a terrorist suspect. They are POWs without any rights in a never ending, global war.
But not only that, many conservatives believe an accusation is tantamount to guilt. Conservatives embrace the idea that anybody the United States government decides to capture and accuse of being a terrorist is one, therefore it’s morally acceptable to torture the accused into confessing to crimes while denying the accused the right of habeas corpus. Even if this treatment is reserved exclusively for foreigners, it’s still reprehensible. Torture is wrong when foreigners do it to American citizens and it’s wrong when American citizens do it to foreigners.
The use of torture makes battlefield opponents much less likely to surrender, thereby jeopardizing the safety of troops in harm’s way. Practicing torture undermines the legitimacy of the government itself. How can any reasonable person justify a government that practices torture incarcerating people over much more minor and technical infractions of statutory law? Let’s not forget that innocent people died under Dick Cheney’s torture program, i.e., they were murdered. Pursuant to Jeff Sessions’s calculus, pot smokers are worse than torturers and murderers. In other words, it’s okay to jail pot smokers while torturers and murderers remain free.
Torture is notoriously unreliable for collecting legitimate intelligence. Torture is an effective tool to extract false confessions. Denying accused terrorists due process, using tactics that result in false confessions, is something that terrorists would do. Terrorists kill and torture people extrajudicially. Terrorists don’t like due process. I believe that politicians who seek to jettison due process are themselves terrorists. Therefore, I am accusing many politicians, including Jeff Sessions, of being terrorists. Pursuant to Jeff Sessions’s own calculus, an accusation is tantamount to guilt. It’s why good people don’t vote for Jeff Sessions.
Joe Heck and Catherine Cortez Masto: Equal opportunity torturers
Super Tuesday is finally past us and Donald Trump has pole position for the Republican Party nominating contest. In the last few days, Trump has received some well-earned admonition for failing to condemn David Duke and the KKK when given the opportunity. Amazingly, Trump tried to blame it on a faulty ear piece despite mentioning David Duke by name. But even more disturbing is that these types of tertiary issues have displaced the issue that should be central: torture. That Donald Trump has achieved pole position on a message of torture should disturb everybody who reads this.
Let’s look at what the Republican candidates said on the matter of torture during the February 6 debate, where Jeb Bush gave the least bad response, in this brief clip:
In the most recent Republican debate preceding super Tuesday, we learned that the late Justice Antonin Scalia is considered to be a paragon of constitutional scholarship by the top Republican contenders. It seems as if Republicans have been obtaining their legal advice from Scalia. And therein might be the problem.
The matter of torture is just one reason why Scalia was no friend of the Constitution. My purpose here is not to gloat, and I offer my condolences to his family. I may be tough on some political figures, but I’m animated by love for humanity. My purpose here is to deconstruct the myth that Scalia was a friend of the Constitution. Go look up his position on torture. Maybe that’s why Dick Cheney admired Scalia so much. See: http://www.newsmax.com/Headline/dick-cheney-praise-justic-scalia-originalist/2016/02/13/id/714262/ Scalia was either myopic or intellectually dishonest by failing to consider the Fifth Amendment, which had been carefully excised from his legal worldview.
Scalia went through mental somersaults to argue that the Constitution proscribes using torture only if referred to as punishment. Therefore, Scalia reasoned, as long as torture’s stated use is for an interrogation rather than punishment, then torture is permissible – a position Rubio has also taken, albeit he makes a distinction where there is none. Pursuant to Scalia’s calculus, the Constitution only proscribes the use of torture after a trial as punishment, but somewhere approves the use of torture as long as we call it an interrogation while depriving the victim of a trial. Where in the Constitution torture is permitted, I’m uncertain.
Not that torture is good under any circumstances, but, if anything, the neocons get this inverted. After all, people receive life in prison as punishment, and life inside of a cell could be considered a form of torture. The issue is due process. Was the person given a fair trial? Was the person lawfully convicted? Is the sentence justified by the offense? This, then, is what separates those who are on the side of liberty and justice from those who are on the side of tyranny.
The neocons are trying to spin the issue, saying that as long as it’s not called punishment, then it’s okay to torture people for an interrogation. But I would make the case that using torture on somebody during an interrogation is punishment, and it’s being meted out anterior to due process. The act of torture is, itself, punishment. In fact, it is used to coerce a person into self-incrimination, which most definitely infringes upon the Fifth Amendment. If we accept the neocon standard, then we can all be found guilty of something. It’s only a matter of if the government decides to exercise such power. There’s a good reason why evidence extracted through the use of torture would be inadmissible in any lawful court. So the neocon detour around that obstacle is to overthrow habeas corpus altogether. William Blackstone, who said torture is an “engine of state, not of law”, must be spinning in his grave.
Ted Cruz apparently doesn’t understand what federal statutes say about torture. See: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/part-I/chapter-113C Cruz isn’t defining torture pursuant to statutory law. As I wrote on February 7, he’s defining torture pursuant to a Bush administration memo. Waterboarding most definitely is torture. We need no further legislation to establish the fact that waterboarding is illegal. Even if waterboarding were legal, it would still be a criminal act. Do we really want somebody incapable of discerning that waterboarding is torture ruling over us?
Cruz does seem to understand waterboarding isn’t that nice, because he says he is opposed to lower level government employees being able to waterboard people. But he’s all for President Obama having the power and ability to waterboard people. In other words, Cruz supports an executive waterboarding program. Thankfully, President Obama doesn’t listen to Ted Cruz. Do Republicans not know what they ask for? It seems as though I’m not getting anywhere by writing commentaries like this one, so, trying to illustrate the absurdity of the Republican position, I write a commentary like this one: https://libertyeconomics.com/why-i-choose-michele-fiore/ For writing commentaries like that, I’m treated as though there’s something wrong with me and my thinking, yet that’s literally what Republicans are asking for.
Here’s a brief clip of Donald Trump weighing in on torture in South Carolina:
On torture, Donald Trump is maneuvering to take the gold. He’s gone so far off the deep end, he’s morphing Michael Hayden into an Oath Keeper. What ISIS is doing is indisputably evil, but Trump is playing on people’s fear to overthrow the rule of law. When Trump starts using terms like “they”, watch out. We can all disagree on whether or not 9/11 was an inside job. But federal statutes make it self-evident that waterboarding is torture and torture is illegal. Dick Cheney may never be brought to justice over 9/11, but he can easily be brought to justice over torture. But not with the leadership of Donald Trump, who supports torture. On torture, Trump is Dick Cheney on steroids. Donald Trump undermines a compelling legal case against Dick Cheney. Trump gives Cheney legal cover. There is a certain level of duplicity in Trump simultaneously pledging to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
Pursuant to some people – even within the liberty movement – who aren’t paying attention, Donald Trump is a non-interventionist on foreign policy. Donald Trump recently said he would keep Guantanamo Bay open and keep filling it up with people – Rubio’s position as well. Trump promises us a much more cost effective torture program. In just this one minute clip, Trump simultaneously criticizes the cost of running Guantanamo Bay, and President Obama for wanting to shut it down. See the brief video clip below:
Trump’s plan should raise some eyebrows. I’m not too clear on the details, but it sounds like he will maybe outsource parts of the torture program to other countries. If Trump is truly a non-interventionist, and if we aren’t at war overseas, then how will he fill up Guantanamo Bay? Either Guantanamo Bay will be filled up with foreigners because we keep our promiscuous foreign policy intact, or Guantanamo Bay will be filled up with Americans. Either way, it’s bad.
Here’s Joe Heck’s position on Guantanamo Bay: https://heck.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-joe-heck-statement-presidents-plan-transfer-guantanamo-detainees-us Here’s Catherine Cortez Masto’s position on Guantanamo Bay: http://catherinecortezmasto.com/post/139917446974/catherine-cortez-masto-statement-on-guantanamo-bay Thank goodness we can choose between Democrats and Republicans.
As you can see, Catherine Cortez Masto is just like Donald Trump and Joe Heck on Guantanamo Bay. Or are Donald Trump and Joe Heck just like Catherine Cortez Masto? Masto and Heck are carbon copies of one another. Masto is out-Hecking Heck. Rather than helping pursue justice and protecting the people of Nevada by calling for the arrest and prosecution of people like Dick Cheney, Masto is laying down a smoke screen for the criminals. She, too, has jumped off the delusional deep end. She wants to leave Guantanamo Bay open for…a Trump presidency. Masto, like Heck, is Donald Trump’s enabler.
It shouldn’t require people like myself to convey this message. But politicians in both parties are derelict in their duty. Masto will not engage on real issues. Instead, the criticism will be over Joe Heck’s alleged latent anti-statist tendencies. Notice the point of attack in this article: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/86bd054e066443079d377f72cdd157ab/angle-mulls-us-senate-bid-testing-waters-money-support But also think about how Republicans could be capitalizing on Masto’s metamorphosis into a pro torture neocon, cutting into her base rather than buttressing her support. But they can’t, because they don’t support the rule of law, either. Instead, Masto will be accused of being insufficiently supportive of the war on terror – facts to the contrary be damned.
In my defense I only said I wanted Masto to beat Heck. I didn’t say I wanted either of them to be my ruler. Both parties are so corrupt and criminal that the slightest bit of difference between the two is reason enough to support divided government and neither one obtaining a supermajority. It’s the synergy of one party rule that I find to be terrifying. If I were a single issue voter, that wouldn’t be the case. But I’m not a single issue voter. I look at the abstract picture. My top choice between the two major parties for POTUS was Rand Paul. But my next choice was Martin O’Malley. On a micro level, both parties lurch into truth and error in seemingly paradoxical ways. On a macro level, both parties are a threat to constitutional order. Even if both parties were 100% identical, the danger in voting for candidates like Heck is that statist ideas are ratified as conservative ideas, helping to construct confusion about what conservatism is in the minds of the grassroots.
The ultimate irony here is that while both Masto and Heck disagree with President Obama, I don’t. I’ve said before that with a Republican controlled Congress, I could make a libertarian case for making President Obama a permanent dictator if the choices are people like Hillary Clinton and a pro torture Republican. The saying that politics makes strange bedfellows is true. As a libertarian, I’m in complete agreement with the President on this issue, and it’s no insignificant matter. I am with the President. That said, it appears to be little more than Shakespearean theater. If it isn’t, then President Obama needs to cease the war crimes and stop protecting war criminals.
If there isn’t accountability now, and if politicians can get away with very serious crimes with impunity, the crimes will continue on unabated. Torture is making a comeback. When programs start, they tend to metastasize. The torture program will be no exception. While Democrats like Masto are fine with passing such power to Republicans like Donald Trump, Republicans better think about what Democrat will inherit Trump’s torture program.
Do Republicans believe Trump’s torture squads will be overseen by squads of constitutionalists? Do Republicans believe that we can have a “good” torture program under Trump, who will at some future time come to his senses, moving the way of this author on torture before exiting, so that we don’t end up with a bad torture program under a Democrat? If Trump is going to come this author’s way four or eight years from now, then why deviate today? This is a genie that ought not be taken out of the bottle. Once she’s out, she’s out.
Why believe the American people will come to their senses at some later date if they won’t now? My anti-torture, pro Fifth Amendment, pro American and Marine Corps values, pro divided government position has only engendered the animosity of people in both major parties. It’s not like my phone is ringing. It’s not like this writing endears me to Republicans and Democrats. Perhaps that’s because I have made it my focus to stand for truth, and truth exposes politicians and certain radio show hosts in Texas who market themselves as defenders of the Constitution as little more than charlatans.
Rather than tackling the issue of torture, Republicans are obsessing over immigration and how best to wall off the United States. No longer is the narrative about what politicians in Washington are doing to us or what negative real interest rates are doing to us, but what immigrants are supposedly doing to us. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
When establishment candidates do engage, it’s not over torture, but Trump’s latent racism. Democrats and Republicans alike are calling Trump a racist. I’m not here to play defense for Trump. I’m not saying racism is acceptable. Racism is a sin. Trump’s defenders like Mike Huckabee are also wrong. Huckabee says Trump isn’t a racist. Let’s pretend Trump isn’t a racist. Does it really matter? Trump is a pro torture sadist. Apparently, being a sadist is a qualifying trait – as long as you aren’t a racist sadist. Even noticing that makes one a heretic. Republicans and Democrats are both too corrupt to hold each other accountable. They are incapable of engaging on the right issues. Americans are supposed to sit in front of their television sets believing that as long as it’s equal opportunity torture, it’s okay.
If we are going to right this ship, almost everybody in Washington will have to go to prison. Trump will have to go, too. It would be of little help to the cause of liberty for only one politician, or politicians in only one party, to be deposed while leaving the rest in place. I hope you, gentle reader, mentally process just how serious is the constitutional crisis we are facing. This prospect of a fascist torturer in the White House, which some Democrats have themselves acknowledged, is exactly why Democrats ought not be advocating gun control schemes. That there are dangerous groups like ISIS and dangerous people with guns is exactly why people need the right to keep and bear arms.
Don’t be naive. We won’t get good government that’s ran by evil people. It’s a government of the sociopaths, by the sociopaths, and for the sociopaths. The problem won’t magically go away. The only way this stops is if we all demand justice. It’s time to demand we bring the real 9/11 masterminds to justice, not the decoy who was waterboarded 183 times in one month. If we don’t, we are about to be walled off into a torturing police state. But at least we’re all against the torturing sadists being racists, because non racist sadists are much “better” than racist sadists!
Why I choose Michele Fiore
Posterior to the shooting in Oregon, President Obama called for more gun control. Republicans accused the President of politicizing the shooting. As you can see here, I agreed with Republicans: https://libertyeconomics.com/president-obama-politicizes-the-oregon-shooting/ Republicans are so right.
We all need to be much more positive and bipartisan in our approach to solving the issues of our day. It seems like any thoughtful answer to violent crime should consider bipartisan solutions. The apolitical answer would be to have an eclectic combination of both gun control and a domestic torture program. President Obama, showing his weakness on tackling important issues, didn’t say one word about implementing a domestic torture program.
Dick Cheney says torture works, so it must. We all know the government never gets anything wrong. If torture works to curtail terrorism from abroad, then why wouldn’t torture work to curtail crime right here at home? I believe Republicans are much more capable of explaining why torture works and how the Fifth Amendment undermines our security than I am.
As I had time to reflect on the issues of our day, I came to the conclusion that it’s time for a bipartisan solution to violent crime that doesn’t just jettison the Second Amendment, but also the Fifth Amendment. That means I’ve been inverting the reasons why we need divided government. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa. I’ve been far too negative.
The positive way of calling for divided government is this: It’s a shame that Republicans say they want to oppress women by questioning the practice of tearing apart babies for profit from taxpayer money. Republicans also claim to support the Second Amendment. For those reasons, we can’t permit Republicans to take over the entire government. What a shame it is that Democrats don’t like waterboarding. Like Michael Savage says, that’s treason to support the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Democrats shouldn’t be able to control the entire government either.
Just a few years ago, Michele Fiore refused to sign the tax pledge and explicitly stated she was open to raising taxes. That’s a definite plus. What has happened to her in the intervening years is anybody’s guess, but I won’t hold it against her. After all, there could be a perfectly innocent explanation for Fiore’s metamorphosis into an apparent advocate of liberty on some issues.
It’s very possible that politicians will vote the pro liberty way if it’s a popular position that will help buttress their poll numbers, so long as the vote is inconsequential (i.e. not a determinant vote). In that case, Fiore can’t really be faulted for abandoning her statist positions. Just think about how Fiore could get elected to the House and vote to audit the Fed knowing full well that the audit is DOA in the Senate, and then claim accolades for being so friendly to the Ron Paul movement.
Fiore has used her recently established conservative credentials to support great candidates like Adam Laxalt and Joe Heck. Laxalt was endorsed by Dick Cheney which is a definite plus. Joe Heck has been supported by people like John Bolton and Jeb Bush. Fiore has also been endorsed by Brian Sandoval when running for the Assembly. This tells me that Fiore must be very strong on wanting to jettison the Fifth Amendment, which would make her very appealing to a lot of neoconservative voters. These are indicators she would be a reliable yes vote for large increases in military spending, which is just what we need in juxtaposition with large increases in Planned Parenthood funding. Whatever it takes to promote abortion and war is all good.
I believe Joe Heck has some issues which might make him inferior compared to a Democrat alternative. Heck seems like he might be weak on women’s rights by not calling for large increases in Planned Parenthood funding. I haven’t heard Joe Heck say much about wanting to jettison the Second Amendment. These are reasons I believe Fiore was mistaken in her endorsement of Joe Heck’s bid, as I prefer a Democrat over Joe Heck in the Senate.
But I have no reason to doubt that Heck supports torture and isn’t a huge fan of habeas corpus. If Fiore supported Heck and Laxalt, she must be really solid on wanting to jettison the Fifth Amendment. I know Fiore has portrayed herself as very weak on wanting to jettison Second Amendment rights for neoconservatives. The beautiful thing about Fiore’s opposition to the Fifth Amendment is that undermining the Fifth will help undermine the Second. Not only that, if the Democrats take over the Senate, their support for jettisoning the Second Amendment can offset Republican support for the Second Amendment in the House. Conversely, Republican support for jettisoning the Fifth Amendment in the House will offset Democrat support for the Fifth Amendment in the Senate.
I believe Michele Fiore is the most qualified candidate to smuggle the neoconservative agenda past the electorate by amalgamating it with fragments of a liberty platform. There are few candidates who would be as capable at explaining why we need to jettison the Fifth Amendment vis-à-vis support for torture and the demolition of habeas corpus as Michele Fiore. I believe Fiore has an inner Dick Cheney just waiting to explain why the Fifth Amendment undermines our security, and that’s why she’s my pick for House in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District.
President Obama politicizes the Oregon shooting
President Obama has wasted no time using the Oregon shooting as a pretext to call for more gun control. Republicans are absolutely right that the President is politicizing the tragedy. How dare President Obama do this.
It seems like any thoughtful answer should consider bipartisan solutions to violent crime. The apolitical – or non political – answer would be to have an eclectic combination of both gun control and a domestic torture program. After all, if torture works to stop terrorism from abroad, then why wouldn’t torture work to stop crime right here at home? I believe Republicans are much more capable of explaining why torture works and how the Fifth Amendment undermines our security than I am.
It’s time for a bipartisan solution that doesn’t just jettison the Second Amendment, but also the Fifth Amendment. President Obama, stop politicizing the shooting in Oregon and support torture now! So there you have it.