Let me preface this by noting that once upon a time, I chauffeured Pat Buchanan. I have no natural animosity towards Pat. It’s my objectivity that compels me to call Pat out for his economic nationalism. While Pat has been promoting economic quackery, Alan Keyes has been blazing a trail for liberty.
Here’s a snippet from a recent commentary written by Alan Keyes:
“Like Mr. Trump’s instinctive opposition to North Carolina’s so-called “bathroom bill”; his desire to alter the GOP’s principled platform position on respect for the unalienable right to life; his disregard for the plain meaning of the Fifth Amendment’s reference to persons, without regard to citizenship; and his eager disregard for the implications of the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination and the Eighth Amendment’s intolerance for cruel and unusual punishment (which, taken together, more than eliminate torture from the list of actions the government can constitutionally perpetrate against persons not even accused of a crime), Trump’s willingness to consider William Pryor for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court contradicts the principled, conservative course he now promises to take with respect to judicial appointments.” -Alan Keyes, see: http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/keyes/160523 (bold text added for emphasis)
It was very refreshing to read Alan Keyes echoing exactly what I have been saying about torture (e.g. waterboarding, which Republicans claim isn’t) ever since I first learned of its use in 2004. This isn’t about Trump bashing or a personality contest. This is about the Constitution and standing in protest to its demolition. If the government can torture a confession out of a person, damning the Fifth Amendment, then the entire Bill of Rights be damned. Alan Keyes also makes a great point about not only does Trump advocate torturing people, but people not even accused of a crime. Until somebody is legally and officially charged with a crime to be granted habeas corpus, then that person hasn’t yet been officially accused. Thank you, Alan Keyes, for supporting and defending the Constitution. Alan hits a homerun. One thing I really appreciate about Alan Keyes is he really understands how abortion and the devaluation of human life begets things like torture.
Nobody distilled Pat Buchanan’s nonsense more skillfully than did my friend William Norman Grigg. Below is WNG’s response to Pat’s commentary:
“As I learned from reading the fascinating (and, of course, self-serving) autobiography of heavyweight champion Jack Johnson, the expression “Great White Hope” was paired with the description of Johnson as “The Black Peril” — not because of his morally dissolute lifestyle, which he shared with many white athletes, but because of his incontestable dominance of a sport that was seen as the defining test of manhood.
“If a black man — especially one who was literate and flamboyantly individualistic — could best a white man in a mediated boxing match, the myth of innate white superiority would be impossible to sustain. Johnson’s merciless beating of Jim Jeffries in 1910 set off race riots in cities across the country in which dozens or scores of people were killed, most of them blacks who were beaten, shot, or had their throats slit as punishment for being uppity in the face of resentful whites.
“In Uvalda, Georgia, a vengeful white mob laid siege to a black suburb, lynching three people and driving many more to flee for their lives into a nearby forest. In Mounds, Illinois, interestingly, a black police officer was killed trying to defend persons and property against four local black residents who wanted to celebrate in much the same fashion as the white mobbers in Georgia.
“When Jess Willard, the titular “Great White Hope” of Buchanan’s scabrous essay, beat Johnson in Havana five years later, white tribalists treated this as the validation of the social order, rather than the victory of one remarkable athlete over another. Willard was seen as symbolically beating back the dusky-skinned hordes whose mere presence in society was a threat to white dominance, which — it was feared — couldn’t survive in a society in which whites and non-whites were allowed to compete freely against each other.
“That is the core complaint being made in Buchanan’s unabashed endorsement of what *he* sees as the white nationalist essence of the Trump campaign.
“Yes, state-imposed schemes like affirmative action have done considerable damage to the economy and to civil society, and must be destroyed root and branch. But that consideration is ancillary to Buchanan’s central complaint — namely, the presence of “Scores of millions of third-world immigrants, here **legally** and illegally, who depress U.S. wages,” and the fact, as he sees it, that “The world has been turned upside-down for white children” because the education system and popular culture no longer validate the idea of white dominance.
“Buchanan is an economic ignoramus, but even he must understand the role played by the Federal Reserve in destroying the middle class. People of any origin or description who perform honest work at agreed-upon wages are not the culprit here, and since the collapse of the Fed’s last speculative bubble nearly ten years ago immigration from Mexico has declined precipitously. But then again, Buchanan objects to *legal* non-white immigration, because he seems to think the United States should be a state-enforced safe space for white nationalists.” -William N. Grigg
You got that? Pat is cheering on Trump for wanting to create a state-enforced safe space for white nationalists – literally. And people believe libertarians are extremists? Pat Buchanan swings and misses with his brand of race based mercantilism. Objectively, protectionism is state intervention to manipulate capital flows (i.e. capital controls). It’s marketed as a means to remedy capital outflow, yet capital outflow is a symptom of a disease called statism. Capital flows don’t determine economic conditions. Economic conditions determine capital flows. What Trump seeks to impose on the United States would be referred to as sanctions if imposed by any other government on the United States. Trump’s economic policies will actually precipitate an exodus of capital. While Alan Keyes has been echoing me on defending the Constitution, Pat Buchanan has been echoing my satire that demolished his calculus.
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.
Recently Donald Trump unveiled a plan to proscribe remittances sent to Mexico. See: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/report-trump-hell-fund-wall-cutting-remittances-38158595 Amazingly, remittances sent to Mexico were characterized by Trump as “de facto welfare”. Pursuant to the Trump calculus, money earned through productive work in the private sector is synonymous with welfare.
The purpose of Trump’s plan is to pressure the Mexican government into taxing its citizens in order to fund a border wall. In other words, Donald Trump wants to implement capital controls in order to get the Mexican government to pay for his cronies to build a border wall, which somehow isn’t considered to be welfare.
If Trump plans to impose capital controls in order to build a border wall, why believe a border wall wouldn’t be used to impose capital controls? With legislation like Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act that passed in 2010, why believe it would be used for anything other than trapping people and capital into the United States? Yet we are supposed to believe that Trump’s capital controls would be used only against immigrants and until the Mexican government ponies up the capital to build a border wall, at which time Trump will cease being a menace.
Supposedly, Trump’s plan will be limited to immigrants (somehow making it a good thing). Arbitrage has a funny way of holding lawless regimes in check. Desperate governments do desperate things, and if we can justify curtailing capital outflow to Mexico in one instance, then why not in every instance? By treating honestly earned money on the free market as “welfare” that the government can seize, this will discourage immigrants from performing honest and productive work. No matter where dollars earned flow, productive work is a benefit to the economy.
I didn’t have to read about Trump’s plan to know that Trump would impose capital controls. As I wrote back in 2010, immigration restrictionism taken to its logical conclusion is capital controls. See: http://libertyeconomics.com/my-problem-with-brian-sandoval-mike-montandon-and-governor-jim-gibbons/ The populist indictment of immigration is that immigrants “drive down wages.” Not true. This argument dovetails with arguments in favor of minimum wage law as an effort to fix wages. The welfare-warfare state drives down wages. The problem is not the immigration, but the welfare-warfare state. Furthermore, let’s take this argument to its logical conclusion: capital controls.
The government could inflict injury upon every employer of Mexican immigrants (legal or illegal). However, this would do absolutely nothing to create or save a job. If employing inexpensive labor at home is curtailed, this begets one of two possibilities: the job is destroyed altogether, or the employer flees the country altogether.
What next? Criminalize capital flight? Pursuant to the statutory case against hiring illegal immigrants, the de jure case for capital controls is already in place. If it’s illegal to hire an illegal immigrant at home, then why is it legal to do business with “undocumented” workers abroad? (In that case, one becomes the de facto employer of foreigners living abroad.) For the sake of logical consistency, outsourcing should be criminalized. All international trade and commerce should be criminalized. If the government should proscribe remittances, then why not proscribe Americans from traveling to Mexico and paying Mexican nationals for goods and services?
Let me remind you that if the government can trap capital in, it can trap people in. Try leaving the country without your capital. If immigrants aren’t permitted to send money to Mexico, then how can they be expected to leave the United States? This means that Trump has, almost paradoxically, devised a scheme to trap immigrants into the country. Coming to the United States will be akin to checking into a roach motel. Furthermore, remittances to Mexico would curtail emigration from Mexico. This means curtailing remittances to Mexico would encourage emigration from Mexico.
We are being told that protectionism and capital controls are used to protect us, to protect our jobs. In reality, capital controls are a makeshift effort to remedy capital outflow engendered by loose monetary policy. Capital naturally gravitates toward cheaper, higher-yield, more efficient economies. The only way to repatriate capital is for the central bank to stop inflating, force up interest rates, and return to sound money. If we pursued the right economic policies, people would voluntarily keep their money in the United States. If the government in Washington seeks to curtail capital flight, then stop fixing prices and stop using the central bank to suppress interest rates.
Not only will capital controls not work, capital controls will beget greater problems. If we reject the free market argument against capital controls today, then the resulting chaos will be met with demands for tighter controls tomorrow. Trump’s plan is to turn the United States into an open air prison. Trump’s plan will actually precipitate an exodus of capital.
How would I approach the matter of immigration? Let property rights prevail. If two people wish to engage in peaceful, voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange, whose right is it to interfere? That somebody is an “illegal alien” is a faux concept constructed by statutory law. Unlike politicians and bureaucrats, most Mexican immigrants hold real jobs. It’s time to legalize immigration. I say we deport politicians and bureaucrats instead.
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!
Let’s face it. Immigrants are destroying America. Some of them come here and commit crimes. But just as bad, a lot of them come here to work and steal our jobs. The Asians especially like to come here and work. Why is it every Chinese buffet I go eat at is ran by Chinese people? Not only are our jobs going to China, but the Chinese are coming here to steal our jobs! The only candidate with a serious plan to protect our economic wellbeing from these job stealing immigrants is Donald Trump.
There’s a narrow group of people who call themselves libertarians who say that immigration restrictionism won’t create or save jobs. I beg to differ. Donald Trump wants to create a deportation force. Just think of all the jobs he would create to round up and deport immigrants!
Overall, Donald Trump is on the right track by campaigning against arbitrage in the labor market. He just doesn’t go far enough. I mean think about it. By restricting immigration to the United States, the aggregate supply of labor hasn’t really shrunk. Lower cost labor is still available, but in other countries. The only way to truly shrink the labor pool – which everybody knows is the way to lift wages (not increasing productivity) – would be to bomb everybody in every other country. Donald Trump needs to get serious about bombing China back to the stone age, or else his campaign against arbitrage will be wholly ineffective.
Curtailing the ability of companies to purchase lower cost labor here in the United States would merely encourage companies to move their business abroad. Therefore, to effectively combat arbitrage in the labor market, Donald Trump has the right idea with a border wall. We need to implement capital controls so that businesses can only hire white males here in the United States and nobody else. If that means building border walls to trap people and capital into the United States, so be it! It’s time for a Berlin Wall of North America. Keep in mind that if we trap capital in, we trap people in. Try leaving the country without your capital!
If you are in business and somebody is selling the same product or service you are, but at a cheaper price, in the old days this would be settled with baseball bats. Now price fixing is so much better. We can just use government – militaries and police forces – to harass and imprison and maybe even kill our competitors! People even cheer on the price fixing schemes! At the very least, we can use government run healthcare to diagnose free market advocates who support a smooth functioning price mechanism as mentally ill. My favorite Chinese buffet is low priced compared to other restaurants, which just isn’t fair. All the more reason we need Donald Trump.
I really like Donald Trump’s waterboarding plan. That could create a lot of jobs at the Central Intelligence Agency. I myself would be very interested in one of those positions as an Enhanced Interrogation Specialist. When I was in the Marine Corps, I was brainwashed into believing torture is contrary to the law of war. But I am overcoming that brainwashing. We all know an accusation is tantamount to guilt and, just like Donald Trump, politicians get everything right and there could never be any mistakes. How can anybody claim waterboarding is bad without trying it on somebody once or twice? Only terrorists would disagree with Donald Trump’s waterboarding plan. It’s about time they be waterboarded.
I really appreciate the way Donald Trump wants to execute Edward Snowden. Only traitors would try to expose government wrongdoing. What would we do without the NSA protecting us? I mean we could end up with political figures openly plotting to implement torture programs becoming POTUS or something! I say we waterboard Edward Snowden before executing him. And what an awesome idea that is to wall off a torturing police state!
One thing that really pisses me off about China is the way the PBC has been devaluing the renminbi in order to cheat on trade. Everybody knows low prices are bad for the economy and devaluing the currency is the way to boost exports. It’s not like if China tightened that would create even more lopsided arbitrage opportunities and precipitate capital outflow at an accelerated pace due to loose monetary policy by the Fed. People just stop shopping completely if prices are too low. Donald Trump is so right on economics. Now he needs to call on the Fed to devalue the dollar by increasing the money supply a good four or five fold. Pour on the inflation so that we can take those jobs back from China! What’s really killing our economy is trade with China. China is killing us. Damn China for buying our dollars. We need to erect trade barriers so that American consumers can’t buy anything from other countries like China in juxtaposition with the Fed staying loose. Keeping the Fed parked in neutral in juxtaposition with implementing a protectionist package is such a great idea!
Of course, I write in jest to demonstrate the absurdity of Donald Trump’s platform. For some great rebuttals of Trump’s fallacies, I will be posting some links right here in the near future.
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 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.
I was never a fan of Bernard von NotHaus’s “liberty dollar”. The same reason I wasn’t a fan and never bought any is why the government had no business prosecuting him. The free market would have been entirely capable of putting him out of business. If he should have been prosecuted, then makers of faux novelty money, which is backed by no silver at all, should definitely be prosecuted.
All Bernard von NotHaus did was sell silver bullion. Nothing more and nothing less. Objectively, selling anything has the same economic impact as does selling silver bullion. Historically, all sorts of commodities have been used as money. Tobacco has been used as money. Does this mean cigarette sellers are creating a counterfeit currency by selling cigarettes?
When selling silver bullion, NotHaus was buying dollars, consequently helping to prop up the value of the dollar. He wasn’t trying to pass “liberty dollars” off as government issued dollars. He was exchanging “liberty dollars” for government issued dollars. Contrast that with people who engage in direct barter, in which case no dollars are purchased. The entire “liberty dollar” ploy was merely a marketing gimmick for selling silver bullion with a high markup over spot price.
I have always told people that if their desire is to hedge against inflation, stick with bullion. Unless you are a coin collector, avoid numismatics. To get a price as close to spot as possible, go with rounds (i.e. privately minted coins) rather than government minted coins with face value. I never would have advised anybody to buy “liberty dollars”, which is why I never advised anybody to buy “liberty dollars”. Bernard von NotHaus’s weakness was selling silver rounds at prices too high over spot, which he was successful at doing because of his “liberty dollar” marketing gimmick. By using his “liberty dollar” marketing gimmick, he confused the prosecutor and judge into believing he was doing something other than selling silver rounds.
NotHaus complicated the process of selling silver and did things in terms of marketing that I wouldn’t have felt comfortable doing, but nothing that should have been considered a crime. Things that could have been easily corrected by removing the “liberty dollar” value from the round, or adding a disclaimer saying that it’s not referring to U.S. dollars on the round. Objectively, it was printing a price in terms of “liberty dollars” onto the object. Certainly not a criminal act.
The real crime was in prosecuting NotHaus. If the prosecutor’s purpose was to defend the value of the dollar, as alleged by the prosecutor, then it’s politicians in Washington who should have been prosecuted.
In no way did NotHaus counterfeit anything. Using the word dollar in no way infringes upon official currency. Other countries issue currencies called dollars. The government doesn’t have a copyright on the word dollar. The word dollar descends from the Thaler, which is short for Joachimsthaler. Thalers were coins that originated in Joachimsthal, Bohemia, minted by Count Hieronymus Schlick in 1518. Unlike official currency, NotHaus was selling real silver. The only thing that would have made his operation a criminal enterprise is if he were issuing ownership certificates (i.e. “liberty dollars”) that he promised to redeem for silver but had no intention of doing so.
If NotHaus had no intention of fulfilling his obligation to deliver silver, that would have been a crime. But it appears that the government’s prosecution is the only thing that jeopardized NotHaus’s ability to fulfill his obligations.[1] He had no obligations to me, because I recognized you could have done better by shopping with another bullion dealer. But it does make me wonder what kind of country we live in when selling silver bullion becomes tantamount to a criminal act, and that the federal government would use the force of law to compel people to use a currency that it’s debasing as a matter of policy.
[1] – Confiscating NotHaus’s silver and gold bullion would have actually had a deleterious effect on the value of the dollar in relationship to silver and gold by pushing up the price of silver and gold.
As if there’s no problem that can’t be fixed with a government program and money, President Obama is requesting funds to equip police officers with body cameras in order to curtail police brutality. If politicians in Washington told us they needed to fund a government program to make certain the sun rises in the morning, you could take it to the bank the sun will stop rising in the morning.
One reason I am opposed to President Obama’s idea is because the Constitution doesn’t permit the federal government to exert this kind of control over local LEOs. Even if funded and initiated entirely at the local level, I would disagree with the government usurping the role of private citizens.
Historically, government has been incapable of holding itself accountable. The video of Eric Garner’s murder demonstrates the inadequacy of cameras as a means to achieve accountability. Body cameras are not the end-all solution to a morality problem and could engender a false sense of security for the citizenry. I’m all for private citizens having the right to record police, and it’s they who need to hold government accountable. I also support the right of individual police officers to record themselves in order to defend against spurious accusations. But a government camera will hold police accountable to the government, not the people.
If the government’s track record is any indication, body cameras could worsen the problem of police brutality. To believe that body cameras, imposed on officers by a flawed system, will morph bad police officers into good ones rather than good ones into bad ones requires a certain amount of naivete.
Consider the case of Eric Garner. His murder was captured on video – the evidence is about as empirical as it can get. The murderer will not be held accountable. Contrast that case with the case of former police chief Willie Lovett. See: Supporting the police who enforce Sheldon Adelson’s racket. For doing the right thing, Lovett is going to jail.[1] 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.
How will body cameras impact officer discretion? Suppose an officer wants to be courteous by not enforcing an unjust statute – say, letting somebody off with a warning – will that officer be unable to deviate from policy? I believe it will be less likely that body cameras will be used to curtail brutality than to enforce compliance with prevailing policies, which will compel the use of unnecessary force.
I see the proposal for body cameras as the new front line in the battle for our civil liberties. If the plan for police officers proceeds, this will be merely the first step of an Orwellian scheme on steroids. Here’s my prediction: The program, if implemented, will only metastasize. Why not compel everybody to wear cameras? If people have nothing to hide, then why not? If we can place body cameras on police officers, why can’t we “help” veterans by compelling VA employees to wear them? (I would be opposed to such a scheme.) Why not compel all government employees to wear body cameras to ensure they are properly executing their duties? We will then have one huge government full of employees being held accountable by the government.
But then what do I know? Pursuant to the VA, everything I wrote above would no doubt be charted as the manifestation of extreme delusional thinking. Perhaps I can overcome this “delusional” thinking by getting with the program and calling for cameras on all government employees (jestingly). And then the government will be able to ensure VA employees comply with prescribing dangerous psychiatric drugs to veterans for having impermissible beliefs (e.g. believing the profit and loss test on the free market is the best way to ensure accountability to consumers).
[1] – Lovett’s “crime” (he had no victims) was functioning as a de facto tax collector independent of the regime, while Garner’s assailants were functioning as de jure tax collectors on behalf of the regime. From these two cases, one might conclude that violating policy to protect liberty without inflicting injury upon nobody is a greater “crime” than is needlessly taking a life if done in service to the state.
Recently, Senator Harry Reid criticized the Koch brothers for being motivated by the pursuit of wealth while defending his nexus with the billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. Senator Reid’s apologia of Sheldon Adelson is that Adelson is not motivated by the pursuit of wealth. Adelson doesn’t seek money. Money seeks Adelson. See: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/harry-reid-don-t-pick-on-sheldon-adelson
Let’s start with this axiom: there’s a distinction between what’s illegal and what’s criminal. In other words, just because something is illegal pursuant to statutory law doesn’t make it a criminal act. Just because something is legal doesn’t make it lawful or moral. In many instances, enforcing a statute is itself a criminal act. When the government does whatever it wants, that’s called lawlessness.
Gambling is not a criminal activity. If it were, then Sheldon Adelson has a lot of explaining to do. If something is a criminal activity, it shouldn’t be legal under any circumstances. The government ought not selectively grant permission to people to rape one another through a licensing scheme.
I’m not saying gambling is a good thing to engage in, but it shouldn’t be illegal. Gambling is legal in Nevada and on Indian reservations. Apparently, the former police chief of Savannah-Chatham, Georgia, agrees with me that it would be immoral to enforce anti-gambling statutes. For that, he is now being prosecuted. See: https://www.augustachronicle.com/story/news/2014/06/05/feds-indict-ex-savannah-police-chief/14409477007/
Former Savannah-Chatham Metro police chief Willie Lovett is being prosecuted for having taken payoffs from an “illegal” (i.e. non-government-accredited) gambling enterprise to not enforce anti-gambling statutes. He received money in exchange for protecting the enterprise from the LEO that he ran. Repealing anti-gambling statutes would remove the demand for the protection services sold by the former police chief.
Let’s establish another axiom: as Murray Rothbard saliently articulated, bribery isn’t inherently wrong. When an employer pays an employee to work, that employer is bribing the employee. If somebody pays a neighbor to mow their yard, that person is bribing the neighbor to mow their yard. If somebody pays somebody to murder somebody, that’s totally immoral and criminal and needs to be stopped. The consequential issue is not that a person paid somebody to do something. The consequential issue is what the person paid to have done.
In the case of Willie Lovett, his “transgression” was in not enforcing anti-gambling statutes. From a moral point of view, it would be wrong to jail people who voluntarily engage in a victimless activity. Unless somebody was forced to gamble against their will, it makes no sense to call gambling a crime. From an economic point of view, shutting down the gambling enterprise would not be in the interest of the local government. Instead, it would make more economic sense for the local government to leave the enterprise intact and collect taxes – kind of like what the former police chief was doing. Objectively, the former police chief is being prosecuted for behaving like a tax collector rather than a kidnapper.
Prosecuting Willie Lovett for doing the right thing by not enforcing unjust statutes against gambling makes sense only from the point of view of Nevada casinos. Objectively, Nevada casinos benefit by having the federal government wage a war on gambling in other jurisdictions. The real racketeering is the prosecution of Lovett, suppressing competition for casinos in other parts of the country.
But then Adelson does say that he’s in favor of gambling. It’s just that online gambling he’s against. Then perhaps Adelson can use his political pull to help repeal anti-gambling statutes in Savannah-Chatham and then cover the legal defense of the former police chief. Or does he only support the police who enforce his racket?