Remember When Police Were Peace Officers?

Lionel talks about how policing has evolved from Peace Officers to a Para Military organization.

What's Not to Like About American Foreign Policy?

Who is being the most inconsistent in their foreign policy views? Republicans, the American people or Ron Paul. Jack Hunter answers that question.

Al Qaeda's Our Ally in Libya

Lionel on who is running Libya.

Freedom of Assembly??? Not in the United States

It is so sad that most Americans still think they are free. We are free only when we get the permits to be "free" from the government. While I think the Occupy movement is mainly correct in identifying the financial corruption of the government - corporate ruling class, I disagree with most of the solutions I've heard coming from them. But they have every right to peaceably assemble for as long as they want, at any public space, without the need for any government permit.

From kresling:

Footage from the Occupy Oakland protest, October 25th, 2011. After protesters ran to the aid of a badly-injured person, Oakland Police deliberately lobbed a flash grenade into the crowd. Whatever you think of the Occupy movement, police behavior of this kind is criminal and should be prosecuted.

 



Bill Rood summed it up:

I find it ironic and a bit sad that Egyptians living under a thug like Mubarak were able to peacefully assemble for months in Tahrir Square without being molested by official police or army units (though they were attacked one day by plain clothed thugs riding in on camels). I doubt very much the Egyptians in Tahrir Square had been granted a "permit" to assemble, march or demonstrate.

Yet here, in the US, where we have a 1st Amendment, government can require a permit to assemble and if people do assemble without such a permit, police can arbitrarily interfere with their right to peaceably assemble.
 
Please watch the video and note the attack on people who are doing nothing more than attempting to give aid to the injured vet.  There is no threat to the police on the barricade.

The original footage is here: http://www.ktvu.com/video/29587714/index.html

Internal Checkpoints Move North

I've posted before about the internal ICE checkpoints in Arizona. Now the TSA has started them in Tennessee. Along  with many of the other false "security" measures instituted since 911 this reminds me of when I visited the communist police state of East Germany in 1975. Probably most Americans don't know that the East German government told its subjects that the police state measures were to protect them from the evil West Germany and the United States.

Sadly most Americans seem to be more than willing to trade any and all of their freedoms for this security theater. We are not far from slipping into the total authoritarian state. Once the majority realize what has happened it will be too late.

From Texas Congressman Ron Paul:

TSA Releases VIPR Venom on Tennessee Highways

If you thought the “Transportation Security Administration” would limit itself to conducting unconstitutional searches at airports, think again. The agency intends to assert jurisdiction over our nation’s highways, waterways, and railroads as well. TSA launched a new campaign of random checkpoints on Tennessee highways last week, complete with a sinister military-style acronym--VIP(E)R—as a name for the program.

As with TSA’s random searches at airports, these roadside searches are not based on any actual suspicion of criminal activity or any factual evidence of wrongdoing whatsoever by those detained. They are, in effect, completely random. So first we are told by the U.S. Supreme Court that American citizens have no 4th amendment protections at border crossings, even when standing on U.S. soil. Now TSA takes the next logical step and simply detains and searches U.S. citizens at wholly internal checkpoints.

The slippery slope is here. When does it end? How many more infringements on our liberties, our property, and our basic human rights to travel freely will it take before people become fed up enough to demand respect from their government? When will we demand that the government heed obvious constitutional limitations, and stop treating ordinary Americans as criminal suspects in the absence of probable cause?

The real tragedy occurs when Americans incrementally become accustomed to this treatment on the roads just as they have become accustomed to it in the airports. We already accept arriving at the airport 2 or more hours before a flight to get through security; will we soon have to build in an extra 2 or 3 hours into our road trips to allow for checkpoint traffic?

Worse, some people are lulled into a false sense of security and are actually grateful for this added police presence! Should we really hail the expansion of the police state as an enhancement to safety? I submit that an attitude of acquiescence to TSA authority is thoroughly dangerous, un-American, and insulting to earlier freedom-loving generations who built this country.

I am certain people will complain about this, once they have to sit in stopped traffic for a few extra hours to allow for random searches of cars. However, I am also certain it merely will take another "foiled" plot to silence many people into gladly accepting more government mismanagement of safety.

Vigilant, observant, law-abiding, gun-owning citizens defend themselves and stop crimes every day before police can respond. That is the source of real security in America: the 2nd Amendment right to defend oneself. The answer is for people to be empowered to protect themselves. Yet how many weapons might these checkpoints confiscate? Even when individual go through all the legal hoops of licensing and permits, the chances of harassment or outright confiscation of weapons and detention of citizens when those weapons are found at a TSA checkpoint is extremely high.

Disarming the highways and filling them full of jack-booted thugs demanding to see our papers is no way to make them safer. Instead, it is a great way to expand government surveillance powers and tighten the noose around our liberties.

Ron Paul on Meet the Press 10/23/11

Ron Paul on Meet the Press.

Stealing Manhole Covers

Just how bad is the economy? Lionel offers some examples.

Gadhafi Executed - What is Next?

Lionel looks at our future problems in Africa after the summary execution of Moammar Gadhafi. The US is increasing its imperial presence in Africa as shown by the Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama's sending troops to Uganda and by Camp Lemonnier, the never mentioned US Base in Djibouti. The USA African Command (AFRICOM) currently uses this $6 billion base to conduct drone operations in Yemen.

Radical Money Printers and War Propagandists

Ron Paul sits down to discuss his budget proposals with Wolf Blitzer. The conversation focuses on the imperialistic US foreign policy and the huge savings to be had from returning to a real policy of National Defense.

Cut Foreign Spending, End Wasteful Agencies

Ron Paul discusses his budget balancing plan.

Ron Paul Nevada Debate Responses

Congressman Ron Paul's responses at the Nevada Debate (10/18/2011):

No One Has Been More Consistent

Ron Paul ad on his consistent message on the economy.

Ron Paul's Plan Protects the People Who Have Become Dependent on the Government

Congressman Ron Paul discusses his plan to cut the federal budget while protecting those who have become dependent on it.

Co-opting Occupy Wall Street

Judge Andrew Napolitano states that President Obama, the Democratic establishment and Unions are co-opting Occupy Wall Street just as the Republican establishment co-opted the Tea Party. Obama and his crony capitalist friends (along with the Republican crony capitalists) are responsible for the mess we are in, both financially and with our imperial foreign policy.

One example Judge Napolitano gives is Obama's deal with the pharmaceutical industry in 2009 to lock in a doubling in the price of pharmaceuticals over the next decade.

Black This Out Money Bomb Hopes to Draw Attention to the Media Bias Against Ron Paul

From Trevor Lyman:

On November 5th of 2007 the first Ron Paul moneybomb was born. More than eighteen thousand people had pledged to donate $100 each to Ron Paul's campaign and on the actual day of the moneybomb over thirty-five thousand individual donors raised a total of $4.3 million dollars. Just six weeks later Ron Paul's supporters struck again on December 16th (the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party), with approximately thirty-five thousand pledges on the books and over sixty thousand actual donors, raising over $6.1 million dollars in one day. Since then no one has been able to beat Ron Paul's one day fundraising record.

Now there is another Ron Paul supporter created moneybomb set to detonate this coming Wednesday, October 19th, and based on the number of pledges for it (up to twenty nine thousand total pledges), it just may have the potential to break Ron Paul's previous fundraising record.

If he does break his previous fundraising records most Ron Paul supporters wonder if the main stream media will give the accomplishment the attention it deserves.

The "Black This Out" theme of the money bomb claims there is a mainstream media outlet blackout surrounding the Ron Paul campaign. Today, ironically, news reports are confirming that in fact Ron Paul is indeed ignored to a very large degree by the mainstream media (source: Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism). The good news (and a testament to the power of his ideas) is that Ron Paul is polling in the double digits (around 14%) despite the fact that he has been the primary news maker in only 2% of all election stories.

For more proof that a media blackout exists just look at how main stream media coverage of straw polls changes based on who wins them.
 


The "Black This Out" money bomb hopes to draw attention to the media bias against Ron Paul by forcing the media to give Ron Paul and the "Black This Out" moneybomb theme coverage by raising a massive amount of money for the Ron Paul campaign in a single day.

Peace is Far Superior to War

Texas Congressman Ron Paul,  at the Values Voters Summit in Washington, DC, October 8, 2011, explains what a Christian based foreign policy would be like.

Angela Keaton - War Must End

Angela Keaton of Anti-War.com sits down with Sam Antonio of Liberty News Network to discuss non-interventionism, Murray Rothbard and reaching outside of libertarian circles to discuss the true cost of wars.

Change? The Killing of the Constitution Continues

Jack Hunter comments on the extrajudicial killing of Anwar al-Awlaki by President Obama.  This extrajudicial killing is an expansion of the violations of the Constitution that were condemned when done by George W. Bush. Most of Bush's critics are strangely silent now.

These Lies Guess Who

A good article examing the distortions of Ron Paul's positions

Five Lies of the Religious Right About Ron Paul

by Laurence M. Vance

Although I am a theological and cultural Christian conservative, I am not a member of the Religious Right and never have been. Adherents of the Religious Right are oftentimes more wrong than they are right. And they have never been more wrong than in their lies about Ron Paul.

The lies about Ron Paul uttered by the media, the Republican Party, the political establishment, conservative talk show hosts, and rank and file Republicans and conservatives who blindly parrot their leaders, and even some libertarians are legion. However, when it comes to Christian armchair warriors, Christian Coalition moralists, evangelical warvangelicals, Catholic just war theorists, reich-wing Christian nationalists, theocon Values Voters, imperial Christians, Red-State Christian fascists, God and country Christian bumpkins, and other Religious Rightists that have no problem draping the cross of Christ with the American flag, there are basically five lies that are continually told about Congressman Paul, all recycled from the last time he ran for president.

Lie number one: Ron Paul is not pro-life. That is, he doesn’t support a federal law or constitutional amendment banning abortion since that is entirely up to the states.

The subject of abortion is one that Ron Paul is uniquely qualified to talk about. In addition to being a member of Congress, Ron Paul is a physician specializing in obstetrics and gynecology who has delivered over 4,000 babies. In forty years of medical practice, Dr. Paul says, "I never once considered performing an abortion, nor did I ever find abortion necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman." He believes "beyond a doubt that a fetus is a human life deserving of legal protection, and that the right to life is the foundation of any moral society." But unlike many Republicans in Congress, Representative Paul also believes in consistently and strictly following the Constitution in all matters. Therefore, as he simply states:

Under the 9th and 10th amendments, all authority over matters not specifically addressed in the Constitution remains with state legislatures. Therefore the federal government has no authority whatsoever to involve itself in the abortion issue. So while Roe v. Wade is invalid, a federal law banning abortion across all 50 states would be equally invalid.

Dr. Paul is also consistently pro-life. Many pro-life Religious Rightists are cheerleaders for the killing of innocents outside of the womb in senseless foreign wars. Ron Paul believes in the sanctity of all human life.

Lie number two: Ron Paul supports drug use. That is, he doesn’t support the unconstitutional federal war on drugs.

The $41 billion a year war on drugs is a failure in every respect. It has reduced neither the demand for nor the availability of drugs. It has failed to keep drugs away from kids and addicts. It has made criminals out otherwise law-abiding Americans – over 1.5 million Americans are arrested on drug charges every year, with almost half of those arrests being just for possession of marijuana. The war on drugs encourages violence, unnecessarily swells the prison population with non-violent offenders, destroys civil liberties, attacks personal and financial privacy, and corrupts and militarizes the police. But not only do the costs of the drug war greatly exceed its benefits, it is clearly an unconstitutional activity of the federal government. As a physician, Dr. Paul knows full well the harmful effects of illicit drug use. But he also recognizes the dangers to liberty, property, and limited government that the war on drugs poses. It is perplexing and hypocritical that Religious Rightists don’t likewise support a war on alcohol since every negative thing – and more – that could be said about drug abuse could also be said about alcohol abuse.

Lie number three: Ron Paul is not pro-Israel. That is, he doesn’t support looting the American taxpayers and giving the money to a foreign government.

Since World War II, the U.S. government has dispensed hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid in a variety of forms to over 150 countries. Foreign aid is further camouflaged as U.S. support for the UN, IMF, World Bank, and other globalist organizations. Foreign aid now costs the American taxpayer over $40 billion a year. Egypt received over $1.5 billion in foreign aid last year. Israel received over twice as much. Since their peace accord in 1979, Egypt and Israel have been the top two recipients of U.S. foreign aid, accounting for about one-third of all foreign aid spending. Foreign aid is really foreign government aid that enriches the leaders of corrupt regimes and their privileged contractors. Foreign aid further entrenches the U.S. government bureaucracy, increases the power of the state, fosters dependency on U.S. largesse, and lines the pockets of U.S. corporations whose products are bought with foreign aid money. Following the advice of Thomas Jefferson, who advocated "honest friendship with all nations" and "entangling alliances with none," Representative Paul sees neutrality as the best foreign policy for the United States: "The real, pro-US solution to the problems in the Middle East is for us to end all foreign aid, stop arming foreign countries, encourage peaceful diplomatic resolutions to conflicts, and disengage militarily."

Lie number four: Ron Paul is weak on defense. That is, he doesn’t support perpetual, senseless, and immoral foreign wars.

Most of U.S. military spending is not for defense, but for offense. Most of what the military does is outside of the country and in some cases thousands of miles away: providing disaster relief, dispensing humanitarian aid, supplying peacekeepers, enforcing UN resolutions, nation building, spreading goodwill, launching preemptive strikes, establishing democracy, changing regimes, assassinating people, training armies, advising armies, rebuilding infrastructure, reviving public services, opening markets, maintaining no-fly zones, occupying countries, and, of course, fighting foreign wars. The proper use of the military – as envisioned by Ron Paul – is in defending the United States, not defending other countries, and certainly not bombing, invading, or occupying them. Using the military for any other purpose than the actual defense of the United States – its land, its shores, its skies, its coasts, its borders – perverts the purpose of the military. The United States is not and cannot be the world’s policeman.

Lie number five: Ron Paul is an isolationist. That is, he doesn’t support a global empire with 1,000 foreign military bases and troops stationed in 150 countries.

The Department of Defense has more than 500,000 facilities on more than 5,500 sites totaling approximately 29 million acres. There are over 300,000 U.S. troops in foreign countries – plus over 100,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus tens of thousands of contractors. The word isolationist is a pejorative term of intimidation used to stifle debate over foreign policy. A noninterventionist foreign policy – like that espoused by Ron Paul – is a foreign policy is a policy of peace, diplomacy, and neutrality that includes trade, cultural exchanges, travel, immigration and emigration, and foreign investment. No invasions, threats, sanctions, embargoes, commitments, meddling, entangling alliances, or troops and bases on foreign soil.

So why the lies?

Why all the lies about a candidate who is and has always been really pro-life, pro-family, pro-religion, pro-family values, pro-religious liberty, pro-gun, pro-Constitution, pro-fiscal conservatism, pro-free market, pro-sound money, pro-defense, pro-liberty, pro-peace, pro-privacy, and pro-property. Why all the lies about a candidate who is and has always been really anti-UN, anti-tax increases, anti-taxes, anti-abortion, anti-gun control, anti-unconstitutional government spending, anti-birthright citizenship, anti-amnesty, anti-New World Order, anti-foreign aid, anti-government subsidies, anti-foreign wars, anti-welfare, anti-socialized medicine, anti congressional pay raises, anti-congressional pensions, anti-government-paid junkets, and anti-centralization of power in the federal government.

I say really because Ron Paul is and has always been for and against these things on a philosophical level. He doesn’t just say he is for or against these things to get elected. He doesn’t change his message depending on the crowd he’s addressing. He has a track record of consistency unmatched by anyone who has ever been in Congress or run for president. Why would any member of the Religious Right not embrace Ron Paul as their ideal candidate even as they run from the current crop of Republican presidential candidates?

So why the lies?

I think they are due in a great measure to ignorance: ignorance of the Constitution, ignorance of federalism, ignorance of U.S. foreign policy, ignorance of the U.S. government, ignorance of American history, ignorance of the Republican Party, ignorance of the Bible, ignorance of anything but what is heard on Fox News, ignorance of anything but what is uttered by conservative talk radio show hosts, ignorance of anything but the propaganda that comes out of many church pulpits. Unfortunately, however, much of this ignorance is willful and complacent.

But not all Religious Rightists are ignorant. Some are just deliberate apologists for the state, its leaders, its military, its wars, and its foreign policy. If they were honest, then they would have to say that they believe in the centralization of power in Washington DC, in a police state that inconsistently criminalizes peaceful behavior, in swearing allegiance to a foreign government and looting other taxpayers that don’t share their allegiance, in endless foreign wars and military interventions, and in maintaining an empire of troops and bases around the world and meddling in the affairs of other countries.

The last time Dr. Paul ran for president, I concluded that he would not be the candidate of choice of the Religious Right because they love centralization more than federalism, political power more than liberty, war more than peace, politicians more than principles, faith-based socialism more than the free market, and the state more than God Almighty. The Religious Right’s embrace of candidates like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann and non-candidates like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee leads me now to the same conclusion.


October 6, 2011

Laurence M. Vance  writes from central Florida. He is the author of Christianity and War and Other Essays Against the Warfare State, The Revolution that Wasn't, and Rethinking the Good War. His latest book is The Quatercentenary of the King James Bible. Visit his website.


Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

Anwar al-Awlaki Killed Again

Lionel comments on our second announced killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.

The Noble Experiment

The "noble experiment" of alcohol prohibition failed and was repealed. The prohibition of marijuana is a utter failure, will it be repealed also?

From Reason TV:

Alcohol prohibition may have been repealed in 1933, but Americans have rarely been more intoxicated with the "noble experiment" than they are today.

Between "Last Call," Daniel Okrent's best-selling 2010 book, leading clothing designers taking inspiration from jazz age fashion, a new prime-time documentary by Ken Burns, and the new, second season of HBOs critically acclaimed Boardwalk Empire, it's impossible to ignore the new interest in Prohibition. With a fixation on "classic cocktails" and faux-speakeasies, even drinking culture itself seems to be bellying up to the bar.

What's fueling this fascination and where will it end? Reason.tv talks with filmmaker Burns, author Okrent, and drug policy activist Aaron Houston of Students for Sensible Policy, who argues that "Culture and art right now are reflective of a general sentiment in this society that the war on drugs has not worked."

And that change is in air. Marijuana legalization initiatives will be on the ballot in at least two states in 2012, Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) have introduced legislation to let states decide pot's legal status, and record high levels of Americans are in favor of legalization. As Okrent tells Reason.tv, the need for excise tax revenue during the Great Depression helped make repeal of alcohol prohibition not just possible but desirable. Coupled with a sense of exhaustion at a drug war that has done little to prevent drug use, the dire financial straits of government at all levels may just spell the demise of contemporary prohibition.

Urban Renewal Means Negro Removal

From Reason TV:

In 1949, President Harry Truman signed the Housing Act, which gave federal, state, and local governments unprecedented power to shape residential life. One of the Housing Act's main initiatives - "urban renewal" - destroyed about 2,000 communities in the 1950s and '60s and forced more than 300,000 families from their homes. Overall, about half of urban renewal's victims were black, a reality that led to James Baldwin's famous quip that "urban renewal means Negro removal."


New York City's Manhattantown (1951) was one of the first projects authorized under urban renewal and it set the model not only for hundreds of urban renewal projects but for the next 60 years of eminent domain abuse at places such as Poletown, New London, and Atlantic Yards. The Manhattantown project destroyed six blocks on New York City's Upper West Side, including an African-American community that dated to the turn of the century. The city sold the land for a token sum to a group of well-connected Democratic pols to build a middle-class housing development. Then came the often repeated bulldoze-and-abandon phenomenon: With little financial skin in the game, the developers let the demolished land sit vacant for years.

The community destroyed at Manhattantown was a model for the tight-knit, interconnected neighborhoods later celebrated by Jane Jacobs and other critics of top-down redevelopment. In the early 20th century, Manhattantown was briefly the center of New York's black music scene. A startling roster of musicians, writers, and artists resided there: the composer Will Marion Cook, vaudeville star Bert Williams, opera singer Abbie Mitchell, James Weldon Johnson and his brother Rosemond, muralist Charles Alston, writer and historian Arturo Schomburg, Billie Holiday (whose mother also owned a restaurant on 99th Street), Butterfly McQueen of "Gone with the Wind" fame, and the actor Robert Earl Jones.

Designating West 99th and 98th Streets a "slum" was bitterly ironic. The community was founded when the great black real estate entrepreneur Philip Payton Jr. broke the color line on 99th Street in 1905. Payton, also credited with first bringing African Americans to Harlem, wanted to make it possible for a black man to rent an apartment, in his words, "wherever his means will permit him to live."

A couple years after Payton moved his first tenants into West 99th and 98th Streets, the black orator Roscoe Conkling Simmon marveled that African Americans for the first time were living in "the most beautiful and cultured neighborhood in New York City...because back of them stands organized and sympathetic capital."

Fifty years later, the federal bulldozer tore that neighborhood apart.

 

Professional Liar Can't Answer Questions About Due Process

Obama's Press Secretary (a professional liar by definition) cannot answer any of ABC News reporter Jake Tapper's questions about the killing of an American that was ordered by President Obama. I like Tapper's last remark in this clip.

The idea that the President can just go around ordering the killing of individuals without any due process, should make anyone who cares about rights and justice extremely upset.