Don't blame [insert politician], blame the people who elected him!

In the system of voting, not being plundered isn't an option. The choice is to what extent one is plundered and to what extent one receives the fruits of that plunder, with everyone being convinced that he's plundered more than what he receives back. In this way each person feels justified in voting to maximize the amount of pelf directed to himself. This is the war of all against all, organized, systematized and rationalized (as in moral excuse making).

Dr. Robert Higgs writes about those perceptive folks who say that we shouldn't blame the politician, but those who elect him, here.

Ambrose Bierce, among others (including yours truly), did not doubt that representative democracy is a sham: “You can effect a change of robbers every four years,” he wrote. “Inestimable privilege to pull off the glutted leech and attach the lean one! And you cannot even choose among the lean leeches, but must accept those designated by the programmers and showmen who have the reptiles on tap.”

The piece is worth reading.

To be sure, the folks who vote for [insert politician] may be morally repugnant for doing so, or they may be trying to alleviate the predations on themselves which they feel most acutely.

George W. Bush slithers out from under his rock

Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute, writes a good piece about the recent event of George Dubya's little speech attacking I'llbombya's middle east policy.
Hey George, who cares what you think you lying little snake in the grass. Go crawl back under the rock you came from, you scum.

George W. Bush, "Don't talk to Iran"

Ron Paul Liberty report

Daniel McAdams makes some very good points about so called Christians who support U.S. military interventionism.

Becky Akers

The great Becky Akers will join us on Patriot's Lament by phone this Saturday the 25th. We will be discussing her book on Benedict Arnold, the real history, and we will discuss what the colonies faced from the British, how they dealt with it, compared to the Leviathan Americans are faced today, and how we should deal with it.
Becky is always awesome, so you don't want to miss this one!!


"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution."
 John Adams

Patriot's Lament with Daniel McAdams

Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, joins us on the radio for an hour. We talk about the Ron Paul Institute, the great work they are doing there, and of course, foreign policy. Daniel, as always, was awesome!

For some things you REALLY do need a state...

Robert Higgs (Crisis and Leviathan) writes thusly on Facebook:

Libertarians in general and libertarian anarchists in particular are constantly bumping up against people who object to removing the government from its involvement in this, that, and the other area of economic and social life. The objectors urge that but for the government’s undertaking to do X, that X would never have been done. Often we can answer such objections easily by pointing out that at some time in history X (where X is, for example, road construction and maintenance; education of children; provision of law and order; investment in new scientific and technological knowledge; and so forth) was in fact done privately or that, even though X has never been done privately in the past, it might be done privately in the future in ways we can describe in at least a general way.

Yet, if we libertarians are honest, we must admit that private individuals left alone by the government almost certainly would not have brought forth many of the outputs that governments have produced—for example, super-powerful nuclear weapons and thousands of delivery vehicles capable of wreaking wholesale death and destruction on an unimaginable scale; poison gases and the means to employ them in large-scale battles; an enormous number of prisons in which millions of people---many of whom have violated no one’s just rights---are warehoused to gratify the greed of crony capitalists and slake the thirst of puritanical zealots for tormenting their fellows; vast legions of spies and informants dedicated to invading the privacy of every living human being; and so forth. Let’s face it, fellow libertarians, for certain tasks, only government can get the job done.

Choose this day who you will serve...

Max McNabb writes about the American church of warmongering.

I can only speak for myself when I was in that mindset.

Jesus says to me, "Do you love me more than these? (gesturing to a stack of American flags)".
"Lord, you know I'm fond of you," I replied.

Jesus says to me, "Love your enemies."
"I'll love America's enemies when they stop glowing," I replied.

"Fear not those who can destroy the body."
"I'm so scared of dirt poor Muslims on the other side of the planet I'll happily cheer for a war on them based on accusations which are barely coherent, ripping the bodies of their children asunder."

"Trust in the Lord."
"I trust the Lord for something ephemeral in the distant future and some small things in the here and now. I trust in horses (the military) and princes (Republican politicians) for all of the big things, and I'll gladly cheer them as they kill millions of people."

Who is really our God? Jesus or Mars?

There ought to be a law...

Blimey Cow chimes in.

Ignorance of the law is no excuse, unless you have a badge.

Will Grigg speaks about BluePrivilege.

The person enforcing the law, with a gun, effective permission to use it on you, handcuffs, radio and a gang of people to back him up, lying in official reports and on the witness stand if necessary, has the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the law, says the Supreme Court.

For us little people, there is no benefit of the doubt. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for us.

For the police the law in question must be reasonably knowable, understandable and promulgated.

For us little people we're responsible for every jot and tittle of an edict, every musing of a judge, every ambition of a bureaucrat.

This is called "law and order" or "justice".

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse" is a reasonable standard in a world where the law requires an identifiable victim and a private property violation. In positive law it makes the entire world into a maze of traps and snares.

Without the state, who would provide the illusion of justice and security?

Thanks to Robert Higgs for finding this.

The FBI has been misrepresenting in court the findings of its elite hair analysis unit, to the tune of 26 of the 28 specialists in 95% of the 268 cases reviewed so far. They've been tilting the tables for prosecutors.

If you should happen to serve on a jury, you might want to know what the word of an FBI "expert" is worth.

You can read about it here.

Be all the herd that you can be, in the Army...

Dan Sanchez writes a marvelous piece about how people are intentionally manipulated into being lemmings for the power and prestige of our rulers.

Just go ahead and friend (or follow) Bob Higgs on Facebook

as he writes things like this constantly...

There ought to be a law here; there ought to be a law there; law, law, and more law. And so we end up where we are now, immersed in laws -- nobody knows how many gazillions of them altogether -- on the books of governments at every level, from the township and village, to the states, nations, and United Nations. Into every empty space, a law is shoved at someone's behest. And those who favor, support, and enact these laws (and the countless regulations whose bureaucratic creation they authorize) always represent themselves as well-intentioned, as aiming only at promotion of the general public interest.Yet, it is odd that these lawmongers never appear to recognize that a world flush with laws is necessarily one in which the real rulers are the prosecutors and cops with the discretion to decide whether and how to enforce all of these government edicts; and that a world in the hands of prosecutors and cops is, in the most literal sense, a police state.

The Grandma test

Robert Higgs (Crisis and Leviathan, The Independent Institute, Lew Rockwell.com) writes on Facebook:

Some of you may remember what I call the Grandmother Test, which I usually state in the form of a question: Do you approve of threatening your grandmother with death -- and, should she remain resolutely recalcitrant all the way down the line -- of carrying out that threat in the event of her resistance in the case of every law and regulation now on the government's books (at every level of government)?
You should understand that in fact every law and legally authorized regulation does carry such an implied death sentence, however much proponents of this law or that law may deny that it does. I maintain that not one law and regulation in ten thousand warrants such extreme enforcement against my grandmothers (RIP, in my case) or anyone else. These people who call themselves the legitimate government should put away their guns and start acting civilized. The current extent of their dictation and the harshness of their enforcement actions fly in the face of both reason and decency. It's as if the entire world had been overrun by violent, irrational bullies.

If you don't subscribe to Will Grigg's page you're missing quite a bit...

It is interesting that the phrase "compelling state interest" has its origins in the 1944 decision where the Supreme Court upheld the mass incarceration of people because they had Japanese ancestry.

Proving that the totality of politics is, as Lenin said, the question of who does what to whom, and the conflict to be the who and not the whom, George Takei now seeks to be on the "pitching" side. His family was wrongly held by WW2 internment. It is a shame he missed the larger lesson, but he is not alone.

Will Grigg writes eloquently about this issue here.

Television and other wastes of time...

I watch "The Good Wife" because they occasionally come down somewhat on the right side of an issue, though usually not for the best reason (NSA spying). They also give the other (statist) side at least something resembling a fair airing (a reasonable gun advocate, for example). The blatant airbrushing of Hillary is funny, too.

This weeks episode ended with the 2nd lead female character saying that the law is a matter of battling pity stories, and the government is mommy making everyone "play nice". This reinforces the necessity to gain political power (join into the contest of all against all) and abandon voluntary society because if your mommy isn't the one deciding there is no limit to what can be taken from you and what can be forced upon you.

This is the concept of positive law/positive rights. Rather than minimizing social conflict it institutionalizes it. Under voluntary society conflicts are constant, but they tend to diminish because conflict is uneconomical. Under political society the political class gain power, devotees, and resources from every conflict. Should social peace accidentally break out the political class would have to start conflicts so that the productive population didn't wonder why they were tolerating such a large blatantly parasitic class.

Social Justice Warriors for totalitarianism

Should a catering company owned by a Jew be forced to serve a meeting of skinheads?

For me the only important word in that sentence is "force".

To force someone is to take something which is rightfully theirs (or credibly threaten to do so) if they don't do as you say. If the skinhead's job is the difference between making payroll that month or not, that isn't a matter of force. There are plenty of unpleasant alternatives which aren't "force" in the sense of modes of social cooperation/interaction.

It is a logical fallacy to use definition one of a word to state a premise, but then shift to definition two when you want to reach a conclusion.

Will Grigg makes a devastating critique of the Totalitarian World of the Social Justice Warriors here. Listen and be enlightened.

Sadly, Penn Jillette, who is normally pretty fair, falls into a few logical traps in the opening sound byte. I suspect it is because he lacks sympathy for the people being forced and loses his focus on the issue at hand.