The senseless and horrific killings last week in Newtown, Connecticut reminded us that a determined individual or group of individuals can cause great harm no matter what laws are in place. Connecticut already has restrictive gun laws relative to other states, including restrictions on fully automatic, so-called “assault” rifles and gun-free zones.
Predictably, the political left responded to the tragedy with emotional calls for increased gun control. This is understandable, but misguided. The impulse to have government “do something” to protect us in the wake national tragedies is reflexive and often well intentioned. Many Americans believe that if we simply pass the right laws, future horrors like the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting can be prevented. But this impulse ignores the self evident truth that criminals don't obey laws.
The political right, unfortunately, has fallen into the same trap in its calls for quick legislative solutions to gun violence. If only we put armed police or armed teachers in schools, we’re told, would-be school shooters will be dissuaded or stopped.
While I certainly agree that more guns equals less crime and that private gun ownership prevents many shootings, I don’t agree that conservatives and libertarians should view government legislation, especially at the federal level, as the solution to violence. Real change can happen only when we commit ourselves to rebuilding civil society in America, meaning a society based on family, religion, civic and social institutions, and peaceful cooperation through markets. We cannot reverse decades of moral and intellectual decline by snapping our fingers and passing laws.
Let’s not forget that our own government policies often undermine civil society, cheapen life, and encourage immorality. The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.
Obviously I don’t want to conflate complex issues of foreign policy and war with the Sandy Hook shooting, but it is important to make the broader point that our federal government has zero moral authority to legislate against violence.
Furthermore, do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches? We see this culture in our airports: witness the shabby spectacle of once proud, happy Americans shuffling through long lines while uniformed TSA agents bark orders. This is the world of government provided "security," a world far too many Americans now seem to accept or even endorse. School shootings, no matter how horrific, do not justify creating an Orwellian surveillance state in America.
Do we really believe government can provide total security? Do we want to involuntarily commit every disaffected, disturbed, or alienated person who fantasizes about violence? Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security? Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. We shouldn’t settle for substituting one type of violence for another. Government role is to protect liberty, not to pursue unobtainable safety.
Our freedoms as Americans preceded gun control laws, the TSA, or the Department of Homeland Security. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it.
Saturday
SPEECH ON NDAA
Mr. Speaker I rise to oppose what will be the final National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) I will face as a Member of the US House of Representatives. As many of my colleagues are aware, I have always voted against the NDAA regardless of what party controls the House. Far from simply providing an authorization for the money needed to defend this country, which I of course support, this authorization and its many predecessors have long been used to fuel militarization, enrich the military industrial complex, expand our empire overseas, and purchase military and other enormously expensive equipment that we do not need and in large part does not work anyway. They wrap all of this mess up in false patriotism, implying that Members who do not vote for these boondoggles do not love their country.
The military industrial complex is a jigsaw puzzle of seemingly competing private companies; but they are in reality state-sponsored enterprises where well-connected lobbyists, usually after long and prosperous careers in the military or government, pressure Congress to fund pet projects regardless of whether we can afford them or whether they are needed to defend our country. This convenient arrangement is the welfare of the warfare state.
Because of the false perception that we must pass this military spending authorization each year or our men and women in uniform will go hungry, Congress has over the years taken the opportunity to pack it with other items that would have been difficult to pass on their own. This is nothing new on Capitol Hill. In the last few years, however, this practice has taken a sinister turn.
The now-infamous NDAA for fiscal year 2012, passed last year, granted the president the authority to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge, without access to an attorney, and without trial. It is difficult to imagine anything more un-American than this attack on our Constitutional protections. While we may not have yet seen the widespread use of this unspeakably evil measure, a wider application of this “authority” may only be a matter of time.
Historically these kinds of measures have been used to bolster state power at the expense of unpopular scapegoats. The Jewish citizens of 1930s Germany knew all about this reprehensible practice. Lately the scapegoats have been mostly Muslims. Hundreds, perhaps many more, even Americans, have been held by the US at Guantanamo and in other secret prisons around the world.
But this can all change quickly, which makes it all the more dangerous. Maybe one day it will be Christians, gun-owners, home-schoolers, etc.
That is why last year, along with Reps. Justin Amash, Walter Jones, and others, we attempted to simply remove the language from the NDAA (sec. 1021) that gave the president this unconstitutional authority. It was a simple, readable amendment. Others tried to thwart our straightforward efforts by crafting elaborately worded amendments that in practice did noting to protect us from this measure in the bill. Likewise this year there were a few celebrated but mostly meaningless attempts to address this issue. One such effort passed in the senate version of this bill. The conferees have simply cut it out. The will of Congress was thus ignored by a small group of Members and Senators named by House and Senate leadership.
There are many other measures in this NDAA Conference Report to be concerned about. It continues to fund our disastrous wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere for example.
The Conference Report contains yet another round of doomed-to-fail new sanctions against Iran. These are acts of war against Iran without actually firing a shot. But this time the House and Senate conferees are going further than that. The report contains language that pushes the US as close to an actual authorization for the use of force against Iran as we can get. The Report “…asserts that the U.S. should be prepared to take all necessary measures, including military action if required, to prevent Iran from threatening the U.S., its allies, or Iran’s neighbors with a nuclear weapon and reinforces the military option should it prove necessary.”
This kind of language just emboldens Iran’s enemies in the region to engage in increasingly reckless behavior with the guarantee that the US military will step in if they push it too far. That is an unwise move for everyone concerned.
This Conference Report contains increased levels of foreign military aid, including an additional half-billion dollars in missile assistance to an already prosperous Israel and some $300 million to help an increasingly prosperous Russia control its chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons. And Russia does not even want the money!
Overall, this authorization will give the president even more money for military activities next year than he requested. At a time when the news has been dominated by reports of our budget crisis, the “fiscal cliff,” and the “need” to increase taxes on Americans, Congress is foolishly spending even more on the military budget than the administration wants! I suppose that is what counts as a reduction in the language of Washington.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this, and all future, reckless and dangerous military spending bills that are destroying our national security by destroying our economy.
The military industrial complex is a jigsaw puzzle of seemingly competing private companies; but they are in reality state-sponsored enterprises where well-connected lobbyists, usually after long and prosperous careers in the military or government, pressure Congress to fund pet projects regardless of whether we can afford them or whether they are needed to defend our country. This convenient arrangement is the welfare of the warfare state.
Because of the false perception that we must pass this military spending authorization each year or our men and women in uniform will go hungry, Congress has over the years taken the opportunity to pack it with other items that would have been difficult to pass on their own. This is nothing new on Capitol Hill. In the last few years, however, this practice has taken a sinister turn.
The now-infamous NDAA for fiscal year 2012, passed last year, granted the president the authority to indefinitely detain American citizens without charge, without access to an attorney, and without trial. It is difficult to imagine anything more un-American than this attack on our Constitutional protections. While we may not have yet seen the widespread use of this unspeakably evil measure, a wider application of this “authority” may only be a matter of time.
Historically these kinds of measures have been used to bolster state power at the expense of unpopular scapegoats. The Jewish citizens of 1930s Germany knew all about this reprehensible practice. Lately the scapegoats have been mostly Muslims. Hundreds, perhaps many more, even Americans, have been held by the US at Guantanamo and in other secret prisons around the world.
But this can all change quickly, which makes it all the more dangerous. Maybe one day it will be Christians, gun-owners, home-schoolers, etc.
That is why last year, along with Reps. Justin Amash, Walter Jones, and others, we attempted to simply remove the language from the NDAA (sec. 1021) that gave the president this unconstitutional authority. It was a simple, readable amendment. Others tried to thwart our straightforward efforts by crafting elaborately worded amendments that in practice did noting to protect us from this measure in the bill. Likewise this year there were a few celebrated but mostly meaningless attempts to address this issue. One such effort passed in the senate version of this bill. The conferees have simply cut it out. The will of Congress was thus ignored by a small group of Members and Senators named by House and Senate leadership.
There are many other measures in this NDAA Conference Report to be concerned about. It continues to fund our disastrous wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere for example.
The Conference Report contains yet another round of doomed-to-fail new sanctions against Iran. These are acts of war against Iran without actually firing a shot. But this time the House and Senate conferees are going further than that. The report contains language that pushes the US as close to an actual authorization for the use of force against Iran as we can get. The Report “…asserts that the U.S. should be prepared to take all necessary measures, including military action if required, to prevent Iran from threatening the U.S., its allies, or Iran’s neighbors with a nuclear weapon and reinforces the military option should it prove necessary.”
This kind of language just emboldens Iran’s enemies in the region to engage in increasingly reckless behavior with the guarantee that the US military will step in if they push it too far. That is an unwise move for everyone concerned.
This Conference Report contains increased levels of foreign military aid, including an additional half-billion dollars in missile assistance to an already prosperous Israel and some $300 million to help an increasingly prosperous Russia control its chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons. And Russia does not even want the money!
Overall, this authorization will give the president even more money for military activities next year than he requested. At a time when the news has been dominated by reports of our budget crisis, the “fiscal cliff,” and the “need” to increase taxes on Americans, Congress is foolishly spending even more on the military budget than the administration wants! I suppose that is what counts as a reduction in the language of Washington.
I urge my colleagues to oppose this, and all future, reckless and dangerous military spending bills that are destroying our national security by destroying our economy.
Friday
WHAT I THINK.........LEW ROCKWELL
As 2012 draws to a close, it’s hard not to be reminded that 2013 will begin with Ron Paul retired from Congress. For all those years he was a fearless truth-teller, who exposed and denounced the horrors, domestic or foreign, of the regime. His farewell address – something practically unheard of for a congressman in the first place – will continue to be read years from now, as future Americans look back with astonishment that such a man actually served in the US Congress.
For most of his career, those speeches were delivered to a largely empty chamber and to audiences of modest size around the country. A man of Ron’s intelligence could have grown in stature and influence in no time at all had he been willing to play the game. He wasn’t. And he was perfectly at peace with the result: although he wasn’t a major political celebrity, he had done his moral duty.
Little did he know that those thankless years of pointing out the State’s lies and refusing to be absorbed into the Blob would in fact make him a hero one day. To see Ron speaking to many thousands of cheering kids, when all the while respectable opinion had been warning them to stay far away from this dangerous man, is more gratifying and encouraging than I can say. I was especially thrilled when a tempestuous Ron, responding to the Establishment’s description of his campaign as "dangerous," said, you’re darn right – I am dangerous, to them.
Some people used to tell Ron that if only he’d stop talking about foreign policy he might win more supporters. He knew it was all nonsense. Foreign policy was the issue that made Ron into a phenomenon. There would have been no Ron Paul movement in the first place had Ron not distinguished himself from the pack by refusing to accept the cartoonish narrative, peddled not only by Rudy Giuliani but also by the luminaries of both major political parties, accounting for the origins of 9/11.
How many bills did he pass, right-wing scoffers demand to know. A successful Republican politician, in between his usual activity of expanding government power, is supposed to have rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic five or six times, by means of bills with his name on them. At best, the bills these politicos boast about amounted to marginal changes of momentary significance, if even that. More commonly, even the bills they trumpeted turned out to be ambiguous or actually negative from a libertarian standpoint.
What is Ron’s legacy? Not some phony bill, of zero significance in the general avalanche of statism. For his legacy, look around you.
The Federal Reserve, an issue not discussed in American politics in a hundred years, is under greater scrutiny now than ever before. Austrian economics is enjoying a rebirth that dwarfs the attention it received when F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974 – and when you ask people how they heard about the Austrian School, the universal answer is Ron Paul. One man brought about this intellectual revolution. How’s that for a legacy?
And that’s not to mention how many people Ron introduced to libertarian thought in general, or how many hawks reconsidered their position on war because of Ron’s arguments and example.
Even the mainstream media has to acknowledge the existence of a whole new category of thinker: one that is antiwar, anti-Fed, anti-police state, and pro-market. The libertarian view is even on the map of those who despise it. That, too, is Ron’s doing.
Young people are reading major treatises in economics and philosophy because Ron Paul recommended them. Who else in public life can come close to saying that?
How many bills did he get passed? Talk about missing the point.
Where are the hordes of students dying to learn from Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, or Mitt Romney?
Remember, too, that in politics there’s always some excuse for why the message of liberty can’t be delivered. I have to satisfy the party leadership. I have to keep the media off my back. The moment is inopportune. My constituents aren’t ready to hear it – so instead of explaining myself and persuading them, I’ll just keep my mouth shut, or minimize my position to the point where I sound like any old politician, except ten percent better.
And all the while, would-be donors are assured that this is all a facade, that the politician is really one of us and not what he appears to be. For the time being, you understand, he has to contradict his core beliefs in order to ingratiate himself into the favor of those whose support he will one day need.
Once elected, he still cannot really say what he thinks. Don’t you want him to get re-elected?
Ron never acted this way. At times he would explain the libertarian position in ways likely to resonate with a particular audience, but he never compromised or backed away.
It’s been said that if you ask Ron Paul a question, he gives you a straight answer. That’s an understatement. All through his presidential campaigns he sent the guardians of opinion into hysterics. Why, he can’t say that! That wasn’t even one of the choices! To the gatekeepers’ astonishment, his numbers kept on growing.
No politician is going to trick the public into embracing liberty, even if liberty were his true goal and not just a word he uses in fundraising letters. For liberty to advance, a critical mass of the public has to understand and support it. That doesn’t have to mean a majority, or even anywhere near it. But some baseline of support has to exist.
That is why Ron Paul’s work is so important and so lasting.
Ten years from now, no one will remember the men who opposed Ron in the GOP primaries. Half of them are forgotten already. But fifty years from now (and longer), young kids will still be learning from Ron: reading his books, following his recommendations for further study, and taking inspiration from his courage and principle.
With Ron’s Congressional career drawing to a close, we should remember that we have witnessed something highly unusual, and exceedingly unlikely to be repeated. And we should also remember Ron’s parting advice: the real revolution is not in Washington, DC. It’s in the world of ideas.
That’s what Ron is devoting the rest of his life to, and it’s one more thing he has to teach us. So watch for news of Ron's new work for peace, his new homepage, and his new TV extravaganza. Far from retiring, he is stepping up his work for liberty. And there is a place for all of us.
For most of his career, those speeches were delivered to a largely empty chamber and to audiences of modest size around the country. A man of Ron’s intelligence could have grown in stature and influence in no time at all had he been willing to play the game. He wasn’t. And he was perfectly at peace with the result: although he wasn’t a major political celebrity, he had done his moral duty.
Little did he know that those thankless years of pointing out the State’s lies and refusing to be absorbed into the Blob would in fact make him a hero one day. To see Ron speaking to many thousands of cheering kids, when all the while respectable opinion had been warning them to stay far away from this dangerous man, is more gratifying and encouraging than I can say. I was especially thrilled when a tempestuous Ron, responding to the Establishment’s description of his campaign as "dangerous," said, you’re darn right – I am dangerous, to them.
Some people used to tell Ron that if only he’d stop talking about foreign policy he might win more supporters. He knew it was all nonsense. Foreign policy was the issue that made Ron into a phenomenon. There would have been no Ron Paul movement in the first place had Ron not distinguished himself from the pack by refusing to accept the cartoonish narrative, peddled not only by Rudy Giuliani but also by the luminaries of both major political parties, accounting for the origins of 9/11.
How many bills did he pass, right-wing scoffers demand to know. A successful Republican politician, in between his usual activity of expanding government power, is supposed to have rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic five or six times, by means of bills with his name on them. At best, the bills these politicos boast about amounted to marginal changes of momentary significance, if even that. More commonly, even the bills they trumpeted turned out to be ambiguous or actually negative from a libertarian standpoint.
What is Ron’s legacy? Not some phony bill, of zero significance in the general avalanche of statism. For his legacy, look around you.
The Federal Reserve, an issue not discussed in American politics in a hundred years, is under greater scrutiny now than ever before. Austrian economics is enjoying a rebirth that dwarfs the attention it received when F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974 – and when you ask people how they heard about the Austrian School, the universal answer is Ron Paul. One man brought about this intellectual revolution. How’s that for a legacy?
And that’s not to mention how many people Ron introduced to libertarian thought in general, or how many hawks reconsidered their position on war because of Ron’s arguments and example.
Even the mainstream media has to acknowledge the existence of a whole new category of thinker: one that is antiwar, anti-Fed, anti-police state, and pro-market. The libertarian view is even on the map of those who despise it. That, too, is Ron’s doing.
Young people are reading major treatises in economics and philosophy because Ron Paul recommended them. Who else in public life can come close to saying that?
How many bills did he get passed? Talk about missing the point.
Where are the hordes of students dying to learn from Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, Tim Pawlenty, or Mitt Romney?
Remember, too, that in politics there’s always some excuse for why the message of liberty can’t be delivered. I have to satisfy the party leadership. I have to keep the media off my back. The moment is inopportune. My constituents aren’t ready to hear it – so instead of explaining myself and persuading them, I’ll just keep my mouth shut, or minimize my position to the point where I sound like any old politician, except ten percent better.
And all the while, would-be donors are assured that this is all a facade, that the politician is really one of us and not what he appears to be. For the time being, you understand, he has to contradict his core beliefs in order to ingratiate himself into the favor of those whose support he will one day need.
Once elected, he still cannot really say what he thinks. Don’t you want him to get re-elected?
Ron never acted this way. At times he would explain the libertarian position in ways likely to resonate with a particular audience, but he never compromised or backed away.
It’s been said that if you ask Ron Paul a question, he gives you a straight answer. That’s an understatement. All through his presidential campaigns he sent the guardians of opinion into hysterics. Why, he can’t say that! That wasn’t even one of the choices! To the gatekeepers’ astonishment, his numbers kept on growing.
No politician is going to trick the public into embracing liberty, even if liberty were his true goal and not just a word he uses in fundraising letters. For liberty to advance, a critical mass of the public has to understand and support it. That doesn’t have to mean a majority, or even anywhere near it. But some baseline of support has to exist.
That is why Ron Paul’s work is so important and so lasting.
Ten years from now, no one will remember the men who opposed Ron in the GOP primaries. Half of them are forgotten already. But fifty years from now (and longer), young kids will still be learning from Ron: reading his books, following his recommendations for further study, and taking inspiration from his courage and principle.
With Ron’s Congressional career drawing to a close, we should remember that we have witnessed something highly unusual, and exceedingly unlikely to be repeated. And we should also remember Ron’s parting advice: the real revolution is not in Washington, DC. It’s in the world of ideas.
That’s what Ron is devoting the rest of his life to, and it’s one more thing he has to teach us. So watch for news of Ron's new work for peace, his new homepage, and his new TV extravaganza. Far from retiring, he is stepping up his work for liberty. And there is a place for all of us.
Monday
EXPANDING COVERT WARFARE MAKES US LESS SAFE
Earlier this month we learned that the Obama Administration is significantly expanding the number of covert Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) agents overseas. From just a few hundred DIA agents overseas today, the administration intends to eventually deploy some 1,600 covert agents. The nature of their work will also shift, away from intelligence collection and more toward covert actions. This move signals a major change in how the administration intends to conduct military and paramilitary operations overseas. Unfortunately it is not a shift toward peace, but rather to an even more deadly and disturbing phase in the “war on terror.”
Surely attacks on foreign countries will increase as a result of this move, but more and more the strikes will take place under cover of darkness and outside the knowledge of Congress or the American people. The move also represents a further blurring of the lines between the military and intelligence services, with the CIA becoming more like a secret military unto itself. This is a very troubling development.
In 2010, I said in a speech that there had been a CIA coup in this country. The CIA runs the military, the drone program, and they are in drug trafficking. The CIA is a secretive government all on its own. With this new expanded Defense Intelligence Agency presence overseas it will be even worse. Because the DIA is operationally under control of the Pentagon, direct Congressional oversight of the program will be more difficult. Perhaps this is as intended. The CIA will be training the DIA in its facilities to conduct operations overseas. Much of this will include developing targeting data for the president’s expanding drone warfare program.
Already the president has demonstrated his preference for ever more drone attacks overseas. In Pakistan, for example, President Obama has in his first four years authorized six times more drone strikes than under all eight years of the Bush Administration. Nearly three thousand individuals have been killed by these drones, many of those non-combatants.
President Obama said recently of Israel’s strikes against the Palestinians in Gaza, "No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” This announcement by the administration amounts to precisely that: the US intends to rain down ever more missiles on citizens overseas. I believe what the president says about Israel is true everywhere, so what about those overseas who live in fear of our raining missiles? How will they feel about the United States? Is it not possible that we may be inviting more blowback by expanding the covert war overseas? Does that make us safer?
An exhaustive study earlier this year by Stanford and New YorkUniversity law schools found that US drone strikes on Pakistan are “damaging and counterproductive,” potentially creating more terrorists than they kill. Its recommendations of a radical re-appraisal of the program obviously fell on deaf ears in the administration.
Thousands of new DIA spies are to be hired and placed undercover alongside their CIA counterparts to help foment ever more covert wars and coups in foreign lands. Congress is silent. Where will it all end?
Surely attacks on foreign countries will increase as a result of this move, but more and more the strikes will take place under cover of darkness and outside the knowledge of Congress or the American people. The move also represents a further blurring of the lines between the military and intelligence services, with the CIA becoming more like a secret military unto itself. This is a very troubling development.
In 2010, I said in a speech that there had been a CIA coup in this country. The CIA runs the military, the drone program, and they are in drug trafficking. The CIA is a secretive government all on its own. With this new expanded Defense Intelligence Agency presence overseas it will be even worse. Because the DIA is operationally under control of the Pentagon, direct Congressional oversight of the program will be more difficult. Perhaps this is as intended. The CIA will be training the DIA in its facilities to conduct operations overseas. Much of this will include developing targeting data for the president’s expanding drone warfare program.
Already the president has demonstrated his preference for ever more drone attacks overseas. In Pakistan, for example, President Obama has in his first four years authorized six times more drone strikes than under all eight years of the Bush Administration. Nearly three thousand individuals have been killed by these drones, many of those non-combatants.
President Obama said recently of Israel’s strikes against the Palestinians in Gaza, "No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” This announcement by the administration amounts to precisely that: the US intends to rain down ever more missiles on citizens overseas. I believe what the president says about Israel is true everywhere, so what about those overseas who live in fear of our raining missiles? How will they feel about the United States? Is it not possible that we may be inviting more blowback by expanding the covert war overseas? Does that make us safer?
An exhaustive study earlier this year by Stanford and New YorkUniversity law schools found that US drone strikes on Pakistan are “damaging and counterproductive,” potentially creating more terrorists than they kill. Its recommendations of a radical re-appraisal of the program obviously fell on deaf ears in the administration.
Thousands of new DIA spies are to be hired and placed undercover alongside their CIA counterparts to help foment ever more covert wars and coups in foreign lands. Congress is silent. Where will it all end?
HEADED TOWARD THE 11TH HOUR COMPROMISE
As the year draws to an end, America faces yet another Congressionally-manufactured crisis which will likely end in yet another 11th hour compromise, resulting in more government growth touted as “saving” the economy. While cutting taxes is always a good idea, setting up a ticking time bomb with a sunset provision, as the Bush tax cuts did, is terrible policy. Congress should have just cut taxes. But instead, we have a crisis that is sure not to go to waste.
The hysteria surrounding the January 1 deadline for the Budget Control Act’s spending cuts and expiration of the Bush tax cuts seems all too familiar. Even the language is predictably hysterical: if government reduces planned spending increases by even a tiny amount, the economy will go over a “fiscal cliff.” This is nonsense.
This rhetoric is based on the belief that government spending sustains the economy, when in fact the opposite is true. Every dollar the government spends is a dollar taken from consumers, businessmen, or investors. Reducing spending can only help the economy by putting money back in the hands of ordinary Americans. Politicians who claim to support the free market and the lower and middle-class should take this to heart.
The reality is, however, that neither Republicans nor Democrats are serious about cutting spending. Even though U.S. military spending is exponentially larger than any other country and is notorious for its inefficiency and cost overruns, Republicans cannot seem to stomach even one penny of cuts to the Pentagon’s budget. This is unfortunate because this is the easiest, most obvious place to start getting spending under control. The military-industrial complex and unconstitutional overseas military interventions should be the first place we look for budget cuts.
Similarly, Democrats are digging in their heels on not cutting any welfare or entitlement spending and instead propose to fix the deficit by raising taxes on the rich, even though the U.S. Government already has a progressive tax code and the rich already pay more than their fair share. Furthermore, these higher taxes would fall on small business owners, investors, and entrepreneurs—in other words, the source of economic growth and new jobs!
The truth is that there is no excuse for government spending being as high as it is, nor for taxes being as high as they are. Even the God of the Old Testament only asked for 10% as a tithe and offering, and Americans revolted against the King of England for taxes that amounted to less than five percent. Yet so many people today complain about “loopholes” for the rich that lower their actual tax rate to “only” 13% in some instances. Even that is a criminal amount to pay for a wasteful, abusive, unconstitutional government.
We are indeed headed to a fiscal cliff and have been long before this latest hysteria cropped up. But it is not cuts to spending or reduced government “revenue” that will send us over the cliff, it is continued government spending that will. Until the federal government limits itself to its Constitutionally-mandated role, spending and taxation will remain out of control.
Look for a “bipartisan” compromise in late December, with Republicans giving in to tax increases and settling for phony spending cuts that actually grow government, and Democrats caving on defense cuts in exchange for tax increases. This is how the government has always grown: both sides will sacrifice their pro-liberty, small government stances in certain areas in order to grow the government where they prefer.
Tuesday
HOW TO END THE TRAGEDY IN GAZA
As of late Friday the ceasefire in Gaza seems to be holding, if tentatively. While we should be pleased that this round of fighting appears temporarily on hold, we must realize that without changes in US foreign policy it is only a matter of time before the killing begins again.
It feels like 2009 all over again, which is the last time this kind of violence broke out in Gaza. At that time over 1,400 Palestinians were killed, of which just 235 were combatants. The Israelis lost 13 of which 10 were combatants. At that time I said of then-President Bush’s role in the conflict:
“It's our money and our weapons. But I think we encouraged it. Certainly, the president has said nothing to diminish it. As a matter of fact, he justifies it on moral grounds, saying, oh, they have a right to do this, without ever mentioning the tragedy of Gaza…. To me, I look at it like a concentration camp.”
The US role has not changed under the Obama administration. The same mistakes continue. As journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote last week:
"For years now, US financial, military and diplomatic support of Israel has been the central enabling force driving this endless conflict. The bombs Israel drops on Gazans, and the planes they use to drop them, and the weapons they use to occupy the West Bank and protect settlements are paid for, in substantial part, by the US taxpayer…”
Last week, as the fighting raged, President Obama raced to express US support for the Israeli side, in a statement that perfectly exemplifies the tragic-comedy of US foreign policy. The US supported the Israeli side because, he said, "No country on Earth would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.” Considering that this president rains down missiles on Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and numerous other countries on a daily basis, the statement was so hypocritical that it didn’t pass the laugh test. But it wasn’t funny.
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu, but she refused to meet with elected Palestinian leaders. Clintonsaid upon arrival in Israel, “America's commitment to Israel’s security is rock-solid and unwavering.” Does this sound like an honest broker?
At the same time Congress acted with similar ignobility when an unannounced resolution was brought to the House floor after the business of the week had been finished; and in less than 30 seconds the resolution was passed by unanimous consent, without debate and without most Representatives even having heard of it. The resolution, H Res 813, was so one-sided it is not surprising they didn’t want anyone to have the chance to read and vote on it. Surely at least a handful of my colleagues would have objected to language like, “The House of Representatives expresses unwavering commitment to the security of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with secure borders...”
US foreign policy being so one-sided actually results in more loss of life and of security on both sides. Surely Israelis do not enjoy the threat of missiles from Gaza nor do the Palestinians enjoy their Israel-imposed inhuman conditions in Gaza. But as long asIsrael can count on its destructive policies being underwritten by the US taxpayer it can continue to engage in reckless behavior. And as long as the Palestinians feel the one-sided US presence lined up against them they will continue to resort to more and more deadly and desperate measures.
Continuing to rain down missiles on so many increasingly resentful nations, the US is undermining rather than furthering its security. We are on a collision course with much of the rest of the world if we do not right our foreign policy. Ending interventionism in the Middle East and replacing it with friendship and even-handedness would be a welcome first step.
Wednesday
WHAT I THINK........CHUCK BALDWIN
On this Thanksgiving Eve, I am reminded of how blessed I have been to be able to rub shoulders with many of the political and religious giants of the Twentieth (and now Twenty-First) Century. During the past 30-plus years, I have been allowed to get to know a good many of the men and women that would have to be regarded as giants in the fields of religion and politics. Many of these have already passed on; a few remain. In the field of politics, the giant of them all is Texas Congressman Ron Paul.
There is no doubt in my mind that history will regard Dr. Paul as the greatest congressman in US history. Ron Paul has done more to guard and defend liberty and constitutional government than perhaps any man since Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Paul's legacy and influence will remain after most congressmen and senators have been long forgotten. What Patrick Henry was to Colonial America, Ron Paul has been to modern America. I am so grateful for the opportunity to get to personally know this man and to be able to call him my friend.
I was honored to be his personal representative in several notable gatherings in South Carolina during the 2008 Republican primary. I was honored to campaign with him in Iowa during that same primary. I've spoken on the same platform with him on numerous occasions. I was honored to be the speaker directly in front of him (and was honored to introduce him) in giant rallies stretching from Washington, D.C., to Reno, Nevada. I have been in private meetings with him and gotten to know him on a personal level. In my estimation, America has never known a more honest and genuine man. His integrity is impeccable, his honor unscathed.
It was with the utmost sadness that I watched Ron Paul give his Farewell Address to Congress last week. As he concluded his remarks and walked away from the Well of the House, I wept. I thought to myself: "There goes the greatest champion of liberty in a century; we may never see his likes again." I wasn't weeping for Dr. Paul though; I was weeping for America.
Unfortunately for us, Ron's one weakness was his oratorical skills--or lack thereof. Then again, it's my observation that most geniuses are much better writers than they are speakers. And make no mistake about it: Ron Paul is a genius. As I understand it, Thomas Jefferson was no great orator either. But as the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, there was certainly nothing shabby about his writing. And in those days, the American citizenry was more acutely attuned to the principles of liberty than is this generation. I don't think it is much of a stretch to suggest that had Jefferson lived in this generation, he would never have been elected President either. Ron's failure to obtain the Presidency is not a testament to his failure; it is a testament to the failure of this generation to recognize and appreciate the principles of liberty for which Ron stood.
Furthermore, in my opinion, Dr. Paul's Farewell Address last week (which was delivered from a prepared, written text) is second in greatness only to George Washington's Farewell Address. It was magnificent! As was Washington's, Ron Paul's Farewell Address should be regarded as the blueprint for liberty for the next 100 years. If anyone is looking for a platform upon which to mount a future political campaign (if he or she is interested in preserving liberty, that is), study and memorize Ron Paul's Farewell Address.
I initially intended to use this column to expound upon the points Dr. Paul addressed in his remarks. But it came to me, for me to try and give commentary on Ron's remarks, would be to seriously reduce their quality. How could someone such as me improve upon what someone such as Ron Paul said?
Accordingly, with all of the earnestness in my being, I urge readers to watch and read Congressman Ron Paul's Farewell Address.
In all honestly, I have never heard anyone on Capitol Hill make such an intelligent, reasoned, passionate, and trenchant argument for the cause of liberty than Dr. Paul made in his Farewell Address. The principles set forth in that address would literally restore liberty and prosperity to America.
Furthermore, following those principles would certainly avert the calamity that is soon coming to this country. Unfortunately, neither major party in Washington, D.C., has any intention on subscribing to those principles, because, for the most part, our federal government is led by corrupt, self-serving men who are void of any sense of honor and integrity.
Dr. Paul began his address lamenting that by outward appearances it didn't appear that his nearly 24 years of service in Congress had accomplished much. I know that feeling! I often feel as did our Lord's disciples, "We have toiled all night and taken nothing." However, had Ron Paul lived during the formative years of our nation, there is no question we would be referring to him as President Paul. But make no mistake about it: Ron's life has influenced tens of millions of freedom-loving people, both here and around the world. As I said at the Ron Paul Festival in Tampa, Florida, recently, "Ron Paul is bigger than Ron Paul!"
Ron Paul has reignited the spirit of liberty in the hearts and minds of millions of us. His zeal and passion for freedom will resonate in the hearts of Americans for generations to come.
Unfortunately, not all of those who claim association with Ron Paul truly share his vision and passion for liberty. Many of them are self-serving opportunists, who want to personally profit from Dr. Paul's name and reputation. Be careful of them! One thing Ron Paul never did was compromise. Did you see him endorsing the neocon John McCain? No. Did you see him endorsing the neocon Mitt Romney? No. If I'm not mistaken, I might have been the only man since Ronald Reagan whom Ron Paul endorsed for President of the United States. If so, that is an honor I will cherish unto my dying breath.
Beware of those who claim association with Ron Paul, but who promote compromise and appeasement. Beware of those who would trade on Ron Paul's name for their own personal agendas. Beware of those who claim Ron Paul's pedigree, yet who are nothing more than establishment insiders--or who want to be. Ron Paul was never intimidated by, or enamored with, the establishment. He could not be bullied or bribed. He was an indefatigable, courageous champion of liberty. And those who claim his legacy, but who seek the approbation of the establishment elite, never understood the first thing about Ron Paul.
As I watched Dr. Paul's Farewell Address last week, I was reminded of how fortunate I was to be his friend and how blessed this generation of Americans was to be touched by his life and work. But as is the case with so many great men, Ron Paul has never truly received the honor that is due him. I pray one day he will.
There is no doubt in my mind that history will regard Dr. Paul as the greatest congressman in US history. Ron Paul has done more to guard and defend liberty and constitutional government than perhaps any man since Thomas Jefferson. Dr. Paul's legacy and influence will remain after most congressmen and senators have been long forgotten. What Patrick Henry was to Colonial America, Ron Paul has been to modern America. I am so grateful for the opportunity to get to personally know this man and to be able to call him my friend.
I was honored to be his personal representative in several notable gatherings in South Carolina during the 2008 Republican primary. I was honored to campaign with him in Iowa during that same primary. I've spoken on the same platform with him on numerous occasions. I was honored to be the speaker directly in front of him (and was honored to introduce him) in giant rallies stretching from Washington, D.C., to Reno, Nevada. I have been in private meetings with him and gotten to know him on a personal level. In my estimation, America has never known a more honest and genuine man. His integrity is impeccable, his honor unscathed.
It was with the utmost sadness that I watched Ron Paul give his Farewell Address to Congress last week. As he concluded his remarks and walked away from the Well of the House, I wept. I thought to myself: "There goes the greatest champion of liberty in a century; we may never see his likes again." I wasn't weeping for Dr. Paul though; I was weeping for America.
Unfortunately for us, Ron's one weakness was his oratorical skills--or lack thereof. Then again, it's my observation that most geniuses are much better writers than they are speakers. And make no mistake about it: Ron Paul is a genius. As I understand it, Thomas Jefferson was no great orator either. But as the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, there was certainly nothing shabby about his writing. And in those days, the American citizenry was more acutely attuned to the principles of liberty than is this generation. I don't think it is much of a stretch to suggest that had Jefferson lived in this generation, he would never have been elected President either. Ron's failure to obtain the Presidency is not a testament to his failure; it is a testament to the failure of this generation to recognize and appreciate the principles of liberty for which Ron stood.
Furthermore, in my opinion, Dr. Paul's Farewell Address last week (which was delivered from a prepared, written text) is second in greatness only to George Washington's Farewell Address. It was magnificent! As was Washington's, Ron Paul's Farewell Address should be regarded as the blueprint for liberty for the next 100 years. If anyone is looking for a platform upon which to mount a future political campaign (if he or she is interested in preserving liberty, that is), study and memorize Ron Paul's Farewell Address.
I initially intended to use this column to expound upon the points Dr. Paul addressed in his remarks. But it came to me, for me to try and give commentary on Ron's remarks, would be to seriously reduce their quality. How could someone such as me improve upon what someone such as Ron Paul said?
Accordingly, with all of the earnestness in my being, I urge readers to watch and read Congressman Ron Paul's Farewell Address.
In all honestly, I have never heard anyone on Capitol Hill make such an intelligent, reasoned, passionate, and trenchant argument for the cause of liberty than Dr. Paul made in his Farewell Address. The principles set forth in that address would literally restore liberty and prosperity to America.
Furthermore, following those principles would certainly avert the calamity that is soon coming to this country. Unfortunately, neither major party in Washington, D.C., has any intention on subscribing to those principles, because, for the most part, our federal government is led by corrupt, self-serving men who are void of any sense of honor and integrity.
Dr. Paul began his address lamenting that by outward appearances it didn't appear that his nearly 24 years of service in Congress had accomplished much. I know that feeling! I often feel as did our Lord's disciples, "We have toiled all night and taken nothing." However, had Ron Paul lived during the formative years of our nation, there is no question we would be referring to him as President Paul. But make no mistake about it: Ron's life has influenced tens of millions of freedom-loving people, both here and around the world. As I said at the Ron Paul Festival in Tampa, Florida, recently, "Ron Paul is bigger than Ron Paul!"
Ron Paul has reignited the spirit of liberty in the hearts and minds of millions of us. His zeal and passion for freedom will resonate in the hearts of Americans for generations to come.
Unfortunately, not all of those who claim association with Ron Paul truly share his vision and passion for liberty. Many of them are self-serving opportunists, who want to personally profit from Dr. Paul's name and reputation. Be careful of them! One thing Ron Paul never did was compromise. Did you see him endorsing the neocon John McCain? No. Did you see him endorsing the neocon Mitt Romney? No. If I'm not mistaken, I might have been the only man since Ronald Reagan whom Ron Paul endorsed for President of the United States. If so, that is an honor I will cherish unto my dying breath.
Beware of those who claim association with Ron Paul, but who promote compromise and appeasement. Beware of those who would trade on Ron Paul's name for their own personal agendas. Beware of those who claim Ron Paul's pedigree, yet who are nothing more than establishment insiders--or who want to be. Ron Paul was never intimidated by, or enamored with, the establishment. He could not be bullied or bribed. He was an indefatigable, courageous champion of liberty. And those who claim his legacy, but who seek the approbation of the establishment elite, never understood the first thing about Ron Paul.
As I watched Dr. Paul's Farewell Address last week, I was reminded of how fortunate I was to be his friend and how blessed this generation of Americans was to be touched by his life and work. But as is the case with so many great men, Ron Paul has never truly received the honor that is due him. I pray one day he will.
WHAT I THINK........TOM DiLORENZO
"Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession."
~ Ron Paul
Leftists and neocons in the media who tend to agree on the propriety and desirability of an ever-growing welfare/warfare/police state were predictably apoplectic when Ron Paul recently stated on his House Web site that secession is "a deeply American principle." Congressman Paul was alluding to the fact that all fifty states have sent secession petitions to the White House.
Typical of the media response was a snotty remark by one Robert Schlesinger, the son of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., who is the "managing editor of opinion" of the soon-to-go-out-of-business U.S. News. Ron Paul is "deeply wrong," he moaned, calling the congressman a "crank" and predicting that he "will soon be forgotten." Robert Schlesinger’s bad manners are matched by his utter ignorance of American history.
Ron Paul was most certainly correct when he said that America "was born through secession." The Revolutionary War was a war of secession from the British empire. As Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, our Declaration of Secession from the British Empire, governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and whenever that consent is withdrawn, it is the right and duty of the people to "alter or abolish" that government and "to institute a new government."
How else could one possibly interpret the following passage from the Declaration but a declaration of secession or separation from Great Britain?: "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE and INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved . . ." (emphasis in original).
In his first inaugural address Jefferson advocated attempts at persuasion, as opposed to a Lincolnian waging of total war of terrorism on American citizens who sought disunion: "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union . . . let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left to combat it." In a January 29, 1804 letter to a Dr. Joseph Priestly, who had inquired about the prospect of the New England Federalists seceding from the union, as they were plotting to do at the time, Jefferson said: "Whether we remain in one confederacy, or form into Atlantic and Mississippi confederacies, I believe not very important to the happiness of either part. Those of the western confederacy will be as much our children and descendants as those of the eastern . . . " If there was a separation in the future, Jefferson continued, "I should feel the duty & the desire to promote the western interests as zealously as the eastern,, doing all the good for both portions of our future family which should fall within my power."
In an August 12, 1803 letter to John C. Breckenridge Jefferson addressed the issue of New England secession by saying that if they seceded, "God bless them both, & keep them in the union if it be for their good, but separate them, if it be better." On June 20, 1816, Jefferson wrote to a Mr. W. Crawford that "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in the union," then "I have no hesitation in saying, ‘let us separate’" (The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 15, p. 27). Jefferson believed that the right of secession was absolutely necessary if America was to avoid tyrannical government. (And Robert Schlesinger hasn’t the foggiest idea of what he is talking about).
John Quincy Adams believed that if a state or states wanted to secede, then "a more perfect Union" could be formed "by dissolving that which could no longer bind . . ." (John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution, p. 66). In Democracy in America (p. 381) Alexis de Tocqueville observed that "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality . . . . If one of he states chooses to withdraw from the compact, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so, and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right."
Jefferson’s great nemesis, Alexander Hamilton, defended the right of secession by saying that "To coerce the States [to remain in the Union] is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised" and thought of "a government that can only exist by the sword," with "Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another" a moral abomination (Jonathan Elliot’s Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, p. 232).
America’s second generation of secessionists were not the Southern Confederates but the New England Federalists who so loathed the idea of a Jefferson presidency that they plotted to secede for the next fourteen years. Their efforts culminated in the Hartford Secession Convention of 1814 (See James Banner, To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts). Much of the discussion of the New England secessionists is contained in Henry Adams, editor, Documents Relating to New-England Federalism. In it one learns that the leader of the New Enland Yankee secessionists was United States Senator Timothy Pickering, who had previously served as George Washington’s adjutant general and quartermaster during the Revolution, and later as secretary of state and secretary or war in the Washington administration.
In 1803 Pickering announced that with New England seceding from the union "I will rather anticipate a new confederacy, exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence of the aristocratic Democrats of the South." United States Senator James Hillhouse agreed that "The Eastern States must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." George Cabot, Elbridge Gerry, John Quincy Adams, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy, and Joseph Story, among others, voiced similar opinions in the first years of the nineteenth century.
Governor Roger Griswold of Connecticut proclaimed that because of the political clout of the Southern states, "there can be no safety [from political plunder] to the Northern States without a separation from the confederacy [a.k.a. the union]." Senator Pickering explained that secession was THE principle of the American Revolution when he said that "the principles of our Revolution point to the remedy – a separation. That this can be accomplished, and without spilling one drop of blood, I have little doubt." And he was right: President Jefferson considered New Englanders to be an integral part of the American family, and the last thing in the world he would have done was to launch an invasion of New England, bombing Boston, Providence, and Hartford and turning them into a smoldering ruin to "save the union."
The New England Federalists eventually decided in 1814 at the Hartford Secession Convention to remain in the union and work within the system. All during this fourteen year ordeal the predominant view of the New England Federalists as well as the Jeffersonian Democrats was that of course the American union was voluntary, and of course the states therefore have a right to secede without asking for or being given permission by anyone or by any other government.
The third significant American secession movement occurred in what in the nineteenth century were called "the middle states" – New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. In The Secession Movement in the Middle Atlantic States historian William C. Wright described how in the 1850s these states, which accounted for some 40 percent of the U.S. economy, had put together a powerful political movement in favor of forming a Central Confederacy as a separate country. On the eve of the War to Prevent Southern Independence leading opinion makers in these states advocated either allowing the Southern states to secede in peace; seceding and joining the Southern Confederacy; or seceding to form a separate nation comprised of the Middle Atlantic states.
Belief that the American union was voluntary and that it would be a war crime and a moral abomination for the federal government to force any state to remain in the union was strong throughout America on the eve of the war. Northern Editorials on Secession, edited by Howard C. Perkins, describes how the majority of Northern newspapers advocated peaceful secession of the Southern states in 1860-61. For example, the Bangor Daily Union editorialized on November 13, 1860 that "The Union depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their Union is gone." The New York Journal of Commerce condemned "the meddlesome spirit" of Northern "Yankees" who "seek to regulate and control people in other communities." The New York Tribune wrote on December 17, 1860 that "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Kenosha, Wisconsin Democrat editorialized on January 11, 1861 that "Secession is the very germ of liberty . . . the right of secession inheres to the people of every sovereign state."
Ron Paul could not have said it better.
Tuesday
SECESSION: ARE WE FREE TO DO IT?
Is all the recent talk of secession mere sour grapes over the election, or perhaps something deeper? Currently there are active petitions in support of secession for all 50 states, with Texas taking the lead in number of signatures. Texas has well over the number of signatures needed to generate a response from the administration, and while I wouldn't hold my breath on Texas actually seceding, I believe these petitions raise a lot of worthwhile questions about the nature of our union.
Is it treasonous to want to secede from the United States? Many think the question of secession was settled by our Civil War. On the contrary; the principles of self-governance and voluntary association are at the core of our founding. Clearly Thomas Jefferson believed secession was proper, albeit as a last resort. Writing to William Giles in 1825, he concluded that states:
"should separate from our companions only when the sole alternatives left, are the dissolution of our Union with them, or submission to a government without limitation of powers."
Keep in mind that the first and third paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence expressly contemplate the dissolution of a political union when the underlying government becomes tyrannical.
Do we have a "government without limitation of powers" yet? The Federal government kept the Union together through violence and force in the Civil War, but did might really make right?
Secession is a deeply American principle. This country was born through secession. Some felt it was treasonous to secede from England, but those "traitors" became our country's greatest patriots.
There is nothing treasonous or unpatriotic about wanting a federal government that is more responsive to the people it represents. That is what our Revolutionary War was all about and today our own federal government is vastly overstepping its constitutional bounds with no signs of reform. In fact, the recent election only further entrenched the status quo. If the possibility of secession is completely off the table there is nothing to stop the federal government from continuing to encroach on our liberties and no recourse for those who are sick and tired of it.
Consider the ballot measures that passed in Colorado and Washington state regarding marijuana laws. The people in those states have clearly indicated that they are ready to try something different where drug policy is concerned, yet they will still face a tremendous threat from the federal government. In California, the Feds have been arresting peaceful medical marijuana users and raiding dispensaries that state and local governments have sanctioned. This shouldn't happen in a free country.
It remains to be seen what will happen in states that are refusing to comply with the deeply unpopular mandates of Obamacare by not setting up healthcare exchanges. It appears the Federal government will not respect those decisions either.
In a free country, governments derive their power from the consent of the governed. When the people have very clearly withdrawn their consent for a law, the discussion should be over. If the Feds refuse to accept that and continue to run roughshod over the people, at what point do we acknowledge that that is not freedom anymore? At what point should the people dissolve the political bands which have connected them with an increasingly tyrannical and oppressive federal government? And if people or states are not free to leave the United States as a last resort, can they really think of themselves as free?
If a people cannot secede from an oppressive government, they cannot truly be considered free.
Monday
WHAT I THINK........GARY NORTH
On Wednesday, November 14, Ron Paul delivered his final speech at the podium of the United States House of Representatives. It was covered by C-SPAN live, and was later posted on C-SPAN's site. It was soon posted on YouTube, and from there was posted on numerous sites.
Within hours, various media outlets began to comment on it, both from the Right and from the Left. From the ones that I saw, all of them were generally favorable. This was remarkable. In thinking about it over the weekend, I began to perceive just how remarkable it was.
I searched Google for "Ron Paul" and "farewell address." I got almost 200,000 hits.
In the history of American politics, I can think of only four farewell addresses that ever got into the textbooks, and one of them was a fake. The most famous one was George Washington's 1796 farewell address, and it was not an address. It was a newspaper article. The second came in 1961, which was Dwight Eisenhower's famous military-industrial complex speech. The third one was Richard Nixon's announcement after his defeat in 1962 when he ran for governor of California against Edmund G. "Pat" Brown. I'm not sure that it should be regarded an address; it was more of a press conference, but it counted as a farewell address . . . for six years. In it, he uttered the immortal words, "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore." It was aimed at the media. Then, a dozen years later, he gave a real farewell address, the day before he resigned in disgrace from the presidency.
Ron Paul's farewell address was the fifth. This is extraordinary. The media did not ridicule him as arrogant for having delivered such an address. On the whole, the media seemed interested in what he had to say. Yet his speech began with a statement of the fact, namely, that he had never had any measurable political influence in the House in his entire 22 years. He had never had one of his bills passed into law.
His farewell address was taken seriously as a statement of principles, precisely because he never had any direct political influence in passing legislation. He stood as a representative of a constitutional tradition that has had only two other representatives at the national level ever since the end of the Civil War: President Grover Cleveland and Congressman Howard Buffett, who served in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Virtually nobody remembers Buffett, although almost everybody in the financial world has heard of his son Warren.
Whatever the impact of Ron Paul's farewell address, it is safe to say that no other congressman has ever delivered such an address at his retirement, at least not where the media took him seriously. It is unheard of that any Congressman would deliver such an address, and especially a Congressman who had no political power or the ability to spread election money around to his colleagues.
I regard this as a major historical indicator. I don't know if it would be legitimate to call it a turning point. We don't know at this time whether his career will be marked as an ideological turning point. What we do know is that he had a great deal of publicity, despite the fact that nobody believed that he would ever exercise direct political power. For a nationally known politician to build a career based on his never having attained political power, never wanting to attain political power, and never having anybody suggest that he was going to attain political power, is one of the great anomalies in the history of American politics. His career deserves a brief mention in the textbooks for the reasons I have just outlined. Who ever heard of a politician who received widespread publicity precisely because he never had any political power? This is a unique case.
WHAT I THINK........NATHAN SHORE
It’s hard to put into words what Ron Paul means to me. In fact, it seems a little strange that someone who I do not know on a personal level has had such a big impact on my life. I guess the best place to start is from the beginning.
Back in college I was your typical neoconservative. I was a pro-war Republican who also gave passing, lackadaisical support to limited government and reducing spending. But limited government didn’t have much true meaning to me back then. It meant simply this: support reducing spending only to the extent that it can be used to criticize the Democrats and promote the Republican Party and its agenda. That’s a pretty shallow understanding, but it’s an understanding that had a firm grip on my mind back in those days. I was even the chairman of the College Republicans at my university! I’d bought into the whole canard hook, line, and sinker.
I can’t pinpoint the timing exactly, but somewhere around the end of 2005, I discovered Ron Paul. I think I stumbled upon a video of him on C-SPAN. I can’t remember exactly what he was saying in the video, but I remember being annoyed and disliking it a lot, which means it was probably against the Iraq War in some way. From there forward and for whatever reason, I couldn’t forget Ron Paul. For the first time, I was confronted with the idea that my worldview was internally inconsistent. On the one hand, I mouthed support for free markets and limited government; on the other hand, I supported pre-emptive war, like in Iraq. War, I was told by Ron Paul, was just another way to expand the size and scope of government.
From that point on, over the course of the next year or so, I followed a bread crumb trail Ron Paul had already left across the internet at that time. That trail led me to an obscure economist, one I’d never heard of before even as an economics major in college: Ludwig von Mises. I then found the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s website; once that happened, there was a snowball effect. I read a lot of articles through the website and it caused me to purchase my first book by Mises through LvMI’s online store: Economic Policy: Thoughts for Today and Tomorrow. To this day, that little book contains one of my favorite essays of all time. It’s entitled simply "Capitalism." It’s simple and to the point, and it caused me to begin to see the free market differently. The essay begins as follows:
Descriptive terms which people use are often quite misleading. In talking about modern captains of industry and leaders of big business, for instance, they call a man a "chocolate king" or a "cotton king" or an "automobile king." Their use of such terminology implies that they see practically no difference between the modern heads of industry and those feudal kings, dukes or lords of earlier days. But the difference is in fact very great, for a chocolate king does not rule at all; he serves. He does not reign over conquered territory, independent of the market, independent of his customers. The chocolate king – or the steel king or the automobile king or any other king of modern industry – depends on the industry he operates and on the customers he serves. This "king" must stay in the good graces of his subjects, the consumers; he loses his "kingdom" as soon as he is no longer in a position to give his customers better service and provide it at lower cost than others with whom he must compete.
Up until this time, I saw libertarianism as an interesting political theory, but I dismissed it as too extreme and unworkable in reality. It was by reading the above and similar works by Mises that I began to think that libertarianism might be a tenable position.
By reading Mises, I was inevitably led to his student, economist Murray Rothbard, and I eventually purchased Rothbard’s book For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto and devoured it. I remember loving that book and being fascinated while reading it. I don’t think I had ever enjoyed reading what some would consider "dry" material so much in my life. In those pages, Rothbard describes how a completely free market would function. That is, he describes how courts, police, and the military could be provided through the free market, i.e. without government. Reading Rothbard’s defense of such a radical version of libertarianism (anarcho-capitalism) led me to the following conclusion: if the extreme views Rothbard espouses can be reasonably defended as logical and workable, then a more moderate version of libertarianism is surely defensible. I found Rothbard’s arguments very persuasive. In short, it was For a New Liberty that caused me to start calling myself a libertarian without reservation.
While all of my self-study was going on, I was still following Ron Paul. As a matter of fact, I had attended CPAC (a conservative conference held in Washington, D.C. every year) in the previous year. It was rumored that Ron Paul would make an appearance at CPAC 2007 to give a speech. I had already become disillusioned with the Republican Party and had no plans to attend CPAC that year. But when it was confirmed that Ron Paul would be speaking there, I jumped at the chance to attend. No question about it. I was going to see Ron Paul, come Hell or high water!
As I mentioned already, I was chairman of the College Republicans at my school. However, by the time 2007 rolled around, I was now the past chairman of that organization. I had also been trying to convince some of my friends in the College Republicans that Ron Paul was the way to go. To hell with the Republican Party, I said. Ron Paul’s message is consistent and principled, and he actually supports limited government. Imagine that! I won’t say that I converted any of my friends in College Republicans to libertarianism and Ron Paul, but I did have a hand in making a few of them critically analyze their views. To make a long story short, the end result of all that discussion and argument was a few dedicated libertarians, libertarians even to this day.
The trip to CPAC that year was rather uneventful and I will even say boring. I remember having to listen to Ann Coulter speak and cringing the entire time. She even mentioned libertarians, as I recall, but not in a very flattering light. She muttered something about libertarians and drugs. You know, we’re all drug addicts, us libertarians, since we want drugs legalized. I sat through many other speakers who were not even important enough to remember. And remember them I do not.
Finally, the day of the convention came when Ron Paul would speak. I was still delusional enough at that time to think Ron Paul would be in a big room in the hotel where the convention was held. That idea was quickly dashed when, upon finding the room on the bottom floor of the hotel, I discovered that it was tiny and there were no seats. You had to stand if you wanted to hear "Dr. No" speak, which I was fine with. I would have stood on my head to hear Ron Paul in person. Someone was kind enough to drag a lectern in there so Ron Paul would have something to stand behind to give his speech.
Once I saw the small size of the room and the lack of care by CPAC by not providing accommodations for those of us who wanted to hear Ron Paul, I doubted many people would show up at all. But, much to my surprise, that room, though small, slowly started to get crowded, almost a little too crowded. It was packed.
Ron Paul gave a great talk, much of it anti-war themed, and concluded to loud applause for that little room. He then went out into the hallway to talk with anyone who wanted to share a word with him. I was definitely one of those people who wanted to share a word – many words! I waited around for quite a while and slowly the crowd began to disperse. It finally got to the point where very few people were left and I was afraid Dr. Paul was about to leave, so I approached him, shook his hand, and introduced myself. I don’t recall all the details of the conversation, as it was nearly six years ago from the time of this writing, but I know it lasted longer than I expected, probably five to ten minutes. My guess is waiting to approach him after nearly everyone had left was a good strategy because no one else was vying for his attention. During our talk, he encouraged me to attend Mises University that summer (which I did). We also talked about a couple of the books that both of us had read. I remember saying I wanted to read Mises’ Human Action, and Dr. Paul said it was a great book but one that was difficult to understand without some background knowledge. So he recommended a few smaller books by Rothbard before I took on Mises’ economic treatise. I got a quick picture, shook his hand, and that was it. That was my Ron Paul experience, at least when it comes to meeting him in person. That is now six long years ago.
Like I said, I did attend Mises University in the summer of 2007. When I claim Ron Paul started to change my thinking on a number of subjects, Mises University fundamentally changed many of my views for good. From that summer forward, I was convinced that the unbridled free market was not only the most moral social system conceivable but also the most efficient and workable. I still hold those views to this day.
A lot has happened in my life since I met Ron Paul and attended Mises University. For one thing, I attended and graduated from law school and am now a practicing attorney. But even though I have experienced a lot over the last several years, the foundation of my worldview remains intact that was laid thanks in large part to Ron Paul. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that foundation never would have been laid without Ron Paul. For that, I will never forget Ron Paul.
When I watched and listened to his farewell speech to Congress I’d be lying if I said I didn’t shed a few tears. Yes, yes, I know most people who read that I shed a tear over Ron Paul would think I’m bonkers. But they can think what they wish. I shed tears because I felt I was witnessing the closing of a chapter in history, a chapter in which I am grateful to have witnessed and been a part. I say without hesitation that Ron Paul has been the most principled and consistent Congressman in the history of the United States, perhaps the most principled politician in the United States of all time. Ron Paul has been far more consistent than even the likes of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, founders viewed as strong defenders of limited, constitutional government.
His consistency is quite remarkable really. And if you question his consistency, merely look at his voting history and see for yourself all the lone "no" votes he cast, and the "no" votes he cast in general. If legislation used the force of government against those who did not initiate force against others, it got a resounding "nay" from Ron Paul. In practice that meant quite a lot got a "nay" from "Dr. No."
In closing, one more short story. I recall a body language expert who was asked to analyze the Republican Primary Debates. This expert was on Fox News, so take it for what you will, but I thought her comments about Ron Paul spoke to the man he is. She said that his body language, of all the candidates, most obviously revealed that he was being honest and saying what he thought was the truth. Most telling of all, she said, was when he was about to make a comment he knew would not be received well by the audience. He would hunch his shoulders and lean forward, bracing himself to be booed. What's more, you could tell it made him uncomfortable, yet he did it anyway. Now, that's a standard of honesty I hope I can live up to.
Ron Paul, of course, is a man. He has his faults like we all do. But he’s a special man to me because he is responsible for changing how I see the world. And for that I will always be grateful. I’m reminded of these words used to describe Ludwig von Mises from "Hamlet." I think they work equally well for Ron Paul:
He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.
Thank you Ron Paul, from the bottom of my heart.
Saturday
WHAT I THINK........GARY NORTH
On January 7 of this year, I wrote an article on the idealism of younger voters who flocked to Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican Party's nomination for President. It is posted here:
http://www.garynorth.com/public/8940.cfm. My opinions have not changed. I am convinced that there is a bond between him and voters who are 60 years younger than he is. I can think of no other nationally known American politician in history who has bridged this gap, but with only a minority of hard core voters, ages 30 to 77, in between.
This has something to do with bills that are coming due. The younger voters are expected by the older ones to "pay their fair share." This means staying in the multiple Ponzi schemes that constitute modern politics all over the West. (http://www.garynorth.com/public/10280.cfm)
The oldsters today expect younger workers passively to pay all of the bills that were run up by politicians in the name of voters who got into these schemes early. But the younger voters will not comply. They can't. The bills are too large. All Ponzi schemes die. They are actuarial impossibilities. Uncle Sam is really Bernie Madoff, but on the scale of hundreds of trillions of dollars, not a piddly $50 billion.
For now, the politics of guilt keeps younger workers paying into the schemes. Younger voters have the votes to kill off these schemes, but there are two crucial missing factors: (1) personal economic pain sufficient for them to consider cutting off these programs; (2) an understanding of a moral philosophy that justifies this decision to kill the programs.
Ron Paul's philosophy of non-interventionism at home and abroad is the moral philosophy most suitable to an age-based, non-violent, political revolution. Think of it as this: a revolution of pulling the Ponzi schemes' plugs.
Note: this is not just an American political scenario. It is universal in the West.
Ron Paul's influence has already crossed national borders. His foreign policy is clear: "The United States government should leave foreigners alone." This message appeals to foreigners all across the globe. But this raises a question: "Why does he hold this view?" The answer: the philosophy of non-interventionism. Some foreigners then draw a correct conclusion: "This principle crosses borders." The philosophy spreads.
Ponzi schemes appeal to older voters, who have paid individual pittances into them and want collective fortunes out of them.
For as long as young people do not look at the economics of Ponzi schemes, they go along with them. But, deficit by deficit, reality intrudes. The systems are going broke. If the government funds them forever, younger voters will go broke. Today in Greece, Spain, and Portugal, the only factor that keeps young voters from being expropriated by these Ponzi schemes is unemployment. Half of them can find no jobs. They have no futures under the present regimes. They are beginning to figure this out.
But they do not know why they are locked out. They have never been taught free market economics. Their teachers in tax-funded schools had no incentive to teach free market economics, for free market economics helps people to understand and identify Ponzi schemes.
The reason why Ron Paul's message crosses the Atlantic is because of three things: (1) he has identified the Ponzi schemes, (2) he has called them into question morally and statistically, and (3) the Internet.
THE POLITICS OF "NO"
Ron Paul's politics was always a package deal. It was the politics of "no." It rested on two assumptions: (1) the principle of non-intervention; (2) the obligation to vote "no" if the proposed legislation was not authorized by the U.S. Constitution. Simple. Direct. Easily understood. Universally ignored.
Ever since 1865, there have been only three elected Washington politicians who held this position: Ron Paul, President Grover Cleveland, and Congressman Howard Buffett (Warren's father).
The politics of "no" is a self-conscious reversal of all politics. Traditional politics is based on the practice known as logrolling. A politician approaches a colleague. He promises to vote for the colleague's bill if the colleague will reciprocate. The two bills must be non-controversial in each man's district. But most bills are. There are thousands of them introduced in every term of Congress. This is the politics of "yes."
Ron Paul reversed the arrangement. He refused to vote for boondoggles introduced by his colleagues. In return, he never has asked them to vote for boondoggles for his district. He never introduced boondoggle legislation for his district. This arrangement had not been heard of ever since Howard Buffett left office in January of 1953.
The politics of "yes" is based on this justification to the folks back home. "I will bring home the loot." The politics of "no" is based on this justification to the folks back home: "I will keep out the looters."
The politics of "yes" is the politics of guns in people's bellies, either to stop them from doing something or to force them to open their wallets. The politics of "no" is the politics of having the government's agents put their guns back in their holsters.
THE FIRST TERM: 1976
He entered Congress late in the term of a Democrat who had resigned to take a position in the federal bureaucracy. He entered in April of 1976. He was defeated that November by 268 votes out of 180,000.
In that brief stay in Congress, he gained the nickname, "Dr. No." In short, word traveled fast. The villain of the first James Bond movie of 1962 was Dr. No. No one viewed Paul as a villain, but the moniker stuck.
I was Dr. No's Dr. No.
He hired me in June to write his newsletters. Most congressmen had a newsletter. They would send out a monthly letter. I was in the newsletter business: Remnant Review. I recognized that his name needed to be in front of voters once a week. So, I created two letters, each sent every other week. One was one page, 8x10, two sides. The other was four pages, 11x17, folded.
I never told him what I would write. As far as I know, he did not proofread them. He trusted me not to get him in trouble, either factually or ideologically. He did not worry about what voters would think. He only wanted to be sure that what was in those letters was consistent with his stated philosophy of non-interventionism and Constitutionalism.
There were voters who complained in writing about his hard-core positions in the newsletters, but nobody ever complained that he was going down the road to compromise.
I have only three regrets. This first one occurred to me only last month. We never had a photo of the staff. This second one only occurs to me as I write this report. I never saved copies of those newsletters.
The third, however, has bugged me for over 30 years. I never saved a copy of the first and last position paper I wrote for him, when he voted "no" on additional American funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I arrived on Friday for my first day on the job. I was told it had to be written for submission on Monday morning. I began to write it on Friday. I came in on Saturday to finish it. It was printed the following Wednesday. Congress voted overwhelmingly to fund the IMF.
There was one odd after-effect of that position paper. In what simply never happens, the Senate Banking Committee, under Senator Proxmire, invited Dr. Paul to testify as to why he planned to vote against the bill. The Senate pays no attention to the opinions of Congressmen, let alone the junior member in terms of seniority. My guess then, as now, was that Proxmire really did want to know why anyone would vote against the IMF. It seemed inconceivable to him.
With the IMF trying to bail out the collapsing European banking system, using American capital as collateral for the loans that it is trying to raise, we know how things have turned out. Paul was right in 1976. Proxmire was wrong. The IMF remains a far larger "golden fleece" than the clever but peripheral examples of government waste that Proxmire used to feed to the press with fanfare every month: his Golden Fleece Awards.
30 QUESTIONS
In his Farewell Address, delivered on November 14, he asked 30 non-rhetorical questions.
Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?
Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?
Why can't Americans manufacturer rope and other products from hemp?
Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?
Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating their gold held by the FED for her in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy is beginning to wane?
Why do our political leaders believe it's unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?
Why can't Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?
Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?
Why should there be mandatory sentences--even up to life for crimes without victims--as our drug laws require?
Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?
Why is it political suicide for anyone to criticize AIPAC ?
Why haven't we given up on the drug war since it's an obvious failure and violates the people's rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can't even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?
Why do we sacrifice so much getting needlessly involved in border disputes and civil strife around the world and ignore the root cause of the most deadly border in the world-the one between Mexico and the US?
Why does Congress willingly give up its prerogatives to the Executive Branch?
Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?
Why did the big banks, the large corporations, and foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 and the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?
Why do so many in the government and the federal officials believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?
Why do so many accept the deeply flawed principle that government bureaucrats and politicians can protect us from ourselves without totally destroying the principle of liberty?
Why can't people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?
Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the President authority to establish a "kill list," including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?
Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong.
Why is it claimed that if people won't or can't take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?
Why did we ever give the government a safe haven for initiating violence against the people?
Why do some members defend free markets, but not civil liberties?
Why do some members defend civil liberties but not free markets? Aren't they the same?
Why don't more defend both economic liberty and personal liberty?
Why are there not more individuals who seek to intellectually influence others to bring about positive changes than those who seek power to force others to obey their commands?
Why does the use of religion to support a social gospel and preemptive wars, both of which requires authoritarians to use violence, or the threat of violence, go unchallenged? Aggression and forced redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with the teachings of the world's great religions.
Why do we allow the government and the Federal Reserve to disseminate false information dealing with both economic and foreign policy?
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it's the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority?
Why should anyone be surprised that Congress has no credibility, since there's such a disconnect between what politicians say and what they do?
Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there's a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.
The Atlantic, a politically liberal journal, reprinted these questions. It ended the list with this: "One needn't agree with the premise of every question to conclude that the United States - and especially its most unjustly treated citizens - would be better off if more legislators were grappling with them."
Ron Paul labored in obscurity in his two decades in Congress. Yet in his final speech, he received media coverage. Google News ran this on November 15.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/8940.cfm. My opinions have not changed. I am convinced that there is a bond between him and voters who are 60 years younger than he is. I can think of no other nationally known American politician in history who has bridged this gap, but with only a minority of hard core voters, ages 30 to 77, in between.
This has something to do with bills that are coming due. The younger voters are expected by the older ones to "pay their fair share." This means staying in the multiple Ponzi schemes that constitute modern politics all over the West. (http://www.garynorth.com/public/10280.cfm)
The oldsters today expect younger workers passively to pay all of the bills that were run up by politicians in the name of voters who got into these schemes early. But the younger voters will not comply. They can't. The bills are too large. All Ponzi schemes die. They are actuarial impossibilities. Uncle Sam is really Bernie Madoff, but on the scale of hundreds of trillions of dollars, not a piddly $50 billion.
For now, the politics of guilt keeps younger workers paying into the schemes. Younger voters have the votes to kill off these schemes, but there are two crucial missing factors: (1) personal economic pain sufficient for them to consider cutting off these programs; (2) an understanding of a moral philosophy that justifies this decision to kill the programs.
Ron Paul's philosophy of non-interventionism at home and abroad is the moral philosophy most suitable to an age-based, non-violent, political revolution. Think of it as this: a revolution of pulling the Ponzi schemes' plugs.
Note: this is not just an American political scenario. It is universal in the West.
Ron Paul's influence has already crossed national borders. His foreign policy is clear: "The United States government should leave foreigners alone." This message appeals to foreigners all across the globe. But this raises a question: "Why does he hold this view?" The answer: the philosophy of non-interventionism. Some foreigners then draw a correct conclusion: "This principle crosses borders." The philosophy spreads.
Ponzi schemes appeal to older voters, who have paid individual pittances into them and want collective fortunes out of them.
For as long as young people do not look at the economics of Ponzi schemes, they go along with them. But, deficit by deficit, reality intrudes. The systems are going broke. If the government funds them forever, younger voters will go broke. Today in Greece, Spain, and Portugal, the only factor that keeps young voters from being expropriated by these Ponzi schemes is unemployment. Half of them can find no jobs. They have no futures under the present regimes. They are beginning to figure this out.
But they do not know why they are locked out. They have never been taught free market economics. Their teachers in tax-funded schools had no incentive to teach free market economics, for free market economics helps people to understand and identify Ponzi schemes.
The reason why Ron Paul's message crosses the Atlantic is because of three things: (1) he has identified the Ponzi schemes, (2) he has called them into question morally and statistically, and (3) the Internet.
THE POLITICS OF "NO"
Ron Paul's politics was always a package deal. It was the politics of "no." It rested on two assumptions: (1) the principle of non-intervention; (2) the obligation to vote "no" if the proposed legislation was not authorized by the U.S. Constitution. Simple. Direct. Easily understood. Universally ignored.
Ever since 1865, there have been only three elected Washington politicians who held this position: Ron Paul, President Grover Cleveland, and Congressman Howard Buffett (Warren's father).
The politics of "no" is a self-conscious reversal of all politics. Traditional politics is based on the practice known as logrolling. A politician approaches a colleague. He promises to vote for the colleague's bill if the colleague will reciprocate. The two bills must be non-controversial in each man's district. But most bills are. There are thousands of them introduced in every term of Congress. This is the politics of "yes."
Ron Paul reversed the arrangement. He refused to vote for boondoggles introduced by his colleagues. In return, he never has asked them to vote for boondoggles for his district. He never introduced boondoggle legislation for his district. This arrangement had not been heard of ever since Howard Buffett left office in January of 1953.
The politics of "yes" is based on this justification to the folks back home. "I will bring home the loot." The politics of "no" is based on this justification to the folks back home: "I will keep out the looters."
The politics of "yes" is the politics of guns in people's bellies, either to stop them from doing something or to force them to open their wallets. The politics of "no" is the politics of having the government's agents put their guns back in their holsters.
THE FIRST TERM: 1976
He entered Congress late in the term of a Democrat who had resigned to take a position in the federal bureaucracy. He entered in April of 1976. He was defeated that November by 268 votes out of 180,000.
In that brief stay in Congress, he gained the nickname, "Dr. No." In short, word traveled fast. The villain of the first James Bond movie of 1962 was Dr. No. No one viewed Paul as a villain, but the moniker stuck.
I was Dr. No's Dr. No.
He hired me in June to write his newsletters. Most congressmen had a newsletter. They would send out a monthly letter. I was in the newsletter business: Remnant Review. I recognized that his name needed to be in front of voters once a week. So, I created two letters, each sent every other week. One was one page, 8x10, two sides. The other was four pages, 11x17, folded.
I never told him what I would write. As far as I know, he did not proofread them. He trusted me not to get him in trouble, either factually or ideologically. He did not worry about what voters would think. He only wanted to be sure that what was in those letters was consistent with his stated philosophy of non-interventionism and Constitutionalism.
There were voters who complained in writing about his hard-core positions in the newsletters, but nobody ever complained that he was going down the road to compromise.
I have only three regrets. This first one occurred to me only last month. We never had a photo of the staff. This second one only occurs to me as I write this report. I never saved copies of those newsletters.
The third, however, has bugged me for over 30 years. I never saved a copy of the first and last position paper I wrote for him, when he voted "no" on additional American funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF). I arrived on Friday for my first day on the job. I was told it had to be written for submission on Monday morning. I began to write it on Friday. I came in on Saturday to finish it. It was printed the following Wednesday. Congress voted overwhelmingly to fund the IMF.
There was one odd after-effect of that position paper. In what simply never happens, the Senate Banking Committee, under Senator Proxmire, invited Dr. Paul to testify as to why he planned to vote against the bill. The Senate pays no attention to the opinions of Congressmen, let alone the junior member in terms of seniority. My guess then, as now, was that Proxmire really did want to know why anyone would vote against the IMF. It seemed inconceivable to him.
With the IMF trying to bail out the collapsing European banking system, using American capital as collateral for the loans that it is trying to raise, we know how things have turned out. Paul was right in 1976. Proxmire was wrong. The IMF remains a far larger "golden fleece" than the clever but peripheral examples of government waste that Proxmire used to feed to the press with fanfare every month: his Golden Fleece Awards.
30 QUESTIONS
In his Farewell Address, delivered on November 14, he asked 30 non-rhetorical questions.
Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?
Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?
Why can't Americans manufacturer rope and other products from hemp?
Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?
Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating their gold held by the FED for her in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy is beginning to wane?
Why do our political leaders believe it's unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?
Why can't Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?
Why is the TSA permitted to abuse the rights of any American traveling by air?
Why should there be mandatory sentences--even up to life for crimes without victims--as our drug laws require?
Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?
Why is it political suicide for anyone to criticize AIPAC ?
Why haven't we given up on the drug war since it's an obvious failure and violates the people's rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can't even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?
Why do we sacrifice so much getting needlessly involved in border disputes and civil strife around the world and ignore the root cause of the most deadly border in the world-the one between Mexico and the US?
Why does Congress willingly give up its prerogatives to the Executive Branch?
Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?
Why did the big banks, the large corporations, and foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 and the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?
Why do so many in the government and the federal officials believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?
Why do so many accept the deeply flawed principle that government bureaucrats and politicians can protect us from ourselves without totally destroying the principle of liberty?
Why can't people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?
Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the President authority to establish a "kill list," including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?
Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it's wrong.
Why is it claimed that if people won't or can't take care of their own needs, that people in government can do it for them?
Why did we ever give the government a safe haven for initiating violence against the people?
Why do some members defend free markets, but not civil liberties?
Why do some members defend civil liberties but not free markets? Aren't they the same?
Why don't more defend both economic liberty and personal liberty?
Why are there not more individuals who seek to intellectually influence others to bring about positive changes than those who seek power to force others to obey their commands?
Why does the use of religion to support a social gospel and preemptive wars, both of which requires authoritarians to use violence, or the threat of violence, go unchallenged? Aggression and forced redistribution of wealth has nothing to do with the teachings of the world's great religions.
Why do we allow the government and the Federal Reserve to disseminate false information dealing with both economic and foreign policy?
Why is democracy held in such high esteem when it's the enemy of the minority and makes all rights relative to the dictates of the majority?
Why should anyone be surprised that Congress has no credibility, since there's such a disconnect between what politicians say and what they do?
Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there's a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.
The Atlantic, a politically liberal journal, reprinted these questions. It ended the list with this: "One needn't agree with the premise of every question to conclude that the United States - and especially its most unjustly treated citizens - would be better off if more legislators were grappling with them."
Ron Paul labored in obscurity in his two decades in Congress. Yet in his final speech, he received media coverage. Google News ran this on November 15.
WHAT I THINK........CHARLES GOYETTE
It was 1976, the bicentennial year, when he first took a seat in Washington. Although only one of 435 congressmen, he was distinguished from the beginning by his uncommon determination to serve the cause of peace and prosperity by championing individual liberty.
This he did with a consistency that baffled the plastic politicians of both parties.
Politics has ways of bending such lesser men, and molding even the well-intentioned to become servants of the state.
The tools are many: Congressional leadership bribes and bestows its favors, from plum committee assignments to nicer Capitol offices. Who wouldn’t prefer the spacious corner office to the one more-suited to serving as the janitor’s closet?
The parties reward the lockstep-marchers, too. For those who stay in step, there are endorsements and campaign funds. Meanwhile, for those who march to a different drummer, the party will recruit primary opponents – even from the other party.
And then there is the simple social pressure to which men whose eyes are not focused on a polestar of principle soon succumb. The description you’ve heard of Washington, that you have to go along to get along, is all too true.
A True Representative
Ron Paul never succumbed. He never sold out for a better assignment, a nicer office, lobbyist largesse, or shallow conviviality.
Nor has Congressman Paul ever taken a taxpayer-paid junket. He has never voted for a congressional pay raise. Nor has he ever voted for a tax increase or an unbalanced budget.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program. He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. Treasury every year. And he has never voted for a bill that contravenes the plain language of the Constitution.
That alone is enough for him to stand apart. But my regard, born of experience, runs deeper.
Back in 1984, I arranged for Ron Paul to be a keynote speaker at a series of investment conferences. Even then he distinguished himself with his vision, clearly describing the economic course America was charting and the consequences that are beginning to unfold today.
As evidence of clarity, one can look to Congressman Paul’s September 2003 remarks in the House Financial Services Committee, as he described in advance "the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market."
Five years to the month before the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bubbles popped, Paul explained:
"Like all artificially created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out.
"Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been, had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
"Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing (Government-Sponsored Enterprise) debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever.
"In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall."
What magical gift of intuition has enabled Ron Paul over the years to so accurately describe our national trajectory and its consequences?
There is no magic to it; he has simply studied the precedents.
America isn’t the only country to have purchased the "let’s spend our way to prosperity" snake oil. It’s not the first time a nation has taken the central economic planning Kool-Aid. This isn’t the world’s first fiat-money rodeo. Other countries have taken the same central-bank joyride.
Do These Same Questions Puzzle You?
Congressman Paul’s farewell address can – and should – be read or viewed. Be sure to give some thought to the long list of important questions excessive government has prompted Congressman Paul to ask as he leaves office.
Here are a representative few:
Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?
Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?
Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?
Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating its gold held by the Fed in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy is beginning to wane?
Why do our political leaders believe it’s unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?
Why can’t Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?
Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?
Why haven’t we given up on the drug war since it’s an obvious failure and violates the people’s rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can’t even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?
Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?
Why did the big banks, the large corporations, foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 while the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?
Why do so many in the government (including federal officials) believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?
Why can’t people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?
Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the president authority to establish a "kill list," including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?
Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.
Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there’s a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.
‘A Life Uncommon’
As he acknowledges, there are no federal buildings or highways or major pieces of government-growing legislation named after Congressman Ron Paul. But his impact will last and his name will be remembered long after the untold thousands of plastic politicians have been forgotten.
Indeed, the singer Jewel has a stirring song that will forever remind me of Congressman Paul’s political career. She urged that if we would but lend our voices to the sound of freedom and fill our lives with love and bravery, then we shall lead lives uncommon.
Congressman Paul has inspired millions with his voice of freedom. He has led a life uncommon.
This he did with a consistency that baffled the plastic politicians of both parties.
Politics has ways of bending such lesser men, and molding even the well-intentioned to become servants of the state.
The tools are many: Congressional leadership bribes and bestows its favors, from plum committee assignments to nicer Capitol offices. Who wouldn’t prefer the spacious corner office to the one more-suited to serving as the janitor’s closet?
The parties reward the lockstep-marchers, too. For those who stay in step, there are endorsements and campaign funds. Meanwhile, for those who march to a different drummer, the party will recruit primary opponents – even from the other party.
And then there is the simple social pressure to which men whose eyes are not focused on a polestar of principle soon succumb. The description you’ve heard of Washington, that you have to go along to get along, is all too true.
A True Representative
Ron Paul never succumbed. He never sold out for a better assignment, a nicer office, lobbyist largesse, or shallow conviviality.
Nor has Congressman Paul ever taken a taxpayer-paid junket. He has never voted for a congressional pay raise. Nor has he ever voted for a tax increase or an unbalanced budget.
He does not participate in the lucrative congressional pension program. He returns a portion of his annual congressional office budget to the U.S. Treasury every year. And he has never voted for a bill that contravenes the plain language of the Constitution.
That alone is enough for him to stand apart. But my regard, born of experience, runs deeper.
Back in 1984, I arranged for Ron Paul to be a keynote speaker at a series of investment conferences. Even then he distinguished himself with his vision, clearly describing the economic course America was charting and the consequences that are beginning to unfold today.
As evidence of clarity, one can look to Congressman Paul’s September 2003 remarks in the House Financial Services Committee, as he described in advance "the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market."
Five years to the month before the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bubbles popped, Paul explained:
"Like all artificially created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out.
"Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been, had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
"Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing (Government-Sponsored Enterprise) debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever.
"In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall."
What magical gift of intuition has enabled Ron Paul over the years to so accurately describe our national trajectory and its consequences?
There is no magic to it; he has simply studied the precedents.
America isn’t the only country to have purchased the "let’s spend our way to prosperity" snake oil. It’s not the first time a nation has taken the central economic planning Kool-Aid. This isn’t the world’s first fiat-money rodeo. Other countries have taken the same central-bank joyride.
Do These Same Questions Puzzle You?
Congressman Paul’s farewell address can – and should – be read or viewed. Be sure to give some thought to the long list of important questions excessive government has prompted Congressman Paul to ask as he leaves office.
Here are a representative few:
Why are sick people who use medical marijuana put in prison?
Why does the federal government restrict the drinking of raw milk?
Why are Americans not allowed to use gold and silver as legal tender as mandated by the Constitution?
Why is Germany concerned enough to consider repatriating its gold held by the Fed in New York? Is it that the trust in the U.S. and dollar supremacy is beginning to wane?
Why do our political leaders believe it’s unnecessary to thoroughly audit our own gold?
Why can’t Americans decide which type of light bulbs they can buy?
Why have we allowed the federal government to regulate commodes in our homes?
Why haven’t we given up on the drug war since it’s an obvious failure and violates the people’s rights? Has nobody noticed that the authorities can’t even keep drugs out of the prisons? How can making our entire society a prison solve the problem?
Why does changing the party in power never change policy? Could it be that the views of both parties are essentially the same?
Why did the big banks, the large corporations, foreign banks and foreign central banks get bailed out in 2008 while the middle class lost their jobs and their homes?
Why do so many in the government (including federal officials) believe that creating money out of thin air creates wealth?
Why can’t people understand that war always destroys wealth and liberty?
Why is there so little concern for the Executive Order that gives the president authority to establish a "kill list," including American citizens, of those targeted for assassination?
Why is patriotism thought to be blind loyalty to the government and the politicians who run it, rather than loyalty to the principles of liberty and support for the people? Real patriotism is a willingness to challenge the government when it’s wrong.
Is there any explanation for all the deception, the unhappiness, the fear of the future, the loss of confidence in our leaders, the distrust, the anger and frustration? Yes there is, and there’s a way to reverse these attitudes. The negative perceptions are logical and a consequence of bad policies bringing about our problems. Identification of the problems and recognizing the cause allow the proper changes to come easy.
‘A Life Uncommon’
As he acknowledges, there are no federal buildings or highways or major pieces of government-growing legislation named after Congressman Ron Paul. But his impact will last and his name will be remembered long after the untold thousands of plastic politicians have been forgotten.
Indeed, the singer Jewel has a stirring song that will forever remind me of Congressman Paul’s political career. She urged that if we would but lend our voices to the sound of freedom and fill our lives with love and bravery, then we shall lead lives uncommon.
Congressman Paul has inspired millions with his voice of freedom. He has led a life uncommon.
Thursday
NOT THE END
Ron Paul has plenty to say and will continue to say it. He thoughts will be printed here until the day one of us dies. Long live Ron Paul, he has meant everything to me in my life.
Tuesday
IN PRAISE OF PRICE GOUGING
As the northeastern United States continues to recover from Hurricane Sandy, we hear the usual outcry against individuals and companies who dare to charge market prices for goods such as gasoline. The normal market response of rising prices in the wake of a natural disaster and resulting supply disruptions is redefined as “price gouging.” The government claims that price gouging is the charging of ruinous or exploitative prices for goods in short supply in the wake of a disaster and is a heinous crime But does this reflect economic reality, or merely political posturing to capitalize on raw emotions?
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the supply of gasoline was greatly disrupted. Many gas stations were unable to pump gas due to a lack of electricity, thus greatly reducing the supply. At the same time demand for gasoline spiked due to the widespread use of generators. Because gas stations were forbidden from raising their prices to meet the increased demand, miles-long lines developed and stations were forced to start limiting the amount of gasoline that individuals could purchase. New Jersey gas stations began to look like Soviet grocery stores.
Had gas stations been allowed to raise their prices to reflect the increased demand for gasoline, only those most in need of gasoline would have purchased gas, while everyone would have economized on their existing supply. But because prices remained lower than they should have been, no one sought to conserve gas. Low prices signaled that gas was in abundant supply, while reality was exactly the opposite, and only those fortunate enough to be at the front of gas lines were able to purchase gas before it sold out. Not surprisingly, a thriving black market developed, with gas offered for up to $20 per gallon.
With price controls in effect, supply shortages were exacerbated. If prices had been allowed to increase to market levels, the profit opportunity would have brought in new supplies from outside the region. As supplies increased, prices gradually would have decreased as supply and demand returned to equilibrium. But with price controls in effect, what company would want to deal with the hassle of shipping gas to a disaster-stricken area with downed power lines and flooded highways when the same profit could be made elsewhere? So instead of gas shipments flooding into the disaster zones, what little gas supply is left is rapidly sold and consumed.
Governments fail to understand that prices are not just random numbers. Prices perform an important role in providing information, coordinating supply and demand, and enabling economic calculation. When government interferes with the price mechanism, economic calamity ensues. Price controls on gasoline led to the infamous gas lines of the 1970s, yet politicians today repeat those same failed mistakes. Instituting price caps at a below-market price will always lead to shortages. No act of any legislature can reverse the laws of supply and demand.
History shows us that the quickest path to economic recovery is to abolish all price controls. If governments really want to aid recovery, they would abolish their “price-gouging” legislation and allow the free market to function.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, the supply of gasoline was greatly disrupted. Many gas stations were unable to pump gas due to a lack of electricity, thus greatly reducing the supply. At the same time demand for gasoline spiked due to the widespread use of generators. Because gas stations were forbidden from raising their prices to meet the increased demand, miles-long lines developed and stations were forced to start limiting the amount of gasoline that individuals could purchase. New Jersey gas stations began to look like Soviet grocery stores.
Had gas stations been allowed to raise their prices to reflect the increased demand for gasoline, only those most in need of gasoline would have purchased gas, while everyone would have economized on their existing supply. But because prices remained lower than they should have been, no one sought to conserve gas. Low prices signaled that gas was in abundant supply, while reality was exactly the opposite, and only those fortunate enough to be at the front of gas lines were able to purchase gas before it sold out. Not surprisingly, a thriving black market developed, with gas offered for up to $20 per gallon.
With price controls in effect, supply shortages were exacerbated. If prices had been allowed to increase to market levels, the profit opportunity would have brought in new supplies from outside the region. As supplies increased, prices gradually would have decreased as supply and demand returned to equilibrium. But with price controls in effect, what company would want to deal with the hassle of shipping gas to a disaster-stricken area with downed power lines and flooded highways when the same profit could be made elsewhere? So instead of gas shipments flooding into the disaster zones, what little gas supply is left is rapidly sold and consumed.
Governments fail to understand that prices are not just random numbers. Prices perform an important role in providing information, coordinating supply and demand, and enabling economic calculation. When government interferes with the price mechanism, economic calamity ensues. Price controls on gasoline led to the infamous gas lines of the 1970s, yet politicians today repeat those same failed mistakes. Instituting price caps at a below-market price will always lead to shortages. No act of any legislature can reverse the laws of supply and demand.
History shows us that the quickest path to economic recovery is to abolish all price controls. If governments really want to aid recovery, they would abolish their “price-gouging” legislation and allow the free market to function.
Thursday
Tuesday
ECONOMICS OF DISASTER
Hurricane Sandy was one of the worst natural disasters the east coast has ever seen. Clean-up and recovery will take months, if not years and estimates run in the tens of billions of dollars. Parts of New York and New Jersey will never be the same. Entire seashore communities have been wiped out, but the determination to rebuild has been lauded as courageous and admirable. Yet as with all natural disasters, Sandy raises uncomfortable questions about the extent to which taxpayers should fund the cleanup and the extent to which government programs create moral hazards.
For example, FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) are expected to pick up the tab for much of the flood damage caused by the hurricane. Of course this will mean more federal debt and inflation for the rest of us, since the program only has about $4 billion to work with and is already $18 billion in debt from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many think there is a need for the government to provide flood insurance of this kind. After all, the market would never provide insurance in flood prone areas at an affordable price. But shouldn't that tell us something?
Shouldn't that tell us that it is a losing proposition to insure homes in coastal areas and flood plains often threatened by severe and destructive weather patterns? And if it’s a losing proposition, should taxpayers subsidize the inevitable losses arising from federal flood insurance?
The NFIP disguises the real cost of flood insurance in flood prone areas, which influences homebuilding and sales in such areas. Recklessly taking unwise risks when risk is underpriced is known as moral hazard.
When politicians decide that private insurance premiums are too high, as with houses built in flood plains, the solution is to under price the risk through federal subsidies. The obvious and expected outcome is more danger to life and limb when disaster strikes.
Even NFIP has been forced to raise rates significantly in coastal areas, and is now dropping second homes from coverage altogether,
Many assume it is compassionate to entrust government central planners with disaster recovery. However, the greatest compassion brings results, not just good intentions. And we’ve seen how bureaucratic organizations like FEMA mismanaged recovery and relief in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Ike. Organizations such as the Red Cross and private companies like Home Depot and Duracell have already stepped in admirably to help those in need, and we can only hope FEMA has learned this time not to impede and frustrate private efforts as they have in the past.
Above all, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Hurricane Sandy in this tremendously difficult time and hope they can get their lives put back together as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
For example, FEMA and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) are expected to pick up the tab for much of the flood damage caused by the hurricane. Of course this will mean more federal debt and inflation for the rest of us, since the program only has about $4 billion to work with and is already $18 billion in debt from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Many think there is a need for the government to provide flood insurance of this kind. After all, the market would never provide insurance in flood prone areas at an affordable price. But shouldn't that tell us something?
Shouldn't that tell us that it is a losing proposition to insure homes in coastal areas and flood plains often threatened by severe and destructive weather patterns? And if it’s a losing proposition, should taxpayers subsidize the inevitable losses arising from federal flood insurance?
The NFIP disguises the real cost of flood insurance in flood prone areas, which influences homebuilding and sales in such areas. Recklessly taking unwise risks when risk is underpriced is known as moral hazard.
When politicians decide that private insurance premiums are too high, as with houses built in flood plains, the solution is to under price the risk through federal subsidies. The obvious and expected outcome is more danger to life and limb when disaster strikes.
Even NFIP has been forced to raise rates significantly in coastal areas, and is now dropping second homes from coverage altogether,
Many assume it is compassionate to entrust government central planners with disaster recovery. However, the greatest compassion brings results, not just good intentions. And we’ve seen how bureaucratic organizations like FEMA mismanaged recovery and relief in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Ike. Organizations such as the Red Cross and private companies like Home Depot and Duracell have already stepped in admirably to help those in need, and we can only hope FEMA has learned this time not to impede and frustrate private efforts as they have in the past.
Above all, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of Hurricane Sandy in this tremendously difficult time and hope they can get their lives put back together as quickly and seamlessly as possible.
LET THE MARKETS CLEAR!
French businessman and economist Jean-Baptiste Say is credited with identifying the fundamental economic principle that aggregate demand for goods in an economy will equal the aggregate supply of goods when markets are permitted to operate. Or in Say’s words, “products are paid for with products.”
English classical economist David Ricardo, among others, more fully developed this principle into what has become known as “Say’s Law.” Say’s Law, according to Ricardo, leads us to understand that market equilibrium for goods is constant. This simply means that markets, when left alone by government planners or other fraudulent actors, inexorably tend toward an “equilibrium price” which eventually balances supply and demand for any particular good. Thus markets will clear themselves of any surpluses or shortages in the form of excess supply and demand.
This important corollary of Say’s Law – that markets clear – is critical to understanding the moribund US housing market. In housing, perhaps more than any other good, we see the terrible consequences of government and central bank interference with market forces.
First, the Federal Reserve Bank relentlessly increased the money supply over the last few decades. Much of this newly created money and credit flowed from Fed member banks into the residential and commercial real estate markets, causing prices to rise dramatically prior to the housing bust of 2007.
At the same time, the Fed systematically suppressed interest rates for decades. This led to tremendous malinvestment both by homebuilders and individuals, and encouraged a seedy subprime mortgage industry to make nonviable loans that would not make economic sense under market interest rates.
Congressional meddling in the mortgage market also added tremendously to the problem. Inane legislation like The Community Reinvestment Act literally forced banks to make thousands of loans to bad credit risks. Similarly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put taxpayers on the hook for millions of mortgages that never would meet market underwriting criteria. And of course the real estate and homebuilder lobbies made sure mortgage interest debt (unlike most personal debt) remains tax-deductible.
The ultimate result of these interventions by our caring friends in Congress and the Fed has been the biggest housing bubble and crash in US history, leaving millions of Americans underwater on their mortgages if they have not already lost their houses altogether. Congress and the Fed are directly responsible for millions of shattered lives, and almost unknowable economic damage in the form of trillions of dollars in mortgage backed securities.
The only solution to this mess is to allow the US housing market to clear. All of the bad mortgage debt must be liquidated, whether via foreclosure or bankruptcy. Banks holding substantial mortgages or mortgage backed assets must face the music and adjust their balance sheets to reflect today’s reality. Undoubtedly this will force many banks into immediate insolvency, but such banks must be allowed to fail without receiving another nickel of taxpayer money. Banks took the risks and made money during the bubble years; those who exercised bad judgment must now accept the consequences of their actions.
Never in American history have we needed to adopt a policy of laissez faire more desperately; never has government seemed more determined to artificially prop up an industry. But only by allowing the housing market to clear can we hope to rebuild our shattered economy from a stable foundation. Clearly there will be pain in the short term, but we owe it to younger Americans and future generations to allow the reemergence of a rational housing market.
English classical economist David Ricardo, among others, more fully developed this principle into what has become known as “Say’s Law.” Say’s Law, according to Ricardo, leads us to understand that market equilibrium for goods is constant. This simply means that markets, when left alone by government planners or other fraudulent actors, inexorably tend toward an “equilibrium price” which eventually balances supply and demand for any particular good. Thus markets will clear themselves of any surpluses or shortages in the form of excess supply and demand.
This important corollary of Say’s Law – that markets clear – is critical to understanding the moribund US housing market. In housing, perhaps more than any other good, we see the terrible consequences of government and central bank interference with market forces.
First, the Federal Reserve Bank relentlessly increased the money supply over the last few decades. Much of this newly created money and credit flowed from Fed member banks into the residential and commercial real estate markets, causing prices to rise dramatically prior to the housing bust of 2007.
At the same time, the Fed systematically suppressed interest rates for decades. This led to tremendous malinvestment both by homebuilders and individuals, and encouraged a seedy subprime mortgage industry to make nonviable loans that would not make economic sense under market interest rates.
Congressional meddling in the mortgage market also added tremendously to the problem. Inane legislation like The Community Reinvestment Act literally forced banks to make thousands of loans to bad credit risks. Similarly, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac put taxpayers on the hook for millions of mortgages that never would meet market underwriting criteria. And of course the real estate and homebuilder lobbies made sure mortgage interest debt (unlike most personal debt) remains tax-deductible.
The ultimate result of these interventions by our caring friends in Congress and the Fed has been the biggest housing bubble and crash in US history, leaving millions of Americans underwater on their mortgages if they have not already lost their houses altogether. Congress and the Fed are directly responsible for millions of shattered lives, and almost unknowable economic damage in the form of trillions of dollars in mortgage backed securities.
The only solution to this mess is to allow the US housing market to clear. All of the bad mortgage debt must be liquidated, whether via foreclosure or bankruptcy. Banks holding substantial mortgages or mortgage backed assets must face the music and adjust their balance sheets to reflect today’s reality. Undoubtedly this will force many banks into immediate insolvency, but such banks must be allowed to fail without receiving another nickel of taxpayer money. Banks took the risks and made money during the bubble years; those who exercised bad judgment must now accept the consequences of their actions.
Never in American history have we needed to adopt a policy of laissez faire more desperately; never has government seemed more determined to artificially prop up an industry. But only by allowing the housing market to clear can we hope to rebuild our shattered economy from a stable foundation. Clearly there will be pain in the short term, but we owe it to younger Americans and future generations to allow the reemergence of a rational housing market.
Thursday
INTERNET REVOLUTION IS A LIBERTY REVOLUTION
Until the late 1990s, individuals interested in Austrian economics, U.S. constitutional history, and libertarian philosophy had few sources of information. They had to spend hours scouring used book stores or the back pages of obscure libertarian periodicals to find the great works of Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, and other giants of liberty. Local library and university collections ignored libertarian politics and economics.
Today, however, the greatest classics of libertarian thought, libertarian philosophy, and libertarian economics are available instantly to anyone with internet access. Thanks to the internet, it is easier than ever before for liberty activists to spread news and other information regarding the evils of government power and the benefits of freedom. For the first time in human history, supporters of liberty around the world can share information across borders quickly and cheaply. Without the filter of government censors, this information emboldens millions to question governments and promote liberty.
This is why liberty-minded Americans must do everything possible to oppose-- and stop-- government attempts to censor or limit the free flow of information online.
One such attempt is known as “CISPA”, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. This bill will create a monstrous coalition of big business and big government to rob Americans of their protections under the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.
CISPA permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight, provided they merely do so in the name of “cybersecurity.” But America is a constitutional republic, not a surveillance state-- and the wildly overhyped need for security does not trump the Constitution.
“Cybersecurity” is the responsibility of companies that operate and make money in cyberspace, not taxpayers. Those companies should develop market-based private solutions to secure their networks, servers, cloud data centers, and user/customer information. The role of the US intelligence community is to protect the United States from military threats, not to provide corporate welfare to the private sector. Much like the TSA at the airport, CISPA would socialize security costs and remove market incentives for private firms to protect their own investments.
Imagine security-cleared agents embedded at private companies to serve as conduits for intelligence information about their customers back to the US intelligence community-- while enjoying immunity from any existing civil or criminal laws. Imagine Google or Facebook reporting directly to the National Security Agency about the online activity of US citizens. Imagine US government resources being wasted on a grand scale to “assist” private companies in the global market. All of this would become reality under CISPA.
As of this writing, it appears that the House and Senate will not agree on a final version of CISPA this year. However, the Obama administration seems ready to impose provisions of this bill by executive order if Congress does not act soon.
The past five years have seen an explosion in the liberty movement, fueled in large part by the internet. Preserving that freedom is crucial if the liberty movement is to continue its progress. Therefore, all activists in the liberty movement have a stake in the battle for internet freedom. We must be ready to come together to fight any attempt to increase government’s power over the internet, regardless of the supposed justifications. We must resist voices from both the political right and left which alternatively seek to legislate morality or enforce political correctness with force. Copyright protection, pornography, cyberterrorism, gambling, and “hate speech” are merely excuses for doing what all governments have done throughout human history: increase their size, scope, and power.
Once we understand this, we understand the critical link between internet freedom and human freedom.
Today, however, the greatest classics of libertarian thought, libertarian philosophy, and libertarian economics are available instantly to anyone with internet access. Thanks to the internet, it is easier than ever before for liberty activists to spread news and other information regarding the evils of government power and the benefits of freedom. For the first time in human history, supporters of liberty around the world can share information across borders quickly and cheaply. Without the filter of government censors, this information emboldens millions to question governments and promote liberty.
This is why liberty-minded Americans must do everything possible to oppose-- and stop-- government attempts to censor or limit the free flow of information online.
One such attempt is known as “CISPA”, or the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act. This bill will create a monstrous coalition of big business and big government to rob Americans of their protections under the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.
CISPA permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight, provided they merely do so in the name of “cybersecurity.” But America is a constitutional republic, not a surveillance state-- and the wildly overhyped need for security does not trump the Constitution.
“Cybersecurity” is the responsibility of companies that operate and make money in cyberspace, not taxpayers. Those companies should develop market-based private solutions to secure their networks, servers, cloud data centers, and user/customer information. The role of the US intelligence community is to protect the United States from military threats, not to provide corporate welfare to the private sector. Much like the TSA at the airport, CISPA would socialize security costs and remove market incentives for private firms to protect their own investments.
Imagine security-cleared agents embedded at private companies to serve as conduits for intelligence information about their customers back to the US intelligence community-- while enjoying immunity from any existing civil or criminal laws. Imagine Google or Facebook reporting directly to the National Security Agency about the online activity of US citizens. Imagine US government resources being wasted on a grand scale to “assist” private companies in the global market. All of this would become reality under CISPA.
As of this writing, it appears that the House and Senate will not agree on a final version of CISPA this year. However, the Obama administration seems ready to impose provisions of this bill by executive order if Congress does not act soon.
The past five years have seen an explosion in the liberty movement, fueled in large part by the internet. Preserving that freedom is crucial if the liberty movement is to continue its progress. Therefore, all activists in the liberty movement have a stake in the battle for internet freedom. We must be ready to come together to fight any attempt to increase government’s power over the internet, regardless of the supposed justifications. We must resist voices from both the political right and left which alternatively seek to legislate morality or enforce political correctness with force. Copyright protection, pornography, cyberterrorism, gambling, and “hate speech” are merely excuses for doing what all governments have done throughout human history: increase their size, scope, and power.
Once we understand this, we understand the critical link between internet freedom and human freedom.
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