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Joe Biden & Gun Rights: He Doesn’t Understand Second Amendment | National Review

Posted by M. C. on February 14, 2020

By arguing that legal guns are no match for an F-15, Biden is making a powerful case that citizens should be able to more easily own powerful military-grade weapons.

While offering lots of the usual misinformation — Biden stands firmly against “20, 30, 40, 50 clips in a weapon,” for instance — things really fell apart when he started quoting Thomas Jefferson.

Perhaps he was thinking more about getting those leg hairs stroked in the pool.

The Democrats first choice candidate. Progressive America’s best.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/02/joe-biden-gun-rights-doesnt-understand-second-amendment/

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Let us count the ways in which Joe Biden misunderstands gun rights.

Struggling Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden unleashed another incoherent rant about gun rights in front of a group of New Hampshire residents this weekend. While offering lots of the usual misinformation — Biden stands firmly against “20, 30, 40, 50 clips in a weapon,” for instance — things really fell apart when he started quoting Thomas Jefferson.

This has to be the first time in history that a serious presidential contender has publicly gamed-out how a modern American military — armed with F-15s and air-to-surface missiles — would crush an imaginary citizen-led insurgency. (Sorry, Eric Swalwell — even though you once mocked Second Amendment supporters as being unable to defeat a government armed with nukes, you were never a serious presidential contender, so you don’t count.)

For one thing, it’s a weird way to appeal to a broad swath of voters. It’s also an ignorant way to talk about millions of law-abiding and peaceful American gun owners — many of them in contested states such as Wisconsin and Michigan — who are far less inclined to violence than the average WTO protester.

It’s also a really bad strawman, for a number of reasons:

NOW WATCH: ‘Biden Gets Another Major Endorsement’

Watch: 0:19
Biden Gets Another Major Endorsement

1) It’s highly improbable that members of the American military would start murdering their countrymen simply because some bloodthirsty president ordered them to do it. One imagines that a large-scale insurgency would only be sparked by cataclysmic national events that would likely cause a fissure in the military as well. The notion that the Air Force is going to carpet-bomb Iowa revolutionaries simply because it has capacity to do so is dubious. This is the United States. One suspects that the military would be on the side of the patriots.

2) Biden should be aware that modern armies, historically speaking, have had quite a tough time crushing insurgencies equipped with small arms. There have been hundreds of such deadly, drawn-out uprisings around the world over the past 70 years, including in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3) Biden could not have used a worse example to make his point than the AK-47. Americans, of course, mostly own semi-automatic versions of the famous Russian rifle, but the real Kalashnikov is one of, if not the most, durable and successful in history. During the Cold War — and beyond — it was the weapon of choice for revolutionaries, gangs, guerrilla fighters, and terrorists around the world. It has been an extraordinarily pliant weapon, used in virtually every modern insurrection since the mid-1960s.

4) By arguing that legal guns are no match for an F-15, Biden is making a powerful case that citizens should be able to more easily own powerful military-grade weapons. That’s why the Second Amendment exists, as a bulwark against tyranny, should it ever appear here again. So his position makes no sense. Why does Biden believe that Americans have a right to own shotguns when an Auto-5 has no real chance against a Hellfire missile?

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5) Biden cuts off Jefferson’s hyperbole about revolutions at a very convenient spot. The quote, which was given in the context of a centuries-long fight for liberty, is: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. (My italics.) One suspects that Jefferson — granted, far too animated by the violence of the French Revolution for my taste — was more interested in spilling the latter’s blood. Lots of it. But Biden skips that part and stakes out an authoritarian position, not only because he doesn’t believe in the core rationale for the Second Amendment but also because he doesn’t believe in the core rationale for the Founding. The American citizenry is conferred rights by God, not by the power of a missile. What Biden said is tantamount to claiming that we don’t need to protect our First Amendment rights because they can always be crushed by the power of an M-1 tank.

There’s a good case to be made that we no longer have to take Biden seriously. But this risible argument seems to be increasingly popular among Second Amendment antagonists. I’ll give them this: “You don’t need your guns because we can annihilate you with advanced military weaponry” is a hell of an electoral sales pitch.

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No. 1 Sponsor of Terrorism? US Media Name Iran, but Overlook a Candidate Closer to Home | FAIR

Posted by M. C. on February 14, 2020

If you defined it, say, as “deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes,” that would tend to rule out roadside bombs hitting US military patrols, and rule in Saudi Arabia’s US-backed bombing of Yemeni civilians.

The New York Times (4/8/19) also raised the limited consideration of whether “other government intelligence agencies that use violence—including those of Israel, Pakistan and Russia—also now meet that standard.”…CIA?

https://fair.org/home/no-1-sponsor-of-terrorism-us-media-name-iran-but-overlook-a-candidate-closer-to-home/

After the illegal assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, FAIR (1/9/20) noted that the corporate media offered no moral objections to murdering another country’s high-ranking state official. The media consensus was that Soleimani was a despicable “terrorist” responsible for the deaths of “hundreds of Americans”—a formula that buried the crucial distinction between terrorism and armed resistance, presenting military combat against the US and its allies’ occupation forces in the Middle East as inherently illegitimate.

'The Game Has Changed'

The New York Times’ editorial board (1/3/20) declared that the “real question” about the Trump administration’s drone strike was “not whether it was justified, but whether it was wise,” because Soleimani was “indisputably an enemy of the American people,” and an “architect of international terrorism responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans and a great many others in the region, from Yemen to Syria.” The LA Times editorial board (1/3/20) claimed that Soleimani was a

key architect in Iran’s destabilizing policies in the Middle East, and a force behind militias and terror groups that have killed and maimed countless civilians and soldiers, including US troops and contractors.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board (1/3/20) proclaimed that “Mr. Trump’s decisive action” has struck “a blow against terror in the cause of justice and American interests,” and dismissed the need for evidence of Soleimani’s alleged plans to “attack American diplomats and service members.” because it was “belated justice” for the “hundreds of Americans whom Soleimani had a hand in killing,” and was another successful “show of force” to “deter terrorism against Americans.”

This credulous acceptance of the US government’s practice of branding Official Enemies as “terrorists” goes far beyond Soleimani. If there are any questions, they are often confined to whether this will negatively impact the US, with the credibility of US “terrorist” designations, with all of their repercussions, being unimpeachable. For years, corporate media have uncritically parroted the US State Department’s absurd assertions of Iran being the world’s “leading state sponsor of terrorism” with a “near-global reach” (Washington Post, 9/19/18; CNN, 6/2/16, Fox News, 11/2/19). According to the US State Department’s “Country Reports on Terrorism 2018,” Iran is the “world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism” because it supports

Hezbollah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various groups in Syria, Iraq and throughout the Middle East.  Iran used the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to provide support to terrorist organizations, provide cover for associated covert operations, and create instability in the region.  Iran has acknowledged the involvement of the IRGC-QF in the Iraq and Syria conflicts, and the IRGC-QF is Iran’s primary mechanism for cultivating and supporting terrorists abroad.

FAIR (Extra!, 3/02; FAIR.org, 3/13/19) has repeatedly pointed out that US media conveniently avoid defining “terrorism,” because a consistent definition would undermine the conventional usage—that terrorism is what you call weak, nonstate actors using homemade bombs, regardless of their target. If you defined it, say, as “deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes,” that would tend to rule out roadside bombs hitting US military patrols, and rule in Saudi Arabia’s US-backed bombing of Yemeni civilians.

Defining terrorism by the means used to carry out violence rather than the targets of that violence, and emphasizing the identity of the perpetrators rather than their political motives, is a convenient way to avoid the conclusion that the US’s so-called “War on Terror” is a hypocritical farce (FAIR.org, 3/29/18). Glenn Greenwald noted the dishonesty and hypocrisy of US media covering attacks on military targets as terrorism, while the Obama administration redefined “combatant” to mean “all military-age males in a strike zone”—which, in practice, can be anywhere.

Nevertheless, when the State Department declared that Soleimani’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is a “terrorist” organization, many reports offered little pushback, except for the possibility that it might “complicate military and diplomatic work by prohibiting contact with foreign officials who have worked with the Guard” (The Hill, 4/8/19)  or “incite retaliation by Tehran against American troops and intelligence officers” (New York Times, 4/8/19).

NYT: Trump Designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a Foreign Terrorist Group

The New York Times (4/8/19) also raised the limited consideration of whether “other government intelligence agencies that use violence—including those of Israel, Pakistan and Russia—also now meet that standard.” Politico (4/8/19) tellingly remarked that it’s the “first time the United States has designated an official military force of another country a terrorist group,” because such designations are “typically reserved for non-state actors.”

But when one examines the State Department’s rationale for designating Iran as the “world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism,” it should be clear that Iran is considered so because it supports armed resistance groups opposing the US and Israel’s illegal occupation of Middle Eastern territories. As FAIR (6/6/19, 1/21/20) noted, if US media tend to consider the imperial violence committed by the US and its allies to be righteous and inherently defensive by default, then any anti-imperialist violence must be considered aggressive and illegitimate, simply because it resists US-backed violence.

Of course, as Stephen Zunes and Gareth Porter have already pointed out (FAIR.org, 1/21/20), there is little evidence that the IRGC-Quds Force formerly headed by Soleimani were responsible for the 13-year old talking point of Iran killing “hundreds of Americans” in Iraq—a country the US illegally invaded and is currently occupying against the will of its elected representatives—except for the far-fetched claim that those IEDs were too “sophisticated” to have been made in Iraq. Contrary to reports, Soleimani did not seem to have “imminent” plans to attack the US, because he had arrived in Baghdad to attend regional peace talks with Saudi Arabia on behest of the Iraqi prime minister, with Trump’s knowledge. Soleimani was also a widely respected adversary of ISIS and the US-backed Syrian rebels linked to Al Qaeda (FAIR.org, 3/21/16, 1/4/17, 7/27/17).

Corporate media’s propagandistic coverage is most apparent when they consistently refuse to hold the US government accountable to its own standards for what constitutes “state sponsors of terrorism.” Comparing Iran’s relationship with armed Middle Eastern resistance groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi rebels with the US’ relationship with Israel and Saudi Arabia make it abundantly clear that the US far eclipses Iran in terrorism sponsorship.

If Iran is a “state sponsor of terrorism” because it provides support to “Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza,” then does the US providing cash, weapons and surveillance for Israel’s state terrorism against Palestinians qualify the US as a “state sponsor of terrorism”? According to B’Tselem’s figures from 2000 all the way through the end of 2019, while Palestinian militants have killed a total of 301 Israeli civilians, Israeli security forces have killed 5,279 Palestinians who did not take part in hostilities, or were killed during the course of targeted killings (which are illegal under international law).

Likewise, if Iran is considered a state sponsor of terrorism because it provides material support to Hezbollah, what does that say about US support for Israel, whose illegal occupation of southern Lebanon prompted Hezbollah’s rise? In the conflict over Lebanon, Israel has been responsible for shedding far more civilian blood: According to Human Rights Watch, the 2006 Lebanon War resulted in the deaths of 43 Israeli civilians from Hezbollah’s indiscriminate rocket attacks, and around 900 Lebanese civilian deaths from Israeli airstrikes.

Even though the vast majority of State Department–designated terrorist groups are Sunni extremists that view the West and Iran as their biggest enemies, Grayzone reporter Ben Norton has repeatedly noted that US officials dishonestly conflate Sunni miitant groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS—who advocate a genocidal takfiri policy towards civilians and fellow Muslims—with Shi’a Islamist groups like Hezbollah, which primarily attack military and government targets for the purpose of expelling US presence from the region.

Despite the dubious media consensus on Iran being the world’s greatest state sponsor of terrorism, annual reports from the National Counterterrorism Center attribute the vast majority of terrorist attacks since 2001 to “Sunni extremists” who adhere to the Wahabbi-Salafi ideology, held in common by ISIS and Al Qaeda. US ally Saudi Arabia spends vast sums of money to export this extremist Sunni ideology—while Iranian/Shi’ite terrorism isn’t even a category in US counterterrorism reporting, and is a much smaller threat than domestic white nationalist terrorist attacks. Yet, under current US law, Americans can sue Iran, but not Saudi Arabia, for terrorism in US courts, because Iran is on the US list of designated state sponsors of terrorism and Saudi Arabia is not.

Aside from the alleged link between Saudi officials and the 9/11 attacks killing nearly 3,000 people on US soil, Saudi Arabia’s genocidal war to crush Yemeni independence (considered by the UN to be the world’s worst humanitarian crisis) can also qualify as state sponsorship of terrorism.

According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), the conflict has caused over 100,000 deaths since 2015. While the Houthi rebels have killed over 2,000 civilians, Saudi Arabia has killed 8,000 by deliberately attacking civilian targets. The US sponsors Saudi Arabia by being its biggest arms dealer, as well as providing intelligence, training and refueling, which makes the US a partner to the Saudi-led coalition’s war crimes (Guardian, 10/3/19).

Despite US media obfuscation, it’s often admitted that Saudi Arabia couldn’t wage this war without crucial US support, meaning the US could end this conflict anytime it wants to by withdrawing that support.

Even on the debate’s own terms, there’s a much stronger case that the US rather than Iran is actually the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism. A country that supported bringing “the terrors of the earth” to Cuba to sabotage its revolutionary government, and funded terrorist Contra groups in Nicaragua with cash gained from selling weapons to Iran, as well as providing the groundwork for Al Qaeda and ISIS to emerge (Extra!, 1/02; FAIR.org, 11/22/19), has no credibility to designate any other state as a terrorist organization.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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More Lies on Iran: The White House Just Can’t Help Itself as New Facts Emerge — Strategic Culture

Posted by M. C. on February 14, 2020

It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata’ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/02/13/more-lies-on-iran-the-white-house-just-cant-help-itself-as-new-facts-emerge/

 Philip Giraldi

Admittedly the news cycle in the United States seldom runs longer than twenty-four hours, but that should not serve as an excuse when a major story that contradicts what the Trump Administration has been claiming appears and suddenly dies. The public that actually follows the news might recall a little more than one month ago the United States assassinated a senior Iranian official named Qassem Soleimani. Openly killing someone in the government of a country with which one is not at war is, to say the least, unusual, particularly when the crime is carried out in yet another country with which both the perpetrator and the victim have friendly relations. The justification provided by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, speaking for the administration, was that Soleimani was in Iraq planning an “imminent” mass killing of Americans, for which no additional evidence was provided at that time or since.

It soon emerged that the Iranian was in fact in Baghdad to discuss with the Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi a plan that might lead to the de-escalation of the ongoing conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a meeting that the White House apparently knew about may even have approved. If that is so, events as they unfolded suggest that the U.S. government might have encouraged Soleimani to make his trip so he could be set up and killed. Donald Trump later dismissed the lack of any corroboration of the tale of “imminent threat” being peddled by Pompeo, stating that it didn’t really matter as Soleimani was a terrorist who deserved to die.

The incident that started the killing cycle that eventually included Soleimani consisted of a December 27th attack on a U.S. base in Iraq in which four American soldiers and two Iraqis were wounded while one U.S. contractor, an Iraqi-born translator, was killed. The United States immediately blamed Iran, claiming that it had been carried out by an Iranian supported Shi’ite militia called Kata’ib Hezbollah. It provided no evidence for that claim and retaliated by striking a Kata’ib base, killing 25 Iraqis who were in the field fighting the remnants of Islamic State (IS). The militiamen had been incorporated into the Iraqi Army and this disproportionate response led to riots outside the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which were also blamed on Iran by the U.S. There then followed the assassinations of Soleimani and nine senior Iraqi militia officers. Iran retaliated when it fired missiles at American forces, injuring more than one hundred soldiers, and then mistakenly shot down a passenger jet, killing an additional 176 people. As a consequence due to the killing by the U.S. of 34 Iraqis in the two incidents, the Iraqi Parliament also voted to expel all American troops.

It now appears that the original death of the American contractor that sparked the tit-for-tat conflict was not carried out by Kata’ib Hezbollah at all. An Iraqi Army investigative team has gathered convincing evidence that it was an attack staged by Islamic State. In fact, the Iraqi government has demonstrated that Kata’ib Hezbollah has had no presence in Kirkuk province, where the attack took place, since 2014. It is a heavily Sunni area where Shi’a are not welcome and is instead relatively hospitable to all-Sunni IS. It was, in fact, one of the original breeding grounds for what was to become ISIS.

This new development was reported in the New York Times in an article that was headlined “Was U.S. Wrong About Attack That Nearly Started a War With Iran? Iraqi military and intelligence officials have raised doubts about who fired the rockets that started a dangerous spiral of events.” In spite of the sensational nature of the report it generally was ignored in television news and in other mainstream media outlets, letting the Trump administration get away with yet another big lie, one that could easily have led to a war with Iran.

Iraqi investigators found and identified the abandoned white Kia pickup with an improvised Katyusha rocket launcher in the vehicle’s bed that was used to stage the attack. It was discovered down a desert road within range of the K-1 joint Iraqi-American base that was hit by at least ten missiles in December, most of which struck the American area.

There is no direct evidence tying the attack to any particular party and the improvised KIA truck is used by all sides in the regional fighting, but the Iraqi officials point to the undisputed fact that it was the Islamic State that had carried out three separate attacks near the base over the 10 days preceding December 27th. And there are reports that IS has been increasingly active in Kirkuk Province during the past year, carrying out near daily attacks with improvised roadside bombs and ambushes using small arms. There had, in fact, been reports from Iraqi intelligence that were shared with the American command warning that there might be an IS attack on K-1 itself, which is an Iraqi air base in that is shared with U.S. forces.

The intelligence on the attack has been shared with American investigators, who have also examined the pick-up truck. The Times reports that the U.S. command in Iraq continue to insist that the attack was carried out by Kata’ib based on information, including claimed communications intercepts, that it refuses to make public. The U.S. forces may not have shared the intelligence they have with the Iraqis due to concerns that it would be leaked to Iran, but senior Iraqi military officers are nevertheless perplexed by the reticence to confide in an ally.

If the Iraqi investigation of the facts around the December attack on K-1 is reliable, the Donald Trump administration’s reckless actions in Iraq in late December and early January cannot be justified. Worse still, it would appear that the White House was looking for an excuse to attack and kill a senior Iranian official to send some kind of message, a provocation that could easily have resulted in a war that would benefit no one. To be sure, the Trump administration has lied about developments in the Middle East so many times that it can no longer be trusted. Unfortunately, demanding any accountability from the Trump team would require a Congress that is willing to shoulder its responsibility for truth in government backed up by a media that is willing to take on an administration that regularly punishes anyone or any entity that dares to challenge it. That is the unfortunate reality in America today.

 

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Collectivism Will Lead to the Downfall of Man – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on February 14, 2020

Republican and Democratic politics are based entirely on conflict, and this dynamic allows for easy control of the crowd by the ruling elite.

Only the individual can face this monster called collectivism. Only the individual can defeat the indifference consuming the crowd. Those that reject authority, that reject the state, and that resist all conformity, can be the light for others to follow so that they can escape the darkness that has consumed the western world. These few are the real heroes.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/02/gary-d-barnett/collectivism-will-lead-to-the-downfall-of-man/

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Those who know that they are profound strive for clarity; those who would like to appear profound to the crowd strive for obscurity.  The crowd thinks everything is profound where it cannot see the bottom – it is so timid and dislikes going into the water. ~ The Gay Science : Third Book, 173. To be Profound and to Appear Profound, Friedrich Nietzsche  

Collectivism, or herd mentality, can only lead to a meaningless life that is devoid of honest living, adventure, love, freedom, happiness, and fulfillment. Societal herds lose the ability to think as individuals, and envy and jealously become the primary driving force of thought. This of course leads to a demand for equality where none is available or warranted, and due to this pathetic psychological state, all that is beautiful and good must be destroyed in order to make room for the mediocre community.

This is the state of America today. This country is made up of groups that require consensus of thought and actions, and this inevitably leads to a hatred for individual intellect and individual independence. The larger the mob, the less important the individual, as uniformity takes hold over all that is unique. Any individual that relinquishes his individuality in order to conform to the group has lost all. Once the herd mentality sets in, the consciousness of self disappears, leaving only weakness and confusion. This state that is the crowd is worthless in every way, and mass despair is the result, as it tears down the exceptional.

The herd mentality is the breeding ground of slavery, as there is no escape from the division that is necessary in order to follow the group. Consider the phenomenon of the party system in the United States today. Republican and Democratic politics are based entirely on conflict, and this dynamic allows for easy control of the crowd by the ruling elite. Any struggle for clarity becomes impossible, as hatred is rampant, and the most common attitude of the mob. This divisiveness is the root of evil among men, and can only destroy harmony.

The postmodern era that has seemingly consumed this country has done nothing less than demand conformity over the individual, and this effort has led to mass mediocrity. The irrelevance of the individual in society is the lynchpin of tyranny, as politics takes center stage, and all policy is driven without any consideration for individual desires. This makes life hopeless and meaningless, and moral decay is a certainty in this environment. Individual consciousness has been replaced in favor of a sort of social conscious, making crowd dominance primary, and unconscious herd thinking reality. This is deadly to the fate of man.

All ideas of worth come from the non-conformist, those with individual intellect. Without non-conformity, ideas disappear, and inferiority consumes society. For the average man, the slave of the state, this inferiority is a comfort, because being a part of the herd seems safe to the lower human, and personal responsibility is not required. But in order to perpetuate this system of group compliance, the slaves must tear down all those he believes to be above him. Due to envy and weakness of mind, he desires to bring all down to his level in order to gain imaginary equality. This is the essence of the egalitarian mind, that all art, beauty, love, and passion should be destroyed in order to claim equality where none exists. If this scenario is ever the predominate basis of society, the downfall of man will follow.

No vibrant society can exist in a state of obedience. While many great minds have discussed the natural desire of man to obey authority, including Sigmund Freud, this trait in man does not allow the capability to seek or claim freedom. The obedient are bound to a life of rule, as that is their nature. The mindsets of the herd are steeped in a deeply religious belief in equality of outcome, and normally have a hatred of dissent and voluntary behavior, and a love for the tyrannical state that can be used to stifle excellence.

Technology has played a major role in the advancement of collectivism because it has lessened the effort necessary to tear down that which is extraordinary and unique. It is not that technology itself is the problem, but easier access to the rest of the herd has allowed mass dissemination of propaganda that helps to destroy that which they envy. Social media has been particularly advantageous to the lower members of society in this effort to destroy the individual in favor of the mob. This is ever worsening because those who dare to practice disobedience, those who do not bow down to the state or to politically correct nonsense, those who continually question authority, and those who denounce all efforts to control the individual, are being isolated and singled out as threats to the Marxist ideology that now consumes this country and its political system.

The West has almost fully accepted the collectivist political ideology, and has done so in order to find meaning in what has become a meaningless existence. The race toward mediocrity is based on a weakness brought about by a lack of self, and a need to believe that being a part of the herd will allow them to feel as if they are contributing to something instead of languishing in a life that is devoid of individual awareness. This has come about due to long held core beliefs and values being thrown aside, and replaced by worship to the false god that is the state.

This ruination of the individual and the idea of self was no accidental occurrence, but stands in stark contrast to what the confused masses falsely believe today. Freedom is not based on equality, and in fact cannot exist in such a society. Those intent on rule understand the weaknesses of the herd, and cater to the fears that are evident amongst them. They use propaganda to breed envy, and use control techniques to advance a loyalty to the state. This helps to create the mob that will voluntarily work as one to destroy all that they fear. This is apparent in the idea of “we the people,” it is apparent in the dishonest idiocy called voting, it is apparent in mandatory state indoctrination centers called schools, it is apparent in the purposely created division at every turn, and it is apparent in the efforts of the herd to fight over which ruler will lord supreme over them.

Only the individual can face this monster called collectivism. Only the individual can defeat the indifference consuming the crowd. Those that reject authority, that reject the state, and that resist all conformity, can be the light for others to follow so that they can escape the darkness that has consumed the western world. These few are the real heroes.

…only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain.” He alone has the claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives some faith and trust…in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means. He has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance.” ~ Carl Jung…The Symbolic Life

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Rothbard: The Constitution Was a Coup d’État | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on February 14, 2020

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object….But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire….Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism.

https://mises.org/wire/rothbard-constitution-was-coup-d%C3%A9tat

[Conceived in Liberty: The New Republic, 1784–1791. By Murray N. Rothbard. Edited by Patrick Newman. Mises Institute, 2019. 332 pages.]

We owe Patrick Newman a great debt for his enterprise and editorial skill in bringing to publication the fifth volume, hitherto thought lost, of Murray Rothbard’s Conceived in Liberty. The details of his rescue of the lost manuscript are indeed dramatic, but rather than recount them here, I should like to concentrate on a theme central to the new book.

It is well known that Rothbard took the American Revolution to be mainly libertarian in its inspiration. The libertarian impulses of the Revolution were betrayed by a centralizing coup d’état. As Rothbard puts it:

Basically, urban merchants and artisans, as well as many slaveholding planters, united in support of a strong nation-state that would use the power of coercion to grant them privileges and subsidies. The subsidies would come at the expense of the average subsistence yeoman farmer who might be expected to oppose such a new nationalism. But against them, to support a new constitution, were the commercial farmers aided by the southern plantation-farmers who also wanted power and regulation for their own benefit. Given the urban support, the split among the farmers, and the support from wealthy educated elites, it is not surprising that the nationalist forces were able to execute their truly amazing political coup d’état which illegally liquidated the Articles of Confederation and replaced it with the Constitution. In short, they were able to destroy the original individualist and decentralized program of the American Revolution. (p. 128)

The theme I should like to concentrate on is this: what happens to the way we understand the Constitution if Rothbard is right that it was a centralizing document? The Anti-Federalists, with whom Rothbard agreed, denounced it for that reason. For example, in Virginia Patrick Henry, one of Rothbard’s heroes, said:

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object….But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a powerful and mighty empire….Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real balances, in this government. What can avail your specious, imaginary balances, your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridiculous ideal checks and contrivances? But, sir, we are not feared by foreigners; we do not make nations tremble. Would this constitute happiness, or secure liberty? (p. 262)

With all this as background, we can now consider the theme I’d like to stress. If the Anti-Federalists were right. We cannot say that the Constitution as originally written gave us a limited government that later regimes have ruthlessly and recklessly expanded. In taking this approach, Rothbard set himself firmly against the dominant trend in American conservative thought. He remarks:

The Constitution was unquestionably a high-nationalist document, creating what Madison once referred to as a “high mounted government.” Not only were the essential lines of the nationalistic Virginia Plan Report carried out in the Constitution, but the later changes made were preponderantly in a nationalist direction….While it is true that the general congressional veto over state laws and the vague broad grant of powers in the original Virginia Plan were whittled down to a list of enumerated powers, enough loopholes existed in the enumerated list: the national supremacy clause; the dominance of the federal judiciary; the virtually unlimited power to tax, raise armies and navies, make war, and regulate commerce; the necessary and proper clause; and the powerful general welfare loophole; all allowed the virtually absolute supremacy of the central government. While libertarian restraints were placed on state powers, no bill of rights existed to check the federal government. (p.211)

We can argue that later regimes extended national power beyond what the Constitution contemplated, but if Rothbard is right, the Constitution as written provides ample scope for tyranny.

One of the leading arguments of Constitutional conservatives is that since Congress is granted the power to declare war, military engagements by later presidents that bypass Congress are unconstitutional. (In several reviews, I have argued this way myself.) Rothbard does not agree. He says:

Congress’ proposed broad military powers occasioned much debate. The nationalists tried to narrow Congress’ power to make war into a more concentrated, and therefore a more controllable, form: Pinckney to the Senate only, Butler to the president himself. While these were defeated, Madison cunningly moved to alter congressional power: ‘make war’ became ‘declare war,’ which left a broad, dangerous power for the president, who was grandiosely designated in the draft as the ‘commander in chief’ of the U.S. army and navy, and of all the state militias. For now, the president might make war even if only Congress could formally declare it.” (p. 185)

Rothbard finds similar slippery language in the Tenth Amendment, imagined by some defenders of limited government to be a principal means to thwart efforts by the federal government to centralize power:

This amendment did in truth transform the Constitution from one of supreme national power to a partially mixed polity where the liberal anti-nationalists had a constitutional argument with at least a fighting chance of acceptance. However, Madison had cunningly left out the word “expressly” before the word “delegated,” so the nationalist judges were able to claim that because the word “expressly” was not there, the “delegated” can vaguely accrue through judges’ elastic interpretation of the Constitution….The Tenth Amendment has been intensely reduced, by conventional judiciary construction, to a meaningless tautology. (pp. 302–3)

(Note that Rothbard does not disagree with the nationalist judges’ interpretation.) Rothbard does see some hope of restraining the central government in the “forgotten” Ninth Amendment, but this was not to be invoked in a serious way by the Supreme Court until the 1960s.

Defenders of the Constitution as a bulwark of limited government often invoke the wisdom to be found in the Federalist Papers, but Rothbard views them as deceptive propaganda:

The essays contained in The Federalist were designed not for the ages—not as an explanation of nationalist views—but as a propaganda document to allay the fears and lull the suspicions of the Antifederal forces. Consequently, these field marshals of the Federalist campaign were concerned to make the Constitution look like a mixed concoction of checks-and balances and popular representation, when they really desired, and believed that they had, a political system of overriding national power. What is remarkable is the fact that historians and conservative political theorists have seized upon and canonized these campaign pieces as fountains of quasi-divine political wisdom, as hallowed texts to be revered, even as somehow a vital part of American constitutional law. (pp. 269–70)

James Madison’s argument that a large national republic would better cope with the dangers of factionalism than a small one is often invoked for its profundity, but Rothbard is not impressed:

Madison claimed that the greater diversity of interests over a large area will make it more difficult for a majority of the interests to combine and oppress a minority. It is difficult to see, however, why such a combination should be difficult….But the main fallacy in Madison’s argument is that it is part and parcel of the antidemocratic Federalist doctrine that the danger of despotic government comes, not from the government, but from among the ranks (i.e., the majority) of the public. The fallacy of this by now should be evident. Even if a majority approves an act of tyranny, it almost never initiates or elaborates or executes such action; rather they are almost always passive tools in the hands of the oligarchy of rulers and their allied favorites of the state apparatus. (pp. 270–71)

Rothbard concludes with this verdict on the Constitution:

Overall, it should be evident that the Constitution was a counterrevolutionary reaction to the libertarianism and decentralization embodied in the American Revolution. The Antifederalists, supporting states’ rights and critical of a strong national government, were decisively beaten by the Federalists, who wanted such a polity under the guise of democracy in order to enhance their own interests and institute a British-style mercantilism over the country. Most historians have taken the side of the Federalists because they support a strong national government that has the power to tax and regulate, call forth armies and invade other countries, and cripple the power of the states. The enactment of the Constitution in 1788 drastically changed the course of American history from its natural decentralized and libertarian direction to an omnipresent leviathan that fulfilled all of the Antifederalists’ fears. (p. 312)

There is evidence that Rothbard wrote the manuscript of this book before 1967 (see p. 312, editor’s note 7). But I do not think that he later changed his mind about the Constitution. Those who wish to challenge his brilliant analysis have a difficult task ahead of them.

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Murray Rothbard’s Practical Politics | The American Conservative

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Wisconsin School District Abandons ‘A-F’ Grading Scale to Prevent Stress

Posted by M. C. on February 13, 2020

…a guest speaker at American University told faculty members that it was racist to judge the quality of a student’s writing when grading a paper. The guest speaker, a professor in the University of Washington system, argued that traditional grading practices perpetuate “white supremacy.

Instead, students are graded on their ability to work in groups and tell stories.

 

Like the CIA, the government school system should be broken into a thousand pieces and scattered to the winds.

Where are the parents?

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/02/12/wisconsin-school-district-abandons-a-f-grading-scale-to-prevent-stress/

by Tom Ciccotta

A school district in Madison, Wisconsin, has made the controversial decision to abandon the common “A to F” grading system based in favor of a system that is “kinder” to students. Now, top students will be graded as “exceeding” while failing students will be “emerging.”

According to a report by the College Fix, the Madison Metropolitan School District has announced that they are doing away with the traditional “A-F” grading system in favor of a new system that is gentle on students.

The report, which was written by Christian Schneider, a parent in the school district, claims that the district has introduced four new categories to replace the traditional grading scale. Schneider noticed that his second-grade daughter’s report card featured words like “exceeding” and “emerging” instead of letter grades.

“Exceeding” – Student consistently exceeds grade-level expectations for the end of the year.

“Meeting” – Student consistently meets grade-level expectations for the end of the year.

“Developing” – Student is developing understanding and is approaching grade-level expectations for the end of the year.

“Emerging” – Student begins to show initial understanding of grade-level expectations for the end of the year.

Schneider points out that the new grading system doesn’t apply directly to a student’s performance in each subject. Instead, students are graded on their ability to work in groups and tell stories.

The two scales don’t match up largely because the new grades assigned don’t address a specific class or subject – they deal mostly with behavior. The “Exceeding-Emerging” scale applies to 40 different classifications. Instead of being graded on “math” or “science,” my daughter is being graded on “Tells a story or describes an experience,” “cooperates with partners and in groups,” and “understands and identifies stages in the life cycle of insects.”

Breitbart News reported in January 2019 that a guest speaker at American University told faculty members that it was racist to judge the quality of a student’s writing when grading a paper. The guest speaker, a professor in the University of Washington system, argued that traditional grading practices perpetuate “white supremacy.”

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Will Google’s Social Credit System Determine Your Future?

Posted by M. C. on February 13, 2020

For example, life insurance companies can now use content shared in social media posts to determine your premium. “That Instagram pic showing you teasing a grizzly bear at Yellowstone with a martini in one hand, a bucket of cheese fries in the other, and a cigarette in your mouth, could cost you,” Fast Company notes.8

More recently, it’s also become apparent Google is going after everyone’s health data. Fitbit, which was recently purchased by Google, will provide them with all your physiological information and activity levels, in addition to everything else that Google already has on you.

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/02/12/google-social-credit-system.aspx

Analysis by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Story at-a-glance

  • China started rolling out a social credit system in 2018, which awards and subtracts points for certain types of behavior
  • Google is the largest monopoly the world has ever seen, and its data-siphoning tentacles reach deep into our everyday lives, collecting data on every move you make and conversation you have, whether online or in the real world
  • By the end of 2021, approximately 1 billion cameras will be watching public movements across the globe. Cities are also inviting residents and businesses to plug their private surveillance cameras into their police network, which expands the surveillance system even further
  • To make sense of all this footage, video analytic software and artificial intelligence are used. Video analytic capabilities include fight and fall detection, loitering and motion recognition, dog walking, jaywalking, toll fare evasion and lie detection
  • There are now proposals suggesting all of this data, in combination with AI-enabled analytics systems, could be used for “predictive policing” as illustrated in the 2002 movie “Minority Report,” where suspected perpetrators are arrested before actually committing the crime

You may have heard about China’s social credit system — a dystopian monitoring scheme focused on the moral dimension of human life and behavior — which was conceived in 2014 and rolled out in in earnest in 2018. As reported by Business Insider in October that year:1

“Like private credit scores, a person’s social score can move up and down depending on their behavior. The exact methodology is a secret — but examples of infractions include bad driving, smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online.

China has already started punishing people by restricting their travel. Nine million people with low scores have been blocked from buying tickets for domestic flights …

They can also clamp down on luxury options — three million people are barred from getting business-class train tickets. The eventual system will punish bad passengers specifically. Potential misdeeds include trying to ride with no ticket, loitering in front of boarding gates, or smoking in no-smoking areas.”

Aside from impeding your ability to travel, an individual’s punishment for “bad behavior” per the social credit system can also result in slower internet speed, being banned from attending certain schools or getting a higher education, being barred from certain types of employment, confiscation of pets and, of course, public shaming.2

Google Makes Orwellian Surveillance Easy

In the bitchute video above, Truthstream Media details how this kind of public “trustworthiness” scoring can alter the way people behave — indeed their view of reality itself, and the vast data mining required for the system to work. As noted in the video:

“Social credit scores award or remove points based on behavior. It’s Big Data meets Big Brother. This will be a world with no more personal experiences, only transactions for the social credit system.

This [the system] knows every person, every bike, every car, every bus. That’s because it essentially turns every public interaction into a transaction where points can be earned or lost.”

Google, of course, is a perfect fit for this kind of Orwellian surveillance scheme. It is, by far, the largest monopoly the world has ever seen, and its data-siphoning tentacles reach deep into our everyday lives, collecting data on every move you make and conversation you have, whether online or in the real world.

Google actually tracks your movements online, even when you don’t think you are using their products. Most websites you visit use the ‘free’ Google Analytics program to track everything you do on a website.   Google purchased Urchin Software back in 2005, and by giving it away were able to integrate this important surveillance tool into most of the internet.

Google Analytics integrates with Google’s ad network monopoly, as well as the largest email service Gmail.  These systems are not free, they are a tightly integrated package of surveillance tools – selling your data, selling ads served to you, and manipulating content to direct your behavior.

These tools collect data along with other Google products like the Android ‘smart’ phones, the Nest home security system, and even Google’s Home Assistant.  You can expect these surveillance products to become free over time as the absolute goal is to exploit every bit of data they can collect from you.

A 2015 Wired article3 revealed some of the details of how Google’s online empire is built, noting “One of the company’s cluster switches provides about 40 terabits per second of bandwidth — the equivalent of 40 million home internet connections,” and “Google now sends more information between its data centers than it trades with the internet as a whole.”

As highlighted in a January 27, 2020, article4 by The Intercept, smart camera networks equipped with facial recognition and video analytic software will advance global surveillance even further, and should be banned to prevent an inevitable slide into invisible yet all-encompassing authoritarianism.

“The rise of all-seeing smart camera networks is an alarming development that threatens civil rights and liberties throughout the world.

Law enforcement agencies have a long history of using surveillance against marginalized communities, and studies show surveillance chills freedom of expression — ill effects that could spread as camera networks grow larger and more sophisticated,” The Intercept notes.5

Silicon Valley Is Building America’s Social Credit System

According to Fast Company,6 China’s social credit system is not entirely unique. “A parallel system is developing in the United States, in part as the result of Silicon Valley and technology-industry user policies, and in part by surveillance of social media activity by private companies,” Fast Company writes.7

For example, life insurance companies can now use content shared in social media posts to determine your premium. “That Instagram pic showing you teasing a grizzly bear at Yellowstone with a martini in one hand, a bucket of cheese fries in the other, and a cigarette in your mouth, could cost you,” Fast Company notes.8

PatronScan is another example. These devices are used by restaurants to identify fake IDs and undesirable customers — people previously removed from an establishment for causing a fight, committing sexual assault, stealing or doing drugs.

The list is shared among PatronScan customers, so getting banned in one bar or restaurant effectively bans you from all bars and restaurants in the U.S., Canada and U.K. for up to one year. For additional examples, see the original Fast Company article.9

The Expansion of Public Video Surveillance

Many TV’s now have a camera and can be used to record your emotions while watching presidential debates or the evening news.  The Intercept article10 cited earlier goes on to detail the rise and expansion of video surveillance, starting with Axis Communications’ internet-enabled surveillance camera, launched in the late ’90s, to more modern video management systems that organize all this visual data into databases.

By the end of 2021, the marketing firm IHS Markit predicts 1 billion cameras will be watching public movements across the globe. As if that’s not enough, cities are also inviting residents and businesses to plug their private surveillance cameras into their police network, which expands the system even further.

According to The Intercept, Detroit, Chicago, New Orleans, New York City and Atlanta have all deployed these types of “plug-in surveillance networks,” and many others are considering it as well. To actually make sense of all this footage, video analytic software and artificial intelligence (AI) are used.

Video analytic capabilities include “fight detection, motion recognition, fall detection, loitering, dog walking, jaywalking, toll fare evasion and even lie detection,” The Intercept reports.11

Object recognition and “anomalous or unusual behavior detection” are also used to flag particular incidents that are then reviewed by human eyes. The Intercept recounts how this information can be used by law enforcement to identify potential crime situations:

“In Connecticut, police have used video analytics to identify or monitor known or suspected drug dealers.

Sergeant Johnmichael O’Hare, former Director of the Hartford Real-Time Crime Center, recently demonstrated how BriefCam helped Hartford police reveal ‘where people go the most’ in the space of 24 hours by viewing footage condensed and summarized in just nine minutes.

Using a feature called ‘pathways,’ he discovered hundreds of people visiting just two houses on the street and secured a search warrant to verify that they were drug houses.”

Is a ‘Pre-Crime’ Department Next?

Companies are also working on searchable databases that can access and make sense of visual data from a range of different platforms, which will “supercharge the ability to search and surveil public spaces,” The Intercept says.12

What’s more, there are now proposals suggesting all of this data, in combination with AI-enabled analytics systems, could be used for “predictive policing” as illustrated in the 2002 movie “Minority Report,” where suspected perpetrators are arrested before actually committing the crime.

Sound too crazy to be true? The Intercept cites a 2018 document13 by the data storage firm Western Digital and the consulting company Accenture, “Value of Data: Seeing What Matters — A New Paradigm for Public Safety Powered by Responsible AI,” which predicts smart surveillance networks may be deployed “across three tiers of maturity.”

The first tier is where we’re at now, where law enforcement use CCTV networks to investigate crimes after they’ve already occurred.

At the second tier level, predicted to be in place by 2025, municipalities will be transformed into fully connected “smart cities,” where the cameras of businesses and public institutions are all plugged into a government-run AI-enabled analytics system. The third tier, predicted by 2035, will have predictive capabilities. As reported by The Intercept:14

“A ‘public safety ecosystem’ will centralize data ‘pulled from disparate databases such as social media, driver’s licenses, police databases, and dark data.’ An AI-enabled analytics unit will let police assess ‘anomalies in real time and interrupt a crime before it is committed.’ That is to say, to catch pre-crime.”

Google’s Ad Network Monopoly

Google’s monopoly goes well beyond web search. It also has a potentially dangerous monopoly on online advertising. In 2007, Google bought DoubleClick, which already dominated the digital advertising market. As reported by InfoWorld:15

“Here’s the danger: Google already knows a tremendous amount about the traffic it sends to individual Web sites — where it comes from, what people are looking for, even some basic demographics.

With DoubleClick in the fold, they will also know what ads are being served on any given page. That gives Google unprecedented insight into publishers’ business. And remember, those publishers may be partners, but they are also competitors, often trying to woo the same advertisers as Google. 

Web sites live and die based upon ad revenue and on charging advertisers a certain rate based upon the number of pages served and the quality of their readership/user base. I could imagine a not-entirely-paranoid fantasy in which Google can run the numbers, turn around, and offer better rates to advertisers for a similar audience.”

To learn more of Google’s surveillance of you and those you love, please view my comprehensive interview with Robert Epstein below. Epstein, former editor-in-chief at Psychology Today, is now a senior research psychologist for the American Institute of Behavioral Research and Technology, where for the last decade he has helped expose Google’s manipulative and deceptive practices.

Download Interview Transcript

Google Goes After Your Health Data

Read the rest of this entry »

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Compulsory Education – The Bane of Learning and Freedom – The Future of Freedom Foundation

Posted by M. C. on February 13, 2020

My principal objection to compulsory education is that it violates the freedom of the individual. No one should be required to give up personal sovereignty to comply with a state or federal government mandate — not through military conscription and not through compulsory education.

https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/compulsory-education-the-bane-of-learning-and-freedom/

by

Approximately 50-million students, bound by state compulsory attendance laws, are trapped in what is essentially a prison of their bodies and minds.

Most Americans never question school compulsory attendance laws itself but instead focus on what occurs inside the classroom. Public schools, which can also be called government schools, are notorious for a wide array of problems. From class size to the controversy over testing to disruptive student behavior, the demand that more taxpayer money be used to correct the poor performance is touted as the answer. This completely disregards two points: 1. The benefit-cost ratio of government education of children is often a losing deal. (Private schools are frequently smaller, religious affiliated, and in many cases cost less to educate each student than the public counterparts.) 2. More important, compulsory education violates the liberty of all citizens – taxpayers and students alike, not only by forcing parents to subject their children to a state education but also with the coercive funding (i.e., taxation) used to force children’s attendance.

My principal objection to compulsory education is that it violates the freedom of the individual. No one should be required to give up personal sovereignty to comply with a state or federal government mandate — not through military conscription and not through compulsory education.

From its earliest days, our nation functioned well without compulsory education laws, and the minimal involvement of government enabled youth to choose trade/vocational training, religious study, or higher education relevant to the individual’s personal choice. As the idea of compulsory attendance began to develop in society, it became increasingly repressive, decade by decade. Parochial schools and family home-schooling were replaced by laws forcing attendance for most students at government schools.

Government-run schools and compulsory attendance to any school are the antitheses of freedom, liberty, and learning. Forced to attend a school, most will go to government schools. Students are treated as prisoners sentenced to serve 12 years (or less in some states). Years of children’s precious lives and vulnerable minds are spent in forced confinement, often subjected to aimless busywork to meet the demands of teachers. The individual is not valued in many government schools, as all focus is on becoming an upstanding member of the collective. Leftist indoctrination has become ubiquitous. Independent thinking is discouraged while group-think pervades nearly every aspect of the politicized curriculum. All of this in the name of bettering children’s lives.

The oppression is accepted by the majority who learn quickly how to gain approval from their masters, with students who rebel sadly turning to personally and socially destructive behaviors. While many passively accept this oppression, the individuals who would be better suited to pursue unique aptitudes suffer.

With rare religious exceptions recognized, the vast majority of American youth must obey by attending such schools or face various penalties and punishments, as well as sometimes the possibility of fines and jail time for parents. Gone are the days where educational choices were up to the young person and his family.

The result of youth being exposed to years of socialist ideas explains the rampant decline of basic knowledge and generation upon generation of graduating seniors with minimal ability to do much of anything aside from obeying orders. All too many high-school graduates display poor writing skills and an inadequate ability to engage in critical thinking on simple matters.

The collective is placed above the individual. From rewards for just showing up to ribbons for all, disallowing students to give one another a card or a simple gift unless all are given one, to situational ethics role-playing scenarios, students are continuously subjected to an agenda that discourages independent thought. High achievement is discouraged as competition is rejected while poor performers are made to feel equal to all. Critical thinking and actual substantive course work are replaced by leftist revisionism of history, identity politics, and advocacy of politically correct perceptions of life.

Free speech, a fundamental of our nation, is not only not valued, but it is also suppressed. Subtle and patent discrimination of those not conforming to the frequently liberal agenda pervades government education. After years of this beginning when very young, the mental and emotional development is stunted, and the socialist mindset is placed — exactly what an all-powerful government wants — an easily controlled and manipulated unquestioning populous.

All of this occurs simply because the American people have never questioned the premise of compulsory education.

While conservatives work to offer alternatives such as vouchers/home-schooling/economic methods to provide choice, those who value liberty realize compulsory education is not an area for mere reform, it is a clear violation of the rights of the individual and as such should be eliminated.

The rights of millions of young Americans are violated daily by forcing children to attend schools. Likewise, the rights of Americans who are forced to fund state schools are violated.

Education should be a personal responsibility, not a public one. Like so many other important aspects of life that the government now controls, the education of children should be left entirely up to the parents and the private sector with its charitable and private enterprises, with attendance voluntary.

A fundamental rejection of any government involvement in education, including all laws requiring compulsory attendance, must be the focus. It is not enough to try and end the government monopoly in education, the link between government and any educational opportunity should be ended.

Just as compulsory attendance began with one state mandating it and the idea spreading nationwide, our country could begin to end this tyranny if one state legislature courageously challenged and eliminated compulsory attendance.

America needs educational freedom – freedom from all government intervention. Let’s begin it with an end to compulsory attendance.

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Journalist Abby Martin Sues State of Georgia Over Law Requiring Pledge of Allegiance to Israel

Posted by M. C. on February 13, 2020

A lot of people in US government have their allegiances confused.

CAIR, AIPAC-they both want US to bend over.

https://www.mintpressnews.com/abby-martin-lawsuit-state-georgia-over-bds-law/264798/

By Alan Macleod

After refusing to sign a pledge of allegiance to the state of Israel, the state of Georgia shut down a media literacy conference featuring journalist and filmmaker Abby Martin at Georgia Southern University. Martin had recently released a documentary critical of the Israeli government called “Gaza Fights for Freedom.” Now she is suing the state, claiming the decision is a violation of the First Amendment. Along with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), today she filed a federal free speech lawsuit against the university system of Georgia.

Martin was dismayed by the university’s decision: “This censorship of my talk based on forced compliance to anti-BDS laws in Georgia is just one level of a nationwide campaign to protect Israel from grassroots pressure. We must stand firmly opposed to these efforts and not cower in fear to these blatant violations of free speech,” she said.

Twenty-eight states have already mandated loyalty pledges to Israel as a means to outlaw dissent. But in December, President Trump passed legislation effectively criminalizing the Boycott Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement that aims to put pressure on the Jewish state through economic action, along the lines of the anti-Apartheid struggle in South Africa. The law mandates that any public institution would be subject to losing all funding if the government deems that they are not doing enough to stamp out anti-Semitism, which, it explicitly states, includes any criticism of the Israeli government. In December, MintPress reported that the British government under Boris Johnson is planning to introduce similar legislation.

“The hyperbolic notion that conservatives are the ones being persecuted on college campuses has made blatant censorship campaigns against people for criticism of Israel, or other progressive protests, go completely ignored,” Martin wrote.

CAIR’s Legal Defense Fund Senior Litigation Attorney Gadeir Abbas said,

There is no place where free speech is more important than on campus. And this attempt to suppress Abby’s views ­– denying students, academics, and others from hearing her lecture – is as brazen as it is illegal. In adopting this anti-BDS law, Georgia has prioritized the policy preferences of a foreign country over the free speech rights of Americans, like Abby, who speak on this state’s college campuses.”

The PCJF likened the BDS movement to the boycotts of the civil rights movement in the mid-twentieth century, its Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard described the laws as “extraordinary, outrageous, illegal and unconstitutional.” In 1956 Martin Luther King and his movement were criminalized for carrying out boycotts, as Southern states passed legislation to penalize their behavior, only for it to be later struck down by the Supreme Court. This is what Martin and the alliance of non-governmental organizations is hoping will happen here too. Why should I have to “contractually pledge loyalty to a foreign country?” she asked at her press conference today.

In 2016, Georgia Governor Nathan Deal signed a law requiring any person or organization entering into a contract with the state worth at least $1,000 sign an oath promising that they would not oppose the Israeli government in any fashion. CAIR has reason to believe they could overturn the law its Georgia Executive Director, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, called “blatantly and hilariously unconstitutional.”

In 2018, Bahia Amawi, a Houston-based children’s speech pathologist who worked with autistic, speech-impaired and other developmentally disabled children, lost her job after she refused to sign a similar document. Amawi had been at her job for nine years previously without a problem. CAIR took up Amawi’s case and managed to overturn every Texas boycott law on the grounds of their unconstitutionality and she is now free to return to work. They appear confident of a similar victory in Georgia.

Martin began as a citizen journalist covering the Occupy movement in her native California. From 2012 to 2015 she hosted the show Breaking the Set on RT. In the famous D.N.I. report into alleged Russian interference into the 2016 election, the U.S. government accused her of “promoting radical discontent” in America, something she appears to wear as a badge of honor. Her current documentary series, Empire Files, is broadcast on TeleSUR English. However, due to sanctions against the Venezuelan government, Gaza Fights for Freedom was crowdfunded. She is also the host of Media Roots Radio.

Correction | An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the state of Georgia shut down a screening of Abby Martin’s documentary film “Gaza Fights for Freedom.”

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Doug Casey on How to Survive the “Deep State” – International Man

Posted by M. C. on February 13, 2020

https://internationalman.com/articles/how-to-survive-the-deep-state/

by Doug Casey

deep state

Almost everyone looks for a political solution to problems. However, once a Deep State situation has taken over, only a revolution or a dictatorship can turn it around, and probably only in a small country.

Maybe you’re thinking you should get behind somebody like Ron Paul (I didn’t say Rand Paul), should such a person materialize. That would be futile.

Here’s what would happen in the totally impossible scenario that this person was elected and tried to act like a Lee Kuan Yew or an Augusto Pinochet against the Deep State:

First, there would be a “sit-down” with the top dogs of the Praetorian agencies and a bunch of Pentagon officers to explain the way things work.

Then, should he survive, he would be impeached by the running dogs of Congress.

Then, should he survive, whipped dog Americans would revolt at the prospect of having their doggy dishes broken.

Remember, your fellow Americans not only elected Obama, but re-elected him. Do you expect they’ll be more rational as the Greater Depression deepens? Maybe you think the police and the military will somehow help. Forget it…they’re part of the problem. They’re here to protect and serve their colleagues first, then their employer (the State), and only then the public. But the whipped dog likes to parrot: “Thank you for your service.” Which is further proof that there’s no hope.

So what should you do, based on all this? For one thing, don’t waste your time and money trying to change the course of history. Trying to stop the little snowball rolling down the mountainside might have worked many decades ago, but now it’s turned into a gigantic avalanche that’s going to smash the village at the bottom of the valley. I suggest you get out of the way.

What, you may ask, would I do if I were dictator of the U.S. and had absolutely no regard for my personal safety? Here’s a seven-part program, for entertainment purposes only:

  • Allow the collapse of all zombie corporations – banks, brokers, insurers, and government contractors. The real wealth they supposedly own will still exist.
  • Abolish all regulatory agencies. Although Boobus americanus believes they exist to protect him, and that may have been an intention when they were created, they, at best, serve the industries they regulate. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for instance, kills more Americans every year than does the Department of Defense in a typical decade. The SEC, the Swindlers Encouragement Consortium, lulls the average investor into thinking he’s protected. They, and other agencies, extract scores of billions out of the economy to feed useless mouths in return for throwing sand in the gears of the economy.
  • Abolish the Fed…you need a strong currency to encourage saving. Actually, you don’t need a currency at all. Gold is vastly better as money.
  • Cut the size of the military by 90% and abolish the Praetorian agencies. In addition to bankrupting the U.S., the military is now a huge domestic danger, even while it’s mainly an instrument for creating enemies abroad.
  • Sell essentially all U.S. government assets. Although some actually have value, they are all a drain on the economy. For instance, the U.S. Postal Service loses $5 billion a year; Amtrak loses another billion or so per year. The Interstate Highway System, airports and the air-traffic-control system, the 650 million acres of U.S. government land, and many thousands of other assets should all be distributed in shares or sold. This would liberate an immense amount of dead capital. The proceeds could be used to partially satisfy some government obligations.
  • Eliminate the income tax, as a start, which will be possible if the other six things are done. The economy would boom.
  • Default on the national debt and contingent liabilities. That’s somewhere between $23 trillion and $200 trillion. There are at least three reasons for that. First is to avoid turning future generations into serfs. Second is to punish those who have enabled the State by lending it money. Third is to make it impossible for the State to borrow in the future, at least for a while.

I like this program from a practical point of view, because when a structure is about to collapse, it’s much wiser to conduct a controlled demolition than to just let it fall when no one expects it.

But I also like it from a philosophical point of view because, as Nietzsche observed, that which is falling deserves to be pushed.

There are, however, two very important reasons for optimism: science and savings.

Science: Science and technology are the mainsprings of progress, and there are more scientists and engineers alive today than have lived in all previous history put together. Unfortunately for Western civilization however, most of them are Asians. Most American PhDs aren’t in Rocket Science but Political Science, or maybe Gender Studies. Nonetheless, the advancement of science offers some reason to believe that not only is all this gloom and doom poppycock, but that the future will not only be better than you imagine, but, hopefully, better than you can imagine.

Savings: Things can recover quickly because technology and skills don’t vanish overnight. Everybody but university economists knows that if you want to avoid starving to death, you have to produce more than you consume and save the difference. The problem is twofold, however. Most Americans have no savings. To the contrary, they have lots of debt. And debt means you’re either consuming someone else’s savings or mortgaging your own future.

Worse, science today is capital intensive. With no capital, you’ve got no science. Worse yet, if the U.S. actually destroys the dollar, it will wipe out the capital of prudent savers and reward society’s grasshoppers. Until they starve.

Of course, as Adam Smith said, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation. It took Rome several centuries to collapse. And look at how quickly China recovered from decades of truly criminal mismanagement.

On the other hand, Americans love their military, and this heavily armed version of the post office seems like the only part of the government that works, kind of. So maybe the U.S. will start something like World War III. Then, the whole world can see a real-life zombie apocalypse. Talk about free entertainment…

Action

But let’s return to the real world. What should you do? And how will this all end?

From a personal standpoint, you should preserve capital by owning significant assets outside your native country, because as severe as market risks are, your political risks are much greater.

  • I suggest foreign real estate in a country where you’re viewed as an investor to be courted, rather than a milk cow. Or maybe a beef cow.
  • Look for depressed speculations. At the moment, my favorites are resource companies, which are down more than 90% as a group. And look to go long on commodities in general. Soybeans, wheat, corn, sugar, coffee, copper, and silver are historically undervalued.
  • Short bubbles that are about to burst, like bonds in general, and Japanese bonds denominated in yen, in particular. If you have a collectible car from the ‘60s that you hold as a financial asset, hit the bid tomorrow morning. Same if you have expensive property in London, New York, Sydney, Auckland, Hong Kong, or Shanghai, among other places.

The Second Law to the Rescue

From a macro standpoint, don’t worry too much. The planet has been here for 4.5 billion years and it has a life of its own. You don’t have to do anything to save the world. Instead, rely on the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

There are very few laws I believe in, but this is one of them. There are many ways of stating the law, and its corollaries, but this isn’t an essay on physics. In essence, it states that all systems wind down over time. Entropy conquers all. That all systems collapse without constant new inputs of energy. And that the larger and more complex a system becomes, the more energy it requires. The Second Law is why nothing lasts forever.

In human affairs, you can say stupidity is a corollary to the Second Law, in that it throws sand in the gears of society and accelerates the tendency of things to collapse. But stupidity doesn’t always mean low intelligence…most of the destructive sociopaths acting as top dogs have very high IQs. I want to draw your attention to more useful definitions of stupidity.

One definition of stupidity is an inability to predict not just the immediate and direct consequences of an action (which a typical six-year-old can do) but also to fail to predict the indirect and delayed consequences.

An even more helpful definition is: Stupidity is an unwitting tendency towards self-destruction. It’s why operations run by bad people always go bad. And why, since the Deep State is run by bad people – the sociopaths who are actively drawn to it – it will necessarily collapse.

The Second Law not only assures that the Deep State will collapse but, given enough time, that all “End of the World” predictions will eventually be right, up to the heat death of the universe itself. It applies to all things at all levels…including, unfortunately, Western civilization and the idea of America. As for Western civilization, it’s had a fantastic run. Claims of the politically correct and multiculturalists aside, it’s really the only civilization that amounts to a hill of beans.

Now, it’s even riskier calling a top in a civilization than the top of a stock or bond market. But I’d say Western civilization peaked just before World War I. In the future, it will be a prestige item for Chinese families to have European maids and houseboys.

As for America, it was an idea – and a very good one – but it’s already vanished, replaced by the United States, which is just one of 200 other nation-states covering the face of the Earth like a skin disease. That said, the U.S. peaked in the mid ’50s and has gone down decisively since 1971. It’s living on stored momentum, memories, and borrowed Chinese money.

Let me bring this gloomy Spenglerian view of the world to a close with some happy thoughts. You want to leave them laughing. Not everybody went down with the Titanic.

Looking further at the bright side: Just being born in America in the 20th century amounted to winning the cosmic lottery…an accident of birth could have placed us in Guinea or Zimbabwe. On the other hand, if I wanted to make a fortune in today’s world, I’d definitely head to Africa.

But just as the Second Law dictates that all good things, like America, must come to an end, so must all bad things, like the Deep State in particular. That’s a cosmic certainty. We all love the idea of justice, even if most people neither understand what it is, nor like its reality.

Finally, it occurs to me that, while I hope I’ve explained why the Second Law will vanquish the Deep State, I’ve neglected to explain how whipped dogs can profit from the collapse of Western civilization.

The answer is that they can’t.

Fortunately, parasites can only exist as long as their host. Which is actually a final piece of good news I want to leave you with.

 

Editor’s Note: Unfortunately there’s little any individual can practically do to change the trajectory of this trend in motion.

That’s precisely why bestselling author Doug Casey just released an urgent new report with his top seven predictions for what comes next. Click here to download the PDF now.

Be seeing you

 

 

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