Congress is expected to vote on the final passage of the massive $1.9 trillion "Covid" bailout package that many Republicans are claiming is a bailout for blue states who cratered their economies with Covid lockdowns. Is there truth to this claim, or is there enough pork for all?
The U.S. Constitution, the "Supreme Law of The Land," was designed to chain down the U.S. federal government. Considering the U.S. federal government is the biggest government to ever exist on Earth, it's obvious that the Constitution has failed. Those in power found a loophole. What if "private" corporations, that are intimately tied to government, do the things that government itself is legally forbidden from doing? This loophole has brought us the circumstances that we deal with today.
The FBI and Homeland Security are issuing warnings that a second "siege" of the US Capitol may be staged today, citing "chatter" among extremist groups. Does all of this sound like the scare propaganda from the dark days of the "War on Terror"? Endless warnings of "chatter" to justify further restrictions on our liberty like the so-called PATRIOT Act? Are they blowing propaganda smoke or should we be afraid?
Yesterday's announcement by Texas Governor Greg Abbott that effective March 10th the statewide mask mandate and partial lockdown would be lifted was a huge blow to the lockdowners. There is a feeling of the fall of the Berlin Wall of virus tyranny. But many are left questioning: why the authoritarian over-reach in the first place? Will Abbott be punished politically?
By Chris Rossini
Human life is personal, very personal. No two completely identical things exist in the universe. This doesn't just apply to grains of sand, but also to each and every human being as well. We're each a one-of-a-kind, never to be copied, never to be reproduced, individual. We each occupy our own specific place in the universe, and it cannot be occupied by anyone else. We are each born at different times and in different locations. We are each raised under different conditions, by different people, and in different environments. We all individually think....alone, with our own minds. We all make our own choices, which manifest into consequences that we individually experience. No one else can possibly experience what we each individually experience. Others may be able to relate. They may be able imagine themselves in our shoes. But they wear their own shoes and can never actually wear ours. We all purposefully act, every second of the day, to achieve ends that we've individually chosen. We decide what is important to us in every moment. What is important to us, may be abhorrent to others. They decide what is important to themselves. We all experience different events, in our own unique ways. Others may be a part of, or participate in the same event, but we each interpret the meaning of the event to ourselves. We each respond to events based on our own knowledge, prior experiences, adopted beliefs and state of mind. As Ludwig von Mises wrote: "The environment determines the situation but not the response." We each choose our own responses. These responses can never be predicted ahead of time, with precision; not even by our own selves! We can hope to respond to an event in a certain way, should it occur, but we don't know for sure what we will choose until that moment arrives. Uncertainty and unpredictability are unavoidable fixtures of human life. Because of this we are all perpetually ignorant, no matter how smart our Moms said we are. Mises pointed out: “There is for man no such thing as omniscience.” Since we are all perpetually ignorant, it means we can never get rid of risk. We must each decide what we believe to be risky. The determination of risk is extremely personal. What seems risky to you may not seem risky to me. What seems risky to you today, may not seem risky to you tomorrow. What an 80 year old believes to be risky, may not be risky to a 20 year old. What a Californian believes to be risky, may not be risky to a Floridian. Risk is a personal assessment. It cannot be determined by anyone else for you. Other people can certainly make suggestions. They can try to persuade you, and provide you with information that they deem to be important. But you are the King or Queen that decides whether or not to believe them. You make the call. Yay? or Nay? Whatever you decide will come with the attendant consequences. There's no going back and blaming someone else that may have duped you. For it is you who decided to believe them. You own the consequence of your decision. It should be obvious by now that human life is extreme, unequivocal, and complete diversity. Individual Liberty is our nature and there's no escaping it, no matter how hard anyone tries to do so. As such, it does no good to fear Individual Liberty. If you're going to choose to fear something, you're better off fearing tyranny instead. For tyranny is the real danger to every individual, including the tyrants themselves. Tyranny seeks to abolish and destroy the diversity of life. It is the seeking of turning the different into the identical; in trying to make the heterogeneous into the homogeneous; in trying to make uniformity where it does not, and cannot, ever exist. Tyranny is the attempt in creating unified thought ... or unified opinion. Tyranny is the attempt to create a single interpretation to an event. Tyranny is the attempt to create a single risk assessment that applies to every unique individual. Tyranny is the attempt to impose one-size-fits-all by force. The key word here is "attempt." Tyranny can never actually succeed in achieving any of these ends. It can only be attempted. That's as far as it can go, and needless to say, tyranny has been repeatedly attempted. These attempts have created every mass horror story throughout human history. 1 million dead here....10 million dead there...All the mass horror stories carry the same theme: The desire to create uniformity where it can never exist. It can be attempted through war against another nation, or even war against one's own nation. The Communists of the 1900's were driven by the philosophy of creating uniformity in their own nations (followed by the rest of the world, of course). The result was hundreds of millions of their own people dead. So while Individual Liberty means Life...Tyranny means certain death. Life is hard....Individual Liberty is hard... Why make it exponentially harder by embracing tyranny? Why attempt the impossible? Is the possible not enough? Why continually attempt to create uniformity in world of diverse and unique individuals? Tyranny cannot bring certainty to the uncertainty that we all must deal with. It cannot bring safety to an existence filled with risk. Uniformity cannot exist...To desire uniformity is to desire the complete destruction of humanity. So if we have no choice but to be free and sovereign individuals (and we don't) then we best take the bull by the horns and live like it. For to fear Individual Liberty is to fear Life itself.
By Liberty Report Staff
Ron Paul's segment begins at the 8 min 45 sec mark:
The Biden Administration's promise to embrace diplomacy over Trump's perceived unilateralism took a blow last week with the US attack on Syria. That is not the only hot spot where diplomacy as we understand it seems to have been abandoned. Today we have a look at the three hot spots. And finally today...Dr. Seuss cancelled???
By Ron Paul
Last Thursday President Biden continued what has sadly become a Washington tradition: bombing Syria. The President ordered a military strike near the Iraqi-Syrian border that killed at least 22 people. The Administration claims it struck an “Iranian-backed” militia in retaliation for recent rocket attacks on US installations in Iraq. As with Presidents Obama and Trump before him, however, Biden’s justification for the US strike and its targets is not credible. And his claim that the US attack would result in a “de-escalation” in the region is laughable. You cannot bomb your way toward de-escalation. Biden thus joins a shameful club of US leaders whose interventions in the Middle East, and Syria specifically, have achieved nothing in the US interest but have contributed to the deaths of many thousands of civilians. President Trump attacked Syria in 2018 in what he claimed was retaliation for the Assad government’s use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. The Trump Administration never proved its claim. Logic itself suggests how ridiculous it would have been for the Syrian president to have used chemical weapons in that situation, where they achieved no military purpose and would almost certainly guarantee further outside attacks against his government. Trump’s 2018 attack only added to the misery of the Syrian people, who suffered under US sanctions and then suffered President Obama’s “Assad must go” intervention that trained and armed al-Qaeda affiliated groups to overthrow the government. Trump’s airstrike on Syria did nothing to further real American interests in the region. But sending in 100 Tomahawk missiles to blow up a few empty buildings did a great deal to further the bottom line of missile-maker Raytheon. Interestingly, Biden’s Secretary of Defense came to the Administration straight from his previous position on the board of, you guessed it, Raytheon. Libertarian educator Tom Woods once quipped that no matter who you vote for you get John McCain. Perhaps it’s also fair to say that no matter who you vote for you get to enrich Raytheon. The Democrats wasted four years trying to remove Trump from office under the bogus “Russiagate” lie and then the equally ridiculous and discredited claim that Trump led an insurrection against the government on January 6th. Yet when Trump started raining bombs down on Syria with no Congressional declaration of war or even authorization, most Democrats stood up and cheered. Left-wing CNN talking head Fareed Zakaria swooned, “I think Donald Trump became president of the United States last night.” In fact, initiating a war against a country that did not attack and does not threaten the United States without Congressional authority is an impeachable offense. But both parties – with a few exceptions – are war parties. President Biden should be impeached for his attack on Syria, as should have Trump and Obama before him. But no one in Washington is going to pursue impeachment charges against a president who recklessly takes the United States to war. War greases Washington’s wheels. Isn’t it strange how we’ve heard nothing about ISIS for the past couple of years, but suddenly the mainstream media tells us the ISIS is back and on the march? When President Biden says “America is back,” what he really means is “the war party is back.” As if they ever left.
ISIS is back, we are told. Suddenly after a prolonged silence the ISIS threat is now being used to justify expanding the US presence in the Middle East. Last Thursday, however, President Biden ordered an airstrike on one of the Iraqi militias formed in 2014 to fight against ISIS. So...are we helping or hurting ISIS? Does anyone know?
We live in unprecedented times of governmental, bureaucratic and authoritarian overreach. It is no surprise that The Federal Reserve, with its extreme counterfeiting of money and credit has also extended itself way beyond what anyone could have imagined. The Fed has sown the wind, and will reap a whirlwind of inflation. Central planning always fails. This time will be no different.
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