By Daniel McAdams
What is it that keeps the Washington Post's hyperventilating neocon scribbler Jennifer Rubin up at night? The fact that Ron Paul's lifelong efforts to promote a peaceful foreign policy continue to light fires in the imaginations of his fellow Americans. Any chance her fellow neocons' near-total control of Washington's foreign policy might be slipping sends Rubin scurrying to her keyboard to launch another spit-bomb. Rubin has been apoplectic for months over the possibility that Donald Trump may wind up the Republican nominee for the presidency. She followed six of the stages of grief but skipped the final one, acceptance, and quickly returned to the first one, shock. Forget about the fact that when it comes to foreign policy, there isn't all that much for non-interventionists to get excited about when it comes to Donald Trump. He just threatened to shoot Russian planes, he wants to confront China, he wants to dump more money into the military-industrial complex, he just told Bibi to build build build more settlements on occupied Palestinian territory in Gaza, and so on. With Trump we of course can hope for the best, and any improvement would be welcome, but realistically the yellow warning flags are taking on a distinctively red hue with each passing foreign policy proclamation. Never mind. For Jennifer Rubin if Trump does not openly worship at the altar of Kristol, Podhoertz, Bolton, et. al., he must be utterly and completely destroyed. Things are so glum in Rubinville that Jennifer has even taken to giving Hillary Clinton advice on how to defeat Trump. But nothing makes Rubin madder than the fact that the ideas Ron Paul openly espoused in his recent two presidential campaigns have planted a seed especially among young people, who may in fact be settling for Trump but whose hearts are still with Dr. Paul's prescription for peace and prosperity: non-intervention overseas and in the US economy. Sound money. Free markets and free minds. So Rubin goes nuclear against a Republican rank and file who have backed the non-neocon candidate: A Trump victory could bring Ron Paul back to Washington!!!!! She Tweets:
Of course anyone who knows anything about anything knows how unlikely is such a thing. But the mere thought of it is enough to sent Rubin screaming as if her hair was on fire. "Don't you people understand how dangerous Trump is??? He could even bring Ron Paul into his administration!!!!"
What a horror for Rubin and the neocons! What would a Ron Paul State Department look like to the rest of us? Obviously the Secretary of State serves the president, but history teaches us that the Secretary has ample opportunity to make his or her mark on US foreign policy while at the helm of the Foggy Bottom Fudge Factory. Under a Secretary Paul there would be no endless hectoring calls to the president demanding that this or that country be "liberated" with smart power and smart bombs. Under Secretary Paul there would be no legions of US-funded NGOers sent to undermine the electoral processes overseas. Under Secretary Paul there would be no fact-free, mindless propaganda sessionsdeceptively named "daily press briefings." Under Secretary Paul diplomacy would not mean "do what we say and we will give you money, refuse and we will bomb you." Under Secretary Paul diplomacy would serve the national interest instead of the special interests. Under Secretary Paul, the customary appearances by the Secretary before the House and Senate foreign affairs committees would actually be exercises in truth-telling instead of spin-making. Well, you get the idea. It would be a total nightmare for Rubin and the neocons. So Jennifer has something to worry about... This article was originally published at The Ron Paul Institute.
By Chris Rossini
President Obama was in Flint, Michigan today oiling the squeakiest wheel in government's never-ending world of problems. The President hopes to whisk away yet another embarrassment. But even after Flint disappears from the headlines, there's a good health habit that everyone would be wise to follow: Don't consume government water. Even before Flint made the headlines, The Mises Institute alerts us that: An AP investigation in 2008 discovered everything from antibiotics, antidepressants, sex hormones, erectile-dysfunction drugs, to tranquilizers in the water supplies of twenty-four metropolitan areas with 41–46 million Americans exposed.
Don't forget the poisonous fluoride that government dumps into water too.
There is nothing that President Obama can say or do to change the problems with government water. The simple reason is that market signals and incentives just aren't there for anything that is socialized. Whether it be government's schools, roads, police, or water, when you don't have profit & loss signals, you're always flying in the dark. Government makes decisions politically. Every move is done for political reasons. They don't have profits and losses to guide them. They don't have customers that voluntarily give them money, and that can withhold money. Government steals every penny that it has. When you're operating in such a warped atmosphere, you literally can't make correct decisions. That's why no matter how much money gets pumped into government's so-called "education system," it continues to be a complete disaster. Everyone is trained to think that throwing money at something will magically solve the problem. It never does. There is no "right" to water. It's a scarce resource like almost everything else. Government should never be in charge of allocating scarce resources. Things can get so bad you end up with something like Venezuela. They've been dealing with severe water rationing lately. That's where the absence of market prices, government price controls, and inflation can lead. Government water is a problem that will never be solved, purely because it is government that is running it. That's why it's a good decision not to ingest it. Find another alternative. Without private property, market prices, competition, profits & losses, government is always operating in the dark. Leave them to themselves. Don't drink that stuff.
By Ron Paul
Though it wasn't much of a surprise at this point, Donald Trump is now the presumptive nominee for the Republican party. He will most likely face Hillary Clinton in the general election. Yet, most of the major policies in this country are set in place. I don't expect much to come from this election except more of the same. The serious problems will not be addressed. The deep state is much more powerful than the political parties. Neither Trump nor Clinton will bring the troops home, or take on The Fed, or refuse to bailout Wall Street during the next financial crisis. I discuss in detail on Fox Business below:
By Chris Rossini
Thomas Sowell described government intervention perfectly: “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." That, in a nutshell, defines all of the competing factions who use government to try to get their way. They want healthcare to be cheaper (or even FREE!). They want fossil fuels to be more expensive. They want this regulation or that regulation. They constantly want government to "do something". Well, government has done something alright. The amalgamation of all these competing interests have turned the U.S. economy into a twisted pretzel. At every turn we see a mish mosh of policies and restrictions. All of it has been done to thwart what would have naturally occurred if the market were left free to function. Unfortunately, most people don't care about supply & demand. It's never properly taught in schools (big surprise) so most just grow up thinking that economic laws are strictly for those egghead professors to worry about. After all, Americans have their mighty government! If citizens just summon the will to "make their voices heard," the government will turn stones into bread if it were so desired. Yet supply and demand never yields. It remains buried under mountains of bureaucratic meddling. It cannot and will not be repealed no matter what anyone thinks. In fact, the great Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises once wrote: “The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it.” In America, far too many people refuse to acknowledge the laws of supply and demand. The "Fight for 15" thing that we see today is an attempt to subvert supply and demand. In fact, the minimum wage itself is government's way of "doing something" to overrule the market. Yet the market never loses to government. The minimum wage merely forces the lowest-skilled and most vulnerable members of our society into unemployment. The only losers are those who believe in government. I'm very happy to report some positive news though. There is a company that we've all heard of, Uber, that is actually standing up for supply & demand! Apparently Uber has something called "dynamic pricing" in which the prices of getting an Uber goes up when the demand for them goes up. Sounds like basic economics right? Of course price is supposed to rise when demand surges. That ensures that an Uber ride will always be available. Well, unsurprisingly, many people have a problem with this. They'd rather prices not rise, no matter what! They're probably living in the fantasy world that their professors have instilled into them. You've probably heard it: "rising prices must mean that you're being 'gouged' by greedy corporations." Yes, these individuals would rather prices remain artificially low during surge times. Do they think a single step ahead? No. But what would happen if Uber were forced to keep prices lower than what the market demanded? There would be shortages of Uber rides! People would stand around cursing and complaining about how much "Uber sucks!" You can't get a ride when you really need one! Fortunately, Uber is not yielding to economic ignorance. They are going to keep their "dynamic pricing". A spokesperson emailed the following statement to MarketWatch: “Uber is always looking for ways to better predict supply and demand in a city. But this story is not accurate: we have no plans to end dynamic pricing. While we understand that no-one likes to pay more for the same trip, it’s the only way to ensure that passengers can always get a ride when they need one."
By Ron Paul
It has become evident that our current system is failing. The support for both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders shows that this failure can no longer remain hidden. However, the ideas that both Trump and Sanders champion would just hasten the downward spiral. We must first admit that we do not live under free market capitalism. We instead carry the burdens of a hyper-interventionist government and military empire. To think that socialism (especially after the 20th century, which was filled with socialist-induced mass starvations and death) is the way out is terribly erroneous. We also do not need a "strong" leader to act a "fixer". We need liberty. We need free markets now more than ever. I discuss on RT below. (Note: my interview starts at the 15min mark): By Jacob Hornberger
When Vice President Joseph Biden traveled to Iraq a few days ago, he did it, as always, under a shroud of secrecy. The mainstream press was asked in advance to keep the trip secret and dutifully complied. Biden declined to spend the night in Iraq, staying only 10 hours before whisking away to Italy, where presumably he slept safe and sound. Why all the secrecy? Why didn’t Biden stay in Baghdad a few days, walk the streets, do a little shopping, visit with the people, and tour the country? After all, isn’t this the country that the US government invaded and regime-changed under the military rubric “Operation Iraqi Freedom”? Isn’t this the country that the US military and the CIA occupied for more than 10 years, killing people with impunity and destroying homes, buildings, and infrastructure in the process, all with the aim of producing a showcase for interventionism to present to the world? Oh, let’s not forget the regime they installed. After all, lest we forget, this was, in fact, a regime-change operation, one devoted to removing Saddam Hussein from power (who had been a partner and ally of the US government during the 1980s) and installing and establishing a government that would be, well, more pro-USA. and, therefore, more “free.” And after all, the structure of the new government was modeled after that of the US government — that is, one founded on an all-powerful national-security establishment, including an enormous military and intelligence force with the omnipotent power to round up people, torture them, and kill them. The purpose of Biden’s trip? To offer support to the beleaguered regime of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, whose government is wracked with political corruption. In fact, the corruption goes so deep that over the weekend hundreds of Iraqi protestors broke into the infamous “Green Zone” in Baghdad to protest the corruption. That’s the walled-in zone that the US government constructed as part of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” It was the first time that many of the protestors had ever been inside the Green Zone. Today a car bomb exploded in Baghdad, killing 18 and wounding at least 28 others. That was a different car bomb from the one that exploded in Baghdad on Saturday, which killed 21 people and wounded another 42. Those two were different from the car bomb that exploded in Baghdad on April 25, which killed at least 11 people and wounded 39. No wonder Biden sneaks into Iraq and doesn’t dare spend the night there, much less walk the streets, do a little shopping, visit with the people, and tour the sites. Indeed, have you ever noticed that not one single American neocon has ever taken his family on vacation to Iraq since the Pentagon invaded some 13 years ago? Have you ever noticed that congressmen never include Iraq on their list of nice, little junkets to take? What better testament to the philosophy of foreign interventionism than Iraq? Here was their chance — the great opportunity for the Pentagon, the CIA, the entire national-security establishment, the neocon movement, and the interventionist movement to show what they could do if given carte blanche over a country, a country that had never attacked the United States or even threatened to do so. All that needed to be done was to kill a few hundreds of thousands of people, incarcerate and torture tens of thousands of others, reeducate millions who would survive the onslaught, and bring into existence a new government — one that might be a bit brutal, corrupt, and tyrannical but at least would be pro-USA. Iraq was to be the showcase for foreign interventionism. It was to be their model. Alas, all they’ve done is produced one giant hellhole of death, destruction, misery, suffering, privation, violence, crises, civil war, and loss of freedom. All they have to show for their grand interventionist experiment is hundreds of thousands of corpses, tens of thousands of others who have been detained and tortured, an impoverished society, and a crooked, corrupt, and tyrannical government, not to mention a brand new organization that their interventionism produced to the Middle East: ISIS, aka ISIL, aka the Islamic State. The Iraq intervention is proof positive that God has created a consistent universe, one in which evil means beget evil ends. How in the world can any right-thinking American be an interventionist? How can anyone who cares about moral principles be an interventionist? How can any Christian be an interventionist? What does he say to God — that he meant well when he supported the violence, death, suffering, and corruption that comes with interventionism? There is but one thing for the US government to do: Leave everyone in Iraq and the rest of the Middle East alone. Come home. You have done enough damage, especially if we throw Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia into the interventionist mix. You have killed, incarcerated, tortured, and maimed enough people. You have destroyed enough buildings. You have produced enough terrorists. You have caused enough refugees. No more interventionism. Just bring all your troops home. Don’t pour fuel on the fire that your interventionism has ignited. This article was originally published at the Future of Freedom Foundation.
By Thomas DiLorenzo
When former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke got wind of the fact that the U.S. Treasury Department was considering replacing Alexander Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill he threw a fit of protest. Writing on his Brookings Institution blog, Bernanke said that he was “appalled” that “the greatest of the founding fathers” (and the founding father of central banking) would be mistreated in this way. The New York Times immediately weighed in, apparently outraged that such a famous New Yorker would ever be demoted in such a way. The neocons were especially incensed over the proposal. After all, David Brooks of the New York Times has claimed that Hamilton single-handedly “created” American capitalism all by himself with help from no one, not even God Himself. Pat Buchanan, who once said to me that “Hamilton is my hero,” must have lost a lot of sleep over it as well. Around the same time, New Yorkers began flocking to a new Broadway musical named “Hamilton” that repeats the old statist tale about how allegedly wonderful the statist/imperialist Hamilton was compared to the strict constructionist, “that government is best which governs least,” Thomas Jefferson. The establishment adores Hamilton (and hates Jefferson) because Hamilton was a consummate statist and imperialist. He persistently denounced his nemesis Jefferson for his “excessive concern for liberty.” When President Jefferson announced in his first inaugural address that his foreign policy would be “honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none,” and that “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government . . .”, Hamilton denounced it as “the symptom of a pygmy mind.” Hamilton wanted a more centrally-planned and government-subsidized and supervised economy, and was itching to start a war with France in the name of what he called “imperial glory.” When the constitutional convention quickly discarded Hamilton’s proposal of a permanent president (i.e., a king) who would appoint all the state governors who would have veto power over all state legislation, effectively destroying any semblance of federalism, Hamilton loudly denounced the Constitution as “a frail and worthless fabric.” Hamilton’s objective was “to build the foundations of a new empire,” wrote Hamilton biographer Clinton Rossiter. Just like the British empire, against which the American Revolution had just been fought. Hamilton “had perhaps the highest respect for the government of any important American political thinker who ever lived,” wrote Rossiter. No wonder the government establishment has always been “in love” with Hamilton. Hamilton was the founding father of constitutional subversion, having literally invented the “implied powers of the constitution” scam during his debate with Jefferson over the constitutionality of a national bank. (He was for it; Jefferson opposed it). Of course, once it is conceded that there might be “implied” as opposed to explicit, delegated powers of the federal government, you are on the road to unlimited government, which is the road that Hamilton favored. “With the aid of the doctrine of implied powers,” Clinton Rossiter boasted, Hamilton “converted the powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8 into foundations for whatever prodigious feats of legislation any future Congress might contemplate.” The “living constitution” was born. No wonder the establishment loves Hamilton. With such lawyerly subterfuge, Hamilton hoped to “affix a certain certificate of constitutionality to every last tax,” said Rossiter. “Hamilton took a large view of the power of Congress to tax because he took a large view of the power to spend.” His view of the Constitution was the exact opposite of Jefferson’s. With Jefferson, the government should be “bound by the chains of the Constitution.” To Hamilton, the Constitution could and should be used as a rubber stamp on anything the federal government ever proposed to do. This, in fact, is the kind of Constitution that Americans have slaved under now for several generations. Hamilton harbored the bloody impulse to literally murder tax dissenters and anyone who challenged the “authority” of the federal government, as was proven by his behavior during the Pennsylvania Whiskey Rebellion. This impulse would eventually become the defining characteristic of the federal government during the Lincoln regime, with Lincoln being the political son of Alexander Hamilton. When Pennsylvania farmers began fermenting grain into whiskey and protested Treasury Secretary Hamilton’s new whiskey tax as discriminatory, Hamilton persuaded George Washington to ask governors along the eastern seaboard to conscript 15,000 men to march into Western Pennsylvania to quell the protest. They captured several dozen leaders of the tax protest movement and marched them across the state barefoot in the winter and put them on “trial” in Philadelphia, with Hamilton posing as the “judge.” Hamilton wanted to hang all of them to teach all other taxpayers a lesson, but George Washington introduced a dose of sanity to the whole affair by pardoning all of them, to Hamilton’s everlasting dismay. No wonder the establishment loves and adores Hamilton. Hamilton was the political water boy for the crony capitalist one-percenters of his day. All of his efforts to create a bank run by politicians out of the nation’s capital (the First Bank of the United States) had one main purpose: to provide cheap credit for his big business political patrons in New York and Philadelphia, and to subsidize the banking industry itself, at the expense of the general public. Hamilton was a protectionist who repeated all the silly slogans of the British mercantilists. He wanted to bring the rotten, corrupt, British system of “mercantilism,” against which the Revolution had been fought, to America, run by Americans like himself and his New York political cronies. He mocked the free-trade views of his British contemporary, Adam Smith, the French physiocrats, and almost all other economic scholars of his day as he advocated ripping off the common man for the benefit, once again, of his big business political patrons who wanted to be protected from international competition. (As John C. Calhoun once said, what the public is “protected” from with protectionism is low prices for goods). As though that weren’t enough pandering for the benefit of the founding one percenters, Hamilton also championed direct corporate welfare in the form of taxpayer subsidies for all kinds of businesses and industries in his famous Report on Manufactures. It was called the “infant industry argument” for corporate welfare, but of course, because America was a young country, ALL industries could be labeled “infant” industries! He just did not believe that commerce could succeed without his guiding hand. Hamilton championed the biggest corporate welfare subsidies for the road- and canal-building corporations even though thousands of miles of roads had been built by private companies with private capital by the early 1800s. Just in case tax revenues weren’t enough to cover all these blatantly unconstitutional expenditures that appear nowhere in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, Hamilton waxed eloquently about how the public debt could be “a public blessing.” Hamilton’s argument for the “blessing” of a large public debt was quite Machiavellian. His theory was that because the wealthier people of the country would be the owners of the debt (i.e., government bonds), they would form a formidable lobbying power for higher taxes and bigger and more centralized government to assure that their bonds would always be paid off. As William Graham Sumner wrote in his biography of Hamilton, he wanted a large national debt because of “its tendency to strengthen our . . . government by increasing the number of ligaments between the government and interests of individuals.” Rich and politically-influential individuals, that is. And as Douglas Adair, an editor of The Federalist Papers, wrote in the introduction to one edition of the publication: With devious brilliance, Hamilton set out, by a program of class legislation, to unite the propertied interests of the eastern seaboard into a cohesive administration party, while at the same time he attempted to make the executive dominant over the Congress by a lavish use of the spoils system . . . . Hamilton transformed every financial transaction of the Treasury Department into an orgy of speculation and graft in which selected senators, congressmen, and certain of their richer constituents throughout the nation participated.
Is there any wonder why the “establishment” of “senators, congressmen, and richer constituents throughout the nation” today are so worshipful of Hamilton and so relieved that his mug shot remains on the ten-dollar bill?
This article was originally published at LewRockwell.com |
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