What The Boston Marathon Bombing Should Mean To You And Me

Explosion near Boston Marathon finish line (Dan Lampariello/Reuters)

First let me say that my heart goes out to the victims and their families of this tragic event. Being a runner myself, I also feel a great deal of sympathy for those who worked so hard to get there, but couldn't finish because of what unfolded.

May there be a special place in hell for whoever perpetrated this attack.

With that said, what concerns me the most is how this will further erode our civil liberties in our ever growing Police State. It's bad enough that in the wake of 9/11, and other airline related incidents, the simple act of flying has turned into a security nightmare but now there will be a greater cry for more video surveillance in cities and at high profile events.

Now do these measures work? That is a big maybe and at what cost? Are we any safer under the 24/7 watchful eye of Big Sis? Not really.

I myself do not feel any more secure because of the measures taken in the name of the War on Terror. Nor do I believe that I am immune from an act that a terrorist is plotting. But I'll also be damned if I am going to live my life looking over my shoulder, in constant fear of some boogieman either. And neither should you.

This may come as a surprise to those who want to increase the power of the Police State but bad people do bad things; that is the reality no matter how many cameras and other security measures are in place.

As Benjamin Franklin is famously quoted, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Those are certainly words we need to remember even in these crazy times where some feel the urge to give up their liberty in the name of security.

In closing, I would like to say that I will still continue to abstain from politics as much as possible. As you may have noted, this blog has been a dead zone for the past many months and it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. I have decided to live by the axiom that "ignorance is bliss" and have pretty much refrained from any political discourse.

And to tell you the truth, I feel better for it.

The only reason I chose to post this little rant is because I am still a libertarian at heart and with running a hobby that I have recently rediscovered, I felt like it was worth tossing out my two cents.

So adieu for now and wish me luck this weekend as I run in the 4.2 mile Pat's Run to honor a victim of our Nation's interventionist foreign policy; Pat Tilman. And for any of my fellow runners who are out running in the dark, please take a look at my Run-Bright personal lighting system. Run safe, run bright.

Via Memeorandum

Americans Never Give Up Your Guns

by Stanislav Mishin
Pravda

 These days, there are few few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains: the right to bare arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions.

This will probably come as a total shock to most of my Western readers, but at one point, Russia was one of the most heavily armed societies on earth. This was, of course, when we were free under the Tsar. Weapons, from swords and spears to pistols, rifles and shotguns were everywhere, common items. People carried them concealed, they carried them holstered. Fighting knives were a prominent part of many traditional attires and those little tubes criss crossing on the costumes of Cossacks and various Caucasian peoples? Well those are bullet holders for rifles.

Various armies, such as the Poles, during the ????? (Times of Troubles), or Napoleon, or the Germans even as the Tsarist state collapsed under the weight of WW1 and Wall Street monies, found that holding Russian lands was much much harder than taking them and taking was no easy walk in the park but a blood bath all its own. In holding, one faced an extremely well armed and aggressive population Hell bent on exterminating or driving out the aggressor.

This well armed population was what allowed the various White factions to rise up, no matter how disorganized politically and militarily they were in 1918 and wage a savage civil war against the Reds. It should be noted that many of these armies were armed peasants, villagers, farmers and merchants, protecting their own. If it had not been for Washington's clandestine support of and for the Reds, history would have gone quite differently.

Moscow fell, for example, not from a lack of weapons to defend it, but from the lieing guile of the Reds. Ten thousand Reds took Moscow and were opposed only by some few hundreds of officer cadets and their instructors. Even then the battle was fierce and losses high. However, in the city alone, at that time, lived over 30,000 military officers (both active and retired), all with their own issued weapons and ammunition, plus tens of thousands of other citizens who were armed. The Soviets promised to leave them all alone if they did not intervene. They did not and for that were asked afterwards to come register themselves and their weapons: where they were promptly shot.

Of course being savages, murderers and liars does not mean being stupid and the Reds learned from their Civil War experience. One of the first things they did was to disarm the population. From that point, mass repression, mass arrests, mass deportations, mass murder, mass starvation were all a safe game for the powers that were. The worst they had to fear was a pitchfork in the guts or a knife in the back or the occasional hunting rifle. Not much for soldiers.

To this day, with the Soviet Union now dead 21 years, with a whole generation born and raised to adulthood without the SU, we are still denied our basic and traditional rights to self defense. Why? We are told that everyone would just start shooting each other and crime would be everywhere....but criminals are still armed and still murdering and to often, especially in the far regions, those criminals wear the uniforms of the police. The fact that everyone would start shooting is also laughable when statistics are examined.

While President Putin pushes through reforms, the local authorities, especially in our vast hinterland, do not feel they need to act like they work for the people. They do as they please, a tyrannical class who knows they have absolutely nothing to fear from a relatively unarmed population. This in turn breeds not respect but absolute contempt and often enough, criminal abuse.

For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position. In all cases where guns are banned, gun crime continues and often increases. As for maniacs, be it nuts with cars (NYC, Chapel Hill NC), swords (Japan), knives (China) or home made bombs (everywhere), insane people strike. They throw acid (Pakistan, UK), they throw fire bombs (France), they attack. What is worse, is, that the best way to stop a maniac is not psychology or jail or "talking to them", it is a bullet in the head, that is why they are a maniac, because they are incapable of living in reality or stopping themselves.

The excuse that people will start shooting each other is also plain and silly. So it is our politicians saying that our society is full of incapable adolescents who can never be trusted? Then, please explain how we can trust them or the police, who themselves grew up and came from the same culture?

No it is about power and a total power over the people. There is a lot of desire to bad mouth the Tsar, particularly by the Communists, who claim he was a tyrant, and yet under him we were armed and under the progressives disarmed. Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear.

So, do not fall for the false promises and do not extinguish the light that is left to allow humanity a measure of self respect.

Reprinted from Pravda

A Libertarian’s New Year’s Resolutions

Written in 1998 by Harry Browne, 1996 & 2000 Libertarian Party Nominee for President

1. I resolve to sell liberty by appealing to the self-interest of each prospect, rather than preaching to people and expecting them to suddenly adopt my ideas of right and wrong.
2. I resolve to keep from being drawn into arguments or debates. My purpose is to inspire people to want liberty — not to prove that they’re wrong.
3. I resolve to listen when people tell me of their wants and needs, so I can help them see how a free society will satisfy those needs.
4. I resolve to identify myself, when appropriate, with the social goals someone may seek — a cleaner environment, more help for the poor, a less divisive society — and try to show him that those goals can never be achieved by government, but will be well served in a free society.
5. I resolve to be compassionate and respectful of the beliefs and needs that lead people to seek government help. I don’t have to approve of their subsidies or policies — but if I don’t acknowledge their needs, I have no hope of helping them find a better way to solve their problems.
6. No matter what the issue, I resolve to keep returning to the central point: how much better off the individual will be in a free society.
7. I resolve to acknowledge my good fortune in having been born an American. Any plan for improvement must begin with a recognition of the good things we have. To speak only of America’s defects will make me a tiresome crank.
8. I resolve to focus on the ways America could be so much better with a very small government — not to dwell on all the wrongs that exist today.
9. I resolve to cleanse myself of hate, resentment, and bitterness. Such things steal time and attention from the work that must be done.
10. I resolve to speak, dress, and act in a respectable manner. I may be the first Libertarian someone has encountered, and it’s important that he get a good first impression. No one will hear the message if the messenger is unattractive.
11. I resolve to remind myself that someone’s “stupid” opinion may be an opinion I once held. If I can grow, why can’t I help him grow?
12. I resolve not to raise my voice in any discussion. In a shouting match, no one wins, no one changes his mind, and no one will be inspired to join our quest for a free society.
13. I resolve not to adopt the tactics of Republicans and Democrats. They use character assassination, evasions, and intimidation because they have no real benefits to offer Americans. We, on the other hand, are offering to set people free — and so we can win simply by focusing on the better life our proposals will bring.
14. I resolve to be civil to my opponents, and treat them with respect. However anyone chooses to treat me, it’s important that I be a better person than my enemies.

May you all have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year.

TLP Quik Hits: Obama's Pot Problem

You can add former President Bill Clinton to the list of Drug Warriors who have come to realize that the War on Drugs "hasn't worked".

We can only hope that Barry comes around to this line of thought while he still has a power to end Marijuana Prohibition.

Rolling Stone

When voters in Colorado and Washington state legalized recreational marijuana in November, they thought they were declaring a cease-fire in the War on Drugs. Thanks to ballot initiatives that passed by wide margins on Election Day, adults 21 or older in both states can now legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana. The new laws also compel Colorado and Washington to license private businesses to cultivate and sell pot, and to levy taxes on the proceeds. Together, the two states expect to reap some $600 million annually in marijuana revenues for schools, roads and other projects. The only losers, in fact, will be the Mexican drug lords, who currently supply as much as two-thirds of America's pot.

But the war over pot may be far from over. Legalization has set Colorado and Washington on a collision course with the Obama administration, which has shown no sign of backing down on its full-scale assault on pot growers and distributors. Although the president pledged to go easy on medical marijuana – now legal in 18 states – he has actually launched more raids on state-sanctioned pot dispensaries than George W. Bush, and has threatened to prosecute state officials who oversee medical marijuana as if they were drug lords. And while the administration has yet to issue a definitive response to the two new laws, the Justice Department was quick to signal that it has no plans to heed the will of voters. "Enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act," the department announced in November, "remains unchanged."

If Obama were committed to drug reform – or simply to states' rights – he could immediately end DEA raids on those who grow and sell pot according to state law, and immediately order the Justice Department to make enforcement of federal marijuana laws the lowest priority of U.S. attorneys in states that choose to tax and regulate pot. He could also champion a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Diana DeGette, a Democrat from Colorado, that would give state marijuana regulation precedence over federal law – an approach that even anti-marijuana hard-liners have endorsed. As George W. Bush's former U.S. attorney for Colorado wrote in a post-election op-ed in the Denver Post: "Letting states 'opt out' of the Controlled Substances Act's prohibition against marijuana ought to be seriously considered."

Ironically, if Obama succeeds in gutting the new state laws, he will essentially be serving the interests of foreign drug cartels. A study by the nonpartisan think tank Instituto Mexicano Para la Competitividad found that legalization in Colorado and Washington would deal a devastating blow to the cartels, depriving them of nearly a quarter of their annual drug revenues – unless the federal government decides to launch a "vigorous intervention." If that happens, pot profits would continue to flow to the cartels instead of to hard-hit state budgets. "Something's wrong," says Stamper, the former Seattle police chief, "when the lawbreakers and the law enforcers are on the same side."

Obama, the former constitutional-law professor, has relied on the expansive powers of the chief executive when it serves him politically – providing amnesty to a generation of Dream Act immigrants, or refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. A one-time pothead who gave a shout-out to his dealer in his high school yearbook, Obama could single-handedly end the insanity of marijuana being treated like heroin under the Controlled Substances Act with nothing more than an executive order.

What the president needs to act boldly, reform advocates believe, is for the rising tide of public opinion to swamp the outdated bureaucracy of the War on Drugs. "The citizens have become more savvy about the drug war," says Franklin, the former narcotics cop. "They know this is not just a failed policy – they understand it's also a very destructive policy." With an eye on his legacy, Franklin says, Obama should treat pot prohibition like the costly misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan: "This is another war for the president to end."

Via Memeorandum

Jim DeMint Leaving The Senate - My Take

So Jim DeMint announced that he is leaving the Senate to head the Heritage Foundation; good for him.

Now while I'm not in complete agreement with Senator DeMint on everything, I think he was one of the few voices of fiscal sanity in the Senate and his is a voice that will be missed.

So here's my take, one of two things happened that prompted the South Carolina Republican to walk away from the final four years of his term.

My first guess is that the powers-that-be in the GOP told him to knock of his Tea Party rabble rousing and march in lockstep like a good party soldier or else they would neuter him. My other theory is that he saw the light, a la Ron Paul, and realized that there is no fixing Leviathan from the inside. (A third option is that he decided to take the money and run.)

Regardless of why he is leaving, he's showing that he's smart enough to bail before the whole thing comes crashing down and that's he's not just another power-drunk politician who feels entitled to a lifetime of luxury at the taxpayer's expense.

Via Memeorandum

Union Grinches Are Stealing Christmas

Just when I thought I was out, they dragged me back in.

Did you know that there is a major strike going on that has shut down the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports going on 9 days now? This work stoppage is affecting 40% of the imported freight into the US and costing the economy an estimated $1 Billion per day.

Well if you watch the lamestream mediots, you probably haven't heard about it.

You see, 800 union clerical workers, who average $41/hour (or about $167,00/year when benefits are factored in) are unhappy that the ports want to eliminate some some unnecessary positions though attrition and automation. They also feel that $190,000/year in salary and benefits is a more deserving rate of compensation for pushing paper.

In support of these poor, neglected, underpaid clerks, 10,000 dockworkers are refusing to cross the picket-lines; shutting down all operations in LA/Long Beach and bringing commerce on the West Coast to a screeching halt.

Because of this, the company I work for, a family owned auto parts distributor with 70 employees in 3 states, has 5 containers stuck in limbo with another 13 due in the next couple weeks. This is inventory we need to stock our shelves in order to supply smaller automotive businesses and consumers during one of our busiest times of the year.

According to our freight forwarder, every day that the port is shut down sets back terminal operations 2-4 days. Not to mentions the addition costs that the port is going to charge us for storing the containers during the work stoppage.

Now multiply these losses out by the tens of thousands of businesses, truck drivers, workers and families that are being held hostage by the greedy one-percenters in the clerical union.

Ho, ho, ho.

Of course President Pull-Ups could do something about this and ask for a court ordered 80 day cooling off period as provided for in the Taft-Hartley Act; but don't hold your breath, he's got a round of golf and a 20 day/$4 Million Hawaiian vacation to get to.

And if this isn't enough to collapse the economy, their union brethren along the nation’s East and Gulf Coasts will be walking off the job to ring in 2013 if they aren't able to extract their pound of flesh when their mediated 90 day extension ends on December 29.

So Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year America, at least that lump of coal you get in your stocking can be used to keep you warm on those chilly winter nights.

Robert Wenzel - An Open Letter to Libertarians: Don't Be Fooled By Rand Paul

I'm still on the fence about Rand in 2016.

His endorsement of Romney really put a bad taste in my mouth and gave me pause as to where he is at.

A lot of Rand apologists have said that it was a necessary move to stay on the good side of the GOP elite, if he wanted to have a chance in 2016. They say that this is just a means to an end as a way to further the r3VOLution that his farther started.

But that has never been the Ron Paul way. Dr Paul never played ball and was frequently the lone voice of dissent in the GOP. Ron Paul always was guided by his principles and never did what was politically expedient.

The jury is still out on Rand.

While I wholeheartedly supported his 2010 Senate run and think he is still one of the most libertarian leaning members of Congress, I completely agree with Wenzel that Rand will get nowhere in the GOP if he casts himself as too libertarian.

What we need to realize is that the liberty movement gets nowhere if Rand, or any other of the other young guns, go along to get along with the GOP establishment.

EconomicPolicyJournal.com

Dear Libertarians,

There is a big difference between Ron Paul and Rand Paul that appears to be missed by many. Ron Paul was not hungry to be president of the United States. If he would have been hungry, he would have booted his grandson in-law and that entire gang out early on in the primaries when it was clear they were positioning themselves not to advance Ron Paul and liberty, but to advance their own  careers. Ron Paul just wasn't that hungry to do that and be president. He was satisfied getting the libertarian message out.

Rand Paul is different. It appears that he wants to be president. Wanting to be president changes a man, wherever they start off from.

This was Rand at the start of his political career, on the Federal Reserve and  Bilderberg.

After Rand settled in, this is what Rand did when questioned about Bilderberg.

Rand also enthusiastically endorsed elitist loser Mitt Romney. Remember this?

If you want to become president, you have one thing in mind, you need to get to 50.1% If you hold libertarian views and run on those views you are not going to be president. I dare anyone to run on completely libertarian principles and believe they are going to win. Go ahead. Tell voters you are in favor of legalizing heroin and LSD. Tell them that the U.S. government should default on its debt and relieve taxpayers of the burden. Tell them you want to end welfare and food stamps. Tell them you want to end the DEA, TSA, FDA, DOE, FAA, SEC, CFTC and the rest of the government alphabet soup agencies.

Tell them you want to end medicare. Tell them you don't want to fight Muslims, or anyone else, anymore. Go ahead, see how far you are going to get. As I have stated before, there is nothing wrong with running, as long as you stick to principles and lose. It can be a method of spreading libertarian views. Winning, given the current voter climate, is when you become suspect.

Rand Paul is about winning.

Every time I point out Rand moves that are away from liberty, I get emails and comments telling me I am too  harsh on Rand. I received many again today because of this post (Scroll down to the comments).

What these commenters are looking at are Rand's pro-liberty stances, i.e. he says he is against raising taxes and for cutting government spending. Whoopee, that would have been great if he stopped there and been consistent, but he didn't stop and that is the problem. He isn't going to get himself in much trouble with the masses in moving towards 50.1% by being against higher taxes--and just saying this, this early in the 2016 race, helps make him stronger with his libertarian and Tea Party base. But notice what else he said. He said he would be in favor of reforming the tax code, in response to a question about closing loopholes.

As Joe Salerno pointed out:

Republicans condemn them as major barriers to the implementation of a more business- and investor-friendly flat tax.  Even free market economists oppose tax loopholes as inefficient and “non-neutral” to the market economy’s allocation of resources–as if there existed an optimal pattern of coercive redistribution of income from productive, private  taxpayers to parasitic, political tax-consumers  that was neutral to the market.

Salerno then pointed out what Mises said about loopholes:

 Needless to say Ludwig von Mises, who never took his eye off of  the larger politico-economic issue of capitalism versus socialism,  freedom versus statism, did not share the modern aversion to tax loopholes founded on baseless economistic concerns about “ efficiency” and “tax neutrality.”.. 

[Mises said] “Capitalism breathes through those loopholes.”  

The issue shouldn't be about reforming the tax code. It should be about lowering taxes, right from where they are now. When Rand talks about tax reform, he is talking code to his new supporters, Bill Kristol, Jennifer Rubin and the like. They all know that tax reform always ends up raising taxes. It did under Ronald Reagan and it sure as hell would under the crew now in Washington. Rand also mentioned "saving" social security, in the video clip at my earlier post.

This isn't the first time "libertarians" were all in on "saving" social security. Here's Murray Rothbard on the last time "libertarians" and Republicans teamed up to "save" Social Security:

We should also say a word about another of Ronnie [Reagan]’s great "libertarian" accomplishments. In the late 1970’s, it became obvious even to the man in the street that the Social Security System was bankrupt, kaput. For the first time in fifty years there was an excellent chance to get rid of the biggest single racket that acts as a gigantic Ponzi scheme to fleece the American taxpayer. Instead, Reagan brought in the famed "Randian libertarian" Alan Greenspan, who served as head of a bipartisan commission, performing the miracle of "saving Social Security" and the masses have rested content with the system ever since. How did he "save" it? By raising taxes (oops "premiums"), of course; by that route, the government can "save" any program. (Bipartisan: both parties acting in concert to put both of their hands in your pocket.) 

Rand also commented that, under his supposed lower tax scheme, the economy would grow quicker and result in even higher revenues for government. How is this small government thinking? Can you imagine Ron Paul ever saying, "Well my plan will be good because it might increase government revenues even more."

In the clip, Rand also talked about making the Republican Party a bigger party. Just how is he going to do that? By an outreach program promoting more libertarian views, in conjunction with John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and John McCain? Oh yeah.

Bottom line: Watch more than the libertarian talk from Rand, he will use it when he can and when it won't hurt him going into 2016. Watch Rand on the edge, where he can be hardcore libertarian like his father or be signalling to the Republican establishment. As we get closer and closer to 2016, it will be easier to spot Rand support moving toward intrusive government measures, that's the only way he will get anywhere close to 50.1%.

And don't think Rand is going to snooker the elitists and then become libertarian when he becomes president. The elitists don't like those kind of games.

They sit you down when you have a reasonable chance of winning and tell you what they expect, and you better not cross them. Ask former presidential candidate Gary Hart, he was going to do a movie about "The Talk." Guess who shut that movie idea down.

No libertarian is going to get elected president until a lot more people start thinking favorably about libertarianism. As I said, libertarians can run for office, if they want, but only if they speak principle and lose. It is the Rand Paul types that are dangerous. They will cast themselves as libertarians, but at the same time, to get elected, they will talk increased government interventionism  by promoting "tax reform," "saving" social security and other sneaky interventionist moves.

As Rothbard put is about the last "savers" of social security:

The way Reagan-Greenspan saved Social Security is a superb paradigm of Reagan’s historical function in all areas of his realm; he acted to bail out statism and to co-opt and defuse any libertarian or quasi-libertarian opposition.

Let's not let it happen this time, in any shape or form, with any expansionary government proposals or plans, by anyone. Let's stay principled and call out politicians who are hungry to get elected and veer from the liberty message--even Rand Paul. Liberty shouldn't be co-opted by anyone, in anyway at anytime. The only way Rand would ever get elected president in the current environment is if he bows to the elitists and he becomes their tool. The only value he is to us then is to point out, as an object lesson, how he veers from true libertarian principle.

Yours in liberty,

Robert Wenzel

Mark Steyn: The Edge Of The Abyss

From the cover of After America, by Mark Steyn

NRO

Amid the ruin and rubble of the grey morning after, it may seem in poor taste to do anything so vulgar as plug the new and stunningly topical paperback edition of my book, After America — or, as Dennis Miller retitled it on the radio the other day, Wednesday. But the business of America is business, as Calvin Coolidge said long ago in an alternative universe, and I certainly could use a little. So I’m going to be vulgar and plug away. The central question of Wednesday — I mean, After America — is whether the Brokest Nation in History is capable of meaningful course correction. On Tuesday, the American people answered that question. The rest of the world will make its dispositions accordingly.

In the weeks ahead, Democrats and Republicans will reach a triumphant “bipartisan” deal to avert the fiscal cliff through some artful bookkeeping mechanism that postpones Taxmageddon for another year, or six months, or three, when they can reach yet another triumphant deal to postpone it yet again. Harry Reid has already announced that he wants to raise the debt ceiling — or, more accurately, lower the debt abyss — by $2.4 trillion before the end of the year, and no doubt we can look forward to a spectacular “bipartisan” agreement on that, too. It took the government of the United States two centuries to rack up its first trillion dollars in debt. Now Washington piles on another trillion every nine months. Forward!

If you add up the total debt — state, local, the works — every man, woman, and child in this country owes 200 grand (which is rather more than the average Greek does). Every American family owes about three-quarters of a million bucks, or about the budget deficit of Liechtenstein, which has the highest GDP per capita in the world. Which means that HRH Prince Hans-Adam II can afford it rather more easily than Bud and Cindy at 27b Elm Street. In 2009, the Democrats became the first government in the history of the planet to establish annual trillion-dollar deficits as a permanent feature of life. Before the end of Obama’s second term, the federal debt alone will hit $20 trillion. That ought to have been the central fact of this election — that Americans are the brokest brokey-broke losers who ever lived, and it’s time to do something about it.

My Hillsdale College comrade Paul Rahe, while accepting much of my thesis, thought that, as an effete milquetoast pantywaist sissified foreigner, I had missed a vital distinction. As he saw it, you can take the boy out of Canada but you can’t take the Canada out of the boy. I had failed to appreciate that Americans were not Euro-Canadians, and would not go gently into the statist night. But, as I note in my book, “a determined state can change the character of a people in the space of a generation or two.” Tuesday’s results demonstrate that, as a whole, the American electorate is trending very Euro-Canadian. True, you still have butch T-shirts — “Don’t Tread On Me,” “These Colors Don’t Run” . . . In my own state, where the Democrats ran the board on election night, the “Live Free or Die” license plates look very nice when you see them all lined up in the parking lot of the Social Security office. But, in their view of the state and its largesse, there’s nothing very exceptional about Americans, except that they’re the last to get with the program. Barack Obama ran well to the left of Bill Clinton and John Kerry, and has been rewarded for it both by his party’s victory and by the reflex urgings of the usual GOP experts that the Republican party needs to “moderate” its brand.

I have no interest in the traditional straw clutching — oh, it was the weak candidate . . . hard to knock off an incumbent . . . next time we’ll have a better GOTV operation in Colorado . . . I’m always struck, if one chances to be with a GOP insider when a new poll rolls off the wire, that their first reaction is to query whether it’s of “likely” voters or merely “registered” voters. As the consultant class knows, registered voters skew more Democrat than likely voters, and polls of “all adults” skew more Democrat still. Hence the preoccupation with turnout models. In other words, if America had compulsory voting as Australia does, the Republicans would lose every time. In Oz, there’s no turnout model, because everyone turns out. The turnout-model obsession is an implicit acknowledgment of an awkward truth — that, outside the voting booth, the default setting of American society is ever more liberal and statist.

The short version of electoral cycles is as follows: The low-turnout midterms are fought in political terms, and thus Republicans do well and sometimes spectacularly well (1994, 2010); the higher-turnout presidential elections are fought in broader cultural terms, and Republicans do poorly, because they’ve ceded most of the cultural space to the other side. What’s more likely to determine the course of your nation’s destiny? A narrow focus on robocalls in selected Florida and New Hampshire counties every other fall? Or determining how all the great questions are framed from the classroom to the iPod to the movie screen in the 729 days between elections?

The good news is that reality (to use a quaint expression) doesn’t need to swing a couple of thousand soccer moms in northern Virginia. Reality doesn’t need to crack 270 in the Electoral College. Reality can get 1.3 percent of the popular vote and still trump everything else. In the course of his first term, Obama increased the federal debt by just shy of $6 trillion and in return grew the economy by $905 billion. So, as Lance Roberts at Street Talk Live pointed out, in order to generate every dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and 60 cents. There’s no one out there on the planet — whether it’s “the rich” or the Chinese — who can afford to carry on bankrolling that rate of return. According to one CBO analysis, U.S.-government spending is sustainable as long as the rest of the world is prepared to sink 19 percent of its GDP into U.S. Treasury debt. We already know the answer to that: In order to avoid the public humiliation of a failed bond auction, the U.S. Treasury sells 70 percent of the debt it issues to the Federal Reserve — which is to say the left hand of the U.S. government is borrowing money from the right hand of the U.S. government. It’s government as a Nigerian e-mail scam, with Ben Bernanke playing the role of the dictator’s widow with $4 trillion under her bed that she’s willing to wire to Timmy Geithner as soon as he sends her his bank-account details.

If that’s all a bit too technical, here’s the gist: There’s nothing holding the joint up.

So Washington cannot be saved from itself. For the moment, tend to your state, and county, town and school district, and demonstrate the virtues of responsible self-government at the local level. Americans as a whole have joined the rest of the Western world in voting themselves a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. The longer any course correction is postponed the more convulsive it will be. Alas, on Tuesday, the electorate opted to defer it for another four years. I doubt they’ll get that long.

© 2012 Mark Steyn

Gary Johnson Breaks The 1 Million Vote Mark And The Future Looks Bright For Libertarianism

With the final totals still undecided, Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has so far tallied 1,139,562 votes, good for nearly 1% of the national tally and breaking the previous high of 1980 candidate Ed Clark who received 921,128 or 1.06% of that elections votes.

Now, I was hoping for better as I predicted he would finish with 4%, but given that he was outspent 667-1 by his opponents, who also received 1000 times more media coverage, 1% is not a bad result.

What's even more encouraging is that this election defeat should be the death knell for the neocon/socon wing of the GOP and usher in a new movement toward the libertarian ideals of social tolerance in conjunction with fiscal conservatism.

The movement toward sane fiscal and foreign policy was started by the Ron Paul r3VOLution and turned into the Tea Party but was quickly co-opted by the GOP establishment and soon turned into nothing more than extension of the old guard GOP.

Well now we get to begin again and and get back to the roots of the movement. This time though we need to work the outside the two party paradigm to exert the pressure needed to move our nation in the right direction.

With our friends in the Ron Paul camp who want to work within the GOP to affect change, we libertarians need to also affect change within the Libertarian Party to have it more focused and less fractured by Left and Right Libertarians.

Gary Johnson's positive message of fiscal conservatism and social tolerance needs to be the guiding principle of this new LP. With Governor Johnson as our standard bearer, we can grow the seeds he planted in this election into a new tree of liberty.

United with a common goal we can be that irate, tireless minority that Samuel Adams spoke about and bring an end to the two party stranglehold on our Republic.

The days of the sunshine patriots has passed and we need to work towards rebuilding our fractured nation. The time for division and rhetoric is gone; time and again we have seen that path is a dead end. We need to educate our fellow Americans that there is a better path and that is through smaller government, personal responsibility and acceptance of our differences.

We also need to stand united against Leviathan and it's minions; taking the fight to them and never backing down. We need to, once and for all, shake the mindset that our only choice is the lesser of two evils. Evil is evil and in the end, it is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from it's government regardless of what the snake oil salesmen want us to believe.

The time has come for the next American Revolution and we are the new American Patriots. Let us build together for 2016 and beyond.

Libertas inaestimabilis res est

Via Memeorandum

TLP Quik Hits: Liberal media, White House owes preppers and survivalists a massive apology in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy

Who's crazy now?

Of course the Keynesians, Paul Krugman I'm looking at you, subscribe to the Broken Window Fallacy and believe that natural disasters like Sandy are a net positive because, in the end, they stimulate the economy.

Natural News

In the wake of superstorm Sandy, preppers are the new prophets. Those who failed to prepare are the new homeless.

For as long as we can all remember, preppers and survivalists have been derided by the mainstream media, labeled "kooks" and "wing nuts" for stockpiling food, water, ammunition, medical supplies and emergency gear. Only paranoid conspiracy theorists engage in evil preparedness activities, we were told by the sellout mainstream media, and they've convinced many that preppers may even be terrorists.

The very word "stockpiling" has been used in a derogatory manner, as if it's somehow bad for private citizens to stockpile food, medicine and emergency supplies that might save lives in a crisis. Never mind that the government stockpiles all these things for its own survival; citizens are routinely taught that stockpiling is bad!

Suddenly all that has changed. In the aftermath of superstorm Sandy, preppers are the ones who aren't starving, freezing or begging the government to come save them with emergency supplies. Those who failed to prepare are now subjected to the chaotic, incompetent actions of the federal government which is, predictably, operating in a never-ending state of logistical failure.

An one example, in response to the ongoing scarcity of gasoline, New York announced that the Defense Department would be opening up free gas stations near areas hardest-hit, but that residents should stay away and let first responders fuel up ahead of them.

This, of course, set off a wave of confusion. It was then announced that those "civilians" (a derogatory term against citizens, used only in a police state) who were already in line could stay in line, but no "civilians" could join the line. Many people waited up to six hours for gasoline. Tempers flared, fist fights were commonplace, and state troopers had to be sent to gas stations to keep the peace.

Preppers, of course, already stored away spare fuel at home and therefore didn't need to wait in line and subject themselves to the chaos and desperation.

Read the rest here