If “ignorance of the law is no defense” then you, reader, are responsible for knowing all the laws contained within these tomes and complying with them to the letter.

Library at Yale Law School

If “ignorance of the law is no defense”, then you, reader, are responsible for knowing all 2 million laws on the books in this country, including all 11 million words of the Internal Revenue Code.

Also, if “ignorance of the law is no defense” why do we even bother having lawyers? After all, if we all know all the laws, we can handle all our own legal matters ourselves and don’t need to shell out all that dinero for attorney fees.

On a related topic, if you think that “if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear”, how do you know you are doing nothing that someone somewhere in a position of power thinks is wrong?
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One of the plethora of reasons I like sports much more than politics is that the answers in sports are much more easily quantifiable. Success in sports is merit-based, whereas in politics it is all about spin, image, manipulation and propaganda.

Elections are not basketball tournaments. Success and failure have nothing whatsoever to do with objective measurements of merit.

In a sane world, a presidential greatness index would be similar to a golf score or a pitcher’s earned run average, i.e. the lower the better. The lower the president’s index, the greater he would be.

However, in a world without .300 hitters or 1,000-yard rushers, how do you determine greatness or non-greatness?

Enter a young guy from Phoenix, Arizona by the name of Xavier Cromartie. In the late part of 2009, he released an absolutely fascinating article wherein he assigns scores and rankings for presidents of the United States with libertarianism as the main criteria.

The article lists 43 presidents, as Grover Cleveland was president twice. Cleveland was also rated as the second most libertarian in this study, behind only Martin Van Buren.

Our most libertarian president? Well, this study says so.

Please read this disclaimer about Obama at the top of the article.

Anyway, this article is based not on “liberalism” or “conservatism”, i.e. words that lost meaning a long time ago. Rather, it is an attempt – quite a good one, I might add – to measure objectively how much each president respected individual liberty.

There is a lot here that a lot of people will not like. And if you don’t like the findings here, you need to get honest with yourself and re-examine a few things.

Let the arguing begin.

And if you support liberty, then you need to support Ron Paul for President in 2012. Based on his voting record 12 terms in Congress, he will be more libertarian than Van Buren.

And his policies won’t kill any Native Americans either.
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Classic article by Lew Rockwell from 1996: Down with the Presidency.
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There once was a man from Nantucket,
Who wanted to sell me a bucket,
But he couldn’t, because,
There were too many laws,
So he threw up his hands and said, “Vote for RON PAUL!”
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OK, this wasn’t totally my idea. Just my twist on something I heard on a call to talk radio several years ago. The caller no doubt also borrowed his idea from something similar.
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Thanks! – Doug

I originally wrote this on August 27, 2010.
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Socialism needs two legs on which to stand; a right and a left.
While appearing to be in complete opposition to one another,
they both march in the same direction.
– Paul Proctor

Thomas Jefferson once wrote that “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” Dictionary definitions of eternal include “continued without intermission” or “valid or existing at all times.”

We must be equally protective of our liberties at all times, regardless of who is in office, regardless of their party and regardless of how noble their stated aims might be.

Obamacare has been a long time coming, even when Republicans held power. How’s that? Let us look at six common objections.

First, Obamacare represents reckless, bloated and socialistic government. Yet, when GW Bush and the Republicans outspent Bill Clinton by $1 trillion per year the predominant response from rank-and-file Republicans was either denial or justification. Not only did Bush expand every big government, liberal, socialist program that they said they hated, but he added some of his own. Bush was Bill Clinton on steroids.

Second, Obamacare represents a federal takeover of the medical marketplace. Yet, when the Republicans left town in January, 2009, Uncle Sam, through programs like Medicare, already controlled about 60 percent of the medical marketplace. Not only that, but GW Bush and a Republican House and Senate gave us a massive expansion of the federal role in health care with the 2003 prescription drug benefit. But, they were conservatives, weren’t they?

If you gave Bush an inch, don't complain to me when Obama takes a mile.

Third, federal control of healthcare is not authorized by the Constitution. I agree. Nor is ninety-five percent of what Uncle Sam does. This includes lots of things conservatives like, such as the wars on drugs, terror, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution never restrained conservatives. Why should we expect liberals to respect it?

Fourth, no one has read the bill in its entirety. This is nothing new. In 2001, Congress voted overwhelmingly for the 300-page Patriot Act after having only 20 minutes to read it. A lot of folks who support the Patriot Act are now objecting to Obamacare on the grounds that no one has read it or knows everything that is in there. Too bad, so sad. When you let your party’s bills sail through Congress without being read, don’t come crying to me when the other party passes bills they don’t read. Indeed, most bills that get through Congress are not read in their entirety.

Fifth, Obamacare violates financial privacy. Consider this from a blog called Values Voter News: “ObamaCare Violates Financial Privacy. Cloaked in the unassuming garment of ‘fraud protection’, ObamaCare in its current form would require the IRS to divulge taxpayer identity  income, number of dependents and ‘other information as prescribed’ by regulation.”

Weren’t these same “values voters” the biggest supporters of GW Bush’s post-9/11 agenda? Wasn’t one of the pillars of this the Patriot Act, which authorized massive intrusions on financial privacy? (In the words of LewRockwell.com’s Rick Fisk: “Values voters have strange values.”)

And finally, Obamacare takes away our freedom to make our own decisions. To quote Chris Farley’s character Matt Foley, “Well lah-de-FRIGGIN’-DAH!”

Many of the people who are the most outspoken against Obamacare are also opposed to medical marijuana. The right to ingest that hooch for medicinal purposes – and indeed for any purpose whatsoever – is protected by the Ninth Amendment. This same amendment protects your right to home school your kids. It protects your right to do all kinds of things regardless of whether or not someone else approves.

If you would deny others the right to smoke medical marijuana, you do not believe in medical freedom. (I would also invite you to consider what you would do if you were in excruciating pain and had exhausted all other options other than medical marijuana. Would thou still be as holy as thou currently art?) If you would micromanage how others medicate themselves, just know that there are people who think differently than you that would micromanage your medical treatment.

Mitt gave Massachusetts Romneycare. Look at the video at the very bottom of this essay - Newt favors national healthcare. Rick voted for the prescription drug benefit. RON PAUL OPPOSES ALL OF IT!

Lew Rockwell once wrote that “The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state … believes brute force is the answer to all social problems. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor.”

This whole march toward Obamacare has me paraphrasing the old Toyota jingle. You asked for it, you got it: Obamacare. For decades, conservatives have been so implicitly trusting of Republicans as they recklessly disregarded constitutional limits on federal power. Why are they so outraged and indignant as Democrats run wild when they gain power?

EXCELLENT LETTER TO THE LIBERTARIAN ENTERPRISE  in response to this by Richard Bartucci, a fellow son of the Garden State.
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Do you still think Obamacare will give us “free” healthcare? Think again.

Newt Gingrich endorses national health care.

Many on the right want to sell to us this totalitarian as the polar opposite of Obama.

A few years ago, I emailed someone who is far more of a Bible scholar than I will ever be and asked him if the Bible addressed the issue of supply and demand. He provided me with some interesting answers.

Although the Bible does not handle the concept of supply and demand the way economists do in textbooks, it does touch on the subject in some very practical ways.

It is in The Book.

Proverbs 27:20 on the issue of demand – “Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.” (See also Ecclesiastes 1:8.)

Proverbs 20:14 also relating to demand – “It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.” People love to negotiate a price down and then brag to their friends about the “great deal” they got.

Deuteronomy 28:1-14 – God will bestow abundant supply and blessing on His people when they obey His commands.

Deuteronomy 28:15-68 – God will curse His people with scarcity when they do not obey His commands.

II Kings 6:24-29 describes scarcity and resulting high prices during the Syrian siege of Samaria. Keep reading through II Kings 7:1-20 and you will see how prices drop as commodities become more abundant after the siege is lifted. This is a reflection of market fluctuations, and not a result of statist edict.

As an old pastor friend of mine once said, “God’s fingerprint is on everything.” This includes the economic laws of supply and demand. There are no doubt other Scriptures that apply to this subject. Please email me if you can cite any examples.
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If you would like to post this elsewhere – who knows why? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks! – dfn

Of all tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies … those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C.S. Lewis

Fair Haven, a quaint little town of about 6000 residents somewhere in the swamps of Jersey, holds a very special place in my heart and life. Why? Because I grew up there.

Home.

It is also the home of my new hero: Eric Hafner. Hafner is real life example #4,479,563 or so of how America’s War on Drugs is incontrovertibly insane. Here are the Cliff Notes on his story.

In 2008, at age 16, the young Hafner had a “horrifying, traumatic” experience that brought on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. He declines to divulge details and this is his prerogative. And how he medicates himself would likewise be his prerogative if this were a free country.

This is medicine. Don't like it? TOUGH!

In a free country, people would still suffer traumatic life experiences. However, their choice of medication would be entirely immune from the tentacles of state and federal control.

Doctors prescribed Xanax for Eric. However, he claimed that it “did little to mitigate ‘nightmares, flashbacks and depression,’ and left him feeling ‘like a zombie’ the next day.” However, he claims that marijuana allowed him to function normally.

End of story, right?

No.

This is not a free country.

In 2010, Governor Corzine signed into law the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. This law allows patients who suffer from certain maladies such as AIDS and MS, to obtain marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries. Two years later, though, no dispensaries have opened their doors. And even if they had, PTSD is not among the conditions for which doctors are allowed to recommend marijuana.

On November 27 of last year, Hafner was a passenger in a car that was pulled over for a broken headlight in Locust, four miles from Fair Haven. The police officer said he smelled pot and proceeded to search the vehicle. The search turned up a pipe in Hafner’s sweatshirt and a gram of the forbidden weed in Hafner’s wallet.

Hafner faces up to six months in jail and $1000 in fines if found guilty.

Here comes the hero part.

Hafner states: “I’m not going to plead guilty to using my medicine.”

Eric Hafner: hometown hero. Ron Paul supporter, too!

A guilty plea would carry with it probation and mandatory drug testing.

Hafner cites Article I of the New Jersey state Constitution in his defense. This article states, in part:

“All persons are by nature free and independent, and have certain natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.”

Hafner goes on to say: “I’m not going to stop what I’m doing, so probation is not an option. I’d be sacrificing my own health and safety, and I’m not going to do that, and the government has no right to tell me to do that.”

Denver is the marijuana dispensary capital of America.

Out here near Denver, Colorado, where I live now, a friend recently stated the following on Facebook.

“You know what really gets my knickers in a twist? Aurora. Charging me extra money to buy cold medicine. And my Driver’s License having to be swiped to buy Alka-Seltzer in PILL form. Really? Do I look like I’m gonna OD on Alka-Seltzer??? Unfortunately, my moral indignation lost out to the need to not feel like death walking backwards eating a cracker… but still. I’m pretty ticked.”

To this, I responded: “Yay drug war.”

P.W. chimed in: “No Doug….Yay nanny state.”

Me, again: “2 wings of the same bird of prey.”

I went on to say: “A government that will throw you in jail for possessing, selling, buying or using a plant that probably grows wild in your zip code will not be restrained in the stupid laws and regulations it imposes.”

The mindset that drives the right’s police state is the exact same totalitarian mindset that drives the left’s nanny state. A government that will imprison you for using a plant that was given to us in the eleventh verse of the Bible – and just may well grow wild in Fair Haven – will inevitably also tell us which kind of light bulbs to use and how fast our toilets can flush. And if you have your undies in a bunch over someone medicating themselves with marijuana, then you already believe that the state should nanomanage medical decisions. Don’t moan and groan at me about Obamacare!

Does the Forbidden Weed grow wild here? Maybe so.

The left is at least honest about its belief in big government. The right, on the other hand, is rhetorically pro-liberty, but all too often loves big government when it imprisons people for victimless offenses. (“Victimless crime” is an oxymoron. If there is no victim, there is no crime.) No matter how much evidence you present about the abject failure of the drug war, they simply will not cast off their smelly little politically correct orthodoxies about their menu of favorite unconstitutional federal programs.

All federal laws relating to what you ingest into your body are unconstitutional under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. And while the states may pass their own drug laws, state drug laws are just as odious as the Jim Crow laws of the old South.

But then the objection always arises: “There are prescription drugs for things like PTSD.” Go back and read the quote at the top of this article. Hafner says that Xanax didn’t work. Thousands of other people across the nation also say that marijuana worked where prescription drugs didn’t.

Many who scoff at the notion that cannabis has medicinal properties will insist that they are Christians. Jesus had very harsh words for people like this. “Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch not the burdens with one of your fingers.” – Luke 11:46, KJB

While no one has ever died simply from smoking marijuana, prescription drug fatalities now outnumber deaths from automobile accidents.  And with prescription drugs, it is also the little things. You know, like the multitudinous side effects.

Moreover, it is perfectly legal to do irreparable damage to your body in so many ways.

And, yes, I hear the train a-coming:  “The kid is just looking for an excuse to get stoned.”

Let’s see. Hafner gets his bake on, gets the munchies and veges out for a few hours to some pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd tunes. Who has he harmed?

Not you.

And yet, there are millions of people who wouldn’t care if he were locked in some anal rape cage for years on end. For his own good, of course. 99.99 percent of the time, the legal penalties associated with marijuana possession do far more damage than the actual herb itself. Cruel and unusual, anyone?

And these millions just don’t care that the War on Drugs has, in the last three decades, turned the “land of the free” into the nation with the world’s highest incarceration rate.

And while Hafner faces six months in prison, and while this Oklahoma woman got ten years for a $31 marijuana sale, the children of the elites are not punished anywhere near as severely. Noelle Bush – one of those Bushes – got ten days for possession of crack cocaine. Hence, the War on Drugs is a lot like other wars. The elites sell it and the hoi polloi suffer as a result of it.

Daughter of a governor. Niece of a president. Granddaughter of another president. Got 10 days for crack possession. Live as the elites say and not as they and their offspring live.

The War on Drugs is a war on all of us, whether we do illegal drugs or not. How so?

Imagine yourself suffering from unremitting pain and having exhausted all conventional medical remedies. You are down to one last option: that herb that you have, until now, ridiculed as the Devil’s Lettuce. Will thou, in this moment, still be as holy and pious as thou currently art?

Or will this life experience finally clue you in as to the tyrannical nature of drug prohibition? Will you finally realize that the real-world implications of your favorite social policy are no laughing matter? And when you find yourself in the cross hairs of the authorities, will you boldly and defiantly proclaim, like Eric Hafner: “I’m not going to plead guilty to using my medicine.”

It is always easy to sit there and say that the government should “do something”, as long as they do it to somebody else.
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Newt Gingrich’s PRO-medical marijuana letter to the editor, 1982
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Posted at DailyPaul, Red State Eclectic and on Facebook.
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“After watching Tucker (Carlson) last night it dawned on me what has been obvious all along – nobody in the media understands the Ron Paul movement at all – not even Tucker whom I would have thought would know better. In Tucker’s mind the only people who could possibly support Ron Paul are the relative handful of people in this country like him who “really understand” what Ron Paul is about, leftists who hate the war and tin foil hat wearing, ex-hippie conspiracy theorists. Well yes, we are all of those things, but we are also doctors and lawyers and soldiers and scientists.

“And we are civil libertarians and conservatives and liberals and democrats and republicans and libertarians and constitutionalists. We are shelf stockers at Walmart and high powered executives and self-employed small business owners and internet gurus. We are policemen and firemen and ditch diggers and even people on public assistance. We are black and white and asian and hispanic and some mixture of all of these things. We are people whose ancestors came over on the Mayflower and whose ancestors met those people when they arrived. We are people who became Americans six months ago.

“We are young, pot-smoking college freshmen and guys who fought in Vietnam. We are people of virtually every possible stripe and persuasion who all have one single thing in common — we love this country and want to see the promise of what America was intended to be fulfilled, so that we can leave our children the American we grew up believing in — free and prosperous nation with justice and opportunity for all where any person who wants it and is willing to put in the effort has a reasonable chance of being whatever he or she wants to be and can make a better life for their children than they had. We want an America which is the land of liberty and where the idea of the pursuit of happiness means something.

“A place where courage and gumption and effort and creativity count for something — where the deck is not pre-stacked so that those on top can not lose no matter what they do and those on the bottom have little hope of winning no matter how hard they try. And where our leaders are people we can be proud of and who represent the best of what America is and not America at its basest and most venal. As for myself, I am proud to be associated with all of these types of Ron Paul supporters — even the wackiest among us. I happily welcome all the tin foil hat wearers and the hippies as well as the veterans and the old right conservatives and even the lefty liberals. When I start hearing stuff about needing to keep the movement “pure” then I know I’m talking to somebody who doesn’t understand the movement at all.”
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“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
– Matthew 5:16, KJV

I am no holier than anyone. My sinfulness manifests itself from time to time in a potty mouth. My vocabulary even includes an occasional F-bomb.

Ever since I started blogging in 1997, I have made it a point not to resort to this sort of language in cyberspace. I am going to deviate from this policy to illustrate a point about the  importance of Christian living. You will know it when you see it.

I have been a big fan of Tim Tebow ever since he was a sophomore at the University of Florida. He not only talked boldly about the influence of Jesus Christ in his life, but he also lived a very godly life. His exemplary personal conduct, combined his being perhaps the greatest college quarterback in history, drew enormous attention not just to Tebow the athlete, but to Tebow the young man.

How many other Heisman winners have taken their coach on a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. Is it humanly possible to be the biggest Big Man On Campus in school history and, through it all, keep your virginity? After all, this is the University of Florida, not MIT!

"Lead me not into temptation."

Numerous NFL players over time have been very fine Christians. However, for whatever reason, the media have made a bigger deal of Tebow’s faith than that of perhaps anyone else ever in the league. One faction sees Tebow as a beacon of morality and virtue in a world spinning rapidly out of control; the other faction fulfills Jesus’ prophecy that “ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake”. – Matthew 10:22, KJV

Success in college does not always mean success in the NFL, as different skill sets are involved. When the Broncos drafted Tim Tebow in the middle of the first round in 2010, opinions were all over the board. One pundit called it a “good gamble.” Even though I am not a Bronco fan, I wanted him to be right. Among the reasons he was drafted as high as he was is that he simply brought no negative extracurricular baggage. Others lambasted the pick as the worst ever not only in this galaxy, but in the surrounding cluster of galaxies.

You would probably have to go to North Korea to find anyone who does not know at least a little bit about how Tebow has snatched victory from the jaws of defeat several times during this, his second season with the Broncos. Even if you don’t like the Denver Broncos, you have to like the story. And if you don’t like the story, you probably don’t like the Muppets either.

How can anyone not like the Muppets?

As a lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan, it was not easy watching the playoff game last Sunday. The 12-4 Steelers were hampered by several key injuries and were just uninspired for too much of the game. Conversely, as Jim Rome might put it, Tebow remembered that he was Tebow and carried the 8-8 Broncos to a stunning upset. The exclamation point was his 80-yard touchdown pass to Demaryius Thomas in overtime.

I am not easily offended, and I won’t say that I let the following picture of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger offend me.

However, I was compelled to say: “What would Tebow do? He wouldn’t call people names like that.”

Whoever put this last picture together should remember something: Tebow came into the league with some very rough-hewn mechanics. He was no doubt given opportunities others would not have received because of his exemplary character. He does not recklessly call vanquished opponents – or anyone, for that matter – rectal orifices. It is all part of the biggest positive story in sports in the last year.

And this story constantly takes new and interesting twists and turns.

You can't make this stuff up. These high school students on Long Island were suspended for "Tebowing."

The Broncos had nothing to lose earlier this year when they gave him the keys. They had been through God knows how many quarterbacks since John Elway retired and had given every last one the bum’s rush. Tebow appeared destined for the same fate.

And then he started leading one stunning comeback victory after another.

How long this story will last is anyone’s guess. And even if it ends on Saturday in Foxboro, it will start again in August. It is especially compelling as it follows the biggest scandal in sports history. That story is only going to get uglier as 2012 rolls on.

And Tebow never makes it about himself either. As one friend commented on Facebook: “Ironic how this Tebow guy is trying to point people to Jesus and yet all Christian football fans can talk about is Tebow.”

In a world of twisted priorities, people like Tebow undoubtedly do point people to Jesus by the godly examples they set with their lives. This is especially important when the secular world is so starved for authentic examples of Christianity.

Let’s wrap this up with one other question: what did Tebow do? On Sunday evening that is, after the game. He probably did not get toilet hugging drunk, or call Steelers and Raiders fans anal sphincters, or fornicate with some girl he just met on Denver’s Larimer Street. Rather, he probably spent a decidedly undebauched evening with a half dozen friends and went to bed early.

Monday, I imagine, brought a barrage of interview requests that would have been absolutely unthinkable 90 days beforehand. He probably practiced that day with a level of intensity and focus that would stupefy John Elway. And he no doubt heeded the Apostle Paul’s counsel to “Pray without ceasing.” – I Thessalonians 5:17, KJV

C.S. Lewis once wrote that “God whispers to us in our pleasures” as part of “His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Therefore, we should not find it strange when some football jock prompts so many people to talk, think and even argue passionately about God. For God speaks to all of us through the endless succession of people he brings into our lives, either directly or vicariously. And He will never stop speaking to us either, whether we want Him to or not.
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Tim Tebow Exposes how Shallow Christianity Has Become – by Coach Dave Daubenmire

Yes, I will be rooting for the Broncos when they play New England this Saturday. However, I will remain a Pittsburgh Steelers fan until I go to meet my Maker.

(I originally wrote this on November 18, 1999. I am recycling it now with just a few tweaks as Congress is debating the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Internet Protocol Act.)
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For several years, the American Library Association has celebrated Banned Books Week as a condemnation of censorship. Although we have fun with the subject, such books as Huckleberry Finn, Catcher in the Rye, and even the Bible have, at various times and places, been banned due to their perceived “offensive” content. Will there someday be a “Banned Web Sites Week?” I cannot help thinking this in the aftermath of my experience with a “filtered” internet service.

I will not mention the name of this ISP. The salesman who signed me up is a decent Christian man. When I discontinued the service, the technical staff was most polite while helping me purge the blocking software from my computer. I am all about promoting decency on the internet and in every aspect of society. I have considerable fears, however, about the implications of state control of the internet.

Ostensibly, this ISP’s filtering policy was directed at pornographic sites and those promoting hate and violence. I signed up to help someone who was in my leads group at the time. However, after signing up with the service I realized that their blocking criteria were far more comprehensive, and included “politically active” sites. They had a “report a site” link on their home page, where anyone who objected to a certain site could report that site for blocking consideration.

I do not know what this company’s official protocol was for blocking web sites. It seemed as if all it took was for someone to get dissed, e-mail the home office, and — bammo! — the offending site was blocked. Oh sure, you could have a site unblocked, but it was rather cumbersome. I tremble to think of the implications if the federal government were in a similar business.

Considering that so many Christians get their information from the mainstream media and from Christian leaders who have sold out to the secular state, I cannot help thinking that the whole blocking process was very arbitrary. Anyone with an understanding of our Constitution knows that the following sites are quite innocuous in nature. However, they were among the blocked sites.

• The Separation of School and State Alliance Rather than fighting over such things as school prayer, condoms, dress codes and evolution/creation, this organization seeks to separate school and state altogether, thereby making these issues non-political.
• Irwin Schiff’s home page Author and talk show host Irwin Schiff has had a standing offer for years to pay $5000 to anyone who can cite the specific statute requiring us to pay income tax. He has never had to pay the $5000.
• John Birch Society For many years I, too, ridiculed them. However, thirty-@^$# years of living have convinced me that these guys are on to something.
• The Drug Policy Alliance A lot of Christians would rather let people suffer excruciating pain, or even die, than cast off their smelly little orthodoxies about the totally godless and unconstitutional war on drugs, and allow people legal access to remedies which may actually help them.
• The Ludwig von Mises Institute A wonderful free-market think tank at Auburn University. I guess some folks are still fighting World War I.

And the blocked link, which finally prompted me to cancel the service:

• Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership On what grounds did they block this? Please do not tell me that JPFO is a supremacist group. More likely, this site was blocked out of abject ignorance of events in Germany from 1933-45.

Www.eff.org - Fighting the good fight since 1990.

I have long maintained that control freaks in the government, media, education, and other institutions hate three things: guns, cash, and cars. All three confer autonomy on the individual. Guns enable us to defend ourselves against those who would do violence against us, including governments. Cash transactions cannot be tracked by those who would monitor every aspect of our lives. Cars enable us to travel where we want when we want without having to ask permission. Control freaks just cannot stand the fact that not everyone lives their life in a bovine, politically correct fashion.

Let me add a fourth item to the hate list: the internet. The power of the major broadcast entities (ABC, CBS, NBC, the major newspapers, etc.) has been declining for years. First, competition came from cable TV. Then came talk radio, a medium to which you can talk back. Now, with the internet, anyone of modest financial means can broadcast their views worldwide. This drives control freaks nuts. And not only liberal control freaks.

Coming soon to a "Christian Nation" near you? Could be.

Conservatives have long believed that government is necessary to preserve morality and decency. Contemporary mainstream conservatives seem united only in their disdain for the Clinton administration. They have few if any convictions when it comes to anything else, especially thwarting the growth of the state. Not only did they learn nothing from alcohol prohibition, as evidenced by their jihad against drugs, they are willing to acquiesce in all manner of restrictions on our freedoms. They prefer that the political game be played between the 40-yard lines.

Their party, the Republicans, supports “reasonable” gun control. Republicans valiantly opposed KlintonKare when they were a congressional minority, but support increased federal involvement in health care now that they are a majority. Since Republicans have had majorities in the House and Senate, the growth of government has continued unabated. Mainstream – i.e., non-principled – conservatives rarely ask whether or not the state should be involved in a certain issue. They just support only about 98 percent as much state involvement as do liberals.

Liberals are at least semi-honest in their beliefs about the role of government. Perhaps this is why they frustrate me less than conservatives. Conservatives claim not to follow trends, yet they are just as susceptible as liberals to the reigning political philosophy of our time, which might be summarized as: If it sounds good, the government should do it!

Government efforts at everything from ending poverty to stopping people from gambling away their houses have their roots here. It does not matter whether or not these efforts bear fruit. They sound so good. Shoring up our nation’s morals sounds like a good thing. (And it is, as long as it is done by the private sector.) If web censorship is what it takes, then so be it. Our moral superiors will lecture us that, “It is the price we must pay.”

The filtered web service which I cancelled was not involved in censorship. It could not have been. Only the government can ultimately shut down a web site. All the service was saying was that they would not transmit certain material. This is just as acceptable as someone forbidding cigarette smoking in their house, refusing to rent to couples living together out of wedlock, or a radio station refusing to broadcast Howard Stern.

No program is imposed by government on society at large, but by individuals or private entities in their own sphere of influence. People are free to smoke, fornicate, or listen to Stern’s scatological blather elsewhere. Likewise, I had the option to change web providers, and I exercised it.

With a censored internet, you might still have the option to change providers, but your freedom to view what you wanted to view would be limited by force of law. And just as many victimless activities are illegal now, many web sites (such as those linked to above) would be verboten. Why? Because some pressure group somewhere got hot and bothered and proceeded to influence the right people to ban those pages.

For the 88,000th time: be careful what you ask for!

If one company can block certain web sites because certain clients do not like them, what would the government do if it had similar power? The Constitution is under daily assault by people who have sworn an oath to support and defend it. What are the ramifications for our Constitution if sites dedicated to the literal meaning of it are banned because of the fleeting passions of this or that interest group? Whatever they are, they are not good.

Either our Constitution means what it says, or it does not. “Interpreted” versions of it, whether from the ACLU or the Christian Coalition, trivialize its meaning. The internet is the greatest thing yet for firm believers in the Constitution to come together and to re-introduce others to this awesome document. Let us not succumb to the passions of the moment. Let us vigorously resist attempts to censor the internet.

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If you would like to posted this elsewhere – who knows why? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks! – dn
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WHY WE MUST STOP SOPA - CRITICALLY IMPORTANT ARTICLE!!!

Take a few minutes and notify your elected things by going here and here.

For more information on the Stop Online Privacy Act on the Protect Internet Protocol Act.

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And while the presenter here may be a bit abrasive, his points are powerful.

The screaming meemies in the War Party have their undies in a bunch over the prospect of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon.

So?

Israel has over 100 nuclear warheads.

The U.S. has thousands of nuclear warheads.

Just one of our Ohio-class submarines can carry 192 nuclear warheads.

192 Irans in one metal tube.

Ahmedinejad is a lot of bad things. However, he is not stupid. What do you think the U.S. or Israel would do if he were to attack either of us?

I will let this be a rhetorical question.

And besides, if he were to nuke Israel, the fallout would kill a lot of his Muslim siblings in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, etc.

Does he want that?

I don’t think so.

Hence, Iran doesn’t scare me.
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Wikipedia: List of Countries by military expenditure 2010.

Iran is 25th on this list, just behind Singapore. It spent about $7 billion on its military in 2010, or just over 1% of what the U.S. spent.

One more time, Iran doesn’t scare me.
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Enough said?

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Military Power in Perspective by Mark D. Fee.

Again, Iran doesn’t scare me.
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If you would like to post this elsewhere – who knows why? – please email me and include a link to this URL. Thanks! – dfn