Bill Kauffman delivered probably my favorite speech of Ron Paul’s Rally For The Republic today. He had some great lines and his words really hit home for me, especially when he promoted homebrewing beer, a hobby close to my heart. Watch it and enjoy it. You really should. In two parts. More to come.
To very little public fanfare from my beloved American media, a Mockery of a Trial of Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, alleged al-Qaeda mastermind, is getting underway in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Is John McCain losing any sleep over it? Doubt it.
Senator John McCain and Khaled Sheikh Mohammed actually share one very important fact in common.
Both have been held as prisoners for the same term, 5-and-a-half years, and have been subjected to hideous amounts of torture.
After a self-professed suicide attempt, McCain survived the ordeal, returned home to his first wife and family, and has gone on to be a US Senator or Congressman for over 25 years, and has a chance to become POTUS this September. However, if McCain’s mind is sane, he would probably see at least a moral similarity to how he as an American POW was treated by the North Vietnamese after dropping bombs on them, and how a captured terrorist/enemy combatant was treated by at the hands of his American government for bombing the WTC. However, after not having batted an eyelid to assist fellow US citizen Jose Padilla when he was tortured for a terrorist/enemy combatant crime that he was never even tried for, I am sure McBama will stay quiet on the human rights violations committed on Khaled Sheikh Mohammed (or KSM as the US government refers to him in dehumanizing fashion in the 9/11 Commission Report).
Here are some videos from Ron Paul’s “Rally For The Republic” from today. I watched the first 5 hours or so of the festivities and I thought the speaker’s were excellent. I’ll post more as I upload or find them. Here are a few: the introduction by Tucker Carlson, Doug Wead’s excellent speech, and Lew Rockwell’s anti-war, anti-state, pro-freedom speech.
Introduction from Tucker Carlson:
Doug Wead’s “I’m here in Minneapolis to stand up for Ron Paul because…”
John McCain continues his expertise in politics with the choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. He also continues his quite Bill Clinton-like “wherever the wind blows” stances on policy. I don’t understand how John McCain can argue for his VP selection with a straight face when he says that she “can best help me shake up Washington and make it start working again for people who are counting on us.” McCain has been working in Washington for almost 30 years. He is partly responsible for the broken Washington he himself, and now Palin, aims to fix. The hypocrisy is rampant. Sarah Palin is nothing more than a pretty political puppet for McCain’s politics as usual.
McCain and his expert campaigners have selected someone who the Ron Paul faithful singled out as a potential running mate for Dr. Paul should he magically win the GOP nomination. She has a great conservative record of cutting spending and demanding ethics in government although she is no stranger to alleged ethics violations herself. She is greatly similar to McCain in that light. McCain was part of the Keating 5 Savings and Loan scandal in the 1980’s. He seems to have an expertise in getting people to ignore such things by championing reform of the very things he’s accused of abusing. Palin has a much shorter history of such things, but she has “welcomed the investigation” of herself after being accused of similar nepotism.
On the policy front there are decidedly non-McCain-like Palin positions. She is a very strong proponent of drilling in Alaska, while McCain is still clinging on the protection of ANWR. She has spoken out against “cap and trade” while McCain has made it a key element of his platform. When the Alaskan legislature voted to not fund the implementation of REAL ID Act, Governor Palin acquiesced by not vetoing nor signing the bill. The effect being that Alaska has now rejected the federally mandated REAL ID. The ACLU even praised Palin for her inaction. McCain is a vocal supporter of REAL ID and an assortment of federal legislation that pretends there is no 10th amendment to the Constitution.
Bob Barr gets another hour with Glenn Beck. He demonstrates his moderate libertarianism here. Hopefully he wins over some viewers who were/are on the fence about voting third party. Many topics are discussed. The video below is in 6 parts thanks to YouTube 10 minute limits and commercials on the show.
This afternoon WashingtonPost.com had a Q&A session with Bob Barr. I found it somewhat annoying that he didn’t answer all the questions (or they weren’t included in the transcript) when someone asked a two- or three-part question, but nonetheless it could serve well for those not too familiar with Bob Barr. Oh, and the closet Libertarian purist in me cringed when he called for “some form of a consumption type tax” in lieu of the IRS and payroll deductions.
In 2005 Judge Andrew Napolitano gave an interview to Reason Magazine’s Nick Gillespie promoting his new book (at the time) “Constitutional Chaos“. In the interview he outlines the progression of liberty lost in America.
His explanation demonstrates the incremental steps taking us from freedom towards tyranny. The next time someone attempts to argue with you about having to sacrifice liberty for safety point them to this interview.
Reason: What’s your case against the USA PATRIOT Act?
Napolitano: Let’s put aside all of the procedural problems with enacting it. Forget about the fact that there was no debate. Forget about the fact that most members of Congress didn’t even have an opportunity to read it. It is a direct assault on at least three amendments to the Constitution: the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the Fifth Amendment. The PATRIOT Act legitimates the notion that if we give up certain freedoms, the government will keep us safer. I reject that notion from a moral and legal point of view. I also reject it from a practical point of view. It doesn’t work. The government doesn’t need our freedoms to keep us safer. No one–no lawyer, judge, or historian–can point to a single incident in American history where national security was impaired because someone insisted on their right to free speech or their right to privacy or their right to due process.
The PATRIOT Act encourages what the government calls “national security letters”–basically, self-written search warrants. It violates the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits self-written search warrants. The PATRIOT Act and two of its predecessors, the Foreign Intelligence Security Act of 1977 [FISA] and the Electronic Privacy Act of 1986, authorized the government to obtain search warrants by bypassing [longstanding tradition in] the courts. Today an FBI agent investigating a person need only satisfy her or himself that the person under investigation is a threat to national security. The agent doesn’t have to demonstrate evidence to a judge.
The Judge can authoritatively articulate our loss of liberty better than anyone and that includes Ron Paul. It is a shame he is beholden to FOX News and cannot show bias about candidates he supports. It is pretty obvious that he is a Ron Paul supporter after his rousing introduction of Ron Paul last year, calling him the “Thomas Jefferson of our day”.
He deserves a medal for doing his radio show along side neocon torture supporter and warmonger Brian Kilmeade without choking him.
This morning Bob Barr appeared on CNN “American Morning” and discussed his attempts to get into the Saddleback Church’s Presidential forum last Saturday evening. The interviewer asks him some of the same questions. Barr doesn’t disappoint. He promotes the ideas of small government libertarian ideas with the best of them. Check out the 4+ minute video below.
Doug Wead will be speaking at Ron Paul’s Rally For The Republic. He was a special assistant to President George H. W. Bush. He is writing a series of stories in his blog related to Ron Paul leading up to the rally. All of them are wonderful. The August 10th entry is entitled, “Ron Paul: The Prophet“. In it Wead is astounded that someone in the House Of Representatives was prophetic regarding the events of September 11th a full year before it occurred.
So it comes as a bit of shock to encounter an honest thinker, and one in government! And to find one in the United States House of Representatives, where the members are perpetually politicking for re-election, is astounding.
But listen to this. Fully a year before the events of September 11, 2001, Ron Paul expressed his alarm at American foreign policy arrogance, particularly how it was increasingly seen in Islamic countries.
“The cost in terms of liberties lost and the unnecessary exposure to terrorism are difficult to determine, but in time it will become apparent to all of us that foreign interventionism is of no benefit to American citizens, but is instead a threat to our liberties.” - Ron Paul (spoken in the year 2000.)
In an official press release, Bob Barr rails against the ridiculous taxes on air fare:
“Airline fares are rocketing upward, along with higher fuel prices. And so are government taxes. Yet even if you cancel the ticket, you still get stuck with the tax. And if you change your flight, you get hit again.
Anyone who looks at the cost breakdown when they buy a ticket will see a federal excise tax, a security fee, and airport charges. They make even a cheap ticket expensive for many families. And it’s not obvious that we get good value for our money—ask yourself how safe you feel the next time you are standing in an airport security line and the TSA employees confiscate someone’s bottle of water.
Even more outrageous, though, the government keeps your money even if you change your ticket. At least the airlines give you credit—minus a hefty ‘change fee,’’of course. But the federal government just pockets the money. When asked about this unfair practice, government employees say that’s just the way the regulations are written—regulations that they, of course, wrote!
The airport taxes might be small change compared to the federal income tax, but they exemplify how the government cares more about collecting money than treating taxpayers fairly. That will change in a Barr administration.
One of the priorities of my administration will be to sharply cut and significantly simplify federal taxes. We pay too much and spend too much time figuring out how much we have to pay. That needs to change. Lowering and simplifying taxes will make all of us better off, and make our country both freer and more prosperous.
I will also ensure that the American people stop paying taxes on services that they don’t receive. Like airline travel. We don’t let businesses get away with charging us for services that they don’t perform. We should hold government to the same standard. As President Barr will do.”
Liberty Maven
“. In the interview he outlines the progression of liberty lost in America.
