One of Liberty Maven’s (soon-to-be) Liberty Heroes, Thomas DiLorenzo, was interviewed by columnist Ilana Mercer. DiLorenzo, who recently wrote Hamilton’s Curse, discusses at length Hamilton’s strong desire for mercantilism in this country, and throws the stated desires of Obama and McCain into the mix for comparison purposes.
Obama is a slick politician, so I expect him to continue to administer the neo-mercantilist, Hamiltonian empire that has been built up by both parties over the decades, with all of its schemes for corporate welfare for defense contractors, investment bankers and myriad other politically active businesses which, in turn, provide financial support for the regime. But Obama is also a hardcore leftist who spent his earlier career working with some of the craziest socialists in America, groups like ACORN, who advocated such things as kicking doctors off the boards of hospitals and replacing them with “the poor,” and Soviet-style nationalization of the energy and health care industries.
With the Republican Party in the process of choking to death on its own imperialistic big government vomit, I’m reminded of a true Ron Paul classic demonstrating yet again his penchant for delivering a blunt required message rather than the usual party line candy-coated message we get from his lawmaking peers. Ron Paul is an economic and political rainmaker.
When he rises to deliver a speech in the House of Representatives he knows his words will be delivered to an echo chamber, but he does it anyway. He does it for the cause of human liberty and we love him for it.
If there is anyone out there who can make the following happen, please do so:
Gather all Republican lawmakers and governors together.
Strap them in theater seats.
Play Ron Paul’s “We’ve Been Neo-Conned” speech from 2003 on the screen.
When the speech ends, start it over again.
Repeat number 4 until they all reject their evil ways and embrace the Constitution.
Lady Liberty is wielding her paddle and the GOP have been very bad children. With each THWACK the only response should be, “Thank you, may I have another.”
Someone is responsible, and it’s important that those of us who love liberty, and resent big-brother government, identify the philosophic supporters who have the most to say about the direction our country is going. If they’re wrong – and I believe they are – we need to show it, alert the American people, and offer a more positive approach to government. However, this depends on whether the American people desire to live in a free society and reject the dangerous notion that we need a strong central government to take care of us from the cradle to the grave. Do the American people really believe it’s the government’s responsibility to make us morally better and economically equal? Do we have a responsibility to police the world, while imposing our vision of good government on everyone else in the world with some form of utopian nation building? If not, and the enemies of liberty are exposed and rejected, then it behooves us to present an alternative philosophy that is morally superior and economically sound and provides a guide to world affairs to enhance peace and commerce.
In John Stossel’s latest column he takes on Barack Obama and suggests his policies will lead us further down the “Road To Serfdom”.
Obama promises:
“We will change the world … There is nothing we can’t do, nothing we can’t accomplish if we are unified.”
Who is this “we” politicians always cite?
We can change the world for the better if “we” means hundreds of millions of free people pursuing their interests, inventing, building, parenting, helping.
But the politicians’ “we” is different. It means government. “We” will take your money by force and order you about. A democracy can become the tyranny of the majority. That’s no way to create prosperity.
On the President-Elect’s web site Change.gov, Obama advocates compulsory community service:
…all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and … all college students … conduct 100 hours of community service…
Why oh why would the first black president of America allow, and perhaps even encourage, yet another form of slavery in our nation? Has Barack Obama forgotten the African-American side of his own heritage? Doesn’t he know that compulsory community service is just slavery by a different name?
The controversy over coercing young people into national servitude to their political masters emerged almost as soon as Obama named Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff-in-waiting.
J.D. Tuccille, Civil Liberties Examiner for Dallas Examiner.com was one of the first to point out that Emanuel co-authored a book that calls for compulsory service for all Americans ages 18 to 25.
…I see no reason why compelled service should not be regarded as involuntary servitude — labor rendered against one’s will — of the sort forbidden in the United States under the Thirteenth Amendment. More importantly, I see no reason why compelled service, as an imposition against an individual’s right to exercise liberty and determine the course of his or her own life, should not be regarded as evil.
Quote of the Day: “If I want to be free from any other man’s dictation, I must understand that I can have no other man under my control.” — William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) Source: “The Forgotten Man and Other Essays,” 1919
Subject: Will seven years of damage to civil liberties be reversed?
We heard it repeatedly: “Change we can believe in.” That’s what the President-elect promised. Do you expect it?
Well, we’re going to demand it.
Our civil liberties were trashed during the last seven years.
Habeas Corpus. Torture. Warrantless spying. And more. Where do we begin? For one thing . . .
We want President Obama to tell us the magnitude of the Bush Administration’s warrantless spying on Americans.
In 2005 the New York Times exposed the so-called “Terrorist Surveillance Program.” They had to rush the story to publish the story before the Bush Administration could stop it with an injunction. The story scared the Bush administration. And rightly so.
They were breaking the law. Someone should’ve gone to jail. But the Bush Administration had cajones — big brass ones.
First, they stonewalled, misdirected, and refused to provide documents to Congress. They even subpoenaed the phone records of the investigating reporters.
Then they demanded that Congress legalize their crimes retroactively, and immunize the phone companies that had conspired with them.
It took two years, but the Bush administration got what it wanted.
First, they had to wait for an election to provide a Congressional majority of “change Democrats.” It was the Democrats who gave the president his “get out of jail free card.”
One notable “change Democrat” showed us what change really means. His name was Barack Obama. He changed from his 2006 stance and voted to give President Bush the unconstitutional powers and immunity from prosecution that President Bush so desperately wanted and needed.
Ron Paul supporter Will Buchanan started walking on April 14th and hasn’t stopped yet. He took his first steps at Cannon Beach, Oregon and plans to finish his trek on the seacoast of New Hampshire. What other than a passion for liberty could possess a man? Buchanan’s aim is to raise awareness for the Free State Project and Ron Paul’s message of freedom.
In late 2007, we wrote about the Ron Paul Rider, Michael Maresco, riding his bike across the United States with the main goal of promoting Ron Paul’s freedom message and presidential campaign. Now we have Will Buchanan, the Ron Paul Walker, taking one step at a time toward liberty.
I’m continually amazed at the actions freedom loving people undertake to spread an idea, but what a wonderful idea it is. After rolling over in their graves at the recent destruction of liberty by our government, our Founders would point to these magnificent individual efforts and smile knowing that their version of America may be relegated to the shadows, but still exists. There is hope.
Buchanan, recently passed through Erie, PA and attracted some media coverage from the local FOX affiliate (Video Report Here).
It’s a long way from Cannon Beach, Oregon to New Hampshire – especially when you do it on foot.
With about 2700 miles under his belt, Will Buchanan is getting close.
He’s making his way to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project – a group of 20,000 libertarians who are moving there to try and create a libertarian state:
“Basically they feel government’s gotten too big and too intrusive. So they want to congregate in one area to try to make more of a difference and doing something on a local level rather than being spread out all over the country.”
You can retrace Buchanan’s footsteps every step of the way via his video blog of the trek at walkforliberty.com.
Quote of the Day: “Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
– James Bovard, Source: Lost Rights. The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martin’s Press: New York, 1994), p. 333
Free market advocates must speak in favor of business regulation. This may sound strange, but that’s only because the politicians have conditioned us to think about things in the wrong way.
The politicians are busy blaming DE-regulation for the current financial crisis. This is partly self-serving, but it’s also due to a defect in the way politicians think.
The politicians think government regulations are the ONLY regulations that exist. Therefore, in their mind, to repeal a government regulation is to DE-regulate.
They are very wrong.
Often, the repeal of a government regulation will result in the restoration of free market regulations that are far stronger.
Free market regulation comes in several forms. One involves customers taking their business elsewhere when a company fails to provide a good product at a good price. Businesses are regulated by their customers.
Please notice that the government operates under different rules . . .
In his weekly Texas Straight Talk, Ron Paul congratulates Barack Omaba for making history this election, and voices his hopes that the new administration will not make the same inerventionist mistakes that were make in the 30s which exacerbated the problems of the Great Depression:
With the election behind us, our country turns hopeful eyes to the future. I have a few hopes of my own.
I congratulate our first African-American president-elect.Martin Luther King, Jr. certainly would be proud to see this day.We are stronger for embracing diversity, and I am hopeful that we can continue working through the tensions and wrongs of the past and become a more just and colorblind society.I hope this new administration will help bring us together, and not further divide us.I have always found that freedom is the best way to break down barriers.A free society emphasizes the importance of individuals, and not because they are part of a certain group.That’s the only way equal justice can be achieved.
We will face more tough economic problems during this new administration.In fact, the worst is yet to come.A vast amount of problematic mortgages have not begun to reset their variable interest rates and go into default.We already have unprecedented deficits, spending is out of control, and more big industries are coming to government with their hands out.My hope is that this administration will handle this economic crisis better than the interventionists and big government spenders of the 1930’s, the bureaucrats that prolonged the Depression.I hope that new government programs and spiderwebs of red tape do not pop up to interfere with American productivity, and that we can quickly get our financial footing again.We have to understand that an economic correction needs to take place and the only way out of the coming recession is to go through it.Efforts to avoid it can only prolong it.I hope we can somehow find our way back to sound money and reject corporate cronyism.
We cannot address our budget problems at home without changing our disastrous foreign policy abroad.I am hopeful that the new administration can take on the mantle of peace and diplomacy in foreign policy that many Americans feel they were promised.Many other nations also have this hope, which exudes from their congratulatory sentiments offered after the election.They hope that national sovereignty will be respected.They hope that through diplomacy violence and war can be averted.I hope so too.One thing is unquestionable: our aggressive foreign policy of the past has been costly, in blood and in treasure.Our treasure is running out, and fewer volunteers are stepping up to enable that foreign policy.So for these reasons, if we are to continue to have an all-volunteer military, and see prosperity again in the future, I have every reason to hope our foreign policy will change.In order for it to remain the same, mandatory military service would have to return, as well as accelerated theft through debt and inflation to pay for it.I have a hard time imagining popular support for these policies, simply for the sake of war and conquest, when we clearly want peace.
I have many hopes for the future in this time of transition.But I have seen this country face many forks in the road, and sadly take the wrong one too many times.We have heard a lot of talk, and it remains to be seen what actions and specific policies that talk will translate into.So while I may be hopeful, I remain deeply concerned about our future.
Ron Paul was interviewed on Brian and The Judge on FOX Radio this morning. This interview is classic Dr. Paul. Very interesting topics were discussed. Ron Paul was able to describe why he doesn’t like talking about “trickle down or trickle up” economics, but instead wants the financial conversation to focus on freedom and individual liberty.
Brian Kilmeade suggests that if John McCain offered Ron Paul some type of deal that it was possible that McCain could have won the election. Dr. Paul thinks otherwise.
This is definitely worth a listen.
The interview lasts about 11 minutes. Listen below.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Liberty Maven
