Feb

10

Woods and Folsom on Glenn Beck

Filed Under Economics, History, Thomas Woods | Leave a Comment

Thomas E. Woods, author of Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse and Burton W. Folsom Jr., author of New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America on Glenn Beck


Dec

30

Donald J. Boudreaux presents Mencken’s timeless insights

Filed Under H.L. Mencken, National, Political Philosophy | Leave a Comment

As Murray Rothbard wrote in H. L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian, “No one truly immersed in Mencken could emerge quite the same again; no one could retain the same faith in our “statesmen” or in the democratic political process itself, no one could ever be quite the same sucker for all manner of ideological, social, and political quackery, the same worshipper of solemn nonsense.”

Donald J. Boudreaux of Cafe Hayek, who is truly immersed in Mencken gives us some timeless Mencken wisdom.

Mencken’s timeless insights

By Donald J. Boudreaux
Friday, December 26, 2008

L’affair Rod Blagojevich reminds me that if I could bring one person back to life for an evening of good food, stiff drink and sterling conversation, that person would unquestionably be H.L. Mencken (1880-1956).

Mencken was a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, literary critic and expert on what he called “the American language.” But he was, in my view, above all this country’s unmatched observer and recorder of politics. So sit back and feast on these intellectually nutritious and tasty tidbits of Mencken’s political wisdom.

In Mencken’s view, the typical politician is a “merchant of delusions,” a “pumper-up of popular fears and rages.”

READ ON AT THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Dec

30

Obama is like FDR, only dumber

Filed Under Economics, H.L. Mencken, History, National | Leave a Comment

Like F.D.R., Only Worse
by A.W.R. Hawkins
12/23/2008

When F.D.R. took office in 1933, our country had been in a depression for approximately three and half years. Not unlike today’s severe recession, the depression he faced was international in scope, but the faltering economy of the United States predominated. F.D.R.’s “solution” to the economic hardships we faced was a socialism-made-simple approach that included everything from an expansion of government through more regulatory oversight and tax increases to the creation of employment opportunities via jobs for which the private sector saw no need.

READ ON AT HUMAN EVENTS

Mr. Hawkins does a pretty good job comparing Obama’s New New Deal with FDR’s New Deal at Human Events. Dumb ideas always manage to find their way back to bring ruin on a new generation of victims, reborn new and improved—usually even dumber than the original. As H.L. Mencken wrote, “The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.” There’s an important distinction there, a man with idiotic ideas that would effect a large number of other people typically wants to use the force of government to impose his ideas on others. If he could only rely on voluntary participation in his dumb ideas, practically nobody would listen. Government on the other hand can do what no sane and moral person could ever do; they can give idiocy—legitimacy. Why anybody would allow some idiot elected by idiots to have control over their lives and property I’ll never understand.

Nov

28

Robert Ringer on Fighting the Ugly Beltway Brew

Filed Under Conservative, Economics, Libertarian, National, Robert Ringer | Leave a Comment

Warnings From Insiders
Hyperinflation Fear

By Robert Ringer

I had a long talk yesterday with an old friend, an ex-Congressman who served eighteen years before retiring in disgust. Back in the late eighties, he invited me to give a talk to a group of likeminded conservative colleagues in his office. (A couple of young Congressmen who were at that meeting are now very high-profile politicos, but, to protect their privacy, I will refrain from giving their names.)

Afterward, my friend told me how impressed they had been with what I had to say. But I didn’t buy it, because one of the things I remember most vividly about that meeting was their blank stares. Clearly, those supposedly conservative Congressmen were not prepared to hear my analyses of government, the economy, or the future.

READ ON

Sep

17

What the Anti-Free Market Capitalists are up too

Filed Under Economics, Federal Reserve, National, Thomas Jefferson | Leave a Comment

That would be the FED and their Wall Street cronies for the unenlightened.
Thomas Jefferson knew the dangers of a central bank and fiat money in his time.
“Everything predicted by the enemies of banks, in the beginning, is now coming to pass. We are to be ruined now by the deluge of bank paper. It is cruel that such revolutions in private fortunes should be at the mercy of avaricious adventurers, who, instead of employing their capital, if any they have, in manufactures, commerce, and other useful pursuits, make it an instrument to burden all the interchanges of property with their swindling profits, profits which are the price of no useful industry of theirs.” –Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1814

And he knew that they would corrupt everything they touched including the Congress.
“The bank mania… is raising up a moneyed aristocracy in our country which has already set the government at defiance, and although forced at length to yield a little on this first essay of their strength, their principles are unyielded and unyielding. These have taken deep root in the hearts of that class from which our legislators are drawn, and the sop to Cerberus from fable has become history. Their principles lay hold of the good, their pelf of the bad, and thus those whom the Constitution had placed as guards to its portals, are sophisticated or suborned from their duties.” –Thomas Jefferson to Josephus B. Stuart, 1817.

Now back to the moneyed aristocracy of our time:

Free market capitalism: A ‘peek behind the curtain’

“It is a popular myth that financial markets are based on principles of capitalism,” observes Ron Rowland in his All Star Investor newsletter, adding, “but the opposite is closer to the truth.”

Assessing what he calls the Federal Reserve’s moves to “buy Wall Street,” he offers a straight-forward overview of the current situation and a “peek behind the curtain” of free markets and Wall Street.


READ ON

Sep

6

Bob Barr on that empty suit McCain

Filed Under Libertarian, Libertarian Party, National | Leave a Comment

“We’re going to recover the peoples trust by standing up again to the values Americans admire. The party of Lincoln, Roosevelt and Reagan is going to get back to basics” - John McCain

In other words the party of war, corporate welfare, the regulatory state, expanded executive power and big government is what the American people want according to John McCain.
As a Jeffersonian the legacy left by those presidents is not exactly something I admire.

Aug

27

Ron Paul on socialism as the enemy of liberty

Filed Under Communism, Libertarian, Ron Paul, Socialism | Leave a Comment

Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk Column
August 25, 2008

Freedom is Golden

As the Olympics wind down, I am amazed at how things change every four years. Many Americans were glued to their televisions to watch the excitement from Beijing, and also heard announcers wax nostalgic with memories of times when the Soviet Union was the USA’s biggest competitor for Olympic gold. There was a time when it was unthinkable that a government as powerful as that of the Soviet Union’s could possibly crumble, yet crumble it did. The irony is that the strength of the Soviet government was also its weakness, as no country, no economic system can remain strong under the crushing burden that is central planning.

READ ON

Aug

24

Glenn Beck with Penn Jillette - “There’s no way I’m going to vote for one of these two clowns”

Filed Under Democratic Party, Libertarian, Republican Party, Ron Paul | Leave a Comment

Glen and Penn discuss Bob Barr, Ron Paul, and not voting for Obama or McCain. Penn’s Curly Howard analogy is both funny and unvarnished. Pick either Obama or McCain and be prepared to get poked in the eye.

08/20/2008

Aug

9

Florida GOP says you can’t use the word “Republican” if you don’t support the neocon candidate

Filed Under Libertarian, Ron Paul | Leave a Comment

For the the GOP party elite and its brainwashed partisans, an election is just a team sport, it’s about keeping the fans loyal and ticket sales high even thought the team and the coach stinks to high heaven. They even go so far to claim the word “Republican” can only be used by themselves, and anyone who doesn’t follow their sick and reckless big government progressive agenda is a zealot.

GOP warns dissident wing
Republicans try to stop ‘Liberty Caucus’

By PETER GUINTA

State Republicans are trying to thwart a move by Ron Paul supporters to take over the party in St. Johns County and the state.

This week, the Republicans sent warning letters to 10 state chapters of the Republican Liberty Caucus — an organization within the party that promotes an agenda much the same as Ron Paul libertarians. The letter warned the caucus the law doesn’t allow them to use the word “Republican” in its name without permission.

Some local Republicans see the caucus as seeking control of their party and then opposing Sen. John McCain, who they see as too liberal. This is similar to what is playing out on the national stage, as mainstream Republicans are losing western support for McCain to libertarians.

READ ON

Aug

4

Ron Paul vs The Hypocritical Jingoists

Filed Under Foreign Policy, Mark Twain, National, Ron Paul | 1 Comment

“This nation is like all the others that have been spewed upon the earth–ready to shout for any cause that will tickle its vanity or fill its pocket. What a hell of a heaven it will be, when they get all these hypocrites assembled there!” - Mark Twain (Letter to Rev. J. H. Twichell, Jan. 29, 1901)

Human rights abuses in every country on earth arises from one common element—big government.
The U.S. is no different but maybe more unique in the fact that it has had a Bill of Rights that protected the natural rights of each and every person in its states from federal encroachment.
Ron Paul as usual is the only one to scold the self-righteous ignoramuses of congress on what they’ve done to abuse human rights in this country and in others.

U.S. congressman opposes House resolution on China

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 (Xinhua) — U.S. Republican congressman Ron Paul of Texas described the recent resolution by the House of Representatives on China’s human rights situation as “ill-conceived” and “hypocritical” and he urged the U.S. legislature to deal with human rights abuses in U.S. or those created abroad by U.S. foreign policies.

“I rise in opposition to this resolution, which is yet another meaningless but provocative condemnation of China. It is this kind of jingoism that has led to such a low opinion of the United States abroad,” Paul, who had run for U.S. president as a Republican candidate earlier, said in a statement posted on the official website of the House.

READ ON

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