Not My Kind

Republican candidate for the Presidential nomination, Congressman Ron Paul, presents himself as a libertarian, and is favored by roughly 50% of the Libertarian Party members. He is, however, not my kind of Libertarian.
My kind of Libertarian is pragmatic, rather than a blind follower of the Faith in Libertarian principles. The pragmatic Libertarian is no less a believer in Libertarian principles than is the Ivory Tower Libertarian, but the pragmatic is inclined to apply those principles within the tolerance of the situation in question.
Dr. Paul fails to acknowledge the facts. He tries to shove the Libertarian principles down our throats, without consideration of the situation. He defends his views by citing the crackpot 9/11 conspiracy theorists when talking about his opposition to the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is, in fact, a politician, not a statesman, as can be seen in his Wikipedia entry. In fact, he was the only professional politician ever to run for office as a Libertarian. It should be remembered that, when he ran for President in 1988, he received the lowest national vote count in the history of the Libertarian Party. It should also be remembered that, after the 1988 elections, he was heavily criticised by Libertarians for improperly representing the Libertarian principles.
Where would Dr. Paul draw the line of defense against those who do us harm? Would he actually wait until there is another invasion of our sovereignty, in which thousands of innocent citizens are killed? It is true that, if Saddam had been left alone, we would not be fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, but, where would we be fighting them? Our enemy, which is waging a continuing war against us, is not a foreign country. Our enemy is a population of men who follow an extremely radical religious philosophy, in which the only way to reach Paradise is to murder those who do not follow their particular brand of religion. They have no borders. If we were to wait for them to come to us, the toll in human lives would be catastrophic. Dr. Paul's isolationist philosophy would ensure that such a toll would be taken. The pragmatic Libertarian is not an isolationist.
Dr. Paul does not represent all of the Libertarian principles. He is an ardent prohibitionist. On the issue of abortion, he would like to return to the days of back alley butchers.
Libertarian philosophy can not be imposed from the top down--it must work its way up from the individual and the smallest possible community.
Neal Boortz, who literally wrote the book on the Fair Tax Initiative, is my kind of Libertarian. He understands that preserving the future of our way of life is not the "temporary" security of which Ben Franklin spoke. Walter E. Williams, who often writes about the need of the individual to take personal responsibility in order to earn and preserve our natural rights, is my kind of Libertarian.
Gary Johnson was elected Governor of New Mexico in 1994 and served in that office for the full two terms allowed by that state's constitution. As Governor, he was an outstanding example of how the pragmatic Libertarian operates within the practical situation. He successfully repealed New Mexico's prohibition of package liquors on Sunday, which resulted in a dramatic drop in DWI/DUI incidents in that state. After he granted permission for a Native American clan in New Mexico to open a casino on its reservation/property, the Federal government sought an injunction against the opening of that casino. Governor Johnson successfully stood against the Feds, in the name of states' rights and property rights, and the injunction was dropped. He allowed homosexual partnerships to be legally recognized in New Mexico. While not able to repeal New Mexico's income tax, he reduced spending while creating tax incentives for commercial ventures in New Mexico, dramatically improving that state's economy--a policy that was continued by Governor Bill Richardson. Amid severe criticism from both Democratic and Republican politicians, Governor Johnson brought the question of marijuana prohibition to the forefront. Johnson did all this with very little experience in politics. He is not, by any means, a professional politician. Gary Johnson, of course, is my kind of Libertarian.
The Libertarian Party has been trying to shake the image of the "Ivory Tower Libertarian Crackpot" for many years. Dr. Paul has, in the Republican Party Presidential nomination debates, presented himself as just that. Libertarians would do well to ignore his bid for the Presidency.

Glamour Girl

Because I felt the need to post a picture on this blog. I present Clansi, a cat who knows how to pose.

This also gives me the opportunity to recommend Riotcats, a photo blog with a clever and humorous twist for cat lovers.
While I'm on the subject of humor, I will remind the readers, that if you don't like what you read on my blog, I recommend you use The Pornolizer, with the warning that it is for mature audiences only. Try it, you'll like it.

An alternative translation

Before

The following is a summary of the highlights of Osama Bin Ladin's latest video-taped speech, as translated, poorly, by our own Sheik Aywan Yobudi:
After

One morning I woke up and discovered I had grey hair. As the world's most feared terrorist leader, I begain feeling as if I no longer had control over the jihad. I felt like I was getting too old, and for three years I lacked the confidence to make new videos.
Then, I discovered Just For Men. I used it, and after only five minutes, the gray was gone. My confidence returned, and I could score chicks again. In fact I am so confident that I have decided to announce my candidacy for the office of the President of the United States.
"What," you ask, "can Osama do for me as President?"
I will tell you what I can do for you as President:
Your Congress has not done as they have promised and removed the American armed forces from Iraq. As President, I will make sure that Congress keeps their promise, and then I will have their feet and hands removed before I have them stoned and their heads removed...
Your economy is failing, with a class separation between the rich and the poor. As President, I will make sure there is no class separation among the dhimmis. I will take all the money and give it to the Wahadi Sect of Islam, and to the jihad, and I will keep the rest...
Taxes are making you poor, but, remember, as dhimmis you can not own property or a business, and you may keep only enough money to keep yourself fed, so you will not have to worry about taxes if I am President...
In America, you have crime caused by the partaking of alcohol, tobacco, drugs, and scantily clad women. As your President, I will invoke Sharia Law, and there will be no partaking of alcohol, tobacco, or drugs, and there will be no scantily clad women except for those I wish for myself...
In America you have no choices--you have to be all that you can be. As your President, I can offer you many choices...
You can convert to the Wahadi Sect of Islam and live and die in the Glory of Allah...
You can convert to Islam as a heretic and die by Sharia Law, which means you will have your hands and feet removed, then you will be stoned, then you will be hanged, then you will be stoned again, then you will have your head removed, and then you will be stoned one more time...
You can be as you are and live in the dirt and in servitude as dhimmis...
Or you can remain as you are and refuse dhimmi status and be infidels, which means you will be stoned and then you...oh, you know what it means.
So, as your President I will be the only one who can help America find its way...
Thank-you, good night, and Death to America.
Oh, and remember--it's Osama not Obama.

The Dilemma

The Democratic Party has spent so much time politicising the Iraq War, they find themselves in a bit of a quandary. General Petreaeus, the coalition commander in Iraq, is due to report to Congress, next week, on the progress of the reinforcement strategy in the conflict. It is expected that there will be good news and bad news.
The good news will most likely be that the "surge" is working; Anbar Province, an Al Qaeda stronghold less than six months ago, is nearly cleansed of the insurgents, the Iraqi military is stepping up and is more able to carry out operations on their own, and violence in Baghdad has declined over the last six months.
This good news is bad news for the Democratic Majority in Congress, and they are already planning ways to spin it, as pointed out by Libertarian radio personality Neal Boortz.
Boortz reports that, if there is good news, the Democrats will spin it as being "Bush's report," and therefore compromised. They will embrace and emphasize the bad news--that the Iraqi Government isn't meeting its benchmarks--using it as an excuse to surrender. There are other Democratic members of Congress who will say success means we can pull out of Iraq, now.
The sad part is that many of these politicians understand the need for success in Iraq, but they have dug themselves into a hole filled with denial and ignorance. If they don't understand the need for success, they haven't been listening to Al Qaeda leaders who have said that Iraq is the main battleground for Al Qaeda. They do not understand that victory over Al Qaeda in Iraq is important, not just to Iraq and America, but to the entire region.
Michael Ledeen, the author of The Iranian Timebomb, points out in his book, and explains in his blog, that the dangerous and deadly Iranian Supreme Council can be overthrown from within Iran, much like what happened in the Soviet Union, unless we fail in Iraq. Failure in Iraq will be touted as a victory by the Iranian mullahs, and regime change there will be much harder. If a regime change without war can be effected in Iran, it will prevent a future war over Iran's nuclear weapons, and, possibly, nuclear conflict between Israel and Iran.
Success in Iraq is important, because it will show the people of Iran that they can trust the Americans for help, rather than seeing us as cowards and quitters, as the mullahs characterize us.
But the Democratic politicians won't acknowledge this. Nor will they acknowledge that, if the US leaves Iraq prematurely, that there will be millions of Iraqis killed, that there will likely be a much more widespread war in the region involving Iran and Saudi Arabia five to ten years down the road, and that the entire world would be cut off from the oil resources of the region.
The Democrats know that history will hold them responsible for the disaster, which is part of the dilemma they face. They cannot answer such questions as "how will we react to the Iraqi genocide," or "how will Western civilization survive without Middle Eastern Oil," or, even, "how do we prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb?"
Like it or not, the future of the world depends on what happens in Iraq. Everything is tied to that conflict. It is time that Congress should stop politicising the war and get on with the issues they really need to work on. Otherwise they can only dig their way in deeper.

Future Pundit?

With over 9 million hits, I know just about everybody has seen this, but here it is again:

Please click here, if you can't view the video.

A couple of days ago, there was a pundit on one of the news channels, either FNC or CNN--I apologize for not remembering his name--who was discussing Michael Vick's guilty plea. He tried desparately to tie Vick's problems to the policies of the Bush Administration, saying, "Bad apples are falling from the trees, and that wouldn't be happening if our freedoms weren't so restricted by the (Iraq) war and the Patriot Act."
Huh?
I'm sure if the gentleman had had more air time, he would have attempted to blame Bush for Lindsey Lohan and Britney Spears as well.
Yet this type of illogic seems to be very common nowadays, with people jumping to conclusions that no rational mind could reach.
The Democratic Party is probably planning, at this moment, to run Miss Teen South Carolina for Congress in 2010. If she doesn't get elected, she will be in high demand as a political "expert." It wouldn't surprise me at all.

Why Do We Have Laws?

One of the worst arguments against ending prohibition I have ever heard came a few weeks ago, during a discussion of the subject between Bill O'Reilly and Geraldo Rivera. O'Reilly, an ardent prohibitionist, blurted out, "If we legalize murder, then we could shoot more people."
Now, before we jump to the conclusion that O'Reilly is a homicidal psychopath who would murder people if there weren't a law, it must be understood that he is actually a paranoid sociopath who bellieves there should be a law governing every aspect of our lives, from what we watch on television or listen to on the radio to the top salary corporate officers should be paid. O'Reilly seems to be one who believes that
we are basically evil, and will do harm to others or ourselves unless everything we do is strictly regulated. He truly believes that laws prevent crime.
He is, of course, wrong, as are so many others. From the very beginnings of civilization, when it was discovered that it is better to ally with others rather than killing or stealing from them whenever encountered, it has been deeply ingrained in our very Being that it is wrong to kill, rape, or steal from others, or otherwise trespass on the person or property of others. We know, in our very Spirit, or, if one is an Atheist, in our deepest subconscious, that these are crimes against Nature, and that repercussions are inevitable.
There are, however, a small percentage of those in society who are missing the basic moral reasoning most of us possess. These individuals do not have the ability to consider the consequences of their actions. In the earliest times, they were taken out of society by retributive actions by the family or clan leadership of the wronged. Thus were the laws of Nature enforced--to every action, a reaction; an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. With the advancement of civilization came the rule of law.
There are two kinds of laws--just and unjust. Just laws are those that establish a code for dealing with criminal acts against Nature. Unjust laws are those that create new crimes and are therefore, in themselves, crimes against nature.
Laws, traditionally, were never intended to create or prevent crime--we know that, law or no law, crimes are committed. Rather, laws were created in order to set a code by which retribution could be realized without leaving it in the hands of those who may kill the wrong person or wrongfully accuse others. Laws could be said to keep the peace by setting an order of punishment or retribution, thus preventing large scale family feuds or clan wars. In modern civilization, laws for crimes against Nature are necessary to remove the social and/or Spiritual devients and depraved who commit crimes from society.
As civilization grew, so did government. Laws became a tool for adding more wealth to governmental coffers, or for controlling the thoughts and actions of the general populace. At various times, in various societies, it has been a crime to be a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim, or a Buddhist. Property of those individuals or societies were confiscated by the governments which outlawed their religions, and the practitioners were often tortured before they were killed. Such laws are, in themselves crimes against Nature in that they attempt to suppress the natural tendency of our kind to find Spiritual growth and strength. Nature Itself has enacted retribution against those governments which had such laws--most of those governments have fallen, and those that continue to suppress the Natural inclination toward the Spiritual, will inevitably fall. Law or no law, these religions have perservered and serve the Spiritual needs of the majority of the Earth's human population, while the governments that have enacted laws against Nature serve nothing.
Toward the end of the Nineteenth Century A.D., governments began to realize the value of demonizing so-called vices and creating "victimless" crimes against them. Under such laws, government coffers could be vastly increased by confiscating property, exacting fines, and by receiving pay-offs and campaign contributions from the crime lords whom the laws enabled.
The demonization of alcoholic beverages culminated in 1929, when an ammendment to the Constitution of the United States was passed and it became illegal to purchase, sell, possess, manufacture, or transport such products within the United States. Subsequently, individuals who were missing the Natural awareness of right or wrong rose in power as they sold the "illegal" products to the masses, and murdered those who would compete with them or prevent them from plying their trade. Politicians happily accepted bribes, kickbacks, and contributions from these individuals, and the Federal government gladly confiscated property and exacted fines from those who chose not to pay such bribes. The law did not prevent people from imbibing alcoholic beverages, it only created more crime. By 1934, the crime and corruption rates had become so high, and the civil disobedience of the general alcohol consuming public had become so widespread, that the government had no choice but to repeal the prohibition ammendment.
To backtrack somewhat, the earliest known by-product of agricultural cultivation is beer. As civilizations grew, the water supplies became poisoned, with bacteria, viruses, and harmful parasites, so distilled and fermented beverages became a necessary alternative to water. Wine frequently appears in the oldest of scriptures and writings of nearly every culture. Even where water was palatable, the value of alcoholic beverages in the social context was well known. The main reason alcohol prohibition did not work is because alcoholic beverage, in most cultures, have become a part of human nature.
Vices which traditionally do not involve murder, theft or rape, such as the use of psychotropic drugs for recreation and meditation purposes, are also part of Nature, having been used from the earliest times of civilization by shamans and others to increase the depth of thought. It is human nature to seek ways of looking at things in different ways, or to induce Spiritual awareness or awakening. Marijuana has long been a medium for doing so. In addition, marijuana has been used for various medicinal purposes, and to this day is an accepted therapy for eating disorders and glaucoma, as well as its use in pain distraction therapy.
It must be noted here that the use of either alcohol or marijuana should be in moderation and with prudence. Self-responsibility is the key phrase here, and over use of any substance is unnacceptable. Operating a vehicle or machinery while under the influence is unnacceptable, as is attempting to work in potentially dangerous or hazardous situations.
After alcohol prohibition was repealed, there was a loss of income for those who had profited from the underground economy prohibition had created. The demonization of marijuana had begun long before, with claims that it caused people to steal, that it incited young people to have sex, thus being a contributor to unwanted teen pregnancy, that it made "black men desire white women," all scientifically unfounded. The financial aspects of alcohol prohibition had served well--families such as the Kennedys who profitied from the prohibition are still financially and politically powerful today--so it was easy to create a new prohibition. Marijuana use was not as widespread as alcohol use, so there would not be as much backlash by the general public. The Controlled Substance Act of 1936 began a prohibition which is still in effect today.
As in the case of alcohol prohibition, the marijuana prohibition has created an underground economy rooted in violence and anti-social behavior. Likewise, the government gains wealth through confiscation of personal property and fines. It is estimated that nearly eighty million Americans use marijuana, which only increases the strength of the underground economy as long as prohibition is in effect. Law enforcement officers are constantly placed in life threatening situations, as was the case in the gang wars of the early 1930's. The kickbacks, however, are different in that they are indirect. There is no proof that our politicians are being corrupted by the drug lords directly, so we can not imply that there is such corruption. However, there is still much money to be made legitimately under prohibition--manufacturers who produce law enforcement technology have much at stake in prohibition, and they can influence votes and campaign donations. No matter what else happens in the world, politicians can always take a stand by decrying the horrors of drugs being sold to and used by children. They disregard the fact that if there were no prohibition, the distribution of marijuana could be better controlled and less likely to fall into the hands of children. To all appearances, the financial gain realized by continuing prohibition is worth more than dealing with the victimization created by prohibition.
But Nature always corrects Itself. After more than seventy years of prohibition, more people use marijuana now than ever. Voters in nearly every state that have had legalization of medical marijuana on a ballot have passed such laws, even in the face of severe opposition from the Federal government. It is not a matter of if, but of when the marijuana prohibition is repealed. Common sense and Natural law will eventually prevail.

Please use some facts

I love to argue, and will do so on any point for which I can find facts that back up my argument. I believe that everyone has the right to his or her opinion, and I encourage expression of opinion on this site, whether I agree with it or not. The thing is, if you are only using conjecture and hearsay to back your comments--"facts" that would never stand up in court, for example--there is nothing for me to argue about. Just a thought I had to clear...