RedStateEclectic

Campaign for Liberty - Nebraska Ad

Campaign for Liberty ad for right here in Nebraska...



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Orders We Will NOT Obey

The Oath Keepers make a pretty good video:

Did you ever have so many thoughts/emotions zipping around that you didn't know where to begin? I'm going to have to parse this one for a while.

OK is holding a Constitutional care package drive.

It is not lawful for us to deliver it up, nor for your Majesty to receive it. By no law can you violate the house of a private man, and do you think that the house of God may be taken away? It is asserted that all things are lawful to the Emperor, that all things are his. But do not burden your conscience with the thought that you have any right as Emperor over sacred things. - St. Ambrose

Freiligrath—O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst

An interesting post by Scott Horton discussing the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath, who was a tireless champion of freedom and civil liberties.

O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst!
O lieb, so lang du lieben magst!
Die Stunde kommt, die Stunde kommt,
Wo du an Gräbern stehst und klagst!

Read the rest.

Indecision 2009 and Beyond

The Daily Show hits it out of the park:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Indecision 2009 - Reindecision 2008 And Beyond
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Stewart does a great imitation of James Carville.

Golden Countries

Lately, there have been stories popping up everywhere about nations buying gold or holding onto their current "reserves". In a world where the national currencies of the world are not back by the metal, why is it important that gold be held at all? Maybe some countries might look at gold as an investment, but to what end? If they buy gold and make a profit, they sell the gold and use the monies toward some government boondoggle. They could simply print the money and do that.

Has anyone ever wondered why we have a Fort Knox? All of that gold came from confiscation of the American people. It is a reminder that we were robbed by our own government which promptly gave us twenty dollars for each ounce and then, after they had most of it, announced that the price was being fixed at thirty-five dollars an ounce (other countries could exchange their dollars for the higher priced gold but we citizens could not). It is still one of the greatest heists in history. What's the big deal you ask? One significant feature of gold-backed currencies is the vote with which you can cast with it. If you felt your government was being fiscally unsound, you could take your paper down to the bank and exchange it for gold. If enough people did this, it sent a huge signal. That voting mechanism is no longer.

The last ties to a gold standard were severed in 1971. What, then, is the reason for that hoard in Fort Knox or for a hoard of gold by any central bank which prints un-backed currencies? Could it simply be for the sake of illusion? A paper note is only as valuable as the people believe it to be. Fort Knox stands as a reminder to all of us that the U.S. government holds a tangible asset and therefore, by extension, our money has value. "Full faith and credit" and all that. We have the faith AND the credit to show for it. It's a bunch of hokum, of course, but it works for the time being.

What of the other countries who are buying gold and storing it even though they can print money at will? Some like to believe that these other countries want to create a world currency backed by gold. Maybe they do, in the same way that the Federal Reserve did. And after people become comfortable holding the new currency, a time will arrive when the global central bank will declare that it will no longer exchange gold for its fiat paper. Then it's off to the races again as that new bank prints money for what is likely to be a world government, allowing unprecedented expansion like we have seen here at home (Think of it like The United Nations with a printing press). The people will still use the currency if history is any guide.

Most likely, we can look for gold to become more valuable (and touted as such by the media) so that it can play the central role in the new currency's formation. At some point in the future, however, it will once again become known as the barbarous relic by the true barbarians who wish to print at large for purposes of power consolidation.

4 Mosques & A Skyscraper

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal prosecutors are seeking to seize four U.S. mosques and a New York City skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government.

In what could prove to be one of the biggest counterterrorism seizures in U.S. history, prosecutors on Thursday filed a civil complaint in federal court against the Alavi Foundation, seeking the forfeiture of more than $500 million in assets.

[...] Prosecutors said the Alavi Foundation managed the office tower on behalf of the Iranian government and, working with a front company known as Assa Corp., illegally funneled millions in rental income to Iran's state-owned Bank Melli. A U.S. Treasury official has accused Bank Melli of providing support for Iran's nuclear program, and it is illegal in the United States to do business with the bank.

Preemptive strikes... they're great, aren't they? They help stop "terrists". They also allow social workers into your homes, give cops the right to fine you for an opened alcoholic container in your car, compel legislatures to pass gun control laws, and make necessary trillions of dollars of stimulus to stave of some looming financial crisis. Just about everything in life could be considered a dangerous event about to happen. So why not intervene beforehand? Where do you draw the line? Right now, I don't think there is one.

From Where The World Ends

Actually a very nice place, yielding very nice pictures:

Humming Along in London

Good morning America, how are?

Morning greetings from the old world.

Continental Congress, 2009

Livestreaming.

Anybody Making the Trip?

Congressman Ron Paul Speaking in Ames

11/13/09 7:00 PM - 11/13/09 8:00 PM
Location:

Benton Auditorium in the Scheman Building (next to Hilton Coliseum) at the Iowa State Center in Ames.

One Year After - A Summary of Niceties

Over the last year the Congress and Administration have:

• Printed trillions of dollars of new money, raising the risk of future inflation
• Borrowed trillions of dollars, sucking capital out of private lending markets
• Run up deficits that pretty much guarantee future tax increases
• Toyed with health care bills that will substantially increase the cost of labor
• Toyed with climate bills that will substantially increase the cost of fuel and electricity
• Demagogued industries with average to below-average profitability for making obscene profits that must be reduced (e.g. health insurance companies who make 3-4% of sales)
• Taken over whole industries (autos, banks) and run them to the benefit of favored political constituencies, even when it violates the law (e.g. trashing for secured creditors of auto companies in favor of the UAW).
• Demonstrated a disdain for money-making by imposing populist compensation limits on executives of out-of-favor companies and industries.
• Spent money in the stimulus mainly to add government jobs, every one of which is generally focused on making my life running a business harder.  If you do not understand or believe this, you have not run a business that employs people.
• Shown a general philosophic hostility towards markets and capitalism

More.

Today, I read two articles by Friedrich Hayek, each dealing with a man he thoroughly admired - Lord Acton:

"Though few people seem yet to be aware of it, we are beginning to pay the price for one of the most fateful delusions which have ever guided political evolution. About a hundred years ago political wisdom had learned to comprehend as a result of centuries of bitter experience, the essential importance of manifold checks and barriers to the expansion of power. But after power seemed to have fallen into the hands of the great mass of the people, it was suddenly thought that no more restrictions on power were necessary. The delusion arose, described by Lord Acton in a phrase less hackneyed but no less profound than that which is now constantly quoted, "that absolute power may, by the hypothesis of its popular origin, be as legitimate as constitutional freedom". But power has an inherent tendency to expand and where there are no effective limitations it will grow without bounds, whether it is exercised in the name of the people or in the name of a few. Indeed, there is reason to fear that unlimited power in the hands of the people will grow farther and be even more pernicious in its effects than power exercised by few."

(The Fortunes of Liberalism, The Collected Works of F.A. Hayek p.249)

Journalistic Integrity

You have a better chance of finding a needle in a haystack. James Bovard is his usually hard-hitting self in this article about our complacent, compliant, conformist gaggle of obsequious sycophants known as the main stream media:

President Bill Clinton benefited from a press corps that often treated his falsehoods as nonevents — or even petty triumphs. Newsweek White House correspondent Howard Fineman commented that Clinton’s “great strength is his insincerity.... I’ve decided Bill Clinton is at his most genuine when he’s the most phony.... We know he doesn’t mean what he says.”

[...] Deference to the government is now the trademark of the American media — at least at times when the truth could have the greatest impact. The media were grossly negligent in failing to question or examine Bush’s claims on the road to war. When journalists dug up the truth, editors sometimes ignored or buried their reports. Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks complained that, in the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, “There was an attitude among editors: ‘Look, we’re going to war; why do we even worry about all this contrary stuff?’” New York Times White House correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller explained the press’s conduct at a Bush press conference just before he invaded Iraq: “I think we were very deferential because ... nobody wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time.”

 [...] Lies rarely register in Washington journalists’ minds because they are usually supplicants for government information, not dogged pursuers of the truth. Raising troublesome questions will not help you get any “silver platter” stories.

T he vast majority of the media docilely repeated Bush’s claims through most of his presidency. Television networks very likely devoted a hundred times as much air time to peddling government falsehoods as they did to exposing them. The constant barrage of falsehood drowns out the occasional blips of truth. The government only needs the number of people who recognize its lies to be small enough that its latest power play will not be thwarted. The goal is not to prevent well-informed citizens from being nauseated or disgusted by the president’s lies. Instead, it is to neutralize the mass reaction to presidential falsehoods, even those that have catastrophic consequences.

Full Article.

Deer Survey

On my way to class today, I came upon a pickup parked along the side of the highway with an interesting sign: "Deer Survey in Process: Reduce Speed".



I assume that this has something to do with the hunting season for deer that begins this weekend, but I'm a bit perplexed about the purpose. 11 am is not the time that one would normally see deer out in the open, near a highway (the deer around here tend to save their highway travels for after it gats dark, thus maximizing the chance that they'll scare humans driving down the road--perhaps even causing an accident).



And besides, most of the deer around here are mostly non-communicative, thus raising the question of whether they could even answer a survey.... ;)



Our taxpayer dollars at work, I'm sure.



LE

Sent from my BlackBerry Smartphone provided by Alltel

Emotion vs. Reason

I find it fascinating that Obama is not to be blamed for our problems... yet. As much as I disliked "W", I do remember the mantle of blame for every pimple in America being squarely placed on his shoulders shortly after taking office. It could be my bias, but this lady's arguments seemed comprised of one half ad hominem and one half demagoguery. Interesting, too, that she accused B.O. of not being enough of a socialist. I agree. He's gone way passed socialist and right into full-blown communist.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer. – Will Rogers

Pelosi's Death Panels

"The Worst Bill Ever." That is the title the always calm and rational Wall Street Journal put on its editorial on November 1 about the government health care takeover bill that passed the House last week on virtually a party line vote, 220-215. But even this label doesn't fully communicate the outright assault on the American people involved in this legislation. The bill is a serious threat not only to your freedom and prosperity, but to your very life as well.

That is because at the heart of this bill is a cruel perversion. The bill labors mightily (though it actually fails) to expand insurance coverage to everyone (taking the most expensive route possible). But then it is devoted to taking away the very health care that you may need to save your life, or the life of a loved one.

Pelosi's Death Panels

The bill would create 118 new federal boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs, which as a group have the power to ration and deny you health care. These are the Pelosi death panels. They include the Health Choices Administration, the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, the Health Insurance Exchange, the Public Health Insurance Option, the Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research, the Comparative Effectiveness Research Commission, the Accountable Care Organization Pilot Program, the Community Based Medical Home Pilot Program, the Independent Patient Centered Medical Home Pilot Program, and many others.

Full Article.