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Morality is Liberty without Force

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The International Business Times has just reported that House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, says Congress may need to raise the U.S. federal debt ceiling by $1.8 trillion.
“It is December,” House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey said, “we don’t really have a choice. The bill’s already been run up; the credit card has already been used. When you get the bill in the mail you need to pay it,” he added.
By “pay it”, Obey means borrow for it.
Obey’s words perfectly encapsulate what has become the government’s chief fiscal operating principle: spend first, figure out where the money is going to come from later.
But while the American government may be in the habit of kicking into the future the question of how it can pay its bills, other nations are beginning to ask America this very question.
Last month President Obama visited China and found Chinese officials taking a keen interest in his healthcare reform plans. The Chinese’s interest in healthcare did not centre around the usual questions that have been preoccupying Americans. Instead, one participant in the talks recalled, “They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the deficit…”
It is not surprising that China should take more of an interest than most Americans in this crucial question. After all, the United States already owes China two Trillion dollars and could be forced to beg for at least half that much again if Obama’s health care promises are realized. “Like any banker,” the NYT reported, “they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.”
A brief survey of America’s financial foolishness will show that China has ample grounds for worrying that America might extend itself so far that it is left with no mechanism for paying back its creditors.
A legacy of foolishness…

Positive Liberty.

Jason Kuznicki on Sep 22nd 2009

From the Des Moines Register:

Iowans are almost evenly divided about whether they would vote for or against a constitutional amendment to end marriage for same-sex couples, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll.

Forty-one percent say they would vote for a ban, and 40 percent say they would vote to continue gay marriage. The rest either would not vote or say they are not sure…

The overwhelming majority of Iowans – 92 percent – say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.

Democracy makes it trivially easy to interfere with the lives of others. One could hardly find a better example than the above, in which a significant number of Iowans apparently believe that harming others is perfectly fine, even when it brings no real benefits to themselves. It’s voted on, see, and I guess that makes it all okay.

How’d things come to this? I have a theory.

The median voter can’t be expected to care much about the rights of minorities, because by definition the median voter doesn’t ever belong to a minority. Whenever a binary question comes up for a vote, the median voter is in the majority. At best he will therefore be indifferent to the interests of the minority. This doesn’t bode well for minority rights of any kind whenever such questions come up.

Yet sooner or later, every median voter ceases to be a median voter. He becomes a minority on some other issue, and his rights will be decided on by a different voting coalition, headed up by a different — but likewise indifferent — median voter.

Today it’s same-sex marriage. Tomorrow it’ll be owning a pit bull or eating foie gras. We’re all in a minority sooner or later, and we will all face that coldly indifferent median voter who can’t see what the fuss is about, and who views deciding on our rights as something very important, even as something sacred, rather than as something repugnant and shameful. Maybe his sacred duty will tell him to take away our rights, and because it’s called democracy, it’s all good just the same.

That is what’s wrong with democracy.

Jason Kuznicki on Sep 22nd 2009

From the Des Moines Register:

Iowans are almost evenly divided about whether they would vote for or against a constitutional amendment to end marriage for same-sex couples, according to The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll.

Forty-one percent say they would vote for a ban, and 40 percent say they would vote to continue gay marriage. The rest either would not vote or say they are not sure…

The overwhelming majority of Iowans – 92 percent – say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.

Democracy makes it trivially easy to interfere with the lives of others. One could hardly find a better example than the above, in which a significant number of Iowans apparently believe that harming others is perfectly fine, even when it brings no real benefits to themselves. It’s voted on, see, and I guess that makes it all okay.

How’d things come to this? I have a theory.

The median voter can’t be expected to care much about the rights of minorities, because by definition the median voter doesn’t ever belong to a minority. Whenever a binary question comes up for a vote, the median voter is in the majority. At best he will therefore be indifferent to the interests of the minority. This doesn’t bode well for minority rights of any kind whenever such questions come up.

Yet sooner or later, every median voter ceases to be a median voter. He becomes a minority on some other issue, and his rights will be decided on by a different voting coalition, headed up by a different — but likewise indifferent — median voter.

Today it’s same-sex marriage. Tomorrow it’ll be owning a pit bull or eating foie gras. We’re all in a minority sooner or later, and we will all face that coldly indifferent median voter who can’t see what the fuss is about, and who views deciding on our rights as something very important, even as something sacred, rather than as something repugnant and shameful. Maybe his sacred duty will tell him to take away our rights, and because it’s called democracy, it’s all good just the same.

That is what’s wrong with democracy.

Liberty is Moral

Liberty is Moral

Just a quick announcement here.

We will now be submitting everything from Morality101.net to Propeller.com and have formed a new Propeller Group called Liberty is Moral, in which our friends from Morality101, Digg, Facebook and Twitter can participate and submit their own favorites and articles as well.

Digg.com was our favorite social website for quite a long time, but slid way downhill as a result of eliminating shouts and sharing, shunting those off to Facebook and Twitter.  In our view The workarounds were quite useless, just wasting too much of our time with duplications.  So we’ve moved to Propeller as our “social” site for most future submissions.

This group uses admin approval for membership.  We’ll plan to keep the spammers, personal attackers, and the adamant ObamaBots, No-Birthers and Collectivists out of the loop, but perhaps there will be a few who can engage in open-minded and productive discourse with our basically conservative / libertarian group.

We hope for a forum with real drive for both discussion of, and action toward, the virtues of liberty, capitalism, the free market, and progress toward true freedom.

If the shoe fits, wear it, come join us!

Thanks from Tasine and Striker101

Sunday, 19 July 2009 12:14
Quintessential Liberal vs. Extreme Marxist

By JB Williams ©2009 USA

Since 52% of American voters were foolish enough to buy the story that Barack Hussein Obama is some sort of “liberal messiah,” I thought it would be interesting to compare the belief systems of America’s father of liberalism and author of our Declaration of Independence, with the Marxist belief system of the false messiah.

And since today’s liberals have so much trouble properly interpreting our Founders’ simple message to future generations, I am under no illusion that these facts will carry anymore weight with modern Marxists than Article II – Section I of the Constitution, which clearly states that Barack Obama cannot be President of the United States.

But for the rest of America, namely those who have been baffled by decades of leftist balderdash via the NEA’s academia and the state run media complex, a few real facts might help sort things out.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,

it expects what never was and never will be.”

Just for you leftists out there, what Jefferson was trying to say here is, you can’t be both stupid and free. This is the fly in your ointment friends. You think you can be stupid and irresponsible AND free. But you can’t… You think that freedom belongs to the spineless thief, but it doesn’t.

You think you can use a democratic process to force others to accept responsibility for your ignorance, but you can’t.

Oh sure, you can cast your vote on this basis and even elect a president and congress, who will seat a Supreme Court on this basis. But in the end, one of two things will happen. Either those who earned the gold you seek to steal, will take their gold and leave you holding your empty sack of broken promises, – or – you will trade your individual freedom for a pittance of “free stuff” from the public trough. You can be stupid, or you can be free, but you can’t be both…

In the end, there is no way to be both stupid and free! Jefferson knew this, Obamanation doesn’t.

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule,

where fifty-one percent of the people

may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

This is why Jefferson and fellow Founders designed and gave birth to a Constitutional Representative Republic instead of a “democracy,” and guaranteed every state a “republican” form of government.

Their Republic was limited to governance which was “representative” of the people, AND limited to the letter of Constitutional authority. The 10th Amendment says it all…

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

If the Constitution does not specifically grant the federal government authority over a specific matter, then no such authority exists and any effort by the Fed to step into that territory is simply “unconstitutional.”

Yet Obama and the modern “liberal” (aka 21st Century Marxist) believe that there are no such limitations on our federal government and that they are free to “take away the rights of the other forty-nine percent of Americans” on the basis that they won an election by “democratic process.”

Their system of government is NOT a Constitutional Republic, but rather Democratic Socialism, in which their ends justify their means and the Constitution is no barrier.

“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.”

According to Jefferson, but not according to Obama, Pelosi or Reid, and their many minions and international friends, all of whom believe that the sum of good government is to “take from those who have used their freedom well, and redistribute to those who have not.”

For modern leftists, there is a good greater than freedom. There is political power, bought with gifts from the public treasury for our nation’s “less fortunate” and paid for by America’s most productive.

But unlike today’s faux liberals, Jefferson was THE quintessential liberal, believing in a maximum abundance of individual liberty. In fact, he went so far as to state unequivocally…

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

On the other side of complete individual liberty is anarchy. Yet Jefferson states that he would prefer the inconveniences of too much liberty, as opposed to too little.

By today’s perverted definitions, this would undoubtedly make Jefferson a quintessential libertarian, not a modern liberal.

“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”

Still, over the last hundred years or so, self-proclaimed liberals have built a political dynasty on the unparalleled practice of wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. There’s no special interest or minority group they haven’t exploited, and no social engineering program they haven’t bankrupted.

Despite the very real fact that our federal government has never touched an issue it didn’t wreck, or established a budget it didn’t bust, the left has used its new power to confiscate control of banking, investment, lending, energy, auto manufacturing and individual income.

Next they seek control of health care and insurance, all under the false pretense of taking care of the people while simply stockpiling their own personal power over those people.

Jefferson would obviously, support no such thing.

“Information is the currency of democracy.”

I have always found this to be one of Jefferson’s most interesting quotes. Why would someone so clearly opposed to pure democracy, make this statement?

In further studying Jefferson’s many writings, I discovered what Jefferson meant by this statement.

As our nation’s most well-studied Founder and certainly our most prolific, Jefferson was clearly a lover of information – history in particular. As a result, he was right over and over again, including here… information is indeed the currency of democracy.

He who controls the flow and content of information can thereby control public opinion, and therefore, the decisions made by democratic process. This indeed makes “information” the most important “currency” to any democratic society. Hence, the state run media complex.

And again, Jefferson makes his point…

“It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong.”

Today’s self-styled liberal believes in concepts that are historically proven to be wrong. Communism and Socialism have failed miserably everywhere on earth they have been tried. Still, the modern liberal believes it can work. That’s because they have to believe it to justify robbing their fellow citizens of the rightful earnings.

It would be better for them to believe nothing at all, than to believe that which is clearly false. But doing so would not serve their agenda.

Even after congressional leftists bankrupted Fannie and Freddie, forcing every homeowner into falling property values, investors into bad investments supported by bad mortgages, falling markets that threaten the US dollar and the future of the free market that made America the most prosperous and powerful nation on earth, the left remains determined to stick with their failed belief system. It has never worked anywhere on earth, but they are married to it just the same.

“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”

Obama has appointed more unconstitutional Czars in six months than the Soviet Union did in thirty years. They are not accountable to the people, the states, or even congressional oversight. They are appointed minions accountable only to the dictator-in-chief.

Yet…

“Liberty is to the collective body, what health is to every individual body. Without health no pleasure can be tasted by man; without liberty, no happiness can be enjoyed by society.”

America’s day of reckoning for decades of ignorance, apathy and arrogance has arrived.

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,

it expects what never was and never will be.”

There are none more ignorant than those who refuse to see… or learn from history. They are doomed to learn the hard way, again and again!

Jefferson is America’s quintessential liberal and he had absolutely NOTHING in common with Barack Obama or any other modern liberal. In fact, quite the contrary.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”

Under the Obama administration, these two statements from Jefferson would qualify Jefferson as a “right-wing extremist” and “potential domestic terrorist,” according to Obama’s Department of Homeland Security.

That’s because Barack Obama’s belief system is based upon the concepts of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. He takes his orders from ACORN, represented by the Congressional Black Caucus, established by card carrying member of the Communist Party, John Conyers. His entire agenda was written by the Democratic Socialists of America, represented by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, established by card carrying member of the Socialist Party, Bernie Sanders

Jefferson, like every other Founding Father, is rolling over in his grave at what now passes for “liberal” in America. Not one Founding Father would stand for what is happening to this wonderful country today, nor would any call themselves “liberal” by today’s perverted definition.

The people running Washington DC today are not American. They belong in prison, not in power.

But instead, on July 16, 2009, two days before the writing of this column, Obama’s Department of Justice, headed by Obama’s man Eric Holder, issued a written threat to the state of Tennessee, signed by Assistant Director of the ATF Carson W. Carroll. In that letter, Obama’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms stated the following…

The passage of the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act, H.B. 1796, 106th Leg. (Tenn. 2009) 1796 (“Act”), effective June 19, 2009, has generated questions from industry members as to how this State law may affect them while engaged in a firearms business activity. The Act purports to exempt personal firearms, firearms accessories, and ammunition manufactured in the State, and which remain in the State, from most Federal firearms laws and regulations. However, because the Act conflicts with Federal firearms laws and regulations, Federal law supersedes the Act, and all provisions of the Gun Control Act and the National Firearms Act, and their corresponding regulations, continue to apply.

A full copy of the ATF letter can be found here – http://www.tfaonline.org/downloads/ATFfirearmsfreedomact.pdf

Even though the Tennessee state legislature, through its proper course and authority, passed both a Tenth Amendment bill reminding the Obama administration that it is a sovereign state with constitutional rights, and that the federal government exists at the pleasure of the people and the states, not the other way around, and a Second Amendment affirmation in H.B. 1796, Obama does not see it that way.

At the time of passage through the TN House and Senate, Judiciary Chairman Mae Beavers had this to say- “Be it the federal government mandating changes in order for states to receive federal funds or the federal government telling us how to regulate commerce contained completely within this state – enough is enough.  Our founders fought too hard to ensure states’ sovereignty and I am sick and tired of activist federal officials and judges sticking their noses where they don’t belong.”

But despite the fact that the Tennessee legislature passed and ratified H.B. 1796, the Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act of 2009, securing the rights of firearms owners and dealers in the state of Tennessee, Obama’s ATF believes that “federal laws supersede state laws.” This concept could be applied to any law in any state, of course.

It is NOT true however… The US Constitution supersedes both federal and state laws. Neither legislature can pass laws at odds with constitutional text. Under the US Constitution, the vast power is entrusted to the people and their states, not the Fed. (See Amendment X of the US Constitution) — Federal laws trump state laws only in the unbridled imaginations of leftists and federal law makers. But only because both act as though the Constitution no longer exists.

For this reason, I share another of Jefferson’s sentiments…

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

  • The inescapable natural consequence of fiscal insanity is financial ruin
  • The inescapable result of moral relativity is an immoral abyss
  • The inevitable result of federal tyranny is state and local revolt
  • The end result of bad government is unrest and eventually, a failed government

“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.”

“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny;

when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

American citizens have come to fear their tyrannical federal government. Decades of leftist fiscal insanity in Washington DC have left the nation in financial ruin. The moral relativity of the left has shoved the nation into an immoral abyss and the day of reckoning has arrived.

The people must organize with local and state leaders in their individual states. According to the US Constitution, the Fed exists and serves at the pleasure of the people and their respective states. These principles either stand, or everything collapses. See Tenth Amendment action reports here – http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/07/18/the-battle-begins-atf-vs-the-constitution/

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

JB Williams
JB_Williams@comcast.net This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
www.JB-Williams.com
JB – “In God We Trust, because man alone, especially leftists, cannot be trusted.”


Striker101I have wasted most of this past 13 months on Digg.com, in futile jousting with immoral collectivists who do not and will not understand the morality of the personal right to life of each individual on this planet, who seek to use the Force of government to negate our right to property, and don’t give one rip about the objective of happiness.  Our right to property is now diverted from sustaining our life and enhancing our happiness, and is now instead being ripped from our hands (stolen) toward furthering the immoral goals of collectivism via Force.

Much time was simply wasted, trying to avoid reading trivia completely irrelevant to the ongoing economic collapse, and even more trivia wading thru irrelevant comments often nothing more than ignorant abusive blurbs consisting of nothing more than FU, FTW.  While we still hang onto the thread of freedom of speech, having to deal with such ignorance wastes everyone’s time and energy for naught.

During this period we have been clobbered by the burst housing bubble, bailouts serving only to increase the national debt, to the election of a non-citizen communist who now purports to be the president of this new USSA, to an infinitely broad “stimulus bill” which we have now seen serving only to increase the already impossible mountain of national debt.  This cannot be funded because the Federal Reserve cannot find buyers for the T-bills and T-bonds, thus Government cannot pay it’s bills nor even fund the bailouts and stimulus.  This is a GOOD thing, although we doubt the liberals and socialists and collectivists will not understand this just yet!

So what has this to do with Digg?  Well, just yesterday Digg ended it’s Shout feature, which was the way we could pass good articles to our friends.  Digg now suggests Facebook and Twitter be used to compensate.  Now I don’t know that you feel this way, but having to play KissyFace and Tweeting is not my idea of useful productive time on the internet, so you’ll not find me there.  If someone knows an equally active social website devoted to active and serious discussion of philosophical political issues and ideas, PLEASE comment and let me know.

But worse with Digg is it’s now blatant attempts to promote bleeding heart crap and to conceal or even delete anything relevant to true Liberty and the current actions of Government seeking to destroy that last vestage of Freedom. For that reason alone, I am done with Digg.com.  I may submit more (of Morality101) articles to Digg, but will not be otherwise participating.  I see no compelling reason that Digg will survive these fatal mistakes.  Leave that to the collectivists to have a mutual admiration society and continue to scheme how to gain more powers to Force.

I hope to convert this blogger into THE major forum for the serious ongoing discussion mentioned.  I wlll need your help to accomplish this, there is too much for me to learn about doing this and so I need the collaboration of others.  I barely know how to “Submit” an article here via WordPress, much less to set up the tools for good interaction between us.

So, requested action(s)

  • My email address is available only  to my Friends who know me as Striker101 on Digg.  If you are one of those, please either use your Digg handle or else email me so I know who you are.  You will be authorized as Authors and thus allowed to Post and to Submit.
  • To others, you will find my eaddy at the root website of http://morality101.net.
  • ONLY to those who understand the foundations of Objectivist or Libertarian philosophy, REGISTER here at  Morality101 so that you can participate, and then DO participate.
  • We are not here to argue with collectivists, who are wholly without virtue.  We are here to expand upon the likes of Ayn Rand and Ludwig von Mises.  We are here to destroy collectivism before it destroys Capitalism, the free market and Liberty.

Leave your comments HERE, don’t even bother with Digg anymore.

Whatever revolution that starts in California, always spreads to the nation. In arguably the most liberal state in America, California taxpayers sent a message to the nation on Tuesday: “We’ve Had Enough and We’re Not Going to Take It Anymore!”

Striker101

Okay, Okay, “Revolution” is not exactly a tax-strike but Wayne Root makes a case for it.  Already in the run for President in 2012.  I like him.

read more | digg story

This particular Parliament, unprecedented in nearly 400 years, has lost such meagre respect as it still retained after, among other sins, handing, entirely unauthorised and incidentally to the extreme detriment of The Queen’s own position as Head of State of the United Kingdom, nearly all its powers to a junta of unelected foreign potentates…

Striker101I usually stay quite focused on issues here in the USA, but this Libertarian Alliance website has done much work over the past 3 years and helps us realize that “We are Not Alone”. Readers may wish to bookmark and spend time surfing this website.

Permanent link to website also posted as ‘Libertarian England’ under our “Best Links”.

read more | digg story

Human life requires action, so it logically follows that humans must take those actions necessary to sustain their lives. We also acknowledge a corollary: Actions cease to be legitimate when they deny others the freedom to act.

StrikerThis is a very well-written article, no ranting or screaming, just Reason.

Direct non-digg url: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20090426-OPINION-904260324

read more | digg story

… The need for freedom is based on the need to reason. Force and the threat of it, and the threat of fraud throttles reason. Reason is the uniquely human means of dealing with reality in order to flourish, yea, in order to survive. If reason is shut down by fear of force, man is rendered almost helpless, he has no choices. Chaos could then ensue.

Why is the threat of force and the use of force itself so harmful? It reduces one’s choices to nothing. Retaliation is required, but is not always possible. Sometimes one must wait until an appropriate authority can intervene.

The ethics of Objectivism is the only proper foundation for an individual rights political movement. In turn, that ethic needs to be founded on the solid ground of Objectivist metaphysics and epistemology.

Libertarian does not have such a foundation. You, who call yourselves Libertarians, must find such a foundation. You must return to your Objectivist roots.

Direct link to full article:  http://www.nolanchart.com/article6094.html

read more | digg story

The first rescue package of $700 billion passed by the Bush Administration was supposed to buy back this bad paper. Instead the government … gave half of it to banks with no strings attached instead of designating it for security redemption. The banks did not use the money to redeem the bad paper certificates…

Starts out off-track pointing at speculation, but gets it pretty much right overall. It’s really worth the read.

read more | digg story