I just got the news that the 3,000 th American Soldier died in Iraq fighting for the glory of Who?The only clear winner is Halliburton and other friends of George Bush.
Clearly, there was no legitimate purpose for this war. There was no US national interest involved. There were no illegal weapons to make a self defense claim, no connection to 9-11 to even make a revenge claim.
We can only guess about the thought processes of the idiot in the White House. He is probably just following the directions of some cold blooded plotter whose intent was to get rich. Surely the war has disrupted the world oil market and raised the price of oil for ALL suppliers. Domestic suppliers have won the oil lottery.
How does anyone's personal financial gain justify 3000 American dead, at least half a million Iraqi dead and the waste of a trillion dollars or so?
How will history report this war? Where will the worst long term affects be felt? I think that it will be in the economics. The huge debt that the Federal government is assuming to pay for this fiasco will burden our people for generations. I can conceivably bring down the dollar and create economic devastation such as this nation has never seen.
The economics will take precedence because that is what we will know about. We wont know about the people killed who might have done great things for the world.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Immigration
One of the hottest topics of discussion in the last year or so has been immigration. The focus has been mostly on illegal immigration but I see a lot of negative feeling about legal immigrants as well. This is probably because most folks are fuzzy about the difference.
I have received many widely circulated e-mails telling me the great net cost of immigration over the benefits. I find the basic premise hard to believe because I know that this nation grew great and strong from the large waves of immigrants that came here from war torn strife all over the world. Indeed my own grandparents came to these shores running from the ravages of World War 1 (father's side) and the Czarist Pogroms in Russia (mother's side).
What is different now from that time, 90 or so year ago when my grandparents arrived? There was no welfare state in America then. Immigrants came here with the expectation to work but here they would get to keep the product of their work and could make a life for themselves and their children. They did not expect any handouts and none were given. They formed mutual help organizations with other immigrants from the same town in the "Old Country", called friendship or benevolent societies. This is how they took care of widows and orphans in the early years. In the later years, these organizations turned into burial organizations and have largely disappeared since our society offers other means (life insurance) to deal with those problems.
Today, we have developed a massive welfare state in the US that has bad effects in every aspect of our lives. First of course we have the huge tax rates, collected mostly by a progressive income tax that is clearly designed to prevent any new upstart wealthy families. The way to progress in a capitalist society is education, get a good job and earn a high salary, accumulate wealth to invest in a business and become wealthy. The progressive income tax breaks that chain when you start earning a high salary. It starts sucking your money up and prevents the capital accumulation phase. It should be no surprise that the progressive income tax was invented by Karl Marx and was a prime feature of the Communist Manifesto.
But I digress. I will state unequivocally that open immigration is not compatible with the welfare state. The welfare state tends to attract those who would benefit from it rather than workers who want to make their own way.
So we know from experience that immigration with no welfare state is a positive good and that the welfare state is damaging to the productive people in society. I will be so bold as to say that the welfare state is evil. It depends on continual organized theft from the productive to the non-productive members of society (immigrants or native born).
So what is the correct (moral) position for a freedom loving Libertarian? Should we accept the evil welfare state as an unchangeable fact of nature like a mountain or an earthquake , that we have to learn to live with and rant about immigrants using that welfare state. I say NO.
We should respect the rights of individuals, no matter what geographical area they were born in, to freely interact with any other individual on a voluntary basis. The demise of the welfare state should be the goal of our activities.
I have received many widely circulated e-mails telling me the great net cost of immigration over the benefits. I find the basic premise hard to believe because I know that this nation grew great and strong from the large waves of immigrants that came here from war torn strife all over the world. Indeed my own grandparents came to these shores running from the ravages of World War 1 (father's side) and the Czarist Pogroms in Russia (mother's side).
What is different now from that time, 90 or so year ago when my grandparents arrived? There was no welfare state in America then. Immigrants came here with the expectation to work but here they would get to keep the product of their work and could make a life for themselves and their children. They did not expect any handouts and none were given. They formed mutual help organizations with other immigrants from the same town in the "Old Country", called friendship or benevolent societies. This is how they took care of widows and orphans in the early years. In the later years, these organizations turned into burial organizations and have largely disappeared since our society offers other means (life insurance) to deal with those problems.
Today, we have developed a massive welfare state in the US that has bad effects in every aspect of our lives. First of course we have the huge tax rates, collected mostly by a progressive income tax that is clearly designed to prevent any new upstart wealthy families. The way to progress in a capitalist society is education, get a good job and earn a high salary, accumulate wealth to invest in a business and become wealthy. The progressive income tax breaks that chain when you start earning a high salary. It starts sucking your money up and prevents the capital accumulation phase. It should be no surprise that the progressive income tax was invented by Karl Marx and was a prime feature of the Communist Manifesto.
But I digress. I will state unequivocally that open immigration is not compatible with the welfare state. The welfare state tends to attract those who would benefit from it rather than workers who want to make their own way.
So we know from experience that immigration with no welfare state is a positive good and that the welfare state is damaging to the productive people in society. I will be so bold as to say that the welfare state is evil. It depends on continual organized theft from the productive to the non-productive members of society (immigrants or native born).
So what is the correct (moral) position for a freedom loving Libertarian? Should we accept the evil welfare state as an unchangeable fact of nature like a mountain or an earthquake , that we have to learn to live with and rant about immigrants using that welfare state. I say NO.
We should respect the rights of individuals, no matter what geographical area they were born in, to freely interact with any other individual on a voluntary basis. The demise of the welfare state should be the goal of our activities.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
The War Prayer
How is it that the same people who quote the bible and are strongly pro-life when speaking of embryos do not even wince when they hear the Iraqi body count?
In the course of our Libertarian outreach activities, we came upon a person who told us that, in the runup to the 2004 election, the pastor in their church had threatened all the parishioners that if they did not vote for Bush, surely the world will end. See how things never change. Here is a little article written by Mark Twain a long time ago.
"The War Prayer" was a vivid commentary on the misappropriation of religion on behalf of nationalistic causes. It begins with a church service in which the pastor calls down the blessings of God upon American military forces and concludes with, "Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!"
A frail old man makes his way into the church and, waving the pastor aside, explains that he has spoken with God Himself, who wishes to hear the other half of that prayer - the half that was only in their hearts and uttered but implicitly.
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
The story ends abruptly, with the people considering the man a lunatic - and, presumably, carrying on as before.
Are Iraqi lives worth less than American lives? Are they worth less even than American embryos? Are they worth less than a brain dead Terri Shiavo? What is the exchange rate for Iraqi lives versus American lives? Is it 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 10 to 1? I am sure that, if there is a God, he loves all his children equally and the correct ratio is 1 to 1.
How then do the strongly pro-life (anti-abortion) folks support the president who kills all these Iraqis? I have no answer, it is a question for the ages. Mass stupidity and moral blindness is a constant theme throughout history.
As a people, we have a moral obligation to keep our government in control. We are responsible for the damage it does if we are negligent in our duty. To maintain our moral standards, we have no choice now but to demand impeachment and prison for Bush, Cheney and his accomplices in this heinous crime.
In the course of our Libertarian outreach activities, we came upon a person who told us that, in the runup to the 2004 election, the pastor in their church had threatened all the parishioners that if they did not vote for Bush, surely the world will end. See how things never change. Here is a little article written by Mark Twain a long time ago.
"The War Prayer" was a vivid commentary on the misappropriation of religion on behalf of nationalistic causes. It begins with a church service in which the pastor calls down the blessings of God upon American military forces and concludes with, "Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!"
A frail old man makes his way into the church and, waving the pastor aside, explains that he has spoken with God Himself, who wishes to hear the other half of that prayer - the half that was only in their hearts and uttered but implicitly.
O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle - be Thou near them! With them - in spirit - we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it - for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.
The story ends abruptly, with the people considering the man a lunatic - and, presumably, carrying on as before.
Are Iraqi lives worth less than American lives? Are they worth less even than American embryos? Are they worth less than a brain dead Terri Shiavo? What is the exchange rate for Iraqi lives versus American lives? Is it 2 to 1, 3 to 1, 10 to 1? I am sure that, if there is a God, he loves all his children equally and the correct ratio is 1 to 1.
How then do the strongly pro-life (anti-abortion) folks support the president who kills all these Iraqis? I have no answer, it is a question for the ages. Mass stupidity and moral blindness is a constant theme throughout history.
As a people, we have a moral obligation to keep our government in control. We are responsible for the damage it does if we are negligent in our duty. To maintain our moral standards, we have no choice now but to demand impeachment and prison for Bush, Cheney and his accomplices in this heinous crime.
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