I don't know much about the rest of his political beliefs (he is purportedly the first person to call himself an anarchist and is also termed a socialist), but man did Pierre-Joseph Proudhon have it right in describing what it really means to be "governed", particularly if to the open-ended extent that totalitarians and collectivists, whether claiming to be left or right, would carry their endless scheming for control over humanity : To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and ...

As I have written here and elsewhere before, social(ist) conservatives are an aberrant sect of what are, in essence, statists who have hijacked the moniker of conservatism. They have done so, I believe, in an attempt to mask their fundamentally-statist authoritarianism in matters of personal or private life behind the nominal and false claim that they are not, in fact, quite in philosophical league with the socially-permissive leftists they so abhor. Irrespective of "social conservative" claims of distinction from their leftist brethren and sistern, their agenda is nonetheless fundamentally the same. Social "conservatives" are merely big government statists with a different agenda for control and social uniformity...but just as frightening an agenda if taken even close to its natural conclusion. So-called "social conservatives" are the other side of the same hollow coin of collectivist control over the individual. And "social conservatives" posit...

This is an interesting development, by which the Democrats' disgusting secretive self-dealing process of health care lawmaking-by-payoff is not being accepted merely as the ugly side of politics-as-usual deal cutting and vote buying. Now actual prosecutors from various states are taking notice of the putrid stench of corruption permeating the Harry Reid health care monstrosity. But of course, these are just partisan Republicans driven purely by political considerations, unlike those exemplars of moral and political virtue intent on ramming this shit sausage straight down the public's throats. Several prosecutors probing health care deal They question the constitutionality of ‘Nebraska compromise’ COLUMBIA, S.C. - The top prosecutors in seven states are probing the constitutionality of a political deal that cut a funding break for Nebraska in order to pass a federal health care reform bill, South Carolina's attorney general said Tuesday. Attorney General Henry McMaster said ...

Dr. Rand Paul looks poised to become the next junior Senator from Kentucky, if polling trends continue as they have. As I have said before, Paul if elected would be the single most libertarian U.S. Senator in the last 50 years, if not more. Paul has rocketed to the top of the polls from just months ago when he was pooh-poohed by establishment-type Republicans , much like the treatment his father Ron Paul received during his bid for the presidency. Rand Paul entered the fray trailing behind establishment Kentucky Republican Secretary of State Trey Grayson. However, Paul has since taken a " commanding lead ". His support is grassroots and based purely on the power of his ideas and the conviction with which he offers them up. Rand Paul's election as a Republican U.S. Senator would be a serious harbinger that the libertarian conservative uprising in the G.O.P. is not only real but quite consequential and arguably the future of the party, no matter the exhortations, ca...

Jonah Goldberg gets it right in this analysis . The notion that big business is "right wing" has always been more sloppy agitprop than serious analysis. It's true that historically, big business is against socialism and communism -- and understandably so. Socialism and communism were once close to synonymous with expropriation of wealth and the nationalization of industry. What businessman or industrialist wouldn't be against that? But many of those same industrialists saw nothing wrong with cutting deals with statist regimes. For example, the Swope Plan, put forward by Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, laid out the infrastructure for much of the early New Deal. Yet the debate is always framed as if the choice is between "government intervention" on the one hand and free-market capitalism on the other. From 30,000 feet, that division is fine with me. My objection is the glib and easy association of big business with the free-market guys (Milton Fr...

Obama is now convincingly a minority president. No, I don't mean racially. I mean Obama now joins George W. Bush not only in the continuation of neocon foreign policies and big government profligacy, but (inevitably) that this is leading him to now consistently poll below 50% approval...and falling. At 46%, President Obama's latest job approval rating is the lowest ever in Q uinnipiac polls, and he has an upside down rating for his handling of health care. The new survey (Dec. 1-6, 2313 RV, MoE +/- 2%), released this morning, finds 44% disapproving of the job Obama's doing. More than half (51%) of independents now disapprove of Obama's job performance, while 37% approve. Similarly : Obama's 47 Percent Approval Lowest of Any President at This Point The public's fast-growing disapproval of Obama's arrogant power-mongering should come as no surprise, except perhaps to the most reality-oblivious and purely-partisan hopechangelings now hunkering down in the bunk...

I hope the president is pleased with himself now that he has earned himself the neocon mantle , praised by those bloodthirsty chicken-hawk war cheerleaders who are content with any bit of a loaf of aggressive middle east adventurism and interventionism. Only the most militarist will remain unsatisfied with Obama's splitting the loaf, in a truly half-assed attempt to politically hedge his decision to continue the waging of remote overseas wars by the United States. No thinking citizen who listened to Obama's speech last night, complete with "19 hijackers", "9/11", "terrorist safe havens", and all manner of stock-in-trade Bush war-justifying catch phrases, could not help but feel Obama may as well have been reading from the Bush/neocon script, word-for-word. As if the Obama national domestic profligacy and power-mongering isn't bad enough, now he has bear-hugged the worst elements of American foreign policy decision-making since Woodrow Wilson. ...

The absence of new content here for the past few days has not been the result of any tragedy or work implosion. I have been thinking seriously about multiple commitments and where in my life I can make the most difference. Two years ago I started this blog on something of a lark, primarily to see what would happen, and to inject some of my own ideas into that whirlwind we all call the blogosphere. Several thousand posts later, I came to the realization that ... I'm done. Not that it hasn't been fun, intellectually challenging, or even may have changed the minds of a few people on a few select issues... it has. But as a whole, I've recently discovered, it's a never-ending personal commitment to an enterprise that neither pays the bills nor makes a significant enough change [as compared to other venues in which I work] to be worth continuing. I only have a certain amount of time and energy available, and here's where it will be going in the near future: 1. To my fa...

So--not surprisingly-- the US Senate cancels scheduled hearings on repealing DADT : WASHINGTON (AFP) – A planned November hearing by the US Senate Armed Services Committee to consider ending a ban on gays serving openly in the US military will be postponed, a spokeswoman indicated Friday. "We do not have a date" for the hearing, said the aide, Tara Andringa. Note to America's LGBQT community: like free lunch, there will be equality tomorrow.

No details on the maneuverings, but I have it confirmed that current Provost and Academic VP of DSU, Dr Harry Williams, has been announced as DSU's next President. In my (always humble) opinion, the best choice available to them. Good luck, Dr Williams. I look forward to working with you in your new role.

... which he cast as if given in a speech by President Obama : 1. We have no partner in Afghanistan. The control of the government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai hardly extends beyond the embattled capital of Kabul. He himself has just been returned to office in a presidential election in which voting fraud on an almost unimaginably large scale was the order of the day. His administration is believed to have lost all credibility with the Afghan people. 2. Afghanistan floats in a culture of corruption. This includes President Karzai’s administration up to its highest levels and also the warlords who control various areas and, like the Taliban insurgency, are to some degree dependent for their financing on opium, which the country produces in staggering quantities. Afghanistan, in fact, is not only a narco-state, but the leading narco-state on the planet. 3. Despite billions of dollars of American money poured into training the Afghan security forces, the army is notoriously understren...

... because I think that I might actually have a shot there . The incumbent has been so ineffective as to be virtually invisible on the issues that matter to Delaware. He (or she, I could never tell) needs to go. My platform is simple: 1) I promise to triple the number of jobs created or saved in the district under the current stimulus programs. 2) I promise to double the number of people in the district receiving Medicaid benefits, even if that means providing completely free health insurance to some people now paying for it, just to hit my targets. 3) I am calling for the dsitrict to receive three times as much beach replenishment funding as it received last year. 4) I am not Mike Protack. 5) I am a firm believer in term limits, so I will pledge not to serve any more terms in the House of Representatives that necessary for me to supplement my State retirement with a Federal plan of equal or greater value. 6) Oh, and I'm not Colin Bonini, either. and, finally: 7) I have a bumper s...

OK, it's tacky, and not really funny (neither were those T-shirts proclaiming that GHW Bush had wished that his wife had had an abortion before the nationa had an abortion for president), but is it really a reason to throw out the Old Testament? Delawaredem thinks so , first noting that the significance of the Psalm is in Psalm 109:9--the next verse: “Religious” conservatives have a new slogan that they are putting on bumper stickers and t-shirts. “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8″ What does Psalm 109:8 say? “Let his days be few; and let another take his office.” Well, that’s not bad. They are just praying for Obama to be replaced as President. Hey, I wanted Bush gone as President too, through his impeachment for war crimes. But let’s read the next verse that follows Psalm 109:8 which “religious” conservatives all so cleverly leave off the t-shirts and bumper stickers. “Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.” So, it is pretty obvious that anyone repeating, wearing, or usi...

Nose-spur warning: put down the coffee. [h/t Kids Prefer Cheese ]

There appears to be some sort of basic human compulsion that urges us to (a) amass wealth; (b) build larger and larger, increasingly hierarchical organizations; and (c) control other people's behavior even when said behaviors do not represent a threat to us. Otherwise I am at a loss to explain the reality of modern society that corporations spend their time attempting to emulate the worst abuses of the State, while simultaneously courting the State to provide them with special status and structural advantages over their smaller competitors. It intrigues me--and, quite frankly, disappoints me--that many if not most libertarians fail to see the reality that corporations do not represent the free market in action, but actually represent the overt use of anti-competitive State powers to distort the markets in their favor. Corporate owners enjoy State protection from personal liability for the use of force or fraud. Corporations enjoy due process rights as artificial persons equal to t...

Judge Andrew Napolitano is one of the most passionate, articulate, and unflappable advocates of liberty and limited government around today... He is the author of 2007's A Nation of Sheep , as well as The Constitution in Exile: How the Federal Government Has Seized Power by Rewriting the Supreme Law of the Land. Kiss Your Freedoms Goodbye If Health Care Passes Why we cannot afford to sit out this fight Andrew Napolitano November 16, 2009 Congress recognizes no limits on its power. It doesn't care about the Constitution, it doesn't care about your inalienable rights. If this health care bill becomes law, America, life as you have known it, freedom as you have exercised it, and privacy as you have enjoyed it will cease to be. Last week the House of Representatives voted on a 2,000 page bill to give the federal government the power to micromanage the health care of every single American. The bill will raise your taxes, steal your freedom, invade your privacy, and ration your ...

Sometimes it doesn't take paragraphs of analysis to get the point across. From Politics Daily : Half a million Americans have served two 12-month tours in Iraq or Afghanistan; 70,000 have served three combat tours; and 20,000 have served five or more deployments, according to Defense Department data. That's one out of every 600 American citizens.

Soccer-induced fatigue rendered me incapable of producing any posts for nearly two days. No, not me: my daughter's team, the Western Family YMCA Bandits, won the statewide Kohl's Cup Tournament for rec leagues on Sunday, going 4-0-2. My daughter (who would like you all to know that she has not been infected with that libertarian thing ) plays goal and allowed exactly zero goals in six games. [The Bandits also won the regular season in their league, due in no small part to her .33 goals against average.] The weather was wonderful this year, but then--moments after winning--we had to rush out to the Charter School of Wilmington open house [for both of the twins]. This is high-school shopping season in Delaware, where choice and charter combine to produce a cross between selecting a college and a sorority/fraternity rush experience. It's kind of like speed-dating with high-school teachers. So I've been a bit behind in everything, and--frankly--I'm still exhauste...

As much as I like Jeff, who blogs at Alphecca , he's way off the deep in with this obvious comparison of the Obama administration's initiatives and Hitler's Nazis in Austria and Germany, as presented by Kitty Werthmann in North Dakota. Werthmann, who lived in Austria during the Nazi regime, delivered a blistering comparison between what happened under the Nazis and what is supposedly happening today under the current administration. Here are a few excerpts: Once the Nazis took control, the people no longer voted for government positions anymore; all positions down to the local level were filled by appointment. In the interest of a supposedly more efficient government, the Nazis decided to centralize all government between Germany and Austria. Hitler nationalized (socialized) the banks, health care, automobile production, education, and more.... Werthmann said Hitler expanded “equal rights” for women, which resulted in far more women going out into the work force. The govern...

One of the hallmarks of the current American political discourse is ossification: you can no longer seriously grapple with issues, because to be seen even considering a possible change in thinking is a sign of weakness and betrayal. The initial responses to my last post on the radicalization of American politics in response to the Fort Hood massacre is a case in point: an anti-abortion proponent jumped right in to essentially disavow the existentance of radicalized anti-abortion groups, implying that I had said there were only radicalized anti-abortion groups. The comment cites the case of Abby Johnson as a non-violent anti-abortion activist who is being harassed by a Planned Parenthood gag order , leaving out two salient facts made clear with the link provided in the comment : (1) Johnson is not prohibited from protesting, just talking about confidential medical and staff information; and (2) it would be illegal for her to share confidential patient health information in the fir...

To note: despite Hube's characterization, in the only post I have written about Fort Hood, I described Major Hasan as a lone-wolf terrorist . By lone wolf I mean that there is currently no evidence that his massacre at Fort Hood was ordered by, directly supported by, or part of the specific agenda of any given group. He attended a radical mosque, he attempted contact with Al Qaeda, he became more overtly radical--but there still seem to be the primary characteristics of a lone wolf about him. Obviously, new data could change that interpretation. By terrorist I mean that he committed violence for a specific political/religious/ideological reason, at the very least to encourage other Muslims to do so, and to instill a sense of fear in Americans--especially American soldiers--that they can never be safe from retribution. Those are avowedly political objectives for murdering people who have done nothing except belong to a specific population, and that is the classic definition of t...

I am reminded by the abrupt re-appearance of Pastor Donnie McClurkin, the rabidly anti-gay minister and early Barack Obama supporter , in a series of You-Tube videos chronicling his opinon that gay people are vampires that there is a specific reason why the President does not take any serious action on the issue of civil rights for gay Americans. [We've covered the Obama-McClurkin links here before.] It's against his religion. Aside from McClurkin (whose views then-Senator Obama distanced himself from, but whose support he has continued to court and enjoy in a back-channel wa) and anti-gay zealot Rick Warren (to whom the President gave a national platform at his inauguration), there is also the Circle of Five. NYT : President Obama has been without a pastor or a home church ever since he cut his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. in the heat of the presidential campaign. But he has quietly cultivated a handful of evangelical pastors for private prayer sessions on the t...

But, you know what? Individual subdivisions of the Catholic Church are entitled to whatever policy positions they like, as long as they get out of the business of taking the government's money. From WaPo : The Catholic Archdiocese of Washington said Wednesday that it will be unable to continue the social service programs it runs for the District if the city doesn't change a proposed same-sex marriage law, a threat that could affect tens of thousands of people the church helps with adoption, homelessness and health care. Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians. Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city. T...

... because some of our commenters have the strange idea that belonging to any organization whatever makes you responsible for any sins ever committed by that organization or removes all credibility from your views. They also seem to believe that belonging to any organization represents a blanket public statement that you endorse every single idea ever put forth by that organization. So I thought it would be important to list for my readers those organizations with which I have been involved that engage in genocide, oppression, homophobia, or discrimination, so that everyone can understand why my views on virtually any subject are completely worthless. 1) I spent twenty-one years of my adult life as a member of an organization that engaged in relentless genocidal wars across the North American continent, has on many occasions bombarded innocent civilians, has used nuclear weapons against undefended cities, and which has engaged in personnel management policies which have (or, in severa...