galtgulch

" The Bronze Rat A Tourist walked into a Chinese curio shop in San Francisco. While looking around at the exotic merchandise, he noticed a very lifelike, life-sized, bronze statue of a rat. It had no price tag, but was so incredibly striking the tourist decided he must have it. He took it to the old shop owner and asked, "How much for the bronze rat?" "Ahhh, you have chosen wisely! It is $12 for the rat, $100 for the story," said the wise old Chinaman. The tourist quickly pulled out twelve dollars. "I'll just take the rat, you can keep the story." As he walked down the street carrying his bronze rat, the tourist noticed that a few real rats had crawled out of the alleys and sewers and had begun following him down the street. This was a bit disconcerting so he began walking faster. A couple blocks later he looked behind him and saw to his horror the herd of rats behind him had grown to hundreds, and they began squealing. Sweating now, the tourist began to trot toward the Bay. Again, after a couple blocks, he looked around only to discover that the rats now numbered in the MILLIONS, and were squealing and coming toward him faster and faster. Terrified, he ran to the edge of the Bay and threw the bronze rat as far as he could into the Bay. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jumped into the Bay after the bronze rat, and were all drowned. The man walked back to the curio shop in Chinatown. "Ahhh," said the owner, "You have come back for story?" "No sir," said the man, "I came back to see if you have a bronze Democrat.""

This article appeared on the Campaign For Liberty website: www.campaignforliberty.com 2 July 6AM 165,032; 3Jul 6AM 165,248 <<<"Tom Mullen is a writer, musician, and self-employed business consultant. In January 2009, he published his first book, A Return to Common Sense: Reawakening Liberty in the Inhabitants of America. Tom was the opening speaker at the Revolution March in Washington, D.C. on July 12, 2008 (keynote speaker Ron Paul). In 2007, he released his first solo CD, A Glimpse of the Ether, containing 13 original compositions. Tom's style has been described as "Powerpop with a hint of modern rock." Tom is originally a native of Buffalo, NY and graduate of Canisius College. He earned a Master's Degree in English from State University of New York College at Buffalo. He now resides with his family in Tampa, FL. For more information, visit Tom's website at www.tommullen.net. Life, Liberty, and Property Are Inseparable By Tom Mullen Published 07/02/09 Printer-friendly version "The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society: for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence." * John Locke [second Treatise of Government, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980) Pg. 111] Life, liberty, and property were the central, inalienable rights that formed the foundation of the great experiment in self government called the United States of America. The founders of our country never broke apart this sacred triumvirate, because each one of these rights is inextricably bound to the other. No one of these three can exist without the other. Moreover, when all three are secured, it is almost impossible for injustice to exist. Wherever one does find injustice, one invariably finds a violation of one of these three basic rights at its root. While it is certainly true that today the rights to life and liberty are grossly violated in innumerable ways, they are nevertheless at least spoken of by our politicians. However hypocritically, they at least say that they value life and liberty, even as they pervert those sacred rights as justification for their wars and plunder. Yet, they never even hypocritically evoke the right to property. No journalist ever challenges them based upon it, and honestly, most average Americans don't talk about it either. As a principle, property has vanished from our consciousness. However, as all of the great philosophers throughout history have understood, there is no right to life or liberty without property. In fact, property is part and parcel of life itself. What is property? It is that which an individual rightfully owns. Included among every human being's property are his mind, his body, his conscience, and his actions. Every act of mind and body undeniably belongs to the actor, including that act which he engages in more than any other: his labor. To deny someone's right to ownership of his mind, body, or labor is to make him a slave. It is labor that allows each individual to sustain his existence and pursue his happiness. All consumption must be preceded by production. Production can only be achieved through human labor. In fact, there is no way for an individual to pursue any goal, whether material, intellectual, or spiritual, without exertion. Even the search for God requires an intellectual and spiritual effort -- it cannot commence without labor. For most of us, the bulk of our labor is devoted to providing the basic necessities of life for ourselves and our children. Some portion of it also provides the extras -- the toys, the vacations, or the dining out that enriches our lives and adds to our happiness. A further portion is devoted to study, prayer, or just simple reflection -- the quest for meaning and purpose in our lives. None of these things are possible without labor; our labor provides them all. Every item in every store is the product of someone's labor. Every phone call you make is made possible by someone's labor. Healthcare is someone's labor, as is education. However, the actual effort of mind and body is not the most precious aspect of labor. If human beings were immortal, we could afford to spend our labor and its fruits indiscriminately, consuming as much as we wished and providing anything to anyone who asked it of us. If a shoemaker were able to make shoes for the rest of eternity, then certainly there would not be a bare foot on the face of the earth. If the land developer were immortal, we would all live in a mansion. However, we are not immortal, and it is this fact that places such a premium on our labor. Our labor is not just composed of the exertion of mind and body that is necessary to produce some good or service. That exertion happens over time, the hours or days of the laborer's life. Every hour of our labor is an hour of our life from a limited supply which cannot be replenished. Whatever we have produced with our labor now contains that portion of our life which we have sacrificed to produce it. So, when human beings trade their goods or services with one another, they are really trading pieces of their lives. If they have exchanged their labor for money with an employer or customer, that money now contains some part of their lives -- a part that can never be reclaimed. That is why the same verb is used for both money and time -- both are "spent" in exchange for some benefit. Both also represent each individual's means of self determination. Therefore, it is impossible to call a person free if he does not own his labor and all the product of his labor. It is only through his labor that he can provide better food, clothing and shelter for himself and his family, send his children to better schools, or realize the leisure time necessary to grow intellectually and spiritually. His labor is his means to determine the course of his life. Without self determination, there is no liberty. Furthermore, to deny a human being ownership of his labor is also to deny his right to life itself. Since his labor is his means of sustaining his existence, once his right to ownership of his labor is denied he lives only at the arbitrary whim of whoever has claimed ownership of it. For such a person, life is now a privilege granted by someone else, rather than a right. To the founders of the United States of America, all of this was self evident. When one reads the writings of Samuel and John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, or Locke, one finds one word that is used many times more often even than liberty: property. Recognizing property as nothing more than the individual's labor and/or the product of his labor, the founders placed the protection of property as the very highest priority of government. In fact, they often stated that it was the only priority of government. While no high school history book or Hollywood biopic even hints at this fact, merely reading the words of the founders for oneself puts any debate on this point to rest. Let us apply this concept to a contemporary issue. The unambiguous statements in the Declaration of Independence that all human beings have unalienable rights and that government's sole purpose is to secure them should absolutely beg at least one timely question from most Americans today. Why did the founders not provide for the right to health care? Why did they not establish Medicare or Medicaid? Given a whole system of government whose purpose was to secure individual rights, why was this right so glaringly overlooked? Of course, the answer to that question is that the founders recognized that health care was not a right. Health care, like every other good or service, is someone's labor. No one but the laborer can have a right to it. To say that people have a right to health care is really to deny the health care provider a right to his own life, for it is impossible for both he and his patient to have a right to ownership of his labor. It is no less a crime to forcefully rob the health care provider's fee from a third party (the taxpayer), for that simply denies the taxpayer's right to his own life. In either case -- whether the health care provider is forced to treat the patient for free or a third party is forced to pay the bill -- someone's labor, some part of someone's life, is being stolen from him. This is the specific crime that government exists to defend its citizens against. By instead committing this crime, government becomes the most grotesque absurdity imaginable. This is not to imply that we are at some sort of crossroads because President Obama and his pet Congress are closing in on expanding government healthcare. We came to that crossroads decades ago and quite undeniably took the wrong road. Until our philosophy changes and we recognize that retirement benefits, health care, research grants, corporate subsidies, investment in alternative energy -- all money, goods, and services -- are really pieces of someone's life that cannot be seized from them without their consent (not even by majority vote), we will never restore the liberty that we have lost. Instead, we will continue to be the most pitiable form of slave, not bound to one master, but to everyone. When a fellow human being offers to buy your product or hire you for your services, he has paid you the highest compliment imaginable. That person has offered a piece of his life to you in exchange for something that you have to offer, which is itself a piece of your own life. He is saying that you have value and that what you offer is worth hours or days of his life that he can never reclaim. This consensual interaction between free people is the most beautiful aspect of civil society and has been responsible for every improvement in the quality of human life that has ever occurred throughout history. Conversely, when a fellow human being points a gun at you and demands that you provide him with some good or service, he commits the most egregious crime imaginable, short of pulling the trigger and ending your life at that moment. For in reality, he is really stealing a piece of your life that you can likewise never reclaim. He may be committing this crime because he wishes to increase his wealth without earning it, or he may desperately need whatever he takes from you, but it is the same crime nonetheless. This interaction is the most evil aspect of civil society and has been responsible for every war and human misery that has ever occurred throughout history. Government can only be organized to fulfill one of two purposes: to protect your property or to take it from you - for whatever purpose government or its constituents deem fit. There is no third choice. To organize society around competing groups stealing from one another is to create a society whose citizens exist in a perpetual state of war with one another -- for the use of force to obtain another's property without his consent is the definition of the state of war. Such a society cannot endure indefinitely. Ours has come to the beginning of its inevitable end. Countless empires throughout history -- some much more preeminent in their worlds than we are in ours -- have disintegrated for exactly the same reason. We can still choose justice over injustice but our philosophy must change. We must again institute a government that secures our rights, rather than annihilates them in the attempt to provide us with the property of others. This will not happen by any act of government itself. Whether we elect a liberal or a conservative, we will never achieve different results by continually electing different people or parties but asking them to do the same thing -- provide us with the property of others. It must be the people who change their philosophy and then demand that government assume its appropriate role according to that philosophy. Our government ultimately gives us what we ask for. For the past century, we have increasingly asked it to make us slaves, seduced by the siren's song of comfort and security without responsibility. This can only be provided to each of us at another's expense and can only be provided to others at ours. Once we reject the idea that we can claim a right to another human being's life, the chains that bind us will be broken. Then, it will matter not who makes our laws.">>>

The source of the article to which the link below takes you is: VoxEU.org http://www.voxeu.org/ http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/3421 The link above is to "A Tale Of Two Depressions" by Barry Eichengreen and Kevin H. O'Rourke on 4 June 2009 actually "an update on the author's 6 April 2009 column comparing today's global crisis to the Great Depression." Barry Eichengreen is "Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley; and formerly Senior Policy Advisor at the International Monetary Fund. CEPR Research Fellow" "Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley and CEPR Barry Eichengreen is the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught since 1987. He is a CEPR Research Fellow, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the convener of the Bellagio Group of academics and economic officials. In 1997-1998, he was Senior Policy Advisor at the International Monetary Fund. He was awarded the Economic History Association's Jonathan R.T. Hughes Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 2002 and the University of California at Berkeley Social Science Division's Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004. He is also the recipient of a doctor honoris causa from the American University in Paris. His research interests are broad-ranging, and include exchange rates and capital flows, the gold standard and the Great Depression; European economics, Asian integration and development with a focus on exchange rates and financial markets, the impact of China on the international economic and financial system, and IMF policy, past, present and future." Kevin H. O'Rourke is "Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin and CEPR Research Fellow" The article, complete with impressive graphs appears on VOX "Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists" http://www.voxeu.org/ At the end of the article this statement appears:"This article may be reproduced with appropriate attribution. See Copyright (below)." <<<"Copyright and usage: By using VoxEU.org you agree to be legally bound by these terms, which shall take effect immediately on your first use of VoxEU.org. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all the following terms please do not access and/or use VoxEU.org. Unless otherwise stated, the copyright for all contributions are held by VoxEU.org. VoxEU.org may change these terms at any time by posting changes online. Please review these terms regularly to ensure you are aware of any changes made by VoxEU.org. Your continued use of VoxEU.org after changes are posted means you agree to be legally bound by these terms as updated and/or amended. VoxEU.org wants to encourage dissemination but wishes to track usage of its content and to be sure VoxEU.org retain control so as to avoid abuses. VoxEU.org restricts the right to copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use VoxEU.org content. Specifically: The titles and first sentences of any contributions may be reproduced without prior consent subject to proper attributions, specifically “VoxEU.org” must be mentioned as the source and a link to VoxEU.org must be provided (for web pages). VoxEU.org contributions may be partially quoted subject to inclusion of the line Author © voxEU.org (e.g. Guido Tabellini © voxEU.org) Up to two VoxEU.org contributions per month may be reproduced in full by any one website or printed publication without prior consent subject to proper attributions, specifically “VoxEU.org” must be mentioned as the source and a link to VoxEU.org must be provided (for web pages). Permission to reproduce more than two columns per month must be requested from permission@VoxEU.org. VoxEU.org content must not be adapted, altered or used to create a derivative work except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of VoxEU.org content requires the prior written permission. (Request permission from permission@VoxEU.org). VoxEU.org encourages the translation and publication of contributions in the print media. For enquiries and permission to translate, please contact: permission@VoxEU.org ">>> I have attempted to bring this article to your attention in accordance with the copyright restrictions and allowances. Please go to the linked webpage to see the entire article. Assuming the authors data is valid it appears we are on track, in fact deeper and faster than the changes which occurred during the lead up to the Great Depression. I apologize for not copying the whole article and posting it here but I do not want to risk infringing the copyright. I found the link to this article on Campaign For Liberty site entitled A Tale of Two Depressions www.campaignforliberty.com 1 July 10PM 164,988; 2 July 7AM 165,045 gulch

This article appeared on the Campaign For Liberty site. <<<"Glenn Jacobs [send him mail] is the actor and wrestler Kane. Visit his blog. Cap and Trade Equals Fraud and Tax By Glenn Jacobs Published 07/01/09 Printer-friendly version H.R. 2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 will result in a totalitarian centralization of the American economy in the administrative agencies of the federal government, especially the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This 1,300 page horror is a prime example of congressional modus operandi -- no one in Congress actually had the opportunity to read the bill which was, incidentally, being amended as it was debated on the floor. As H.R. 2454 shows, this axiom still holds true: the more benign the title of a congressional bill, the more draconian its contents. After all, who could be against clean energy or security? The real goal of H.R. 2454 has nothing to do with either of these; it is a power grab, pure and simple. While we have all heard much about the tax implications of H.R. 2454 and that every American family could see a $3,000 a year increase in their energy costs, H.R. 2454 does much more than that. H.R. 2454 is a fascistic fait accompli, giving the government expansive powers to regulate, subsidize, and tax more sectors of the economy. The bill authorizes more federal government control over the electrical grid, state and local building codes, lighting and appliances, industry, the financial markets, and, perhaps most ominously of all, the health care system. In addition, it includes wealth redistribution measures and would allow increases in foreign aid. Part of the rhetoric surrounding H.R. 2454 is that it will help break America's dependency on foreign oil by encouraging development of renewable energy sources. Most likely, the opposite will happen as oil companies "cope with U.S. carbon legislation by closing fuel plants, cutting capital spending and increasing imports." Ironically, cap and trade -- the cornerstone of H.R. 2454 -- does not protect the environment! Even Greenpeace opposed H.R. 2454, recognizing that it "chooses politics over science." While I would argue that the science to which Greenpeace refers is dubious at best, there is no question that H.R. 2454 has put politics above all else. In a cap and trade system, the government deems a certain level of pollution acceptable as long as the polluter pays a tax. That's like saying that it's acceptable for someone to throw trash on your lawn so long as he has bought a government permit. Even worse, he can throw even more trash on your lawn if he buys additional permits from someone who refrains from throwing trash on your lawn. In effect, cap and trade legalizes pollution. Advocates of cap and trade have used tortured logic to portray it as a market based system. James Boyce, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, claims that "this is the biggest creation and allocation of property rights since the Homestead Act." This statement is false on its face and falls into the realm of fantasy. Unlike the Homestead Act which dealt with property that actually existed in the real world, the property rights to which Boyce refers have been created exclusively through government edict. There is no such thing as a "carbon credit" except on a bureaucrat's spreadsheet. Boyce's statement turns the concept of property rights -- the basis of a free society -- on its head. The "right" to pollute is not a form of property, it is a government granted privilege. No one has a "right" to have clean air and water provided for them at someone else's expense. But no one should have the "right" to pollute air or water that he does not own. Far from creating a new form of property rights, cap and trade undermines the property rights that we own in our own bodies by granting polluters the legal privilege of polluting resources that they do not own and that we put into our bodies, i.e. air and water. Litigation (in the cases where harm has come to individuals) and a strict respect for property rights offer much more effective ways of dealing with pollution than regulation does. True environmentalists -- those of us who are concerned about things such as clean air and water -- should oppose schemes like H.R. 2454. H.R. 2454 is not designed to clean up the environment. It is designed to generate more revenue for the government and to give the government more power over the economy, our lives, and our freedom. And it does so at the expense of the environment. Copyright © 2009 Campaign for Liberty">>> www.campaignforliberty.com 1July 5AM 164,818, 6PM 164,947; 5JUL 165,606

<<<"Op-Eds What Obama Should Say To Iran Tuesday, June 30, 2009 By: Debi Ghate Protests in Iran continue despite the theocracy’s attempt to crush them. As Tehran launches its usual accusations of “American interference,” could it be that America hasn’t “interfered” enough? Imagine what might happen—what potential benefit there could be to us and to Iran—if this speech were made by an American President. “Good evening. I am here to address events of great significance to the American people. Over the past weeks, we have witnessed the murdering, beating and intimidation of Iranian protestors by a theocratic regime clenching its iron fist to retain power. I strongly condemn these unjust actions of the Iranian regime. It is time for America to be unequivocal and to recognize its past errors. It is time for the United States to make it clear that it does not recognize the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran has not had a legitimate government worthy of our recognition for decades. The country has been ruled by a series of murdering clerics who seized power outside of any legitimate political means. They were not chosen through any representative process. They are dictators of the worst kind. For decades, the Iranian regime has repeatedly declared itself an enemy of America, openly acting in violence against our citizens. We’ve known it since the clerics and their supporters took our embassy staff hostage in 1979. We’ve known it in the form of multiple Tehran-backed attacks on Americans since: 1983 in Beirut where we lost 241 people in a bombing; 1985 when TWA 847 was hijacked by Iranian-trained Hezbollah fighters and we lost a Navy diver; 1996 at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia where we lost 19; the list goes on. We’ve heard their message: “Death to America.” This is a regime that loudly calls for jihad on the West—for the violent imposition of sharia law—it calls for Islamic totalitarianism. It provides the intellectual leadership for the Islamist movement: training, financing, and otherwise encouraging a multitude of terrorist organizations—including those responsible for the September 11th attacks on our soil. America has not forgotten that this regime orchestrated and participated in three decades of deadly assaults upon its people and is ultimately responsible for them. We have nothing to say to the Iranian regime—except that we will no longer repeat our grave errors of the past. We know what you stand for, and what threat you pose. But we do have much to say to the brave Iranians voicing their opposition to the Supreme leader, making it clear his regime does not represent them. To those among you standing up in the face of threats; to those among you saying “We will continue to speak even if you, Supreme leader, claim that Allah forbids it”; to those among you deciding that it is time for freedom in Iran—we say: you have our encouragement, and our sanction. To those among you protesting against more than the electoral results, who are wholesale rejecting the oppressive nature of theocratic rule—we offer you our moral and financial support. And if necessary, we will offer you military support to the best of our ability. You see, we share your goal of ending the Iranian theocracy and of eliminating the threat it poses to our own nation. We have had the moral right to end it for decades; you not only have that right, you have the moral fortitude. To those few in Iran desperately seeking liberty: rejecting theocratic rule is critical, but what are you fighting for? Seize this opportunity to fight for a nation founded on principles that protect individual rights. As America once fought for its independence, so can you. Life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness: these are your inalienable rights. The time is now to fight to create a free nation upholding these principles. It will not be easy. Our thoughts are with you as you face imminent danger and uncertainty. It will take courage and conviction. But to you, the true friend of freedom, we say: we are with you as you take your first important step towards real revolution. You have rejected the iron fist that smashes you down through religious rule. You have spoken. Stand firm, and we will stand with you.” Unfortunately we will not hear this speech. Only a President acting on a foreign policy that properly defends the rights of its own citizens—a foreign policy of principled self-interest—would take this bold stand. Debi Ghate is Vice-President of Academic Programs at the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand--author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.">>>

Ron Paul mentions in the interview for the article that "In the past, I never got much support, but I think it's the financial crisis obviously that's drawing so much attention to it, and people want to know more about the Federal Reserve," Paul told FOXNews.com. Curious to me that he doesn't mention his Campaign For Liberty and the role its members have played in encouraging their Congressmen to cosponsor the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, HR 1207. www.campaignforliberty.com 30 Jun 6PM 165,680, 10PM 165,781 thus one hundred more individuals join the movement in just four hours! gulch

Chris, My son collected various comics as a child and made me aware of the quality of the art work employed in some of them. Those who did create the original Classics Illustrated comics which I grew up with were considered to be crude by comparison. As a child I recall buying only a handful of the original Classics even though they only cost a dime at the time, mid to late forties. There were altogether 167 Classics Illustrated ultimately. The dime I recall had the portrait of winged Mercury and I recall being disheartened when the newer dimes came out with the profile of FDR instead. It was an aesthetic thing rather than political as I didn't know then what I have learned since about him. I think the FDR dime came out shortly after FDR died and I was in the middle of my first decade of existence. I am not an artist but can picture each frame of Atlas as I read it. As I see it the Classics Illustrated version would include every word in the book! I would love to reach the minds of children before the public schools, churches and liberal colleges get to them. www.campaignforliberty.com 30Jun 6AM 164,520, 6PM 164,680; 1July 6PM 164,948 gulch

Stephen, I appreciate all your contributions here and should apologize for intruding as I did. www.campaignforliberty.com 29Jun 10PM 165,471 gulch

Michelle R., I have always wanted to see it as a mini-series as you do. I loved the mini-series Roots and can imagine the Atlas Shrugged version which could be truer to the book without leaving out scenes or characters. Not to mention the Classics Illustrated version! gulch

<<<"CEI Releases Global Warming Study Censored by EPA The Public Shouldn’t Be Kept in the Dark by an Agency Supposedly Committed to Transparency by Richard Morrison June 25, 2009 Washington, D.C., June 26, 2009—The Competitive Enterprise Institute is today making public an internal study on climate science which was suppressed by the Environmental Protection Agency. Internal EPA email messages, released by CEI earlier in the week, indicate that the report was kept under wraps and its author silenced because of pressure to support the Administration’s agenda of regulating carbon dioxide. The report finds that EPA, by adopting the United Nations’ 2007 “Fourth Assessment” report, is relying on outdated research and is ignoring major new developments. Those developments include a continued decline in global temperatures, a new consensus that future hurricanes will not be more frequent or intense, and new findings that water vapor will moderate, rather than exacerbate, temperature. New data also indicate that ocean cycles are probably the most important single factor in explaining temperature fluctuations, though solar cycles may play a role as well, and that reliable satellite data undercut the likelihood of endangerment from greenhouse gases. All of this demonstrates EPA should independently analyze the science, rather than just adopt the conclusions of outside organizations. The released report is a draft version, prepared under EPA’s unusually short internal review schedule, and thus may contain inaccuracies which were corrected in the final report. “While we hoped that EPA would release the final report, we’re tired of waiting for this agency to become transparent, even though its Administrator has been talking transparency since she took office. So we are releasing a draft version of the report ourselves, today,” said CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman. CEI is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy group dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. For more information about CEI, please visit our website at www.cei.org.">>> www.campaignforliberty.com 29Jun 4PM 164,337; 30Jun 6PM 164,680; 1July 6PM 164,948

Food for thought, although this article appeared some time ago. I don't know if it was discussed on OL. I do wonder where those who justify such things as firebombing Dresden during WWII, which certainly caused the deaths of innumerable innocent children, are sympathetic to the position of ARI in our present undeclared war? This came from www.LewRockwell.com <<<"The Objectivist Death Cult by Justin Raimondo In some ways, it really isn’t fair to raise the most extreme example of the pro-war faction of the libertarian movement, the orthodox Objectivists centered around Dr. Leonard Peikoff and the Ayn Rand Institute, because – judging from his pronouncements on the subject of the Iraq war – the man is clearly crazed, as his Ford Hall Forum speech, "America Versus Americans," given last year, makes all too abundantly clear. But it is really such a clear distillation of pure evil that I can’t resist citing it: it is far too inviting a target. Peikoff is sorely disappointed by this war, for a number of reasons, first and foremost being that his preferred target, Iran, is not yet in America’s crosshairs. The war in Afghanistan was a letdown for him because we took care not to inflict civilian casualties. This, says Peikoff, is immoral: in Iraq, too, we are far too squeamish about innocent civilians. And I note that Peikoff emphasizes the word "innocent," even as he proclaims that it would be immoral not to condemn these innocents to death. When someone in the audience cried out in horror at this brazen display of naked evil, Peikoff interrupted his talk and imperiously demanded "please throw that man out." A far cry from Ayn Rand herself, who, during the 1930s, took to the stump for Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie, and, when confronted by hecklers – of which there were plenty – gave as good or better than she got. But the thuggish, hectoring Peikoff, whose high-pitched voice is in stark contrast to his stern admonitions, will have none of that. Unlike the neocons, whose foreign policy he faithfully echoes, up to and including their iconization of Israel, Peikoff doesn’t hide behind any beneficent-sounding slogans, like "exporting democracy" and implanting free markets and the rule of law. This, he claims, would be "altruism," the worst sin in the Objectivist theology – although why freedom, in the abstract, and not just one’s own freedom, cannot be a value in and of itself is not at all clear to me. And the clear implication is that the Iraqis, like the Palestinians, are considered "savages" by Peikoff, who wouldn’t appreciate such a gift in any case. No, what we must do, says Peikoff, is kill them – enemy soldiers and innocent civilians alike. This same maniacal bloodthirstiness is expressed by Yaron Brook, the executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, in a recent lecture on "The Morality of War," in which he outdoes Peikoff – and also Cuffy Meigs – in the complete thuggishness of his stance, advocating the wholesale slaughter of innocent civilians in a total war of annihilation against the entire Middle East – except Israel, of course. When one timorous questioner raises the issue of how Mr. Brook reconciles such a view with the central doctrine of individualism, which is that all people are endowed with inalienable rights, Brook brushes this aside with an impatient wave of his hand and declares that all enemy civilians are legitimate targets. The reason is because your government represents you, whether you like it or not. So much for the idea of individualism. Yes, but what about a six-year-old child, asks the persistent – and clearly perplexed – questioner, who complains that he has trouble "internalizing" (his word) this monstrous doctrine of collective responsibility for the crimes of a ruling elite. What, he wants to know, has the child done to deserve such a fate? Brook hems, and haws, apparently reluctant to come right out and advocate child murder on a mass scale – and in the name of "individualism," yet! – but, in the end, he gathers up his courage, and, in a wavering voice that sounds eerily like Elmer Fudd, declares that six-year-old kids suffer all the time because of their parents’ behavior. This instance – in his view – is no different, he says, except in degree, reiterating his crazed view that when a government violates rights, all the citizens of that state are guilty, and can therefore be put to death. How can people who claim to hold "rationality" as their highest value sink to such depths of depravity? The problem is that these people are living in a fantasy world of pure abstractions, in which everything is viewed through the lens of a Manichean struggle between Reason and Unreason, Modernity and Primitivism, the West and the Rest. The humanity and reality of anyone deemed "irrational" is defined out of existence, so that it’s okay to torture and kill six-year-olds. Because, you see, they aren’t really people. Not like us. As I said, it is a bit unfair to hold up the Ayn Rand Institute and the Peikoff cult as an example of anything but pure psychopathology. Because they really have gone over the edge. But the influence of their West versus the Rest mentality runs deep in libertarian circles, due almost entirely, I would submit, to the influence of Ayn Rand, who dismissed Palestinians as subhuman "savages" and whose foreign policy views were based, not only any knowledge of specific areas of the world, but on highly stylized abstractions unconnected to any facts. The same abstract, supposedly "philosophical" outlook is shared by the "soft" Objectivists, represented by the Objectivist Center, headed up by David Kelley. In a statement, the Center had the following to say: "The attack was a deliberate assault not only on America's civilian population and government, but on its culture of reason, individualism, achievement, and freedom, with all their derivatives such as science, technology, capitalism, progress, and toleration. In many public statements – and in their choice of the World Trade Center as a target – the terrorists have declared their hatred for this culture and their wish to destroy it." The idea that Osama bin Laden and his cohorts, sitting in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan, suddenly came upon a copy of the Bill of Rights, and were so outraged that they decided to put a big dent in the New York City skyline is absolute nonsense. The last time we had a problem with these people was back in the late eighteenth century, when the Barbary pirates decided to hijack American shipping. To imagine that, suddenly, the Muslim world has decided to go on a crusade against America because we’re so rational, so tolerant, so wonderful, and so free is narcissism, pure and simple – and just plain wrong. Listen to what Michael Scheuer, a currently serving CIA analyst who had served for years on the Agency’s Al Qaeda task force, has to say about this Bushian-Objectivist view of 9/11: The United States is hated across the Islamic world because of specific U.S. government policies and actions. That hatred is concrete not abstract, martial not intellectual, and it will grow for the foreseeable future. While important voices in the United States claim the intent of US policy is misunderstood by Muslims, that Arabic satellite television deliberately distorts the policy, and that better public diplomacy is the remedy, they are wrong. America is hated and attacked because Muslims believe they know precisely what the United States is doing in the Islamic world. They know partly because of bin Laden’s words, partly because of satellite television, but mostly because of the tangible reality of US policy. We are at war with an Al-Qaeda-led worldwide Islamist insurgency because of and to defend those policies, and not, as President Bush mistakenly has said, "to defend freedom and all that is good and just in the world. Bin Laden’s credibility and stature in the eyes of Muslims is due to his success in persuading them that they must fight a defensive jihad against those intent on eradicating Islam and conquering the Middle East. The invasion of Iraq has certainly done much to convince any skeptics that he has a point, but many did not need much convincing, as our record in that part of the world already provided bin Laden with plenty of grist for his mill. As anyone who examines what bin Laden and his allies have actually said – and Scheuer's recent book, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, is a rich source of information on this subject – the Islamists are up in arms over five issues of major import: US support for Israel that keeps Palestinians in the Israelis' thrall US and other Western troops on the Arabian Peninsula US support for Russia, India, and China against their Muslim militants US pressure on Arab energy producers to keep oil prices low US support for apostate, corrupt, and often tyrannical Muslim governments In short: They are over here, because we are over there. Chalmers Johnson, the foreign policy analyst, has popularized the concept of "blowback" – the unintended consequences of government action in the international arena. It is an idea that ought to be all too familiar to libertarians, who are second to none in tracing the origins of these consequences when it comes to government intervention in domestic affairs. We face a worldwide insurgency directed at the American homeland as a direct consequence of our interventionist foreign policy. Its roots, however, are not in abstractions, such as the terrorists’ alleged hatred of our way of life, but in blood-and-flesh realities such as the March 8, 1985 car bomb that went off in a Beirut suburb. The intended target, a radical Muslim leader, was shaken but left alive. Eighty others, mostly women and children, were killed, and 200 were wounded. The bombing, according to Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, was the work of CIA director William Casey, who had enlisted the cooperation of the Saudis. Retribution was not long in coming. A few months later, Arab terrorists took over a TWA flight from Athens and executed a US Navy seaman on board, as they railed that it was payback time for the Beirut bombing. One hijacker kept yelling "New Jersey! New Jersey!" as terrified passengers cowered in their seats. He was talking about the battleship New Jersey, which had rained down death and, yes, terror in the form of 2000-pound shells on Beirut the previous year. Scheuer deals, not in abstractions, but in specifics: not in "philosophy," but in empirical, verifiable facts. In order to discover the truth about what is going on in the world, it is necessary know what you are talking about: you can’t derive the answers to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or the how to defeat Al Qaeda, or what position to take on the Iraq war, from knowing that "A is A." The daffy method of Peikoff, of Kelley, and of all too many libertarians leads to support for militarism, empire-building, and the defeat of the very values they claim to uphold. The abstractionists are taking the easy way out: all they have to do is repeat a few rote formulas, insert a few words here and there, and – bingo – they have a glib explanation, an instant position, all worked out in advance. That’s a lot easier than taking a reality-based approach: it means you don’t have to do any research, you don’t have to read the newspapers (except the editorial page) and you don’t have to educate others, except to inculcate in them the same formulas you have memorized for the occasion. The policy of global interventionism has a long and complex and bloody history, and it must be understood in order to see the present horror we face in context. Osama bin Laden did not just pop up out of nowhere: he was, in a sense, our own creation. We funded him, supported him, armed him in order to "liberate" Afghanistan from the Red Army – and when he turned on us, like a "tame" cobra gone rogue, we had to "liberate" Afghanistan again – essentially undoing the previous "liberation." Antiwar.com, the popular website of which I am editorial director, exists to educate Americans and readers worldwide. What is the War Party up to? Where will they strike next? What is the history of the latest target of our campaign of "liberation"? Like our sister site, LewRockwell.com, we debunk the lies, expose the frauds, and take a magnifying lens to the elaborate deceptions that rationalize America’s policy of perpetual war. And we do it because this is the central issue of our times. If we take the road to Empire, then the idea of limited government is doomed: the crushing weight of confiscatory taxation will smother our old republic, and stamp out the last vestiges of America’s libertarian legacy. Every war is a test, and, with this war we face our greatest test. Most libertarians, I am glad to say, are rising to the occasion: others – swept along by the rising tide of militarism and statism, enthralled by the rhetoric of warmongering demagogues, blinded by narcissism and hubris – are falling by the wayside. The American libertarian movement has gone full circle: we have come, in the end, to a replication of our beginnings. The modern libertarian movement was born in the shadow of the Vietnam war, and the split with the neocon-ized conservative movement over the question of the war and civil liberties. Only this time, we are bigger, stronger, more confident: we have not forgotten our history. Now let us prove ourselves worthy of it. October 12, 2004 Justin Raimondo [send him mail] is editorial director of Antiwar.com and is the author of An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard and Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement. This article is adapted from his talk to the 2004 Freedom Summit. Copyright © 2004 LewRockwell.com">>> www.campaignforliberty.com 29Jun 11AM 164,331; 1July 6PM 164,947; 2 July 5AM 165,032, 10PM 165,213

True. It remains to be seen if enough people step up to run as we hope. The establishment candidates, especially incumbents, will be hard to beat. Tough to run a low budget campaign. That is one reason why we thought the primary debate approach would be worth doing to get some publicity. Regarding the eight Republicans who voted for the cap and trade bill, there is a possibility that they could be persuaded to change their votes: http://www.dailypaul.com/node/97723 Even if they do though, it might just mean that some democrats will be made to vote for it of the forty who voted against it. g

Adam, It is too early to say. I know that in my CD there is a businessman who intends to run against our incumbent Congressman. I thought it might be helpful to run against the businessman in the Republican primary so we could arrange for debates in every town in the lengthy district in order to bring the voters attention to our perspective. He and I agree about most things in the economic realm but disagree regarding the woman's right to choose issue where I am pro choice. The only danger is that I might win the primary because of that issue alone. That is farfetched and unlikely actually. But it might be a meaningful experience to debate in public, an activity for which I have no talent. gulch

Adam, I think our only hope is to infiltrate both major parties with pro freedom, pro strict Constitutionalists, who will give their word that they will... I was about to say that they would take an oath to uphold the Constitution... but the ones in power already do that and ignore it anyway. The only people I know of who take these issues seriously are members of the Campaign For Liberty. We are about to witness a sea change in American politics as virtually every Congressman will find a challenger from C4L in every district in the country, not only in 2010, but in every election from now on! Those who already are in the movement are making others aware of it. This is happening especially in the colleges and universities as well as high schools. www.campaignforliberty.com 28Jun 9PM 165,266 I wish those who scoff at this would please explain just what they are counting on to alter the course of our country. I agree that the various think tanks, CATO, ARI, Atlas Society, Future of Freedom Foundation, Reason Foundation, Institute For Humane Studies, and The Ludwig von Mises Institute, in no particular order, and many others do play a significant role and will continue to do so. But the electorate is still appallingly ignorant. gulch

Et al, So all of a sudden, in cases such as this, there is a concern as to whether an action is Constitutional or not. That is comforting. Still the SCOTUS has refused to hear the case of Robert Schulz on their interpretation of the last ten words of the First Amendment which state rather clearly that each citizen has the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. So the Supreme Court Justices are failing to do their primary job which is to inform us just what the words in the Constitution do mean. Some would say that is treason. I wonder that the rather explicit meaning of the words "necessary and proper" as they appear in the very last statement in Article 1 Section 8, that they refer to the aforementioned powers enumerated explicitly above, has been "inflated" so that the "statists" interpretation, that they apply to anything in the world that the government wants to do with no limit, has been the rule. I will endeavor to find the argument used to justify that interpretation. Does anyone know of a case or the argument? Here is one of 29M links which lists historical cases and concepts: http://www.landmarkcases.org/ It is a site intended to help teachers instruct about the Supreme Court and sure enough it is easy to find "necessary and proper" under the list of concepts. Curious to see how they have justified the establishment of a national bank, i.e. Federal Reserve System, and legal tender laws. No wonder Geithner was befuddled by Michelle Bachmann's question asking which provision in the Constitution gave him the power to do what he is doing. Bernanke as well. Both invoked the Congress and the laws of the land confident that they were doing the legitimate work of the State. (regardless of the laws of Nature and Economics) www.campaignforliberty.com 28 Jun 6AM 165,193 gulch

This article appears on the ACDAlliance.org site and the C4L homepage: http://acdalliance.org/ <<<"Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D. is the Francis Walsingham Fellow at The American Conservative Defense Alliance (www.ACDAlliance.org) and a former CIA counter-terrorism specialist and military intelligence officer. Don't Mess with Iran's Evolutionary Process By Philip Giraldi Published 06/26/09 Everyone is looking for something to say about Iran. The neo-conservatives are predictably hailing the march of democracy on the streets of Tehran for reasons of their own, while hawks like Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham are calling on the Obama Administration to do something to help anyone tagged as a reformer. More moderate voices are generally supporting President Barack Obama's initial show of restraint -- avoiding any open support of either side -- and only condemning the violence because it is disproportionate due to the suffering it has caused. Still others are calling on the United States to avoid any interference of any kind. The non-interventionists themselves fall into two camps: the constitutionalists and libertarians believe that interfering in other people's quarrels is intrinsically problematical because as John Quincy Adams said, "America does not need to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy." Realists argue that interventions by the United States rarely turn out well, citing the cases of Vietnam, Bosnia, Lebanon, Iraq, Somalia, and more. Having spent much of my working life as an intelligence officer on the street in places like Istanbul, I am astonished at what passes for expertise in the debate over what to do about Iran. It is clear that even the few genuine experts on Iran don't really know what is going on there because they are slaves to their sources of information, which tend to reflect their own philosophical viewpoints and are, in any event, narrowly based. It is conventional wisdom in most of the US media that the Iranian election was stolen, the result of massive fraud. But was it? Opinion polls conducted by a US based organization several weeks before the polling predicted an Ahmadinejad victory. The president is hugely popular among poor rural Iranians and also enjoys overwhelming support for his defense of Iran's right to develop nuclear energy. Elections are very complex affairs and how a talking head sitting in Washington, breathlessly interpreting grainy texting images, can even pretend to understand what is going on in Iran and why defies all logic, particularly if the expert in question speaks no Farsi and probably would have difficulty in locating Isfahan on a map. Mir Hossein Mousavi is a reformer and modernist, isn't he? Perhaps not. He has always been extremely conservative in his political alignments. As Prime Minister in 1981-9, he was regarded as a hardliner. He started Iran's nuclear program, helped found Hezbollah and may have directed the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut. He is, in reality, a defender of extremely corrupt vested interests. That he has attracted the support of the so-called "Gucci crowd" of twentyish twitterers does not mean that he has embraced western values. As president, he would not abandon nuclear energy and would not immediately begin to talk nice to Barack Obama. His reformer credentials are pretty much non-existent, the creation of a media and an engaged punditry that wants to explain the Iran crisis in terms that a European or American audience would find comfortable. And then there is the corruption issue, Iran's six hundred pound gorilla. Mousavi is heir to the corrupt Iran of the post-revolutionary period when the country was looted by the senior clerics cooperating with the business class, the bazaaris. Some intelligence sources believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has been demonized by the western media, is actually the reformer in that he has taken on the country's pervasive corruption with the full support of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader. Massive corruption has been business as usual in Iran, frequently managed by politicians who have called themselves reformers. Another so-called reformer, who is the money man behind Mousavi, is former Iranian Majlis speaker Akhbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, nicknamed "the Shark." Rafsanjani is a billionaire who controls large sectors of the country's economy, to include a chain of private universities which became the source of the young organizers who brought the twitterers out on the street. If there was one thing I learned from twenty years of experience as a military intelligence and CIA officer it is that nothing is ever what it seems. If a situation appears to be clear cut, with good guys and bad guys arrayed against each other it is probably anything but. So maybe black and white comes out gray. All the more reason to step back. The interventionists from both left and right do not make it clear what the United States should do to help the "reformers." Perhaps that is just as well as the only options would be to hurl empty threats, start bombing, or initiate yet another CIA covert action to destabilize the regime, ignoring the lessons of the CIA's 1953 debacle, and with the predictable and contrary result of actually strengthening the clerics and their rule. Change by evolution is better than by revolution. Both metamorphoses are underway in Iran: one is immediate and reactionary and, perhaps necessarily, more graphic and even grim. The other suggests the possibility that long-lasting change might happen in Tehran -- if outside influences do not upset the sensitive process of transformation. As is frequently the case, those who would do nothing probably have it right, whether arguing for constitutional reasons or as realists. Iran and its elections are issues that we do not and cannot understand and they are ultimately issues that have to be decided by the Iranian people. Rightly or wrongly, outside interference in what is taking place on the streets of Tehran will be exploited by the regime to deflect any legitimate criticism, making any change even less likely. The old Hippocratic advice to doctors to "do no harm" should perhaps be the best advice for the American political chattering classes and the media. Doing no harm regarding events in Iran is to stay out of it. Copyright © 2009 The American Conservative Defense Alliance">>> www.campaignforliberty.com 26 Jun 5AM 164,875, 10 PM 165,048

Adam, I watched a delightful youtube video of George H. Smith, the author of Atheism: The Case Against God, and his dog, Herbert, named after Herbert Spencer, who, yes the dog, wanted to vote for Ron Paul. But they live in a small town in Illinois where dogs aren't allowed to vote. So Smith said he intended to take Herbert up to Chicago, where dogs do have a right to vote so that Herbert could vote for Ron Paul. Here is the link and notice that the music is from The Fountainhead!: I mention that because we all know that Chicago has years of experience with the voting thing. I am reminded of an American expatriot who lives in South America who intended to request that he be buried, after he dies, back in his home town of Chicago so that he can continue to exercise his right to vote for eternity after his death. Somehow I find it hard to believe that the Iranians have mastered the art of counting votes as they are cast as you suggest. I am sure you have experience doing that as you claim but given that the Iranians are kind of new to the democratic process I don't think they kept a running tally. I may be simple minded when it comes to worldly matters but despite their cunning and guile and their mastery of creating nuclear material imported from North Korea and the fact that their ancestors created arithmetic I don't believe they counted 40,000,000 ballots as they were cast in all the voting stations and compiled them to get the sum in the two hours they claim when they announced the winner. They said the Islamic leadership would not lie but I think that is exactly what they did. These are people who are willing to kill anyone who stands up to them or is an innocent bystander. They enlisted a goon squad to beat protesters. Do you consider they are a legitimate leadership after watching what they have endorsed? Reminds me of Kent State, Ruby Ridge, the Draft Law! www.campaignforliberty.com 23 Jun 10 PM 164,422; 24 Jun 3 AM 164,462, 9PM 164,621 Here is the link to a 7 minute interview of Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) on the need to audit of the Federal Reserve on Glenn Beck Show: Beck mentions the "regal presidency" in it as well. http://www.campaignforliberty.com/index.php gulch

Obama is saying that the people of Iran should determine the government they want. Well they did but the election was a complete flagrant farce. We are expected to believe that 40,000,000 paper ballots were counted in less than two hours. Then the Supreme Leader has the audacity to claim that the regime would not lie about that. How i wish that Obama or Ron Paul mentioned those simple facts to the media. The existing regime is a theocracy which has organized a goon squad to intimidate, beat, arrest and kill protesters. The government has the weapons and the citizens have only their courage, their desire for more freedom and rocks to throw at the "militia." Unfortunately America is too broke and its military too depleted to take a stand against the theocratic regime in power. We might consider arming the protesters to help them overthrow their tyrannical government. If we were to do that we could include copies of our Constitution and Bill of Prohibitions along with the assault rifles and ammo. www.campaignforliberty.com 23 Jun 6 PM 164,371, 9PM 164,419 gulch

<<<"International Bailout Brings Us Closer to Economic Collapse By Ron Paul Published 06/22/09 Last week Congress passed the war supplemental appropriations bill. In an affront to all those who thought they voted for a peace candidate, the current president will be sending another $106 billion we don’t have to continue the bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq, without a hint of a plan to bring our troops home. Many of my colleagues who voted with me as I opposed every war supplemental request under the previous administration seem to have changed their tune. I maintain that a vote to fund the war is a vote in favor of the war. Congress exercises its constitutional prerogatives through the power of the purse, and as long as Congress continues to enable these dangerous interventions abroad, there is no end in sight, that is until we face total economic collapse. From their spending habits, an economic collapse seems to be the goal of Congress and this administration. Washington spends with impunity domestically, bailing out and nationalizing everything they can get their hands on, and the foreign aid and IMF funding in this bill can rightly be called an international bailout! As Americans struggle through the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, this emergency supplemental appropriations bill sends $660 million to Gaza, $555 million to Israel, $310 million to Egypt, $300 million to Jordan, and $420 million to Mexico. Some $889 million will be sent to the United Nations for so-called "peacekeeping" missions. Almost one billion dollars will be sent overseas to address the global financial crisis outside our borders. Nearly $8 billion will be spent to address a "potential pandemic flu" which could result in mandatory vaccinations for no discernable reason other than to enrich the pharmaceutical companies that make the vaccine. Perhaps most outrageous is the $108 billion loan guarantee to the International Monetary Fund. These new loan guarantees will allow that destructive organization to continue spending taxpayer money to prop up corrupt leaders and promote harmful economic policies overseas. Not only does sending American taxpayer money to the IMF hurt citizens here, evidence shows that it even hurts those it pretends to help. Along with IMF loans comes IMF required policy changes, called Structural Adjustment Programs, which amount to forced Keynesianism. This is the very fantasy-infused economic model that has brought our own country to its knees, and IMF loans act as the Trojan Horse to inflict it on others. Perhaps most troubling is the fact that leaders in recipient nations tend to become more concerned with the wishes of international elites than the wishes and needs of their own people. Argentina and Kenya are just two examples of countries that followed IMF mandates right off a cliff. The IMF frequently recommends currency devaluation to poorer nations, which has wiped out the already impoverished over and over. There is also a long list of brutal dictators the IMF happily supported and propped up with loans that left their oppressed populace in staggering amounts of debt with no economic progress to show for it. We are buying nothing but evil and global oppression by sending your taxdollars to the IMF. Not to mention there is no Constitutional authority to do so. Our continued presence in Iraq and Afghanistan does not make us safer at home, but in fact undermines our national security. I vehemently opposed this Supplemental Appropriations Bill and was dismayed to see it pass so easily.">>> www.campaignforliberty.com 23Jun 5AM 164,137, 6 PM 164,371; 24Jun 6PM 164,578

Here is the link to the article which includes a couple of videos: http://tinyurl.com/lszgrc <<<"Ron Paul: The World's Most Popular U.S. Congressman (VIDEO) First Posted: 06-22-09 12:50 PM | Updated: 06-22-09 01:39 PM Months after his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential nomination ended, Rep. Ron Paul has become a hot ticket on the international stage. Unlikely as it may seem, Paul, a Texas Republican, is the most popular member of Congress outside the United States, if foreign television appearances are any indication. Paul expected his international influence to diminish after the quixotic presidential campaign. In fact, it's gone the other way. "It's actually building," he told the Huffington Post. "It really truly baffles me. I see myself as somebody who's been saying the same thing for about 30 years and not too many people paying any attention." How much international media does a typical member of Congress do? "Practically none," says a top House GOP communications aide. Foreign media appearances are so rare, he says, that the party doesn't track them. Paul says he doesn't go looking for the appearances. "I have a low resistance, because they pester me to death and I usually get talked into it. I don't usually look for 'em, but if somebody wanted to honestly ask me questions and express myself, because they relate to international affairs, I'm on [the] international relations [committee], and so they ask me," says Paul, pausing, probably realizing there are 46 other members of that committee who get nowhere near the number of foreign requests. "I don't know how it came about," he concludes. "It certainly isn't planned, because I'm not looking for more interviews." Turn on Russia Today any given afternoon and you're likely to see Paul waxing political. A Paul-seeking viewer could also find him on the BBC and other outlets in Great Britain -- "too many to count," says the spokesman, Jesse Benton, for his ongoing Campaign for Liberty) -- or on stations in Canada, Holland, Sweden, Australia, Brazil and Argentina. He's also routinely asked to appear in person. "Dr. Paul currently has invitations to speak all over the world, including Turkey, The Czech Republic, the U.K and Hong Kong," says Benton. "Yes, we do get more foreign media requests than we can accommodate," affirms Rachel Mills, his congressional spokeswoman. In the last month, she says, he's appeared on Italian National Television, Russia Today, BBC and Iran's Press TV. A number of others were declined for lack of time, she said. Told of Paul's foreign popularity, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) lets out a chuckle. "He's a great member of our caucus," he says, smiling. Stepping back, it's not hard to guess why Paul is so popular among foreign producers. He's a fierce critic of American policy from top to bottom -- foreign policy, fiscal policy, monetary policy, civil liberties. And he's popular with audiences. "When he is a guest, ratings increase. He is huge on the internet and CNN, Fox are trying to utilize that as well," said a journalist who works for a foreign network. "Also, when Dr. Paul was running for president, a lot of his interviews on the mainstream made him look like a lunatic...that has changed dramatically." Paul reads the Constitution strictly and votes against any bill he thinks goes outside Congress' authority as granted within it. He strongly opposes sanctions and U.S. military interventions in foreign affairs and favors legalizing drugs, gambling and other vices. He deems the American government "broke." Those are popular positions for viewers with anti-American sentiments and if Paul's popularity abroad is any evidence, those sentiments are alive and well, despite President Obama's international outreach. Take Russia Today, a network with an undercurrent of hostility toward American foreign policy -- though also a station independent of the Kremlin and not in the tank for its own authoritarian tendencies. Paul, a regular on Russia Today, tells its audience the same thing he says on the House floor: that the U.S. and its puppet, NATO, should stop meddling in Russian affairs or in nations nearby. That's just what they want to hear. Russia Today reporter Dina Gusovsky is happy to tee one up for Paul in a typical interview. "[C]an you comment on the NATO exercises in Georgia that are supposed to take place in early May?" Gusovsky asks. "There's already the bad blood between Russia, the U.S. and NATO. Is this going to exacerbate tensions? I mean, why is the United States spending so much money and effort in that region?" Paul knocks it straight down the middle of the fairway, telling Gusovsky, "you're right to say United States because NATO is United States, and that's our policy. I think it's a waste of money especially since we don't have any. We have to borrow that from the Chinese in order to go and do these things and pretend it's a NATO operation. But I think that is just antagonistic. I strongly oppose it. I don't even think we belong in NATO. I think if they need a pact of countries in Europe then they should do it, but not with our help. Because my position is that not only should we back off from moving in that direction of getting involved in the countries and republics that are very close to the Russian border, I think we should leave Europe. And we'll have to, just like how the Soviets had to break up their system for financial reasons, eventually the United States will have to do the same thing and that's why I've always been preaching that the best way to follow fiscal conservative views is to change our foreign policy and not spend so much money just getting ourselves into more trouble." The interview goes on for nearly eight minutes, a lifetime by U.S. cable standards. The more deliberative format appeals to Paul. "The interviews are always very friendly. There's less noise and less gotcha type of stuff and no shouting," he says. While he's generally willing to do foreign shows, he's less eager to do American ones, he says, because of the crossfire setup that engenders confrontation. "The format we have now isn't very healthy, where we just yell and shout at each other," he says. "I try to turn down these things where they put two people on a screen and to try to explain your position you have to yell louder than the other guy. As a matter of fact, I tell me staff I don't even want those. But if people are serious and want to ask me a question and want to know why I want to legalize marijuana and bring the troops home I'll tell them and try to explain it." Paul's popularity extends to the ground level in foreign countries. His website draws readers from all over the globe, as this graphic world map shows. Paul's YouTube videos get high in Ireland, Great Britain, Australia, the Czech Republica, New Zealand and Poland. During the campaign, there were Paul MeetUps in 118 countries. And there are still Campaign for Libertry groups almost everywhere - from Afghanistan, the Aland Islands and Albania to Zaire, Zambia and Zimbabwe (where there are three). Benton says the campaign doesn't solicit foreign involvement, yet it continues to grow. That kind of foreign entanglement -- the voluntary kind -- is the type that Paul, often derided as an isolationist, seems fine with. And much of the rest of the world seems fine with it, too. "It has nothing to do with isolation," he says. "I want to talk and travel and trade with people, before we start boycotting and bombing and embargoing. And I guess that falls on receptive ears internationally." WATCH Ron Paul on Russia Today in April:">>> www.campaignforliberty.com 22 Jun 10PM 164,009

Chris, You have never endeared yourself to me. What makes you think I care whether you like me or not? Are you in the habit of considering people to be evil if you disagree with them on an issue? If I want to post articles with which I disagree I have every right to do so. I will endeavor to indicate that if I do. Pleasant dreams. www.campaignforliberty.com 22 Jun 9PM 164,008; 23 Jun 5PM 164,371 gulch

Michael, I know it wasn't you. I was drawing your attention to the way Chris was using your forum by attacking me. gulch www.campaignforliberty.com 22Jun 7PM 163,922, 9PM 164,004

Michael, I know it wasn't you. I was drawing your attention to the way Chris was using your forum by attacking me. gulch www.campaignforliberty.com 162,922

Michael, If that remark isn't against your rules of behavior and decorum it should be! It is one thing to suggest that someone "check your premises" and quite another to say, "I just haven't checked my brain like you have." At times like this I wish we still lived in the age of dueling as I would call you out! www.campaignforliberty.com 22Jun 5PM 163,886 gulch

Gulch, You don't need to go far. Try this very thread: Michael Michael, Yes. That is so. What remains to be seen is who will step up and run for office from the ranks of the Campaign For Liberty. I have reason to believe that they will change the dialog in future elections as they draw attention to the failure of both major parties to adhere to the Founder's promise. In that regard I have Jefferson in mind not Hamilton. www.campaignforliberty.com 21 Jun 10PM 163,468; 22Jun 5AM 163,614; 5PM 163,886 gulch