Today is the day we are supposed to celebrate the unitary executive -- well not exactly, but unfortunately the celebration of Presidents Day has come to mean the iconization of the strong leader who takes the country into wars and takes charge of the economy. But might there be a better way to measure the greatness of a US president? How about their dedication to the Constitutional separation of powers and their promotion of peace, prosperity, and freedom? Today's Liberty Report takes a look at the US presidents through the prism of Ivan Eland's great book, Recarving Rushmore: Ranking the Presidents on Peace, Prosperity, and Liberty... read on...
The Turkish army has continued for the second day the shelling of the positions of the Syrian Kurdish militia across the border, demanding that the latter withdraw from the territories they’ve gained lately in the northern Aleppo province, especially the strategic military base of Menagh, which is vital to the supply lines from Turkey for the Syrian rebel groups.
But the Kurdish fighters are defiant and have rejected the Turkish demand. In turn, they have warned that they will resist any Turkish incursion. The Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim told Reuters that the Turkish army will find “the entire Syrian people confronting them”.
The latest reports suggest that the Kurdish militia, with Russian air cover, are encircling another strategic town of Tal Rifat close to the Turkish border. To be sure, Ankara faces a frontal challenge from the Kurdish militia who have rubbished its ‘red lines’ to the west of Euphrates and are now steadily advancing to take control of the territories straddling the Turkish border.
The Turkish objective will be to carve out a buffer zone inside Syria, which it has long advocated, ostensibly to provide for refugee camps for people fleeing the conflict zone, but in reality to gain control of the border territories and prevent the Syrian Kurds from gaining access to them. read on...
Last week US stock markets tumbled yet again, leaving the Dow Jones index down almost 1500 points for the year. In fact, most major world markets are in negative territory this year. There are many Wall Street cheerleaders who are trying to say that this is just a technical correction, that the bottom is near, and that everything will be getting better soon. They are ignoring the real message the markets are trying to send: you cannot print your way to prosperity.
People throughout history have always sought to acquire wealth. Most of them understand that it takes hard work, sacrifice, savings, and investment. But many are always looking for that “get rich quick” scheme. Monetary cranks throughout history have thought that just printing more money would result in greater wealth and prosperity. Every time this was tried it resulted in failure. Huge economic booms would be followed by even larger busts. But no matter how many times the cranks were debunked both in theory and practice, the same failed ideas kept coming back. read on...
We live in a world in which more and more things happen electronically. It is now possible to buy all your clothes online, all your books, all your food, and have them all delivered to you. Online communication allows us to communicate with almost anyone on the planet, anywhere, at any time. Someone who had fallen asleep 30 years ago would be amazed at how different things are. That extends to the realm of payments as well. Millions of people now access their bank accounts online, transferring money between accounts and paying off credit cards. Payment services such as PayPal are used by more and more merchants. Cash is being displaced by credit and debit cards, which are themselves beginning to be displaced by new digital currencies and payment systems such as Bitcoin, Samsung Pay, and Apple Pay. A world in which everything is transacted digitally may not be far off. But will this digital revolution enable a dream world for consumers or a never-ending nightmare?
Digital currencies, electronic payments, and online financial services are turning the monetary, financial, and banking systems on their heads. But despite all the advances brought about by the digital revolution, there are still quite a few drawbacks. The most obvious is that it is reliant on electricity. One major hurricane knocking out power, a mid-summer brownout, or a hacker attack on the power grid could bring commerce to a halt. With cash, transactions are still possible. With digital payments, civilization comes to an end until power is restored. Unless you have food stored or goods with which to barter, you’re out of luck. Just imagine a city like New York with no power and no way to buy or sell anything. It won’t be pretty. But those instances will hopefully be few and far between. There are other, more important problems with digital currencies and payments. read on...
It seems that Iraq will continue to haunt the American people for the indefinite future. And it should. Including the Persian Gulf intervention, the 11 years of sanctions, the no-fly zones, the post-9/11 invasion and and occupation, and the post-occupation bombing, the U.S. government has killed, injured, and maimed several hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens.
There is also the massive destruction of homes, businesses, automobiles, infrastructure, and other property in Iraq.
There are also the Iraqis who were rounded up, tortured, sexually abused, or executed, including those at Abu Ghraib.
Finally, today there are US presidential candidates who are practically foaming at the mouth in the hope that they will have the opportunity to order US troops to wreak even more death and destruction on Iraq, this time under the rational of attacking ISIS. read on...
We have a word in English to describe the act of taking someone against their will and forcing them to work for you. It's called slavery. One form of this, indeed the most heinous form of this, would be a military draft. Because this particular form of slavery involves much more than being forced to pick cotton on a plantation; it involves the high possibility of being blown to smithereens on a battlefield. All while working a profession that you did not choose, fighting a war that you might not agree with, to benefit politicians that you probably don't even know. Regardless of whether you are drafting men or women; the very premise of a draft is completely at odds with the idea of liberty. Drafting men is evil. Drafting women is evil and insane.
Some would say that drafts are sometimes necessary to defend liberty. But what type of liberty is this defending? The liberty of a nation to say that certain people have no liberty at all? That certain people are required by law to be killed if their government gods dictate it is so? To die for such a liberty as this is to die for liberty as a myth. True liberty means you choose what you will and won't do with your life. And no one, including the self-perceived federal masters can force you to.
The great economist Walter Williams (who happens to be black) once stated that requiring young men to register for the draft is like asking black people to register for slavery, just in case the government decides they want to change their mind and re-institute it. Williams dramatic illustration is right on point. Should black people be forced to do something against their will just because they are black? Of course not. Should 18-25 year old males be forced to? read on...
What is the "deep state"? Is it a secret national security apparatus that spies on us and operates "black sites" overseas? Some judicial star chamber ruling in secret? Well, partly. But as Mike Lofgren, author of "The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government" points out, the whole truth is comparatively banal. The deep state consists of the multiple layers of government and quasi-government bureaucracies and the myriad of cottage industries they spring up around them, including the military-industrial complex and the election-industrial complex. They operate out in the open and are almost completely overlooked, while Americans instead to turn their attention to the latest election. But elections change very little in Washington with the deep state in the driver's seat... read on...
In 1927, H.L. Mencken rode by train through the Pennsylvania coal country. The houses he saw along the way were so hideous, at least in his eyes, that he was moved to pen his famous essay, “The Libido for the Ugly.” Mencken was writing about towns inhabited by coal miners and railroad brakemen, but what would he say if he were to visit present-day Washington, DC and take a stroll in its surrounding suburbs? read on...
With the opening of all military combat roles to women, establishment voices like the New York Times are proclaiming that the next fight for equality is to force women to join men in registering for the draft. In what way is it a triumph of rights to have the threat of slavery, which is what the military draft really is, hanging over both men and women? Today's Liberty Report is joined by retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski to discuss the role of women in the military, the role of the military, and the role she played in blowing the whistle on the neocons who lied us into war with Iraq... read on...
Ken Womble has written convincingly regarding legal matters, including the desirability of prosecuting cops who lie about other cops’ killings. However, Womble, in a Monday Mimesis Law article, provides several not-so-convincing arguments for repealing the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution while keeping in place other constitutional provisions Womble lists — “freedom of speech, assembly, due process, voting, etc.”
Womble provides three arguments in support of his conclusion. First, he says that the right to keep and bear arms is distinguishable from other rights mentioned in the Constitution because, “[i]n our nation’s almost 240 years of existence, the 2nd Amendment is the only time our leaders have granted a constitutional right to possess tools.”
When you think about it, this is not much of a distinction. The freedom of speech that Womble seeks to distinguish from the right to bear arms would be of much less value without the ability to use microphones, telephones, video cameras, audio recording equipment, radio and TV, the internet, means of transportation, and many other tools. Indeed, listed rather redundantly in the First Amendment is the freedom of the press along with the freedom of speech. read on...
