THIS is Courage, THIS is Guts, THIS is Serving Your ‘Country’

Even many libertarians offer support and appreciation for the “service” so selflessly offered by those enslaved within the US military. WRONG!

Luke Rudkowski and We Are Change give us a nicely done video mix highlighting their adventures and encounters over the past year. Courage is seeking and exposing the truth, no matter what the potential cost. It takes absolutely NO courage to obey and execute the actions of the thieving, warring, and deceptive Powers-That-Be. Look for even a more explosive year in 2012.

Are They Coming for Your Gold?

On November 21, 2002, Ben Bernanke (then a Governor on the Federal Reserve Board) gave a speech before the National Economists Club in Washington, D.C. When listing possible Fed actions to cure any possible deflation in the future, Bernanke lists this possibility:

“Although a policy of intervening to affect the exchange value of the dollar is nowhere on the horizon today, it's worth noting that there have been times when exchange rate policy has been an effective weapon against deflation. A striking example from U.S. history is Franklin Roosevelt's 40 percent devaluation of the dollar against gold in 1933-34, enforced by a program of gold purchases and domestic money creation. The devaluation and the rapid increase in money supply it permitted ended the U.S. deflation remarkably quickly. Indeed, consumer price inflation in the United States, year on year, went from -10.3 percent in 1932 to -5.1 percent in 1933 to 3.4 percent in 1934.17 The economy grew strongly, and by the way, 1934 was one of the best years of the century for the stock market. If nothing else, the episode illustrates that monetary actions can have powerful effects on the economy, even when the nominal interest rate is at or near zero, as was the case at the time of Roosevelt's devaluation.”

Can we look forward to Bernanke pulling “an FDR” in 2012?

Lindsey Williams seems to think so, as he stated in an interview this week with Alex Jones.

Snapshot of the State- Prohibition’s Burial Ground

The War on (Some) Drugs creates a massive body count. In Mexico, the bodies are falling faster than they can be identified and buried.

Morgue workers place a coffin holding an unidentified body into a grave at San Rafael cemetery on the outskirts of the border city of Ciudad Juarez. The bodies of 36 unidentified people, killed in drug-related incidents, were buried on Tuesday after being held in the city morgue for several months without being claimed by relatives.

I Hereby Secede

Secession is a topic that seems to increasingly pop up in conversation, discussion, and written opinion. I believe that more people every day are seeing state secession as a viable and even necessary action to counteract increasing personal oppression, stolen liberties, and monetary incompetence and thievery by the United States Government. According to the Declaration of Independence, when such conditions become intolerable for the people, “it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

But why wait for your state to secede? In the meantime, why not make a personal declaration of secession? Below is my idea of what a personal declaration would look like. I encourage others to make this same declaration and add or subtract any statements you deem relevant. Or write your own. Make copies and distribute to friends and relatives, encouraging them to do likewise. By all means, send copies to your Congress critters and other ruling tyrants. Convey the message that you no longer willingly submit to their arbitrary rules, and the theft and violence committed against you personally and against others in your name.

Some will dismiss such a declaration as merely symbolic, lacking any legitimate authority. By how does it contain any less authority than a state and constitution created by others a couple centuries before you were born? Here is my declaration:

I, Roger Young, a sovereign, free-born individual, and a child of God/Nature, do hereby declare my personal secession from the political entity known as the “United States of America.“ Though reason tells me that this entity has no inherent legitimacy toward ruling my life (as this arrangement was not created by me, nor obtained my consent), I find it necessary to declare such a separation.

By this act of secession, I hereby withdraw any present and future consent toward being ruled by this authoritarian organization. Any laws, edicts, regulations, executive orders, or demands issued by this organization will be ignored as so much verbal static emanating from tyrants lacking any legitimate authority.

By this act of secession, I declare I will no longer consent to being described as a willing citizen or subject, collectively enslaved under the rule of the “United States Government,” nor its permanently ensconced ruling class. I hereby refuse to be labeled a participant of, nor a collaborator with, the criminal actions executed by those individuals declaring to be representatives, employees, or agents of the “United States Government.” Such actions include waging war and stealing the property and wealth of other individuals. Any such actions declared to “be in my name” or “for my benefit or protection” will be considered blatantly fraudulent. I will hereby consider myself only as a sovereign individual residing on the North American continent, responsible only for the actions I commit as an individual.

By this act of secession, I will no longer be a party to the collectivist “we” used to describe those residing within the geographical boundaries claimed by some as the “United States of America.” I will no longer be subject to the responsibilities, agreements, debts, or liabilities, claimed by that institution and “shared” by its subjects

By this act of secession, I will no longer consider my body subject to the rules and regulations of that entity known as the “United States Government.” Any attempt to restrict my consumption of any food or drug will be branded as illegitimate and ignored Any attempt to actively apply such restrictions by this entity will be considered an act of violence and dealt with accordingly in a peaceful, though effective and persuasive, manner.

By this act of secession, I will no longer consider my physical, property (tangible or intangible) subject to any “laws” or regulations put forth by the entity known as the “United States Government.” Any taking or taxing of such property will be considered theft and will be dealt with accordingly in a peaceful, though effective and persuasive, manner.

By this act of secession, I will no longer deem any restrictions, regulations, or limits on the use of my labor as legitimate, nor the taking or taxing of the fruits of such activity. The interference in the voluntary, contractual associations and agreements that involve my personal labor will not be tolerated. Such agreements and contracts will be considered sacrosanct and immune to the dictates and interventions from that entity known as the “United States Government.”

By this act of secession, I will no longer maintain any allegiance or loyalty to the political abstraction named “The United States of America.” I will not recognize its “boundaries” as legitimate nor use their existence as a regulator or hindrance toward interacting with those individuals who reside outside said “boundaries.” I will also declare no aggressive intentions toward destruction or take-over of this entity. I will also by this act declare no immediate allegiance or loyalty to any other present or future political abstraction.

By this act of secession, I hereby declare absolutely no reverence or respect for that political entity known as the “United States of America” nor its self-declared ruling body known as the “United States Government.” I will from this time forward view both with suspicion and as dangerous predators, preying on the lives, fortunes, and liberties of free individuals.

By this act of secession, I will not automatically obey any illegitimate “laws” or orders, not previously mentioned, put forth by that entity known as the “United States Government.” Any perceived obedience by me will be the result of carefully calculated submission to an entity exhibiting superior firepower.

Any state agents sent forth by the “United States Government” to contact me will be dealt the equivalent respect and kindness that is shown toward me by such agents. Any perceived obedience by me will be the result of carefully calculated submission to an entity and its agents exhibiting superior firepower.

By this act of secession, I will not tolerate, as a free-living, free-thinking, peaceful individual, any violent, unjustified attacks on other such individuals and private organizations or their property by this entity known as the “United States Government.” I will utilize all available time, talents, and resources available to me to expose and ridicule those agents of the “United States Government” that initiate such attacks. I will also help and support any active, peaceful countermeasures to help prevent or overturn any such violent, aggressive actions against sovereign lives and property.

By this act of secession, I will no longer listen to any speeches, comments, or information communicated by that entity known as the “United States Government.” All such information will be instantly declared not credible and subject to verification and confirmation by reliable, non-state sources. Any verbal or written communication emanating from this entity will automatically be considered a lie until proven otherwise.

By this act of secession I remain open to the idea of being ruled by similar such entities, but such an action will occur only with unequivocal consent by me and legitimized by mutual contractual agreement.

By this act of secession, I do not make the arrogant assumption of speaking for other sovereign, free-born individuals. This declaration is relevant only to me and not to any other sovereign individuals known personally to me or related by birth. However, I encourage other like minded individuals to do the same. I encourage and even implore them to stand up for their lives, liberties and property. I passionately advise they throw off the yoke of bondage that inhibits, strangles, and even kills them, destroys and steals their wealth and property, and poisons the futures of all who seek to live unchained. No shedding of blood or violent extremism is necessary. Just take the time to officially declare withdrawal of your consent.


“Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed.”

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“I would rather roam and idle about in a muddy ditch, at my own amusement, than to be put under the restraints that the ruler would impose. I would never take any official service, and thereby I will [be free] to satisfy my own purposes.
There has been such thing as letting mankind alone; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind [with success].” The world “does simply not need governing; in fact, it should not be governed.”
Chuang Tzu (369-286 B.C.)

“Fascism has no new ideas, no big projects, and not even its partisans really believe it can accomplish what it sets out to do. The world created by the private sector is so much more useful and beautiful than anything the State has done that the fascists have themselves become demoralized and aware that their agenda has no real intellectual foundation.”
Lew Rockwell

"In the long run even the most despotic governments with all their brutality and cruelty are no match for ideas. Eventually the ideology that has won the support of the majority will prevail and cut the ground from under the tyrant's feet. Then the oppressed many will rise in rebellion and overthrow their masters."
Ludwig von Mises

“A democratic, or republican, or constitutional state is basically a combined mass of individual powerless people, lacking in any natural or God-given or humane right to oppress anyone, who become powerful in the embrace of the state or as the state and then claim rights to do almost anything. In this embrace, the value of each person, which should be paramount and which necessarily includes that person's freedom, is suppressed and replaced by the value of the state. State education hasn't been abolished yet because most people value the state above the person. They'd rather have the state be paramount, even if individual persons are thwarted and crushed.”
Michael S. Rozeff

“Too bad order means accountability to the law. Too bad the State is accountable only to itself. Too bad an entity accountable only to itself is an inherently unaccountable entity. Too bad unaccountable means rogue and criminal. Too bad none of the minarchist strategies – ballot boxes, Bills of Rights, separation of powers – designed to make the State accountable have made it accountable to anybody but itself.”
Tony Pivetta

“The oligarchs think that the people are both dangerous and stupid. Their point is moot. But we do know that the oligarchs are a good deal more dangerous to the polity than the people at large."
Gore Vidal

“The decentralization of decision-making that is implicit in a system of privately-owned property provides another instance of the unity that inheres in apparent opposites. By distributing authority widely rather than narrowly, private property provides a greater flexibility allowing individuals to voluntarily join with others in concentrated communities in which they can choose to associate with others in pursuit of shared interests.”
Butler Shaffer

“Education is the process of a rational mind coming to healthy maturity, during which the individual adopts accurate conceptions of the world and its various functions. It is a process of self-empowerment, where each new piece of knowledge can be independently verified and remain logically consistent with all other information obtained earlier. It is a voluntary process, fueled only by the individual learner's inclination toward intrigue and choice to pursue understanding of the unfamiliar.
Indoctrination is a process of externally enforced self-degradation. Subjects are commanded exactly what to think. They are never taught how to rationally differentiate truth from illusion. Each new piece of information obtained is potentially a major danger to the subject, for the student is at the mercy of whoever happens to be the information enforcer for the day.”
Vahram G. Diehl.

“I have often thought that to be a Communist at the beginning of the twentieth century was possibly an intellectually defensible position looking at the scant history of the movement in power and practice yet one hundred years later this extreme form of collectivism should be universally reviled and is intellectually and morally indefensible; and here in 2009, not only are the same miserable failures and barbaric practices heralded but endorsed by no less than the President of this decaying country known as America.”
Bill Buppert

“The genius of modern democracy is that it makes the citizen a party to his own enslavement. Rather than give up 10% of his output to his feudal lord and master, he gives up 30% to 50% to his democratically-elected bosses. They tell him what to do. And he believes he is giving the orders!
And then, he believes he has discovered the best form of government in the world. It is so good he can’t wait to force others to be democrats too.”
Bill Bonner

“If you only like the term democracy because you want to enforce your will on others fewer in number or just less empowered, you’ll continually find yourself cutting deals with entrenched powers over whose numbers matter. If you want real democracy — power vested in the people — you should be interested in anarchism.”
Darian Worden

“The free market, and the free society in general, cannot be understood without also understanding their indispensable political, legal, and moral conditions. Freedom from government whim is one of those conditions, despite its inconvenience for those who lust after power.”
Sheldon Richman

“I look at the U.S. Postal Service and see the future of the Federal government. I have seen the future, and it is mostly junk mail.”
Gary North

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From the Darkness:

“To those American citizens thinking about helping Al Qaeda, please know what will come your way: death, detention, prosecution. If you are thinking about plotting with the enemy inside our country to do the rest of us harm, please understand what is coming your way: the full force of the law.
The law I am talking about is the law of armed conflict. You subject yourself to being held as an enemy of the people of the United States, interrogated about what you know and why you did what you did or planned to do, and you subject yourself to imprisonment and death. The reason you subject yourself to that regime is because your decision to turn on the rest of us and help a group of people who would destroy our way of life is not something we idly accept. It is not a common, everyday crime. It is a decision by you to commit an act of aggression against the rest of us.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham

“Please know what will come your way: Death, detentions and prosecution. And when they say, ‘I want my lawyer,’ you tell them, shut up, you don’t get a lawyer.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, describing what life will be like after passage of the NDAA

“There is a fear that if we the [BATFE] get too big, it will infringe on gun rights, which is the furthest thing from the truth. Having strong firearms policies and laws is the best way to preserve gun rights.”
Dewey Webb, retiring head of the Houston division for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives

“Well, the Ron Paul people are not going to like my saying this but to a certain degree it will discredit the Iowa caucuses because rightly or wrongly, I think most of the Republican establishment thinks he is not going to end up as the nominee, so therefore Iowa won't count."
Fox News Pundit Chris Wallace, discrediting in advance any Ron Paul electoral victories

“…We still are facing the problem of building such a world order. We have crises: we are facing problems of the environment, of backwardness and poverty, of food shortages. All of these problems are because we do not have a system of global governance. We are living in a global world. The political prerequisites for a global world do exist, they have been created. But we were not ready and we still have to learn to live in a global world. This is the No. 1 problem, and a lot depends on how countries like the United States will act, how Europe will behave, how Russia will behave.”
Mikhail Gorbachev, still a Bolshevik at age 80 [Don’t most people outgrow that ideology at about age 24?]

“People are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third,. If [Mitt] Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire and the other states.”
Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, advising what people should do if Ron Paul wins the upcoming Iowa caucus.

“The most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength.”
Jay Carney, White House press secretary, on passage of the NDAA

"I have called on the Governor to bring in the National Guard. We are at war and when you’re at war, you have to bring in soldiers.”
Austin Badon Jr., Louisiana state lawmaker, reacting to soaring crime levels

“I am a law-enforcement officer. I want to put people in jail.”
ICE Special Agent William Ross

"The president went in based on intelligence that they [Iraq, in 2003] had weapons of mass destruction. Had he known that that was not the case, the U.N. would not have put forth resolutions authorizing this type of action, the president would not have been pursuing that course. But we did not know that."
Mitt Romney [Don't Mormons consider lying a sin?]

“That’s why I’m a cop, I can do whatever I want to do.”
Police officer Dayle Long, just before shooting and executing a man in a bar in Murrieta, CA while off duty.

“One of the things that we've learned from Vietnam is to separate the warriors from the war. You can be opposed to the war — you can disagree with the tactics and the political decision involved — but the individuals on the battle field are there protecting us."
Paul Spera, past commander in chief of the VFW [If the war is wrong, how can soldier boys be protecting us? If a war is wrong, how can I not blame those who are executing it? ]

"And let's say a [holiday] prayer for all our troops standing post all over the world, especially our brave men and women in Afghanistan who are serving, even as we speak, in harm's way to protect the freedoms and security we hold dear."
B. Obama, offering a blessing for his murdering assassins

"I have advised the Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress's consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient."
B. Obama, in a signing statement after signing the 2012 omnibus funding bill, declaring he will pick and choose what provisions of the bill he will obey

“Even as we challenge it to be better, fairer and more honest, we still have to believe that democratic governance by the people, through their institutions, can and should exist. Like Santa Claus, democracy requires us to believe that collective faith can be greater than our individual doubts.”
Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC [Have faith, folks, that mob rule and collectivism will create a utopia.]

‘A Noble Lie’ Tells the Truth

I just purchased and viewed the new documentary which was just released, “A Noble Lie- Oklahoma City 1995.” This well researched film reveals a lot of information previously censored and unknown to the general public. It all points to the total murderous, criminal behavior by the Clinton regime and the US Government.

If you insist on being well informed and wish to be further armed with “truth ammunition” to fight the DC Death Star, this film is a must to see. You can purchase a copy at the InfoWars.com store.

I also recommend viewing the Alex Jones interviews with Hoppy Heidelberg. Mr Heidelberg who was picked to be on an Oklahoma Grand Jury in 1995. His search for the truth was constantly hindered by US initiated deception, lies, incompetence and even death threats. You can view this interview here, here, here, and here.

Merry Christmas! Fuck the State!

In the months ahead the state will attempt to rule you, rape you, extort you, molest you, regulate you, restrict you, dominate you, insult you, demean you, and even kill you.

Endeavor to resist peacefully, as best you can. The state’s reign on earth will soon end with a pathetic whimper. Make sure you’re still around to enjoy it.

They're Coming for YOU, Now

Obama’s hired assassins are leaving Iraq in droves. This is certainly good news for Iraqis who have suffered over eight years of war, brutal attacks, occupation, torture, rape and plunder initiated by the US Empire. However, now it’s time for us abused serfs residing in the Homeland who must fear the future.

Yes, some of these warriors will be shuttled on to new killing fields in Syria, Iran, and Africa. But now that The Emperor has the power to use his military to kidnap and hold indefinitely any dissident he pleases, many of these relocated grunts will be locked and loaded to “serve” on our neighborhood streets.

Many others, who have mercifully survived their period of state enslavement, will become civilians. A significant number of these folks will wander the streets, totally unprepared to function within a civil society that frowns on coercive relationships and violent solutions. Others will become the civilian jackboot version of their military identities, cruising the streets enforcing all manner of illegitimate “laws” and regulations- some made up on the spot. They’ll have a keen eye, sharpened by combat experience, for identifying easy targets from which to extract much needed revenue.

Can these misfits be persuaded to do otherwise? Can they be encouraged to live their lives not as violent, obedient servants but as self-directed, enlightened individuals, seeking a life of peace and productivity? Can they be rehabilitated? I have to believe some can. By all means, approach them with such intent. But be wary.

I honestly don’t look forward to a day when these folks come calling, sweeping through neighborhoods and snatching individuals. Some will refuse such duty. But how many will? Will the numbers be sufficient to render their master’s politically impotent? We can only hope. The alternative is seeing your family, friends, and neighbors caged in gulags and torture chambers and the streets littered with the carcasses of dead soldier boys.

What’s that? Did you assume there would be no resistance?

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“What makes anyone think that government officials are even trying to protect us? A government is not analogous to a hired security guard. Governments do not come into existence as social service organizations or as private firms seeking to please consumers in a competitive market. Instead, they are born in conquest and nourished by plunder. They are, in short, well-armed gangs intent on organized crime. Yes, rulers have sometimes come to recognize the prudence of protecting the herd they are milking and even of improving its ‘infrastructure’ until the day they decide to slaughter the young bulls, but the idea that government officials seek to promote my interests or yours is little more than propaganda—unless, of course, you happen to belong to the class of privileged tax eaters who give significant support to the government and therefore receive in return a share of the loot.”
Robert Higgs

“I don’t have to prove freedom to be true; I only have to prove slavery to be false.”
Chris Dates

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness."
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lie our growth and our happiness."
Vicktor Frankl

"When the government’s boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence."
Gary Lloyd

“The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished...The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be...”
Lao Tzu (6th century B.C.)

“In the coming New Year, 2012, both Groundhog Day and the State of the Union address will occur on the same day. This is an ironic juxtaposition of events. One involves a meaningless ritual in which we look to an insignificant creature of little intelligence for prognostication. The other involves a groundhog.”
David Galland

“To me, to be a citizen of a country means you belong to that country, which means the country – really, the government, or the community as a collective – owns the individual within the territory. Citizenship cancels out self-ownership as well as any notion of private property ownership. One of your most important aspects of private property is your own life. The individual’s most important private property is one’s own person, labor and what one honestly acquires through voluntary trade. But what the statist conservatives want, and what most people seem to want, unfortunately, is for the collective of the territory to seize ownership and control of the entire territory and all property, capital and resources within it. That includes the people themselves.”
Scott Lazarowitz

“Respecting the inviolability of the boundaries that enclose our neighbors’ property claims accords them our respect for the autonomy that is essential to any meaningful form of individual expression. In acknowledging one another’s realms of unimpeded activity, we not only confirm our sense of their self-justifying existence but, in so doing, dissolve the barriers of distrust that separate us. Only in a condition of such mutual respect can we expect to find a reasonable basis for social harmony.”
Butler Shaffer

“American presidential candidates generally fall into three categories. Those who are obviously incompetent. Those who are scalawags. And those who are jackasses. The job of the voters is to choose the defect most suited to the time.”
Bill Bonner

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From the Darkness:

“[Under competition] businesses are forced to cut every corner, cheapen every product, cut out every service, lay people off, cut people's wages while adding hours, gut benefits … and probably go under anyway because when every business does the same 99 percent of us can't afford to buy or do things anymore.”
Dave Johnson

"Our strong presence in the Middle East endures. And the United States will never waiver in the defense of our allies, our partners and our interests."
B. Obama [Translated: “Still more wars on the way!”]

"We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond."
B. Obama, audacious enough to ask for the return of his drone that was spying on Iran

"Let's get beyond the anger."
Cameron Munter, US Ambassador in Pakistan, asking Pakistanis to forget and move on after the November 26 attack by US drones that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers

"We need election systems that are free from fraud, discrimination and partisan influence — and that are more, not less, accessible to the citizens of this country."
Attorney General Eric Holder [This from a man that run guns to the Mexican drug cartels…..and lies about it.]

“The right response to that would have been to go in immediately after it [Iranian captured US surveillance drone] had gone down and destroy it. You can do that from the air. You can do that with a quick airstrike, and in effect make it impossible for them to benefit from having captured that drone.”
Dick Cheney, also looking to create more death and destruction to glorify the state

"Eight years from now is a death sentence on Africa, told me. For every one-degree celsius change in temperature, Africa is impacted at a heightened level."
Nigerian environmentalist Nnimmo Bassey, chairperson of Friends of the Earth International

“I’m sure that the [Ron] Paulistas will find a way to claim that their man has been right about everything, even though his predictions have been all wrong. But he really has built his political career around the notion that he’s an expert in a subject about which he actually understands nothing.”
Paul Krugman

"To be sure, the cost was high — in blood and treasure for the United States and for the Iraqi people. But those lives were not lost in vain: They gave birth to an independent, free and sovereign Iraq."
Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, at a ceremony in Baghdad marking the second “end” of the Iraq War

“There's a reason our military is the most respected institution in America. They don't see themselves or each other as Democrats first or Republicans first. They see themselves as Americans first.
For all our differences and disagreements, they remind us that we are all a part of something bigger, that we are one nation and one people."
B. Obama [Hiel!]

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”
From the Nuremberg Tribunal’s Final Judgment

“What's the great need for a monopoly state that may simply end up being a vehicle for some few persons in power to suppress minorities? Obviously those who feel they can win power and rule will want the single-government outcome, and that's all the more reason to avoid it as an institutional structure for a society that has divisions (and every society has them) that matter and that really is not one society for many practical purposes and according to the subjective values of many persons and groups. The identification of disparate persons as one society and the further identification of that single society as the ground for a single government and state are at fault here, in my opinion. These false presumptions then are used to rationalize the domination of a few over everyone else, which seems to be the human drive that needs to be mitigated, not given more ground to expand.”
Micheal S.Rozeff

“It's clear the so-called government and it's plethora of bloated agencies are not there to help you, but to manage, seduce, suppress, subjugate and control you. Yet they convince you otherwise to keep you dependent and upside down and backwards while telling you everything's on the up and up.
Their fundamental technique is trauma-based mind control and cognitive dissonance. Keep affronting your senses with violent images and then reversing your sense of right and wrong and telling you white is black and black is white long enough and you'll finally give in.”
Zen Gardner

“It is incredible how as soon as a people become subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point of regaining it, obeying so easily and willingly, that one is led to say that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement.”
Etienne de la Boetie

“We still cling to the myth that the state virtuously declines to exert its monopoly on coercion in order to respond to its own institutional incentives. Whether we recognize it or not, however, the state does — consciously or otherwise — serve the oligarchs orbiting around its center of gravity, around the headspring of privilege created by authority.
In doing so, allotting favors to the ruling class, the state produces imbalances that represent the difference between labor-saving, streamlined economies of free decisions, and the rigid, inflexible economies of today. In short, widespread corruption and widespread insolvency are natural companions.”
David S. D'Amato

“Soldiers are meant to be killed, and politicians are meant to be bought.”
Russell Longcore

“Far from protecting us, the government has now spent more than a century busily making enemies for Americans around the globe. Some protection! If the government were a private security guard, we would have fired him in 1898 and never purchased his trigger-happy services again. Americans desperately need to clarify a basic distinction: protecting the just rights of Americans here in America and exercising a globegirdling hegemony over other people are two different things.”
Robert Higgs

“Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.”
Henry David Thoreau

“To wield power over an individual’s ability to choose is the same as wielding power over his body. It is the power of choice that makes us who we are. The body is the vehicle for free choice, and when the individual’s ability to freely choose is coercively forced, then the individual has become nothing more than an organic robot. An individual’s individuality spawns from the choices he makes; it is what makes up his personality. To remove the decision making from a person because you think he is too stupid or too selfish to decide for himself is to remove the very thing that makes him human.”
Chris Dates

“[The average man] is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.”
H.L. Mencken

“If ‘war is the health of the state,’ as Randolph Bourne wrote, then conservatives are the health of war.”
Joel Poindexter

********************************************************************************

From the Darkness:

"The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it's Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don't do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, ‘See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn't getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.’ ... And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem."

Danielle Pletka, head of foreign policy at the American Enterprise Institute

“Proper procedures were followed.”
A unnamed TSA spokesman, after an 85 year old woman complained about being strip searched at Kennedy Airport

"[T]here is a certain crowd in Washington who, for the last few decades, have said, let’s respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. 'The market will take care of everything,' they tell us. If we just cut more regulations and cut more taxes--especially for the wealthy--our economy will grow stronger.
Now, it’s a simple theory. And we have to admit, it’s one that speaks to our rugged individualism and our healthy skepticism of too much government. That’s in America’s DNA. And that theory fits well on a bumper sticker. But here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It has never worked."
B. Obama

"In the United States, we don't much govern at gunpoint. We require willing ... participation.”
Judge James Zagel while sentencing Illinois’ former Thief-in-Chief Rod Blagojevich, to 14 years in prison

"We're in this economic moment coming out of a severe financial crisis, almost slipped into a great depression, inequality's been rising … the middle class is getting squeezed. There's a sense that the same rules don't apply for the people working hard out there in America and the people at the top."
B. Obama [“...the people at the top?” You mean like your Wall Street buddies who give you millions in campaign bribes?]

"I simply do not know where the money is, or why the accounts have not been reconciled to date. …(I) believed that (MF Global's) investments in short-term European debt securities were prudent."
Former Wall Street high-flyer and Democratic politician Jon Corzine, telling US lawmakers he did not know what happened to an estimated $1.2 billion that disappeared from the accounts of now bankrupt broker MF Global.

"Those of you that will be 21 by November the 12th, I ask for your support and your vote.”
Rick Perry, seemingly not interested in the votes of 18-20 year olds

"Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we've have invented the Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs and are historically part of the Arab community, and they had the chance to go many places."
Newt Gingrich [Gingrich commits cultural genocide without firing a shot. Why do any group of people have to align themselves with a state to be recognized?]

"We want to work with the Senate to ensure our counterterrorism professionals have the tools and flexibility they need to keep America safe."
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor looking for more abolition of individual rights

"The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) strives to provide the highest level of security while ensuring that all passengers are treated with dignity and respect. TSA has programs in place for the screening of people with all types of disabilities and medical conditions and their associated equipment."
Statement from the TSA claiming that it is planning its own advocacy service to immediately act on complaints by passengers over security screenings.
[So now strip searching old ladies is a “program.”]

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“By definition, revolution simply means returning to the beginning, to the point of origin. No wonder they say history repeats itself, or that it at least rhymes…We’ve been running and re-running the same experiment over and over again, always expecting a different result – the very definition of insanity.
You’d think that, after 6,000 years – and a body count in the hundreds of millions – we’d give up on the State and try something different.
We don’t need to revolve, in other words, we need to evolve.”
Joel Bowman

“The institutions of government that claim authority do not rest on grounds that are consistent with freedom and consent. Their grounds are other things like order, police power, public safety and health, and traditions. Aspirations for freedom and consent come into conflict with power that draws its authority from other traditions.”
Michael S. Rozeff

“You hear slogans about the ‘land of the free’ and we still sing patriotic songs at the ballpark and even at church on Sunday, and these songs are always about our blessed liberty, the battles of our ancestors against tyranny, the special love of liberty that animates our heritage and national self identity. The contrast with reality grows starker by the day.”
Jeffrey Tucker

“I don’t want to hear how our fore-fathers died in countless wars of aggression so that I could have the right to vote. That’s not what they died for. Voting was never what they died for unless voting has [.Inc] after it. (I guess it does).”
John Boering

“In many ways, reality is just a creation of widely shared opinions. Nothing should be accepted just because it exists, including the state. Concepts take on lives of their own, unless someone challenges them. And the concept of the state is sorely in need of a challenge.”
Doug Casey

“Public schools, by their very nature, are designed to promote government. They teach children to accept that government is exempt from the ethical code that prevents someone from stealing their neighbor's belongings; without government theft, the schools would not exist.
They teach children that the biggest problems of the day can only be solved by central planners. Through these exercises, children learn that humans are so simplistic that one policy can solve a major problem with thousands of variables.
It teaches kids that everything happens in a vacuum. The idea that every man is a unique, free-thinking individual who faces unique choices is replaced with the view that all men are part of a herd, which can be easily manipulated and coerced.”
Justin Hayes

"When men hire themselves out to shoot other men to order, asking nothing about the justice of their cause, I don’t care if they are shot themselves."
Herbert Spencer

“When soldiers are sent to fight unnecessary, unjust foreign wars (is there any other kind?), there will always be questions in their minds about why they are fighting in a place they couldn’t locate without a map and against a people that never harmed an American until Americans first stuck their noses in their business. And we wonder why soldiers get depressed and suicidal?”
Laurence Vance

“In light of the vastness of these incontrovertible assaults on humanity and the obvious connections to corporate, banking and government insanity, whoever does NOT think that there's an underlying motive with definite objectives by those controlling these massive programs is a stark raving lunatic, voluntarily living in a straightjacket of self-preserving denial, staring in a zombified trance at the shadows on their cell walls.”
Zen Gardener

*****************************************************************************

From the Darkness:

“Look at the level of violence they've [the drug cartels] done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, 'These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.' If you're serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country.
Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They've been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.”
Newt Gingrich, looking to create more violence through drug prohibition

“The enemy is all over the world. Here at home. And when people take up arms against the United States and [are] captured within the United States, why should we not be able to use our military and intelligence community to question that person as to what they know about enemy activity?"
Sen. Lindsey Graham, supporting the passage of SB 1867 which eliminates habeas corpus and allows DC‘s military assassins to arrest American civilians

“We all appreciate how deeply this tragedy has affected the Pakistani people, and we have conveyed our heartfelt condolences through multiple channels. Ultimately, the only way to move the ball forward is to focus on areas where our interests align and where we can really make progress. Our two countries need each other.”
Sen. John Kerry, voicing a lame apology for the murder of two dozen Pakistani soldiers in NATO airstrikes last week

"I would ask my colleagues to reject [the amendments], which ... would take away the authority of the executive branch as allowed by our Supreme Court and would bring us back, would make us less safe in this country."
Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), encouraging rejection of a Senate amendment to spare U.S. citizens from potential indefinite military detentions [Terrorist Ayotte offers the same bogus solution for security- centralizing more and more power into the hands of fewer and fewer state criminals.]

"We cannot have a strong defense without a strong national economy. But we will not solve this problem on the back of the Defense Department or on the defense industry.
When I think about it from an industrial base point of view, I think about sequestration more as fiscal castration. It truly will emasculate the industrial base ... if we implemented it as it exists."
Brett Lambert, U.S. deputy assistant defense secretary for manufacturing and industrial base policy, whining about potential cuts in the Empire’s military budget

“[Ron] Paul was not invited to attend the RJC’s candidates forum because the organization – as it has stated numerous times in the past – rejects his misguided and extreme views.”
A statement from the Republican Jewish Coalition explaining why they have not invited Ron Paul to their Dictator Debate

“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose big head is set to explode any moment now

"We haven't been able to build a fence on the border because we have not been a serious country."
Newt Gingrich [The Chubby Tyrant is correct. Tyrannies and their controlling despots are not really “serious” until they start walling and fencing their subjects.]

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“Governments of our choice, all within this land of America, is a visionary concept. But the status quo is also a visionary concept. I don't think that people appreciate that when they automatically assume that we must be one democracy or one republic or one America or one people, or when they see such things as already a fact, they are invoking an idea and a visionary concept. We wouldn't have whatever reality we have without it reflecting some vision or visions. Just because it happens to be the current reality doesn't give it any precedence in terms of being a more just or good or better or right arrangement. It may give it an advantage in terms of a hold on our minds and imaginations and our pocketbooks, but not in terms of visions of where we may go in the future or like to go. We can reshape America. We can do it in the course of one or two generations. That reshaping has been occurring visibly in my lifetime. It has occurred in lifetimes preceding mine. There is nothing special about the status quo.”
Michael S. Rozeff

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?”
Gandhi

“The descendants of African slaves now have equal opportunity to oppress people all races via the State. This was not the type of 'equality' that members of the Civil Rights movement suffered and died for.”
Brutus

“An awakened populace is the enemy of the would-be Controllers. The war on terror is a war on human freedom by a dystopian state structure disguising itself as a protecting surrogate parent from an enemy of their own making.
It's all by assumption and generations of conditioning. But the veil is coming off.
Thanks to their own military invention called the internet millions are discovering the full truth. History is a lie. Religion is a control system. Money is a hoax. Government is a for profit corporation.
And we don't need their goddamn hierarchy.”
Zen Gardner

“The police are to the government as the edge is to the knife.”
David Bayley

“No individual or institution has the moral right to use aggressive force. That principle applies not only to the Federal Leviathan, but to the loathsome little replicas of that vile beast found in every city, county, and state. Rather than helping to consolidate the existing police state, supporters of the rule of law should work to end their local government's monopoly on the police power -- with the ultimate objective of abolishing it outright.”
William Norman Grigg

“The only ‘greater good’ is to respect the life, liberty, and property of every individual. Nothing can be greater than that, and that is the root of all good. Anything less great or less good is evil.”
Kent McManigal

"How many people would feel compelled to battle on foreign lands, the whereabouts of which were heretofore unknown to them, to slay ‘the enemy,’ to lay waste to husbands, fathers and brothers they have never before met, to Napalm fields, Agent Orange crops, to litter terrain afar with landmines, if they didn't believe the patriotic claptrap with which their State ceaselessly indoctrinates them?"
Joel Bowman

“It's politically and economically advantageous for the US Empire to help its fellow oligarchs keep their populations submissive so the oligarchs of all countries can grow ever more wealthy, powerful and arrogant.”
Garry Reed

“Once initiating violence is part of your worldview, the difference in hitting a defenseless child and murdering an innocent civilian becomes one of degree.”
David Kramer

“What do you think ‘govern’ means. It doesn’t mean ‘suggest’ or ‘implore.’ It doesn’t mean two people sitting down, talking it over, and compromising. ‘Govern’ means ‘force’ and ‘force’ means ‘violence.’ When you advocate any government action, you must first believe that violence is the best answer to the question at hand.”
Allen Thornton

“As it always has, anarchism represents the way forward to a society unencumbered by political government and the class warfare which inevitably accompanies it. If the Occupiers hope to accomplish anything worthwhile, they must likewise reject conformity to past patterns. Even if the movement fails, let it ‘fail forward,’ revealing worthwhile lessons and creating the template for a mass movement come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.”
Thomas L. Knapp

“This is one of the many problems with an imperial foreign policy. It teaches us to be tribal participants in a global football game, rooting for ‘our’ team over ‘their’ team. There is nothing like a great foreign bogeyman to draw attention away from the real tyrants here at home.”
Robert Taylor

***********************************************************************************

From the Darkness:

“The local police are not your enemy. Your committee is not here to attack them, blame them for violating the Constitution or your civil liberties because they are enforcing a measure of the Patriot Act or conducting a joint Federal and State anti-terror drill. Those are federal issues, which the local police in some cases may have already have little to no say if they are to continue receiving their additional Homeland Security funds, new equipment and weaponry.... We urge all responsible citizens in this community to work with us to ...[s]upport our local police in the performance of their duties [and] oppose all harassment or interference with law enforcement personnel as they carry out their assigned tasks.... [We must accept] our responsibilities to our local police, to defend them against unjust attacks, make them proud and secure in their vital profession, and to offer them our support in word and deed wherever possible."

From “Support Our Local Police” by the John Birch Society

“In my opinion, Turkish Army has the track record and past international engagements for maintaining peace and could do the same in Afghanistan after ISAF withdrawal in 2014.”
Former US diplomat, looking to swap one occupier for another

"A radical leftist station that becomes an instrument of incitement must not be allowed to broadcast to the public."
Danny Danon, member of Israel’s Likud party, explaining why the Israeli government has closed down a dovish Israeli-Palestinian radio station [Remember, we must protect Israel because it’s the only “democracy’ in the Middle East.]

"All of us will be in danger for the rest of our lives. You want to use every tool you can possibly use to gather intelligence. The dangers are literally that great.”
New Gingrich, defending the Patriot Act

“We need to go back to the time, back to the day when parents saw, somebody, saw some kid foolin’ around. It wasn’t your child but they’ll whup you anyway. Or at least they’ll tell your parents. And parents will, you know……"
B. Obama, promoting child abuse to the NAACP

“Don’t let some congressman sitting in an air conditioned office in Washington, DC decide what the rules of [military] engagement are. ……..For us to micromanage them [our brave soldier boys] in a civilian way, without their commanders truly being in charge, is absolutely irresponsible and as commander and chief of this country I will not allow it to happen.”
Rick Perry, apparently oblivious to Article I, Sections 8 of the US Constitution

"I would call on the President, and do call on the President, to immediately introduce legislation which says will we not have a $600 billion cut to America’s military. We should not cut any funding from our base Department of Defense budget. That should not occur."
Mitt Romney, standing up for war whores and hired assassins

“The stumbling block for the board regarding Representative Paul dealt primarily with ‘States’ Rights’ as it pertains to the sanctity of human life and God’s design for marriage.”
From a statement from the Family Leader (a social conservative advocacy group) on why it can’t endorse Ron Paul for president [The typical Christo-fascist position- the Federal Beast should be inspecting wombs and controlling marriage unions, despite having no constitutional or moral authority to do so.]

“I have long been concerned that my party’s rigid anti-tax ideology is harming the fiscal health of our nation. Now it is harming our national security as well, as cuts in defense spending on a calamitous scale are about to be triggered. Congressional Republicans need to look back at this sad episode and decide: Do they care more about keeping 'a no tax pledge' or giving our troops the tools they need to protect the nation?”
Former Defense Secretary William Cohen, calling for more looting to prop up the regime

“I think it’s time for a 21st century Monroe Doctrine. …..As the President of the United States, I will promise you one thing, that within 12 months of the inaugural, that [Mexican] border will be shut down, and it will be secure.”
Rick Perry, lover of walls and prisons

“….A much more comprehensive approach to economic governance is now the priority for the euro area. And this means more economic and financial integration for the euro area, with a significant transfer of sovereignty to the EMU level over fiscal, structural and financial policies.”
ECB executive board member José Manuel González-Páramo [Centralization causes the problems and the state's answer to that failure is still more centralization. Governing power moves more and more into the hands of fewer people.]

State Criminality is Worldwide

No matter its form, structure, ideology or location, the state is an institution that exists to conquer, loot and rule the many for the benefit and enrichment of the few.

Here is how it’s done in Europe. Watch the roaches scatter and the rabid rats turn angry when exposed by the light of truth.

(Thanks to Simon Black)

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
"Religion is not God, and experiencing religion is not the same as experiencing God. Religion is a human social institution and its failings do not prove or disprove the existence of God. They just demonstrate shortcomings in mankind that pervade all human institutions, from government to sports to marriage."
Gary B. Meisner

“The real problem with the OWS movement is its political naiveté. The protestors imagine that by attacking free enterprise and the capitalist system they are upholding the rights of the common man. The exact opposite is true. The only real alternative to free enterprise is an economy owned and administered by society’s most ruthless and cruel elements, who always seems to gravitate toward statist means.”
Jeffrey Tucker

“The world to me is a strange place in which human beings inhabit worlds of their own perception. Trouble is they think their perceptions are truth. Trouble comes when they succeed in getting the power to impose those perceptions on everyone.”
Michael S. Rozeff

“The truth, indeed, is something that mankind, for some mysterious reason, instinctively dislikes. Every man who tries to tell it is unpopular, and even when, by the sheer strength of his case, he prevails, he is put down as a scoundrel.”
H.L. Mencken

“Being blind to the obvious is part of the human condition.”
Simon Black

“Humans continue to rebel against their governments, the scope of each getting smaller and smaller. As the scope gets smaller, the power gets smaller, and thus the people become stronger. Inch by inch we, as a species, are becoming more confident in our ability to achieve happiness and success without the protection of a ruler.”
Theo Zagtech

“So if the military doesn't exist to protect our rights and freedoms, why does it exist? The answer is simple. It exists to back our national will with force. Most of the time, that is a good thing, particularly when our national will is to not be attacked by jackasses who threaten us. But when the national will turns to taking your guns away, you will be the jackass who threatens "us." Then the military will execute that national will with cold, unthinking and bureaucratic efficiency. And wrap itself in the flag while doing so.”
Tom, of StarvingtheMonkeys.com

“Cooperative creatures beget cooperative society. Government appears later, and besides acting as a parasite on the fruits of the good people’s labor, it inevitably ends up corrupting that society by redefining morality and ethics through its public ‘education’ institutions and its positive legislation.”
Tzo

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live."
Oscar Wilde

“Freedom and government (save for self-government!) cannot co-exist. They are the pipers; we are the lemmings, being led to the edge of the cliff. If we were smarter than lemmings, we would simply stop marching to our own destruction.”
Paul Hein

“We often hear people say, with a tone of saintliness, ‘We're a nonprofit organization,’ as if that alone translates into decency, objectivity and selflessness. They want us to think they're in it for the good of society and not for those ‘evil’ profits. If we gave it just a little thought and asked what kind of organization throughout mankind's history has accounted for his greatest grief, the answer wouldn't be a free market, private, profit-making enterprise; it would be government, the largest nonprofit organization.”
Walter Williams

“The notion that foreign wars and entanglements are wrong still emanates from a sparsely populated philosophical quarter that has no majority presence in the academy or the government–media complex. It is a true voice in the wilderness. That voice has one signature message: you cannot thank a veteran for your freedom because they have actively done nothing more than endanger its very existence. In fact, American military power abroad (and increasingly, at home) has made civilians more unsafe than they have ever been. The threat not only emerges from aggrieved victims of American brutality abroad but a government desperate in bad times to ensure that not one dollar of military expenditures is reduced.

Veterans don’t need gratitude but a self-realization on their part that the machine they worked for was never an engine for liberty but a device whose single purpose was aggrandizement of American political power at home and abroad. And that political hammer always extinguishes liberty and never expands it.”
Bill Buppert

***********************************************************************

From the Darkness:

"I know that a lot of people refuse to accept the possibility of such things, and nothing will convince them that a monetary expansion can ever do real good. But they’re mistaking their own confusion for profound insight."

Paul Krugman, dissing Miseans

“We have more than 40,000 American troops that remain in the Gulf region. We're not going anywhere."
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta

“We are writing to urge you to put our country ahead of politics.

For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you increase taxes on incomes over $1,000,000.

We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more.

Our country faces a choice – we can pay our debts and build for the future, or we can shirk our financial responsibilities and cripple our nation’s potential.

Our country has been good to us. It provided a foundation through which we could succeed. Now, we want to do our part to keep that foundation strong so that others can succeed as we have.

Please do the right thing for our country. Raise our taxes.
Thank you.”
A Letter written to Congress and the President by a group called “Patriotic Millionaires”

“I think that’s good for the world,. I actually think, over the long term, it’s [Australia’s draconian carbon tax] good for our economies, as well, because it’s my strong belief that industries, utilities, individual consumers — we’re all going to have to adapt how we use energy and how we think about carbon.”
B. Obama

“It is now the task of our generation to complete the economic and currency union in Europe and create, step by step, a political union."
Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor

"We face the threats from rising powers, China, India, others that we have to always be aware of, and try to make sure that we always have sufficient force protection out there in the Pacific to make sure they know we're never going anywhere,"
Leon Panetta, standing up for his gang

"While the political views of OccupyDallas vary greatly over the subject of current military deployments and actions in foreign countries, there is one message to Veterans that we all agree on: Thank You for your service. Today, we celebrate your bravery and stand up to show our appreciation.”
From the website, OccupyDallas.org

“I’m not a believer in the Old Testament theory of business cycles. I think that if we can help people, we need to help people.”
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke ["Help" people by propping up zombie banks and businesses and lowering the value of individual's savings?  No thanks, we can do without your help, Benny.]

It’s Time to Overthrow Statism

Take a good look at the images on this excellent video produced by Adam Kokesh. You will soon be seeing similar occurrences on the North American streets occupied by the criminal syndicate known as the United States Government.

Statism knows nothing of reason and compassion. It only knows power and control. It has no conscience. It will, ultimately, do whatever necessary to maintain its grip on free individuals.

Statism operates exclusively through violence, be it offensive or defensive action. Peaceful persuasion and voluntary action and interaction is NOT a part of its repertoire. Be forewarned, and don’t become one of the clueless fools surprised and shocked when such events occur.

DVD Reviews

Ken Burns- Jazz:
This 10-disc series released in 2000 provides an adequate and entertaining summary of the evolution of this uniquely American art form. I’m sure many expert aficionados would view it otherwise. My only complaint, as a guitar lover, is the complete lack of any history of jazz guitarists, outside of a brief reference to Charlie Christian.
Recommended

The Lincoln Lawyer:
Matthew McConaughey is good at playing slick and witty characters. This role is custom made for him. He plays a successful defense lawyer who discovers disturbing information about his client that cannot be revealed due to attorney-client privilege.
Recommended

Green Dragon:
This drama looks at several different Vietnamese refugees, as they are resettled at Ft. Pendleton, near the conclusion of the Vietnam War. They struggle to deal with separation from family, hopelessness, and the anxiety of starting over in a new land.
Recommended

Beyond the Sea:
If you, like me, enjoy the seemingly unlimited talent of Kevin Spacey (who stars, directs, and sings) this film is worth viewing. However, the screenplay for this biopic of singer Bobby Darin has a lot to be desired. The fantasy sequences and Darin’s conversations with his “younger, child self” were extremely annoying and distracting. A straight ahead view of the short, explosive, life of one of music’s great singers would have been much more appealing.
Not recommended

The Misfortunates:
This Belgian made drama looks at a coming-of age-age boy being raised by his grandmother, alcoholic father, and three loving, though drunken, uncles. Even within such a dysfunctional family, familial love and loyalty is preached and practiced.
Recommended

Paul:
This comedy feature can rightly be considered the “Anti-E.T.” A bawdy, cigarette smoking alien takes off on adventurous road trip with two UFO watchers in order to meet up with his mother ship. The character of Paul is endearing and you’re given just enough laughs to make viewing worthwhile.
Recommended

Oliver Twist:
This is the 2005 film version of the Dickens tale directed by Roman Polanski. Very entertaining and includes a wonderful performance by Ben Kinsley as Fagin.
Recommended

Warrior’s Way:
A sword warrior escapes from the Far East to Old West America after refusing to kill the last remaining baby of an enemy clan. Even the brilliant Geoffrey Rush can’t save this turkey.
Not recommended

Of Gods and Men:
This is an enthralling, well made, French spoken, historical drama about Trappist monks who attempt to deal with Islamic fundamentalists in Algeria. This occurred in the mid-1990’s. A gripping, real life tale of perseverance and commitment.
Recommended

Everything Must Go:
Will Ferrell plays a good natured alcoholic who loses his job and is thrown out of his house by his wife on the same day. He decides to take residence on his front lawn while he takes stock of his life, make some new friends, and refocus his direction.
Recommended

Police State Four- The Rise of FEMA:
This is an informative, 2009 update by Alex Jones and the InfoWars crew concerning the growing fascist police state that is the United States.
Recommended

The Beaver:
Mel Gibson is excellent playing a chronically depressed man who adopts a hand puppet and alternate personality to turn his life around. Sometimes black, sometimes emotional, but always interesting and thought provoking.
Recommended

Sons of Anarchy- Season 3:
Another great season of action and suspense for the California MC. This season finds the Sons spending time in Belfast, Ireland, as they search for Jack’s kidnapped son. This is one of those well written and expertly acted series (oh so rare) that finds yourself wishing they would produce an episode 52 weeks a year, rather than a dozen.
Recommended

Pulp Fiction:
I finally took the time to venture into Quentin Tarantino's 1994 journey into violence and depravity. Surprisingly, with the exception of a couple well acted scenes, I found myself bored.
Not recommended

Hanna:
Hanna is a teenage girl who is was created as an embryo in a discontinued, government sponsored experiment to create super soldiers. She is rescued as an infant by an ex-CIA operative who trains her in the isolated Arctic forest as a highly skilled assassin- all to assist and defend her when she inevitably decides to return to the civilized world she has only read about in books; a world that includes a US government that wants her dead.
Recommended

The Ledge:
A very well executed drama that revolves around a young man on a ledge, preparing to jump to his death and the police officer (with extreme family issues of his own) who attempts to persuade him otherwise. The film includes a very intelligent discussion among the characters about the existence or not of God, the meaning of life, and the relevance of faith.
Recommended

Winter in Wartime:
This is a very enjoyable Dutch war drama which revolves around a teenage boy in German occupied Netherlands in World War II. His frustrations with his father’s seeming lack of will to resist the Nazis inspires him to assist a shot down British pilot to escape to freedom. It’s a decision that has major repercussions on his family.
Recommended

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“Governments are like primitive cannibals feasting on a great treasure trove of sheeple. You can't force them out, and you can't vote them out. But you can sure as hell starve them out. When enough people pick up and leave, essentially voting with their feet, it accelerates the system crash.
This is the only way to truly change the system.”
Simon Black

“The Occupy movement, much like the Tea Party before it, has been co-opted and turned into a partisan distraction. Popular anger is inappropriately redirected against the other half of the population, rather than against the ideas of government which have brought us to this state. By continuing to blame figureheads and people instead of institutions and ideas, we guarantee that the future will be as bleak as the present. I weep for future generations.”
Kaiser Leib

“The constant barrage of ‘Thank you for your service’ and ‘We thank our veterans’ is enough to make me ill. There has been no "service" and I have no ownership interest in any ‘veterans.’
People working for a mass-murdering psychopath are not to be thanked, even if they thought they were doing good. Naive intentions may matter, but the end results are extremely important, too.”
Ken McManigal

“Nothing interesting happened in the realm of religion this week. It was only the usual Catholic priests molesting children, Islamists murdering Christians, Hindus murdering Muslims, and Christian American military personnel murdering Afghanis and Pakistanis while their families at home wave the flag proudly and call the soldiers “heroes.” And then the soldiers come home to America and commit suicide in the largest numbers in history. Perhaps the Prince of Peace has been misunderstood.”
Russell Longcore

"Why should either two men live at the discretion of three, or three at the discretion of two. Both propositions are absurd from a reasonable point of view. If being a slave and owning a slave are both wrong relations, what different does it make whether there are a million slave owners and one slave, or one slave owner and a million slaves? Do robbery and murder cease to be what the are if done by ninety-nine percent of the population?"
Auberon Herbert

“The ultimate 'bargaining' toll of the state is the threat of violence- which its devotees believe is the cement that holds society together. To the extent political mandates conflict with the expectations of members of the community to have their property claims respected, social discord will ensue. Over time, a politically-grounded society infects the community in destructive ways, as fear, force, confrontation, punishments, and other socially discordant practices manage to trickle down into all levels of social conduct.”
Butler Shaffer

“Natural patriotism may be defined as follows: an automatic and wholly uncritical, instinctive attachment for hereditary or traditional ways of life which are collectively accepted, and an equally automatic and instinctive hostility toward any other way of living. It is love for one’s own, and a hatred for everything foreign…”
Mikhail Bakunin

“Tyrants are convinced that their own personal philosophy is correct for everyone, and they demand, with the threat of violence, that everyone emulate and obey the Positive Law as set forth by their personal philosophies. Representative governments claim that somehow, the majority can combine their distinct personal philosophies together to form some sort of composite personal philosophy that everyone must obey. These positive laws are then enforced with the threat of violence, just as in the case with tyrants.
Subjective political philosophies based on personal decree, backed by force, is the stuff of which governments are made, whether that government is tyrannical, representative, or anything in between.”
Tzo

“Here is the soul of the American approach to existence, bottomless self-admiration devoid of knowledge or curiosity, wrapped like a psychic burrito in the patriotism of overwrought middle-schoolers. And there are many, many of them.”
Fred Reed

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From the Darkness:

“Without the ‘nanny' state we would be in serious trouble. More people would die on the roads or smoke themselves to an early grave; more would be maimed by defective consumer goods, and conned by false and misleading advertising; and more toddlers would drown in backyard swimming pools.
...Yes, we have reason to be thankful that governments sometimes legislate in ways that infringe on our liberties. Personal responsibility is too flimsy a bulwark against the forces of irresponsible, laissez-faire capitalism.”

Adele Horin, The Sydney Morning Herald

“This is a deep concern for me. I know others disagree, but we have very lax laws when it comes to guns. My concern is that there’s been a lot said about Fast and Furious, and perhaps mistakes were made. But I think this hunt for blame doesn’t really speak about the problem. And the problem is, anybody can walk in and buy anything.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, blaming individual gun owners for violence rather than the ineptitude of the BATFE

"The purpose of the new program would be to increase the demand of Christmas Trees in the United States."
From an order issued by the U.S. Agriculture Department which imposes a 15 cent Christmas tree assessment to study the promotion of Christmas tree sales

"They [Occupy Dallas protestors] need to be safe. There are kids in that camp; that's not safe. When police get hurt, that's not safe. When citizens potentially get hurt, that's not safe. So, safety first; freedom of speech second."
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, pulling the usual “safety over freedom” scam beloved by state gangsters

“I want peace. And if I am president, I will begin by imposing a new round of far tougher economic sanctions on Iran. I will do this together with the world if we can, unilaterally if we must. I will speak out forcefully on behalf of Iranian dissidents. I will back up American diplomacy with a very real and very credible military option. I will restore the regular presence of aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf region simultaneously. I will increase military assistance to Israel and coordination with all of our allies in the region. These actions will send an unequivocal signal to Iran that the United States, acting in concert with allies, will never permit Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.”
Mitt Romney, creating “peace” by threatening other people and telling them what to do

“Television news footage from outside the university's main administration building showed officers pulling people from the steps and nudging others with batons as the crowd chanted, ‘We are the 99 percent!’ and ‘Stop Beating Students!’”
From an AP report which describes cops beating students with batons as “nudging”

“First of all, maximum covert operations to block and disrupt the Iranian program, including taking out their scientists, including breaking up their systems, all of it covertly, all of it deniable. Second, maximum coordination with the Israelis in a way that allows them to maximize their impact in Iran. Third, an absolute strategic program comparable to what President Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher did to the Soviet Union, of every possible aspect short of war, of breaking the regime and bring it down.”
Newt Gingrich, telling us how he’ll punish Iran if he is US Dictator

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“The leaders and law makers in the government are psychopaths. The heads of the media, the military, and Wall Street are intra-species predators. They are in complete control. We are ruled by monsters.”
Bob Alexander

“There's a reason why libertarians say there's little difference between left and right.
Jackboots always come in matched pairs, a left boot and a right boot.
When the jackboot heel is crushing your neck do you really think you'll care whether it's the right/fascist/Nazi boot or the left/liberal/socialist boot that's killing you?”
Garry Reed

“Hard to keep track of what’s illegal these days. The most innocuous deeds can land a serf behind bars even as crimes worthy of a sociopath earn rulers the Nobel Prize.”
Becky Akers

“Honor? A soldier is just a nationally certified hit-man, perfectly amoral. When he joins the military he agrees to kill anyone he is told to kill, regardless of whether he has previously heard of the country in which he will kill them or whether the residents pose any threat to him or his. How is this honorable? It is cause for lifelong shame.”
Fred Reed

“The American government has become like a mean drunk — a big, burly mean drunk. He’s angry and you can’t really say anything near him that won’t elicit some kind of angry response.
It doesn’t matter that the drunk may have been a wonderful husband and father for many years...or that he might go through rehab and be a great guy in the future. Right now, at this moment, he’s a mean drunk.”
Eric Fry

“Our obligations are to ourselves, our families, and whomever else we choose to let into our circles. There is no natural debt to society or political servitude simply by accident of birth.”
Simon Black

“I have noticed that many people, including several preachers I have heard over the years, criticize the government and say that we can't trust the government or that the government is corrupt or evil. Yet, these are the same people that praise the military every chance they get. It's as though the military is not part of the government. The truth, of course, is that the military is the president's personal attack force and the government's enforcer.”
Laurence Vance

“Ego-boundary thinking, another expression of our dualistic way of organizing our experiences, has collectivized our minds and created our world of institutionally-directed conflict and disorder. By identifying ourselves with any category of persons, we necessarily separate ourselves from those who are not part of our group. Being other than us, they become less than us. When the interests of one group come into contact with those of another, particularly along the boundary lines that divide one group from another, conflicts easily arise.”
Butler Shaffer

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From the Darkness:

"I'm tickled to death. It's so simple in its design and the objectives, you just wonder why anyone would choose not to have it."

Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel of the Montgomery County, TX Sheriff's Office commenting on his department’s recent acquisition of a $300,000 ShadowHawk UAV weapons platform purchased by way of a Homeland Security grant.

"As a former police chief, I recognize we are not going to arrest our way out of the problem. We also recognize that legalizing marijuana would not provide the answer to any of the health, social, youth education, criminal justice, and community quality of life challenges associated with drug use."
Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy

"They've [China] indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So, yes, we have to consider them a military threat."
Jon Huntsman, standing up for his gang

"Our blacks are so much better than their blacks."
Ann Coulter, commenting on blacks who reside on the conservative plantation

“Bottom line is if you don't want to have barriers, you have to behave."
NY City Michael Bloomberg, to the OWS protestors  [Submit! Submit!]

“I’m very proud to know the Koch brothers. This may be a breaking news announcement for the media: I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother.”
Herman Cain, candidate for US Dictator

“The National Football League will continue its long history of honoring veterans and active duty members of the military with its new annual ‘Salute to Service’ campaign that will occur each November. The “Salute to Service” campaign is designed to unify and elevate the extensive military appreciation work of the NFL and its clubs. Throughout November, teams will designate home games as special military appreciation games. During these games, teams will display ‘Salute to Service’ banners on their sidelines, in addition to hosting ceremonies to honor the service and sacrifice of our nation’s troops.”
From a statement issued by the NFL [That’s why you’re known to many liberty lovers as the National Fascist League.]

“I’m going to beat you into submission.”
Aransas County, TX Court-At-Law Judge William Adams, in a video showing him beating his teenage daughter with a belt [You're pretty good at that with little girls, Willy.  Let's see how successful you are with me.  You can bring your belt.]