Open your wallet and take a look at the front of any American dollar bill. At the top you should see the words "Federal Reserve Note." What is the significance of this? And how does it relate to the Iraq War and to the globalization issue in general? These questions I seek to answer in the following paragraphs.
Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution gives Congress the sole authority "to coin money [and] regulate the value thereof." The reasoning behind granting Congress this power, according to Thomas Jefferson, was the following: "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
The year 1913 marked a drastic change in American monetary policy when then-president Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Federal Reserve Act, ceding control over United States currency from Congress to a Federal Reserve in flagrant violation of the Constitution's Article I Section 8. Since 1913, the Federal Reserve has maintained the sole ability to inflate the value of America's currency by putting more and more dollar bills into circulation. Specifically, the system usually works as follows: Congress decides it needs to spend two billion dollars on something. Since Congress is generally incapable of balancing a checkbook, it goes to the Federal Reserve and asks to borrow two billion dollars from the Fed. The Fed prints the two billion and gives it to Congress, which in turn issues bonds to the Fed, agreeing to pay that two billion plus interest back to the Fed.
An astute reader would notice the madness of such a system. The Federal Reserve essentially pulls money out of nowhere when it prints money. Since new money is being put into circulation, the value of the existing currency drops. Hence, inflation. On top of that, Congress must pay the Fed back for the money it borrowed, plus interest. You might ask why Congress has to pay interest to the Federal Reserve, since the Fed is owned by the same government that is largely run by Congress.
The answer is that the Federal Reserve is NOT owned by the federal government at all, despite what its name implies. Rather, the Fed is owned by a variety of foreign and domestic banks. An exact list of the owners of the Fed is unknown to everyone except the Fed itself - interestingly, even Congress doesn't have a list. Indeed, there has not been one Congressional audit of the Fed since its inception in 1913.
That's not to say that economists don't have general idea of who owns the Federal Reserve; they do. Common consensus is that N. M. Rothschild and Sons Bank in London is the largest owner of the Fed, with banks in Berlin, Paris, and New York being the second, third, and fourth largest owners respectively. But why would Woodrow Wilson hand control over our currency to private, often foriegn bankers? For the same reason as any other politician: he had to please those who financed his campaign for president. His campaign was financed in part by European and North American bankers, and with a Republican-controlled Congress already fond of the idea of a central bank, there were no major opponents of the creation of the Federal Reserve.
Of course, the Federal Reserve is hardly the only bank to create money out of nowhere to loan. Commercial banks do it every day. When you take out a loan to buy a home, pay for college, etc., the bank never actually transfers its own money to you. Rather, like the Fed it merely creates money out of nowhere, then gives it to you.
How can that be, you ask? Let's say for simplicity's sake a commercial bank writes you a check for $500,000 that you then use to buy a house. You take that check and hand it to the people who are selling you the house. They then take that check and decide to cash it. But whoops, the bank that wrote the check never actually had the money in the first place. The Fed then bails the commercial bank out by printing more money and loaning that money to the commercial bank (in the same way the Federal Reserve loans money to the government), effectively inflating the economy. In reality, the commercial bank has a certain amount of reserves, but generally these reserves only amount to 10% of what the bank has lent out. In order to clean out the bank's reserves, you'd have to borrow far more than $500,000, but even for smaller amounts each check printed by the bank inflates the economy bit by bit.
Conversely, if there were no Federal Reserve, the commercial banks could no longer use this practice (called "fraction-reserve banking"). Prior to the creation of the Fed in 1913, the amount of currency in circulation was stable, as it was backed by gold. The federal government, then in control of America's currency, could not produce currency at whim as the value of each US Dollar was fixed to a certain amount of gold. Since there was no way to bail out the commercial banks, you could be sure that the bank actually had the money it was loaning you.
It is worth noting, however, that while nearly every US President since Woodrow Wilson has supported the Federal Reserve, there was one exception: John F. Kennedy. Only five months before his assassination, Kennedy signed Executive Order No. 11110 orderedering the US Treasury to produce currency backed by America's silver supply (backing currency by silver has essentially the same effect as backing it by gold). At first glance, these bills were exactly the same as the Federal Reserve bills, except that at the top of them were the words "United States Note" as opposed to "Federal Reserve Note" on all others. As the value of the Federal Reserve Notes would continue to drop due to inflation, the US Notes, with a fixed value backed by silver, would surpass the Federal Reserve Notes in usage and desirability. Unfortunately the next president, Lindon Johnson, haulted the production of US Notes only months after they were created. Nearly all the old US Notes have since been collected and destroyed by the Fed.
In November of 2000, Sadam Hussein ordered that Iraq sell its oil exclusively for Euros - a drastic change from the 1990's when it accepted only Federal Reserve Notes. The worldwide demand for the American currency then dropped, and so did its value (by as much as 17% compared to the Euro in 2002). Previously, the entire world would eagerly sell goods and services to the US in exchange for its valuable currency, since it was desperately needed to buy oil. The American economy boomed.
The dollar fell out of favor in Iraq, mainly due to rapid inflation in the United States sparked by an elarging federal budget deficit and the resulting increase in currency production. Naturally, the Federal Reserve was not happy with this. Only slightly over two years later, we were involved in an unconstitutional war tangential to the security of the United States. Today, Iraq once again sells oil exclusively for Federal Reserve Notes. But not all is well in for the Federal Reserve Note in OPEC land - Iran and Venezuala have been considering a switch to the Euro since 2005, modeled after Iraq's switch. American foreign policy has adjusted appropriately.
It may prove useful to think of how the situation would differ if America's currency were backed by gold and removed from the Fed's hands. In such a situation, the value of the dollar would remain constant, dependent only on the value of gold and not on the decisions of some Middle-Eastern dictator. The "currency factor" in making war decisions would effectively be removed, assisting the United States in a return to a sane foreign policy.
Now I want to examine America's current trade deficit a bit. Since 1975, the United States has rung up an increasing trade deficit, now at over $850 billion, or 6% of our total Gross Domestic Product. Over $230 billion of this deficit is with China. When we ship Federal Reserve Notes over to China in exchange for goods and services, the Chinese are limited in what they can do with their newly acquired American dollars. They can't buy Chinese goods and services, since nobody in China would want US dollars. They can either buy American goods and services in return (which is rare, since American goods and services are largely more expensive than China's), purchase stocks in American businesses, or buy bonds from the federal government. Increasingly, the Chinese government is taxing the American dollars made buy the private Chinese companies that make the dollars from Americans purchasing their goods and services. With its new US dollars, the Chinese government increasingly is buying US bonds with its Federal Reserve Notes. Essentially, the Chinese government is slowly buying the United States government.
Yet again, a return to the gold standard would solve this problem. Firstly, any US dollars acquired by the Chinese would be easily exhanged for gold, the universal currency. The Chinese would no longer have to spend American dollars on American investments. At first glance, it's easy to think that such a situation would be horrible for America, with our gold reserves and our gold-backed currency flowing out of the nation each year. But with a currency backed by gold, long-term trade deficits traditionally correct themselves. As America begins to ship more money and more gold out of the country, the economy slows down and wages go down, driving production down. Reduced production costs then drive exports up, bringing back in more money and gold, and once again driving up salaries. A quick look at any graph showing the US trade deficit prior to the 1970's would reveal this. Secondly, eliminating the Federal Reserve in favor of the gold standard would also eliminate the federal government's deficit and thus its need to sell bonds. With no Federal Reserve to which to pay interest payments amounting to approximately $300 billion per year, the federal budget deficit would be eliminated. It's no surprise that individual state governments, with no state-equivalent of the Fed, average 5% budget surpluses rather than deficits.
A careful reader would be asking why the trade deficit was under control prior to the 1970's but not now, since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. Although the Fed was indeed created at that time, remnants of the gold standard existed until 1971, when President Nixon ended the ability to exchange Federal Reserve Notes for gold. From 1913 to 1971, the amount of gold exchangeable for each dollar decreased steadily as inflation ran rampant, but exchangeable never-the-less (this system was known as the Bretton Woods System).
Let's be honest, however - there is so much more behind the march toward globalization than the interests of the international bankers. Take for example the CAFTA (Central American Free Trade Agreement) amongst the United States and several Central American nations. At first glance, CAFTA seems to support unrestricted, unregulated trade between the US and Central America. Unfortunately, by looking deeper into the wording of the treaty and the consequences therein, we can see the government working with certain well-connected multinational corporations. Article 3 of CAFTA states that by 2009, member nations should conform their food and vitamin safety standards as prescribed by the World Trade Organization's Codex Alimentarius (the WTO ment for the Codex to be voluntary - it is CAFTA that mandates it). As of July 2005, the Codex Nutrition Committee has adopted standards barring the sale of vitamins over-the-counter under the pressure of Big Pharma. The drug companies oppose the current availability of vitamins over the counter for two reasons: 1) a sick public is in their best interests for obvious reasons, and 2) requiring a prescription would bring the vitamin industry under Big Pharma's control. According to Congressman Peter Defazio of Oregon, "this would be the ultimate breaching of government into our personal health lives... and not only our government, some beaurocratic, difuse, multinational, secretive government."
Perhaps even more troubling, a so-called "North American Community" is currently in the works, modeled after the European Union and driven by the private Council on Foreign Relations with the cooperation of the governments of United States, Canada, and Mexico. Look at the list of members of the CFR, and one can see a scarily diverse, yet comprehensive list of political and corporate elites: Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, Henry Kissinger, Alan Greenspan, Jimmy Carter, George Soros, Barbara Walters, John D. Rockefeller, and others. Many banks and other corporations also hold membership within the CFR: ExxonMobile, Halliburton, BP, JP Morgan, Shell Oil, Time Warner, Bank of America, Toyota, Citigroup, and others. You know something's wrong when the likes of Dick Cheney and Jimmy Carter are working together toward a common goal.
That goal, as stated earlier, is an integrated North American Community by 2010. In March of 2005, President Bush privately met at Waco, Texas with Mexican President Vincente Fox, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, and various personal and corporate members of the CFR in order to outline plans for a more unified North America - a "super NAFTA."
In order to fully understand the proposed North American Community, one must first consider the existing NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) treaty. NAFTA, signed in 1993, establishes a supposed "free-trade zone" within North America, eliminating many tariffs between the US, Canada, and Mexico. Interestingly, NAFTA never recieved the 2/3 support from the Senate required by Article II Section 2 of the Constitution, but because it did recieve the support from a narrow majority NAFTA was allowed to move forward with little protest. Under NAFTA, trade disputes are no longer handeled by the nations themselves, but rather by an un-elected, international panel, effectively removing Congress's Constitutional power to regulate commerce across America's borders. NAFTA has been a Constitutional crisis from the start.
There is no end in sight, as the proposed North American Community seems to only further erode the American Constitution and American sovereignty. A cornerstone of the plan is a "NAFTA Superhighway" to connect Mexico, the US, and Canada via a ten-lane highway up the middle of the continent, with spurs into British Columbia and the American Northeast. Traditional border crossings would not be present along the highway, effectively creating a borderless North America. The privately-owned North American SuperCorridor Coalition (NASCO). has thus far recieved over $2.5 million from the US government to plan the highway, and will recieve millions upon millions more to actually build it.
Not only does the tax-payer lose out: millions throughout North America will lose property to Eminent Domain as the three North American governments sieze personal property that sits along the Superhighway's planned route. The winners, as to be expected, are the multinational corporations who will, thanks to the Superhighway, be able to transport cheap workers and goods across national lines with ease. Not to mention NASCO itself, which stands to gain millions.
According to Robert Pastor, director of the Council on Foreign Relation's North American taskforce and brainchild for the North American Community, such a community would be headed by an international government, similar to the European Parliament. Interestingly, Pastor recognizes the Constitutional problems such a government would pose within the United States. To combat this, Pastor claims he would establish a North American Tribunal, "a permanent court [that] would permit the accumulation of precedent and lay the groundwork for North American business law," overriding U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of the Constitutionality of a united North America.
Along with a North American Tribunal, Pastor suggests the creation of a "North American Parliamentary Group" with supremacy over the United States Congress. Since the North American plan's incarnation in 2005, Congress has been largely complacent in their ignorance. Neither the House International Relations Committee nor the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have held hearings on the matter. Further, the latest meeting between the political and corporate leaders of North America in Banff was closed to both Congress and the media. Geri Word of the US Department of Commerce explains the secrecy: "we did not want to get the contact people of the working groups distracted by calls from the public."
The currency issue cannot be ignored, however. According to Robert Pastor, a key aspect of the North American Community is the replacement of the dollar with the "Amero," a common North American currency. The existing Federal Reserve along with its counterparts in Mexico and Canada would be merged and given a monopoly over the continent's currency. With the consolidation of the three North American currencies, the Federal Reserve and its counterparts get a currency that is used widely enough to compete with the surging Euro.
Public opinion in Canada has been against the creation of a continental currency. The US government has managed to keep the public relatively ignorant of the talks of a united currency. On the other hand, the Mexican public is very supportive. A currency backed by the economic powers of Canada and the US would prove to be a boon for the Mexican economy, at the expense of the Canadian and American economies. The average household income for a Mexican family stands at around $7,000 per year, compared to $43,000 in the US and $35,000 in Canada. This should be troubling to Americans and Canadians, since under a fiat currency such as the Amero (fiat currency refers to any that is not gold-backed - the US dollar is fiat, for example) the currency's value is partially rooted in the overall strength of the nation(s) economy. The other major player in determining the value of a fiat currency is, of course, deficit spending that leads to the production of more currency, inflating the money supply. Sadly, the Mexican government is not known for balanced budgets. With such a watered-down currency such as the Amero, workers in America and Canada can expect their purchasing power to fall by as much as 25% to 50%. Once again, I see a return to the gold standard as superior to the current fiat system.
That's not to say that a return to the gold standard will solve all our problems. What America really needs, now more than ever, is a return to Constitutional governance (which would necessarily involve the abolition of the Federal Reserve). Unconstitutional plans for a united North American government must be put to rest - it is time for Congress to stand up to the plate and defend its own existance. Democratic Congressman Peter Defazio of Oregon as well as Republican Congressmen Virgil Good of Virginia and Ron Paul of Texas have proposed bills disallowing the President from involving America further in the various globalist pet projects. With the established elites in both parties loyal to the corporate, pro-globalist interests that fund them, such bills have died in committee. According to Benito Mussolini, "fascism should be called corporatism, because it is the perfect merger of the corporation and the state." If Il Duce is correct, then the people of the United States and North America at large truly do have reason to worry. The way the American government has bent over backwards in spite of its Constitution to please multinational corporations and bankers is troubling at best. Depressingly (and yet not terribly surprisingly), according to our own President George Bush, "the Constitution is just a goddamn piece of paper." The fight for our country, our sovereignty, our Constitution, and our way of life won't be easy, but it will be necessary. It is necessary.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Saturday, March 17, 2007
St Patrick's Day!!!!!!!!!
Yeah yeah, I'll get to part two of the essay below later. It's ST PATRICK'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GREATEST DAY OF THE YEAR!!!!
Why is it so great? Because on St Patrick's Day, everyone wants to be Irish. At least in the US, the Irish are the only white nationality to get a special day all to themselves. Everyone tells me "OMG YOURE IRISH THAT IS SO COOL" and I smile and say "damn right" ^_^. Plus, it gives me an excuse to wear my "Do me, I'm Irish" T-shirt. The suck-up factor is amazing... if only the entire country weren't Irish fanboys year-round.
I went to the big parade here in town. 3 million people showed up, they say. Anywho, I thought it was amusing that the IRA marchers got loud cheers... and I'd bet that half of those in the audience knew whom they were cheering. Unlike the Thanksgiving parade at Macy's, this parade is mostly native New Yorkers with few tourists. Those who are tourists are from Ireland. And they kick ass.
<3 St Patrick's Day
PS: The next person to call it St Paddy's Day gets an ass-kicking.
PSS: BAILEYS FTW
Why is it so great? Because on St Patrick's Day, everyone wants to be Irish. At least in the US, the Irish are the only white nationality to get a special day all to themselves. Everyone tells me "OMG YOURE IRISH THAT IS SO COOL" and I smile and say "damn right" ^_^. Plus, it gives me an excuse to wear my "Do me, I'm Irish" T-shirt. The suck-up factor is amazing... if only the entire country weren't Irish fanboys year-round.
I went to the big parade here in town. 3 million people showed up, they say. Anywho, I thought it was amusing that the IRA marchers got loud cheers... and I'd bet that half of those in the audience knew whom they were cheering. Unlike the Thanksgiving parade at Macy's, this parade is mostly native New Yorkers with few tourists. Those who are tourists are from Ireland. And they kick ass.
<3 St Patrick's Day
PS: The next person to call it St Paddy's Day gets an ass-kicking.
PSS: BAILEYS FTW
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
The Rise of the Neoconservatives and the War in Iraq - Part One of a two part essay on America's role in economic and political globalization
Perhaps one of the scariest things an American can do is actually think about the actions of the government that rules him. Each day it becomes clearer and clearer that our government is seeking to create a global empire, only loosely based on the founding principles of the United States. Fact is that our military and funds are stretched to the breaking point, and I don't know how much longer our empire-building can last before it crushes us here at home. Pat Buchanan once said, "if we don't stop behaving like the British Empire, we will end up like the British Empire." Even the most ardent leftist must admit that Buchanan's warning has worth.
On pledges of limited and responsible government, the so-called "neoconservatives" stormed into office with the support of traditional "paleoconservatives" in 2000. In fact, prior to the 2000 election cycle, the neocons were nothing more than a political obscurity with paleoconservatives such as Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, and even George H. W. Bush, Sr in charge of the party. Of course, as history would have it the privately neoconservative George W. Bush quickly emerged as a force to be reckoned with inside the Republican Party. Bush was successful because, while he himself was a neocon, he knew how to appeal to the paleocons as well.
Immigration and foreign policy are the two primary issues that divide conservatives: paleocons are strongly opposed to illegal immigration and support an isolationist foreign policy, while neocons are staunchly globalist, supporting amnesty for illegal aliens and a highly interventionist foreign policy. Hence, when running for president in 2000, Bush shifted attention away from such divisive issues and made lower taxes and the free market - two issues on which paleocons and neocons agree - cornerstones of his platform. This strategy would allow Bush to crush all rivals in the GOP primary and eventually go onto win the general election to become America's first neoconservative president.
The results have been disasterous. Within two and a half years of taking office, Bush and his neoconservative allies had the American military entrenched in a war in Iraq - a war completely irrelivent to the security of the United States. Everyone from liberals to libertarians to paleoconservatives were outraged, but with the firm grip of the neocons over the government, and dare I say the media, who could stop them?
We really do have to give the neoconservatives credit: they are absolutely brilliant politickers. Prior to the current president Bush, conservatives were often isolationist and anti-war. Indeed, the concept of limited government espoused by American conservatives makes them anti-war by default. However, the neocons have been able to change the fundamental tenants of American conservative ideology to fit their own agenda - not an easy task to say the least. Traditional paleoconservatives such as Tucker Carlson, Pat Buchanan, and Joe Scarborough have been ridiculed and isolated by the neocons for their anti-war views, forcing them into the media obscurity that is MSNBC.
Regarding the media, the neocons waged an all-out war for control over the media, demeaning the "liberal media" and placing the problems of America squarely on its shoulders. Admittedly, they had a reasonably good argument. Nine out of eleven columnists for the New York Times leaned to the left. The Washington Post didn't fare much better. The big three broadcast networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, were all owned and operated by liberals. But was the situation half as dire as they claimed it to be? In my mind, that question is irrelivent - the neocons were successful in using the liberal media argument to unite large segments of the public in support of the more right-wing media outlets. With the rise of the neocons in 2000, more and more Americans tuned into the one facet of the media that had been dominated by the right: radio talk shows. Rush Limbaugh surged in popularity. Sean Hannity, Neil Boortz, Ann Coulter, and others seemingly came out of nowhere to dominate the radio scene. But what was most striking was the rise of Fox News. Not only did Fox News rise to compete with the "big three" networks - it surpassed them. Fox News, owned by neocon Rupert Murdoch, now gets higher ratings than even broadcast news, and trumps its cable competitors CNN and MSNBC pulling in higher ratings than both combined. A majority of the American public bought into the concept of a media controlled by liberals (whether correct or not) and gave the neoconservative movement real traction.
And thus, by the 2000 election cycle, the neoconservatives had established firm control over media and government alike. And yet, their visions of a hyper-interventionist foreign policy remained largely unknown to the public, simply because such plans would not have popular support if they were to be revealed. While public opinion was firmly with former president Clinton's domestic policy, many remained skeptical of his interventionist foreign policy in places such as Kosovo and Bosnia. The neoconservative plan to take Clintonian interventionism to a whole new level would not have been well-recieved by the American people, much less the paleoconservative base of the Republican Party.
September 11, 2001 changed all this. The President's approval rating soared to near 90%. Not only that, but global opinion swung strongly in his favour with everyone from Jacques Chirac of France to Vincente Fox of Mexico voicing strong support for Bush and his plans for a global "War on Terror." Citizens of America and of the entire civilized world wanted revenge, giving Bush an enourmous amount of political capital.
Of course, Bush chose to spend this capital on Iraq. The decision to wage war on Iraq came at a high international price - the world, particularly traditional US allies in Western Europe, quickly turned against Bush. But among Americans still bleeding over the 9/11 attacks, Bush was able to maintain just enough domestic support necessary to wage war and win re-election in 2004. After 9/11, many paleoconservatives jumped onto the neoconservative bandwagon, while others simply kept silent out of fear of being labelled "un-patriotic." The Democrats, in a state of disarray and confusion, kept silent for the same reason. Unfortunately for Bush's opposition, a clear vision (no matter how illogical and unfounded) will always beat out silence and confusion.
But scattered amongst various ideologies across the political spectrum, there were still a few voicing strong and steady opposition to the war. Among the paleoconservatives, Pat Buchanan had continued to criticise the President's foreign policy. Ted Kennedy led the opposition from the left, and Ron Paul (congressman from Texas) spoke out against the war from a libertarian standpoint. The seeds of opposition had been planted, and the popularity of the neoconservative movement would slowly begin to unravel. From the war's outset, these three (among a handful of others) launched a persistant, albeit unorganized, opposition. Public opinion would not change fast, but over the course of three years (from the beginning of the Iraq war to the 2006 mid-term elections) public support for the war would bomb out and opposition would surge. Old paleoconservatives such as Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough would soon join Buchanan in opposition to the war, hoping for a shift in the GOP back to the traditional paleocon ideology of isolation. But perhaps most importantly, years after the war had begun the Democrats finally united against it, offering their own clear vision in opposition to that of the neoconservatives. While an illogical clear vision always defeats confusion and waffling, a logical clear vision (nearly) always defeats an illogical one. And thus, at the Congressional level we saw the decimation of the Republican Party and its neoconservatives at the hands of the anti-war Democrats during the 2006 mid-term elections. September 11 is becoming more distant by the day, with the fear factor used by the neocons years ago becoming more and more irrelivant. Even amongst the three leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, all are skeptical of the way in which the Iraq War has been waged. However, it is worth pointing out that only third-tier candidates such as Sam Brownback and Ron Paul are actually against the war in principle. Never the less, the hayday of the neoconservative movement in America seems to be over.
By now it should be obvious that I am an enemy of the Iraq war, as well as the neoconservative hyper-interventionists behind it. As stated earlier, Constitutional objections, moral objections, and practical objections all come into play. The preamble of our Constitution summarizes the role of the American military as to "provide for a common defense" of the nation. How is the war in Iraq anything other than offensive? Even the hawks now admit that we are in there only for the sake of the Iraqi people - if we are to pull out, chaos will ensue and thousands of innocent Iraqis will be killed. To that I say thousands of Iraqis are being killed regardless of our military's presense. In this way, the Republican neocons have attempted to place blame on any repercussions of withdrawal squarely on the opposition, when indeed the blame lies with those Republicans who have gotten us into such a perdicament in the first place. Further, the power to declare war lies firmly with the Congress, according to Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. And yet Congress has flat-out ignored this clause in our Constitution, instead choosing to hand the decision to wage war to the President via the Iraq War Resolution of 2002. Murky waters at best. Over the past several yeras, Congress has voluntarily ceded its own power unconstitutionally to the executive, yet very few in Congress seem to care. Even under the current Democratic leadership, there is a refusal to acknowledge their Constitutional power to end this war, opting to play dumb by passing non-binding, useless resolutions against the war to appease the angry public. Such strategies are incredibly transparent.
With over 3,000 American soldiers, hundreds of British soldiers, and dozens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, the moral objections are perhaps the strongest. I think the numbers speak for themselves; more Americans have been killed in Gulf War II than on September 11. Perhaps the most absolutely horrific aspect of the war has been the life-changing injuries that tens of thousands of soldiers have returned home with. Soldiers come back with missing limbs, third-degree burns, and snapped necks. As far as American casualties are concerned, the only significant difference between Iraq and Vietnam has been the brilliance of modern-day medicine and the role it has played in saving the lives of so many. However, the injuries sustained by these survivors are some of the most horrific ever seen. We absolutely must end the unnecessary carnage now.
If moral and Constitutional objections fall on deaf ears, then perhaps practical reasoning will not. First let me make clear that the war has not cost the federal government anything. To say so is misleading - the federal government merely borrows and taxes to pay for things. The government does not live in the real world. No, this war has cost US taxpayers over two trillain dollars. Direct taxes certainly haven't been going up, so how is the government paying for this? By taking out loans and printing more currency to help repay said loans. For all the Republicans who claim to be against tax hikes and yet support the war, I ask this: do you realize that every time the federal reserve prints more money to pay off debts incurred due to the war, inflation goes up and the purchasing power of Americans both rich and poor goes down? A closet tax increase, essentially. Not to mention our government's second favourite way of re-paying debts: the income tax. Nearly half of all revenue collected via the income tax goes to paying off interest on the national debt. Eliminate the deficite and you can slash the income tax dramatically. The neocons don't want you to realize that the only difference between them and so-called "tax and spend liberals" is that rather than tax and spend, they spend then tax. If America doesn't pull out of Iraq soon, we will go broke. It is that simple.
Primarily based on the reasoning presented above, the vast majority of the American public now see the truth about Iraq. Unfortunately we are not out of the woods yet. Bush still has nearly two years left in his term, and Congress shows no signs of initiating an impeachment process. Without the support of the American people or Congress, Bush and the neoconservatives now realize that they must work in secret to achieve their goals of total globalization. Indeed, along with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, Bush has been engaged in secret meetings without the supervision of Congress with the goal of creating a North American Union and a united currency - the Amero - modeled after the system in Europe. But I will save the details for the second part of this essay. I leave you with this as a preview:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3tg8suvwS3o
On pledges of limited and responsible government, the so-called "neoconservatives" stormed into office with the support of traditional "paleoconservatives" in 2000. In fact, prior to the 2000 election cycle, the neocons were nothing more than a political obscurity with paleoconservatives such as Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, Pat Buchanan, and even George H. W. Bush, Sr in charge of the party. Of course, as history would have it the privately neoconservative George W. Bush quickly emerged as a force to be reckoned with inside the Republican Party. Bush was successful because, while he himself was a neocon, he knew how to appeal to the paleocons as well.
Immigration and foreign policy are the two primary issues that divide conservatives: paleocons are strongly opposed to illegal immigration and support an isolationist foreign policy, while neocons are staunchly globalist, supporting amnesty for illegal aliens and a highly interventionist foreign policy. Hence, when running for president in 2000, Bush shifted attention away from such divisive issues and made lower taxes and the free market - two issues on which paleocons and neocons agree - cornerstones of his platform. This strategy would allow Bush to crush all rivals in the GOP primary and eventually go onto win the general election to become America's first neoconservative president.
The results have been disasterous. Within two and a half years of taking office, Bush and his neoconservative allies had the American military entrenched in a war in Iraq - a war completely irrelivent to the security of the United States. Everyone from liberals to libertarians to paleoconservatives were outraged, but with the firm grip of the neocons over the government, and dare I say the media, who could stop them?
We really do have to give the neoconservatives credit: they are absolutely brilliant politickers. Prior to the current president Bush, conservatives were often isolationist and anti-war. Indeed, the concept of limited government espoused by American conservatives makes them anti-war by default. However, the neocons have been able to change the fundamental tenants of American conservative ideology to fit their own agenda - not an easy task to say the least. Traditional paleoconservatives such as Tucker Carlson, Pat Buchanan, and Joe Scarborough have been ridiculed and isolated by the neocons for their anti-war views, forcing them into the media obscurity that is MSNBC.
Regarding the media, the neocons waged an all-out war for control over the media, demeaning the "liberal media" and placing the problems of America squarely on its shoulders. Admittedly, they had a reasonably good argument. Nine out of eleven columnists for the New York Times leaned to the left. The Washington Post didn't fare much better. The big three broadcast networks, NBC, ABC, and CBS, were all owned and operated by liberals. But was the situation half as dire as they claimed it to be? In my mind, that question is irrelivent - the neocons were successful in using the liberal media argument to unite large segments of the public in support of the more right-wing media outlets. With the rise of the neocons in 2000, more and more Americans tuned into the one facet of the media that had been dominated by the right: radio talk shows. Rush Limbaugh surged in popularity. Sean Hannity, Neil Boortz, Ann Coulter, and others seemingly came out of nowhere to dominate the radio scene. But what was most striking was the rise of Fox News. Not only did Fox News rise to compete with the "big three" networks - it surpassed them. Fox News, owned by neocon Rupert Murdoch, now gets higher ratings than even broadcast news, and trumps its cable competitors CNN and MSNBC pulling in higher ratings than both combined. A majority of the American public bought into the concept of a media controlled by liberals (whether correct or not) and gave the neoconservative movement real traction.
And thus, by the 2000 election cycle, the neoconservatives had established firm control over media and government alike. And yet, their visions of a hyper-interventionist foreign policy remained largely unknown to the public, simply because such plans would not have popular support if they were to be revealed. While public opinion was firmly with former president Clinton's domestic policy, many remained skeptical of his interventionist foreign policy in places such as Kosovo and Bosnia. The neoconservative plan to take Clintonian interventionism to a whole new level would not have been well-recieved by the American people, much less the paleoconservative base of the Republican Party.
September 11, 2001 changed all this. The President's approval rating soared to near 90%. Not only that, but global opinion swung strongly in his favour with everyone from Jacques Chirac of France to Vincente Fox of Mexico voicing strong support for Bush and his plans for a global "War on Terror." Citizens of America and of the entire civilized world wanted revenge, giving Bush an enourmous amount of political capital.
Of course, Bush chose to spend this capital on Iraq. The decision to wage war on Iraq came at a high international price - the world, particularly traditional US allies in Western Europe, quickly turned against Bush. But among Americans still bleeding over the 9/11 attacks, Bush was able to maintain just enough domestic support necessary to wage war and win re-election in 2004. After 9/11, many paleoconservatives jumped onto the neoconservative bandwagon, while others simply kept silent out of fear of being labelled "un-patriotic." The Democrats, in a state of disarray and confusion, kept silent for the same reason. Unfortunately for Bush's opposition, a clear vision (no matter how illogical and unfounded) will always beat out silence and confusion.
But scattered amongst various ideologies across the political spectrum, there were still a few voicing strong and steady opposition to the war. Among the paleoconservatives, Pat Buchanan had continued to criticise the President's foreign policy. Ted Kennedy led the opposition from the left, and Ron Paul (congressman from Texas) spoke out against the war from a libertarian standpoint. The seeds of opposition had been planted, and the popularity of the neoconservative movement would slowly begin to unravel. From the war's outset, these three (among a handful of others) launched a persistant, albeit unorganized, opposition. Public opinion would not change fast, but over the course of three years (from the beginning of the Iraq war to the 2006 mid-term elections) public support for the war would bomb out and opposition would surge. Old paleoconservatives such as Tucker Carlson and Joe Scarborough would soon join Buchanan in opposition to the war, hoping for a shift in the GOP back to the traditional paleocon ideology of isolation. But perhaps most importantly, years after the war had begun the Democrats finally united against it, offering their own clear vision in opposition to that of the neoconservatives. While an illogical clear vision always defeats confusion and waffling, a logical clear vision (nearly) always defeats an illogical one. And thus, at the Congressional level we saw the decimation of the Republican Party and its neoconservatives at the hands of the anti-war Democrats during the 2006 mid-term elections. September 11 is becoming more distant by the day, with the fear factor used by the neocons years ago becoming more and more irrelivant. Even amongst the three leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, all are skeptical of the way in which the Iraq War has been waged. However, it is worth pointing out that only third-tier candidates such as Sam Brownback and Ron Paul are actually against the war in principle. Never the less, the hayday of the neoconservative movement in America seems to be over.
By now it should be obvious that I am an enemy of the Iraq war, as well as the neoconservative hyper-interventionists behind it. As stated earlier, Constitutional objections, moral objections, and practical objections all come into play. The preamble of our Constitution summarizes the role of the American military as to "provide for a common defense" of the nation. How is the war in Iraq anything other than offensive? Even the hawks now admit that we are in there only for the sake of the Iraqi people - if we are to pull out, chaos will ensue and thousands of innocent Iraqis will be killed. To that I say thousands of Iraqis are being killed regardless of our military's presense. In this way, the Republican neocons have attempted to place blame on any repercussions of withdrawal squarely on the opposition, when indeed the blame lies with those Republicans who have gotten us into such a perdicament in the first place. Further, the power to declare war lies firmly with the Congress, according to Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. And yet Congress has flat-out ignored this clause in our Constitution, instead choosing to hand the decision to wage war to the President via the Iraq War Resolution of 2002. Murky waters at best. Over the past several yeras, Congress has voluntarily ceded its own power unconstitutionally to the executive, yet very few in Congress seem to care. Even under the current Democratic leadership, there is a refusal to acknowledge their Constitutional power to end this war, opting to play dumb by passing non-binding, useless resolutions against the war to appease the angry public. Such strategies are incredibly transparent.
With over 3,000 American soldiers, hundreds of British soldiers, and dozens of thousands of Iraqi civilians dead, the moral objections are perhaps the strongest. I think the numbers speak for themselves; more Americans have been killed in Gulf War II than on September 11. Perhaps the most absolutely horrific aspect of the war has been the life-changing injuries that tens of thousands of soldiers have returned home with. Soldiers come back with missing limbs, third-degree burns, and snapped necks. As far as American casualties are concerned, the only significant difference between Iraq and Vietnam has been the brilliance of modern-day medicine and the role it has played in saving the lives of so many. However, the injuries sustained by these survivors are some of the most horrific ever seen. We absolutely must end the unnecessary carnage now.
If moral and Constitutional objections fall on deaf ears, then perhaps practical reasoning will not. First let me make clear that the war has not cost the federal government anything. To say so is misleading - the federal government merely borrows and taxes to pay for things. The government does not live in the real world. No, this war has cost US taxpayers over two trillain dollars. Direct taxes certainly haven't been going up, so how is the government paying for this? By taking out loans and printing more currency to help repay said loans. For all the Republicans who claim to be against tax hikes and yet support the war, I ask this: do you realize that every time the federal reserve prints more money to pay off debts incurred due to the war, inflation goes up and the purchasing power of Americans both rich and poor goes down? A closet tax increase, essentially. Not to mention our government's second favourite way of re-paying debts: the income tax. Nearly half of all revenue collected via the income tax goes to paying off interest on the national debt. Eliminate the deficite and you can slash the income tax dramatically. The neocons don't want you to realize that the only difference between them and so-called "tax and spend liberals" is that rather than tax and spend, they spend then tax. If America doesn't pull out of Iraq soon, we will go broke. It is that simple.
Primarily based on the reasoning presented above, the vast majority of the American public now see the truth about Iraq. Unfortunately we are not out of the woods yet. Bush still has nearly two years left in his term, and Congress shows no signs of initiating an impeachment process. Without the support of the American people or Congress, Bush and the neoconservatives now realize that they must work in secret to achieve their goals of total globalization. Indeed, along with the leaders of Mexico and Canada, Bush has been engaged in secret meetings without the supervision of Congress with the goal of creating a North American Union and a united currency - the Amero - modeled after the system in Europe. But I will save the details for the second part of this essay. I leave you with this as a preview:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3tg8suvwS3o
Monday, March 5, 2007
Proof of Bloomberg-Bush handjob ad
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Itsa gonna get cold!
Saturday was an interesting day in the New York metro area... temperatures bombed out from 59 in the day to 29 in the night in Central Park. A 30 degree temp drop here in the city is huge. And it hasn't gotten above 40 since. That was arctic air mass number 1.
Enter arctic air mass number 2, which should sent temperatures down another 30 degrees or so tonight. Right now it is 35. Tonight we could see temperatures in the positive single digits, with wind chills in the negative single digits. For NYC in March, that's a bit cold! The cold front's been moving on through all today, and some heavy snow showers actually came with (unexpected). We had blizzard conditions for an hour or so today, although the snow ended and gave way to clear skies *sigh*
Should be more fun Tuesday night into Wednesday for the Mid Atlantic. A clipper is coming down from Alberta as I speak and is headed East. GFS and NAM Bufkits (not to mention the NWS, Joe Bastardi, and Henry Margusity) are leaning towards 3-5" for NYC down through DCA, but I'm less convinced. When was the last time an Alberta Clipper amounted for more than an inch or two in the Mid-Atlantic? New England sometimes squeases 3 or more inches from these things, but not from NYC south.
Thus, I say a trace to two inches of snow from DCA to NYC, including BWI and PHL. 2 inches is most likely from Baltimore to Philadelphia. I don't expect anything north of NYC, as this storm should be quite suppressed. Even as far south as New Haven should see a trace AT MOST.
Clippers suck. Give me a Nor'eastah!!!!!! *sigh*
Enter arctic air mass number 2, which should sent temperatures down another 30 degrees or so tonight. Right now it is 35. Tonight we could see temperatures in the positive single digits, with wind chills in the negative single digits. For NYC in March, that's a bit cold! The cold front's been moving on through all today, and some heavy snow showers actually came with (unexpected). We had blizzard conditions for an hour or so today, although the snow ended and gave way to clear skies *sigh*
Should be more fun Tuesday night into Wednesday for the Mid Atlantic. A clipper is coming down from Alberta as I speak and is headed East. GFS and NAM Bufkits (not to mention the NWS, Joe Bastardi, and Henry Margusity) are leaning towards 3-5" for NYC down through DCA, but I'm less convinced. When was the last time an Alberta Clipper amounted for more than an inch or two in the Mid-Atlantic? New England sometimes squeases 3 or more inches from these things, but not from NYC south.
Thus, I say a trace to two inches of snow from DCA to NYC, including BWI and PHL. 2 inches is most likely from Baltimore to Philadelphia. I don't expect anything north of NYC, as this storm should be quite suppressed. Even as far south as New Haven should see a trace AT MOST.
Clippers suck. Give me a Nor'eastah!!!!!! *sigh*
Clipper system Wednesday
Most models are abuzz with a 3-6" clipper system moving into the Mid-Atlantic and re-developing off the Delmarva coast, giving NYC a nice snowfall. But the past several storms this winter have been discouraging. 1-2" is my forecast. I'm sick of model hugging.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Two lefties being amusing
Two radio hosts on Air America (on a show that airs at 3am EST, no less) decided to have at my boy Rudy Giuliani the other day. There's an outrageously funny video of those two whining about Rudy on youtube. Enjoy:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QUARWkvZYUo
Man, where the fuck do I start? I think I will start with their opening line: "As far as Republican candidates go, there's one REAL BAD GUY out there. And that's Rudy Giuliani. He is a BAD person." OH NOES! They make him out to be Emperor Palpatine or something. LMFAO. Also, "real bad" is incorrect grammar - "real" is an adjective, never an adverb.
Now that I've had a laugh about that, let me explain why they're both morons. Firstly, they're broadcasting this show out of California and it is patently obvious that neither have a command over the issues 3,000 miles away in New York. The dumbass on the left (henceforth called dumbass #1) faults Giuliani for placing a communications centre near the WTC site. Two things about that. First, Ed Koch put it there in the 80's, likely before dumbass #1 was out of grade school. Giuliani had no say in that. Secondly, nobody in New York had any idea some fuckjob over in Afghanistan would ever slam two jetliners into the Twin Towers. Pardon Giuliani for not being a psychic.
Then dumbass #2 goes on to talk about Bernie Kerik and how he "followed people around in New York who were critical of him." Huh? I don't even know what the hell he's talking about. And soon after he claims that the murder rate declined under Giuliani's administration only because the people stopped reporting the crimes. Dumbass #1 decides to be slightly less of a dumbass and he objects to that assertion, to his credit. The murder rate declined from over 2000 per year to under 600. Is dumbass #2 really claiming that 1,400 homicides went unreported, or that Giuliani somehow managed to cover them up? Hello???
Then dumbass #1 goes off on a tangent about Giuliani's third term aspirations, which didn't actually exist. Giuliani was being interrogated by news reporters and had polls shoved in his face showing support from New Yorkers for a 3rd term, to which he responded along the lines of "I don't know what's the right thing to do." Soon after (as in, less than ONE WEEK after 9/11), he firmly made the decision not to run and through his support behind the Republican Bloomberg. Specifically, what he said was "I think what I should do is to do the job until December 31 and prepare someone else, whomever the citizens select, as the next mayor." Oh boy, talk about a power monger!!! Moron.
Stick to West Coast politics, fellahs. Or at least, please have a clue before you start dissecting New York's local politics. Talking out of your ass, while popular, isn't cool.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=QUARWkvZYUo
Man, where the fuck do I start? I think I will start with their opening line: "As far as Republican candidates go, there's one REAL BAD GUY out there. And that's Rudy Giuliani. He is a BAD person." OH NOES! They make him out to be Emperor Palpatine or something. LMFAO. Also, "real bad" is incorrect grammar - "real" is an adjective, never an adverb.
Now that I've had a laugh about that, let me explain why they're both morons. Firstly, they're broadcasting this show out of California and it is patently obvious that neither have a command over the issues 3,000 miles away in New York. The dumbass on the left (henceforth called dumbass #1) faults Giuliani for placing a communications centre near the WTC site. Two things about that. First, Ed Koch put it there in the 80's, likely before dumbass #1 was out of grade school. Giuliani had no say in that. Secondly, nobody in New York had any idea some fuckjob over in Afghanistan would ever slam two jetliners into the Twin Towers. Pardon Giuliani for not being a psychic.
Then dumbass #2 goes on to talk about Bernie Kerik and how he "followed people around in New York who were critical of him." Huh? I don't even know what the hell he's talking about. And soon after he claims that the murder rate declined under Giuliani's administration only because the people stopped reporting the crimes. Dumbass #1 decides to be slightly less of a dumbass and he objects to that assertion, to his credit. The murder rate declined from over 2000 per year to under 600. Is dumbass #2 really claiming that 1,400 homicides went unreported, or that Giuliani somehow managed to cover them up? Hello???
Then dumbass #1 goes off on a tangent about Giuliani's third term aspirations, which didn't actually exist. Giuliani was being interrogated by news reporters and had polls shoved in his face showing support from New Yorkers for a 3rd term, to which he responded along the lines of "I don't know what's the right thing to do." Soon after (as in, less than ONE WEEK after 9/11), he firmly made the decision not to run and through his support behind the Republican Bloomberg. Specifically, what he said was "I think what I should do is to do the job until December 31 and prepare someone else, whomever the citizens select, as the next mayor." Oh boy, talk about a power monger!!! Moron.
Stick to West Coast politics, fellahs. Or at least, please have a clue before you start dissecting New York's local politics. Talking out of your ass, while popular, isn't cool.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Ann Coulter is a liberal plant
There is no other explanation. How can anybody be this stupid? Surely she realizes that she's turning anyone with a brain away from the Republican Party when she says things like "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidentail candidatebut John Edwards, it turns out you have to go into rehab if you go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I - sort of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."
Yes, she indeed said the above while delivering a speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee yesterday. I can't believe the CPAC invited her, but I suppose I can believe that she said something like that. Why? Look at these gems to come out of her mouth:
On the Middle East - "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."
On the "Jersey Girls," a group of 9/11 widows critical of Bush - "These broads are millionares, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoy their husbands' deaths so much."
On swing voters/libertarians/other non-partisans - "You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster."
On terrorism - "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
On public school teachers -"Teachers in the private sector earn about 60 percent less than public school teachers. And their students actually learn to read."
I could go on and on... But seriously though, she can't actually believe what she's saying, can she? Every time she opens her mouth she makes the conservative movement and the Republican Party look bad. Everything she says, and I mean everything, is either fascist rhetoric, factually wrong, or a combination thereof. And worst of all - she lives in New York (more proof that she is indeed a liberal plant. If she were half as conservative as she claims to be, she wouldn't be living in this town).
Yes, she indeed said the above while delivering a speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee yesterday. I can't believe the CPAC invited her, but I suppose I can believe that she said something like that. Why? Look at these gems to come out of her mouth:
On the Middle East - "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity."
On the "Jersey Girls," a group of 9/11 widows critical of Bush - "These broads are millionares, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by griefparrazies. I have never seen people enjoy their husbands' deaths so much."
On swing voters/libertarians/other non-partisans - "You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster."
On terrorism - "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."
On public school teachers -"Teachers in the private sector earn about 60 percent less than public school teachers. And their students actually learn to read."
I could go on and on... But seriously though, she can't actually believe what she's saying, can she? Every time she opens her mouth she makes the conservative movement and the Republican Party look bad. Everything she says, and I mean everything, is either fascist rhetoric, factually wrong, or a combination thereof. And worst of all - she lives in New York (more proof that she is indeed a liberal plant. If she were half as conservative as she claims to be, she wouldn't be living in this town).
Why we didn't invade Iraq in the first Gulf War, according to George HW Bush, Sr
"While we hoped that popular revolt or coup would topple Saddam, neither the U.S. nor the countries of the region wished to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We were concerned about the long-term balance of power at the head of the Gulf. Trying to eliminate Saddam, extending the ground war into an occupation of Iraq, would have violated our guideline about not changing objectives in midstream, engaging in "mission creep," and would have incurred incalculable human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We had been unable to find Noriega in Panama, which we knew intimately. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. The coalition would instantly have collapsed, the Arabs deserting it in anger and other allies pulling out as well. Under those circumstances, furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-cold war world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different--and perhaps barren--outcome."
If only W listened to his father....
If only W listened to his father....
Liberals and conservatives are both silly little geese
Today I got into an argument over illegal immigration with a friend's friend from the NYU Republicans club. I presented my argument that we should let the Mexicans have California back, and I was called a "limousine liberal." Yes, because I am such a commie.
So I am just going to clarify all my political views here. I am a libertarian - I oppose the expansion of government intrusion into our economic and private lives. This often involves combining liberal and conservative viewpoints, since neither ideology inherently supports "small government" (despite what conservatives would have you think).
Some may say I am a liberal because I support the following:
Legalizing prostitution
Ending the drug war
Ending the war in Iraq
Cutting military spending by 50%
Allowing homosexuals to marry
Repealing "right-to-work" laws (on the grounds that they violate the right to contract between employers and employees)
Teaching evolution over "intelligent design" in public schools
Re-legalizing partial-birth abortion
Removing "under God" from the pledge and "in God we trust" from currency (although I hardly consider these to be key issues)
Lefties say I'm conservative because I support the following:
Eliminating the minimum wage
Allowing school choice via vouchers
Ending any and all gun control
Repealing the income tax entirely
Repealing the death tax
Repealing anti-trust legislation
Kicking the UN out of New York and withdrawing from said organization
Privatising Social Security
Dismantling Medicare and Medicaid
Dismantling welfare
Ending descriminatory affirmative action laws
But really if you look at it, I am nothing but consistent and it is the liberals and conservatives who have inconsistent ideologies. They increase and decrease the size and scope of government to suit their own needs and wants, while I am consistently anti-government on principle, whether I benefit directly or not. More people should be like me, because I am indeed all that and a bag of chips.
So I am just going to clarify all my political views here. I am a libertarian - I oppose the expansion of government intrusion into our economic and private lives. This often involves combining liberal and conservative viewpoints, since neither ideology inherently supports "small government" (despite what conservatives would have you think).
Some may say I am a liberal because I support the following:
Legalizing prostitution
Ending the drug war
Ending the war in Iraq
Cutting military spending by 50%
Allowing homosexuals to marry
Repealing "right-to-work" laws (on the grounds that they violate the right to contract between employers and employees)
Teaching evolution over "intelligent design" in public schools
Re-legalizing partial-birth abortion
Removing "under God" from the pledge and "in God we trust" from currency (although I hardly consider these to be key issues)
Lefties say I'm conservative because I support the following:
Eliminating the minimum wage
Allowing school choice via vouchers
Ending any and all gun control
Repealing the income tax entirely
Repealing the death tax
Repealing anti-trust legislation
Kicking the UN out of New York and withdrawing from said organization
Privatising Social Security
Dismantling Medicare and Medicaid
Dismantling welfare
Ending descriminatory affirmative action laws
But really if you look at it, I am nothing but consistent and it is the liberals and conservatives who have inconsistent ideologies. They increase and decrease the size and scope of government to suit their own needs and wants, while I am consistently anti-government on principle, whether I benefit directly or not. More people should be like me, because I am indeed all that and a bag of chips.
Friday, March 2, 2007
My proposal for Iraq
We need to send chimpanzees to Iraq. 20,000 troop surge? More like a 20,000 chimpanzee surge. The terrorists won't be able to resist the charm and cuteness of 20,000 chimpanzees looking at them. Plus we can train them to use assault rifles, and perhaps attach lasers onto their heads.
Chimps with lasers on their heads. Unstoppable.
Chimps with lasers on their heads. Unstoppable.
He's looking into your soul
He's looking a bit to the right because your soul is positioned just a bit to the right of your physical body. Don't ask me why; I just know these things.
Holy shit, governments can be stupid
The British Ministry of Defense apparently has been recruiting psychics to find Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. Hopefully the dumbassery involved here is self-evident without further comment on my part.
link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=438062&in_page_id=1811
And then we have the ex-Canadian Minister of Defense claiming that the US and other governments have access to UFO's. Again, ugh. At least he's an EX-Minister.
link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070228/wl_canada_afp/canadaenvironmentkyoto_070228180440
Oh well; I guess it's somewhat reassuring that the US isn't the only country run by chimpanzees. Or maybe it's just scary.
In any case, CHIMPANZEES ARE THE PWN!!!
http://www.bushorchimp.com
Some day, I'm going to own a pet chimp. I'm going to dress him up in a sailor outfit, except that he'll have an assault rifle. A real one. He'll be cute yet lethal. God I love chimps.
link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=438062&in_page_id=1811
And then we have the ex-Canadian Minister of Defense claiming that the US and other governments have access to UFO's. Again, ugh. At least he's an EX-Minister.
link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070228/wl_canada_afp/canadaenvironmentkyoto_070228180440
Oh well; I guess it's somewhat reassuring that the US isn't the only country run by chimpanzees. Or maybe it's just scary.
In any case, CHIMPANZEES ARE THE PWN!!!
http://www.bushorchimp.com
Some day, I'm going to own a pet chimp. I'm going to dress him up in a sailor outfit, except that he'll have an assault rifle. A real one. He'll be cute yet lethal. God I love chimps.
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