A Freedomist View

What? A Solution To War, Genocide, And Mass Murder

2009-10-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

After writing over the years something like 500-600 blogs (See archive here), it is time to ask which of all these is most important.

I believe those are the blogs that present and underline that democracy (the democratic peace) is a solution to war, genocide and mass murder (I call democide) by governments. I prove this in my book.

But very few are aware of this solution -- even when two presidents, Clinton and George W. Bush realized it with regard to war and based their foreign policies on it.

For centuries mankind has sought a solution to war. Solutions have been proposed, such as international law, diplomacy, a balance of power, trade, and cultural exchange. Nothing has worked. But empirically and theoretically we know that historically no democracies have made war on each other. When living side by side, they promote cooperation, and peace with each other, and if perchance a crisis occurs, they manage to resolve it without violence. In a world where dictators murder their subjects by the hundreds, thousands, millions, and tens of millions, that democratic leaders murder near zero of their population is absolutely incredible.

The proofs for what I say are in my books Power Kills: Democracy As A Method Of Nonviolence, and Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. And see my websitefor the many books and documents providing further data, theory, and proofs.
An end to war and to democide! It is like the elimination of cancer or heart disease. This solution of the ages should be celebrated around the world. Not only does it fail to make the front pages, but is ignored by the commentariat. Ponder this for a moment. Why is this absolutely incredible and proven solution hidden, ignored, or missed?

47% Will Pay $0 Income Tax in 2009

2009-10-16T12:26:00.000-07:00

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With so many serious dangers to our democracy – Obama’s far left socialists, a possible leftist coup, an EMP attack, global islamofascism, it seems a stretch to include our tax system also as a danger. It is. Consider that 47% of “taxpayers,” 71,000,000 people will pay no income tax in 2009. Zero.

Worse. Many of these people are eligible for a “negative income tax.” That is, the federal government will give them one refundable tax break, rebate, or another. On this, see the Tax Policy Center:

Refundable credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), the refundable child tax credit (CTC), and the new Making Work Pay (MWP) credit will lead to negative average effective rates for the bottom two quintiles. The bottom quintile, for example, will receive an average income tax subsidy from the federal government equal to 10 percent of their pretax income. Rates will increase from 2.3 to 13.4 percent for the top three quintiles and to 17.9 percent for the top 1 percent of income earners.

These “free riders” have no reason to alter the tax system as long as their circumstance is unchanged. Since Democrats, the tax and spend party, are quite content with this system (even a higher negative tax), these free riders are their natural constituents. Thus, Democrats have a built in advantage at the polls.

With nearly half of the population paying no taxes, even if Republicans control Congress and the White House, the probability of correcting this incredibly unfair system is slim. Fear of a backlash from the 71,000,000 is highly persuasive.

So, what can be done? Nothing, except to vote at the polls for those who promise to reform the tax system, and through blogs, the conservative media, town halls, and demonstrations, ensure their seriousness.

World Nonproliferation Is Politically Asinine

2009-10-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

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It is true that in the hands of dictators or terrorists groups, nuclear weapons endanger peace and other nations. A policy of nonproliferation pointedly directed at dictatorships such as Iran, North Korea, and Syria is wise and momentous. However, for Obama, Europe, and the UN, the goal of nonproliferation applies generally to all nations, including democracies. This is the asinine fruit of soft political realism. Historically, realism in foreign policy assumes all nations, including democracies, are driven by the lust for power. Developing and maintaining stable power balances are then the diplomacy of international politics, and peacekeeping.

Democracies, however, rely on their nukes for protection, mainly to deter attacks on them. During the Cold War, the U.S declared that a nuclear counterstrike would meet any nuclear attack on the U.S. or Europe. This kept the peace. Without American nukes, the Soviet Union might well have invaded Europe leading to World War III. Or conflicts elsewhere, as in Korea, Vietnam, or China could have also led to global war

All the nuclear powers, U.S, UK, USSR, France, USSR, China, Iindia, and yes, even Pakistan, mindful of the consequences of a nuclear war, walked on eggs in their conflicts. Their claws were generally retracted in a serious crisis, or even a limited war, such as over Cuba, Berlin, Bosnia, Iraq, or Afghanistan. The sheer horror of nuclear war kept the larger peace.

Next, consider democratic Israel’s 200+ nuclear warheads. These now maintain her security and her life. No major Middle Eastern nation would endanger Israel’s existence and risk nuclear destruction of her major cities, with the possible exception of fanatic Islamofacist Iran.

Assume now that this analysis is faulty. Nonproliferation is still crazy. Democracies do not make war on each other. So, if they have nukes, they do not endanger other democracies. Thus, eliminating nukes only removes their protection from nondemocracies.

The only informed and logical policy then, is to assure nonproliferation among the thug regimes of the world.

The Prescient Peace Prize For Appeasement

2009-10-12T08:22:00.000-07:00

Source

International relations and political science are my professional areas of teaching and research. I draw on this authority to strongly recommend the following article for your reading. Charles Krauthammer's "Decline Is a Choice: The New Liberalism and the end of American ascendancy."Among other things, he says:

.... my thesis is simple: The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption thatsomehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable external forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline--or continued ascendancy--is in our hands.

Not that decline is always a choice. Britain's decline after World War II was foretold, as indeed was that of Europe, which had been the dominant global force of the preceding centuries. The civilizational suicide that was the two world wars, and the consequent physical and psychological exhaustion, made continued dominance impossible and decline inevitable.

The corollary to unchosen European collapse was unchosen American ascendancy. We--whom Lincoln once called God's "almost chosen people"--did not save Europe twice in order to emerge from the ashes as the world's co-hegemon. We went in to defend ourselves and save civilization. Our dominance after World War II was not sought. Nor was the even more remarkable dominance after the Soviet collapse. We are the rarest of geopolitical phenomena: the accidental hegemon and, given our history of isolationism and lack of instinctive imperial ambition, the reluctant hegemon--and now, after a near-decade of strenuous post-9/11 exertion, more reluctant than ever.

A docudrama Of The Armenian Genocide

2009-10-10T18:53:00.000-07:00

March 30, 1916 Sambayat, Turkey

The sky was azure blue and dotted with fluffy, white clouds. Beneath it, a convoy of young women and children shuffled into the town and down the main road. All bore the look of death. Some stumbled, some were helped along; some, the youngest ones, nearly skeletons, were carried in the bony arms of their mothers. Some wore ragged clothes. Some none. All were filthy. All stared down at their bare feet with cavernous eyes and sunken cheeks.

Those who were naked were helped by a gentle, surprisingly warm breeze blowing up from the desert to the south. Combined with the bright sun, it overcame the normal spring chill and made for a comfortable coatless day. The air was clear, and the breeze wafted along the smell of cooking food from nearby buildings.

It would have been a great day to be alive. Uniformed, bearded guards, carrying their long rifles with bayonets fixed, ambled along beside the convoy. The women could no longer be hurried.

An officer at the head of the convoy lifted his head at the smell of food, then turned and raised his hands for the guards to stop the convoy. He waved to the side of the road. The guards pushed and prodded the women to a grassy area, and two of them were ordered to watch over the women. The rest formed a circle in the shade of a sweet gum tree, opened their packs, and began to eat lunch. No food was given the women, but they were allowed to dip their hands in a nearby puddle and drink from them.

One woman limped off the road and stood stock still for minutes, holding her two shriveled little girls by the hand. Then she slowly fell to her knees and toppled over, dead. Her girls sat down at her side, obviously believing she was only asleep, and again clasped her bony, cooling hands in theirs.

Another woman gave no attention to the water. She held the half-putrefied cadaver of a newborn infant tightly to her chest, cooing softly to it.

Nearby, a naked woman lay on her back, her head turned away from the sun. Her haggard face still retained some of what must have been ravishing beauty. Her body bore the bruises and slime of frequent rape. As the light in her eyes gradually extinguished, they momentarily reflected her agony before turning vacant.

After a half-hour, the officer stood and signaled for the guards to reform the convoy. Reluctantly, some at the point of a bayonet, the women and children struggled to their feet and tottered back to the road. One woman took the hands of the two children whose mother had died, and pulled them struggling away from her. The guards checked those that remained on the ground for signs of life, poking some with their bayonets. Finally, the trudging mass of despair was taken out of town on an intersecting road, heading toward the south and the desert. The guards left the corpses for the townspeople to bury.

Two nargile smokers in the rear of the Ligor Kiraathanesi coffee house along that road, each sitting comfortably next to his traditional pipe, had watched the convoy come and go. They knew exactly what was going on. Not so the young man seated at a tiny table on the patio of the coffee house. Shielded from the sun by a large Syrian juniper, Peter Kahan watched, mouth agape, only moving when the discomfort of the hard wooden chair on which he was sitting demanded it. He had traveled to several towns and was now in Sambayat on his way to the ancient city of Adiyaman. He had just had lunch and, of course, Turkish coffee, and still held the small coffee cup as though it was frozen in his hand.

He was a foreign correspondent for The Times of London, which had sent him to Turkey because he spoke Turkish. He had learned it at home from his parents, who had immigrated to Britain before he was born. As always, The Times did not trust Foreign Ministry handouts. He was to interview members of the Young Turk government regarding Turkey’s two-front war with Italy over Libya, and with Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro. The Times also wanted him to appraise Turkish public opinion, and that was why he was traveling through this region. Peter had heard rumors about what he had just seen. Some Greeks swore to him that it was happening and that he must inform the world through his newspaper, but the government officials he queried about it denied it flatly. Oh, there were some deportations of Armenians from the east, they said. But they were only to relocate those sympathetic to Russia from the eastern border regions in case Russia joined the war against them. They insisted that the deportations were humanely done.

But now he had seen a deportation with his own eyes. He looked again at the two scrawny corpses, and the doner kebab—thick grilled bread stuffed with lamb shavings and cabbage, topped with a spicy sauce—he’d had for lunch weighed heavily in his stomach. It was beginning to revolt; he could taste the spicy sauce again. He quickly put the cup down and doubled over, spewing his lunch on a nearby bush.

Forty-three Miles Away

One after another, the muscular, heavily-built man hacked at their heads and necks with his axe. When they tried to shield themselves, he hacked off their arms first. His comrades, armed with their bayonets and knives, worked into the quaking, screaming crowd of women, children, and old men. He and the other soldiers were under orders to save ammunition.

Then he saw her. She stood silently, hugging her younger brother to her, her head resting on his. She was from his town of Okaris, and very beautiful. She was not one whose name he would forget, and he yelled to her above the tumult, “Quick, Siran. Come to me.”

She did not hear him.

He pushed several women aside, kicked over one who was praying on her knees, and came up alongside Siran. He put one bloody hand on her shoulder, and when she looked at him, he yelled above the terrible noise, “I will protect and save you. Release your brother, and follow me.”

She shook her head.

He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her away from her brother, but she held him tighter. The hacking, stabbing soldiers were getting closer.

“I give you life,” he urged.

Again she shook her head. She turned her head to look into his eyes, and finally shouted, “If you are so kind, I ask only this favor.”

“What? Quick!” he barked.

“I know you will not save my brother. Please. Kill him now. Please, before me. Then while I wait for you to kill me, I will not worry about him. I do not want him to suffer any agony, any torture.”

The muscular soldier vigorously shook his head, and again tried to pull her away. She resisted.

“Please,” she said.

It was too late anyway. He could feel his comrades at his back, and one was approaching from the side with his bayonet pointed toward her. He nodded.

Siran quickly turned her brother to face her, and whispered into his ear, “A temporary goodbye, my brother.” She kissed him. “We will meet in the next world and be in God’s hands. Do not fear. It is a matter of seconds.”

They kissed each other for the last time, and the boy stood apart, facing him without fear. The soldier now had no choice. Orders were orders. He quickly cleaved the boy’s skull open with the axe, and he collapsed at sister’s feet, dead. He turned to the girl. She stood with her hands at her sides. Her chin was uplifted toward him, and her eyes were misty. “Thank you,” she said, barely loud enough to hear. “Please, now, do the same to me. One blow. No torture.”

He nodded, heaved back his axe, then hesitated, looking into her eyes. He saw only acceptance. He brought the axe down on her head.

Link of Note

"Statistics of Turkey's Democide:
Estimates, Calculations, and Sources"
By R.J. Rummel

Quote:

The infamy of executing this century's first full scale ethnic cleansing belongs to Turkey's Young Turk government during World War I. In their highest councils Turkish leaders decided to exterminate every Armenian in the country, whether a front-line soldier or pregnant woman, famous professor or high bishop, important businessman or ardent patriot. All 2,000,000 of them.

Books, articles, statistics

Vietnam and the Afghanistan Debate

2009-10-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

Source—Click table to enlarge

Peter Spiegel And Jonathan Weisman have published in The all Street Journal ”Behind Afghan War Debate, a Battle of Two Books Rages.” They say:

The two [books] draw decidedly different lessons from the Vietnam War. The first book describes a White House in 1965 being marched into an escalating war by a military viewing the conflict too narrowly to see the perils ahead. President Barack Obama recently finished the book, according to administration officials, and Vice President Joe Biden is reading it now.
The second describes a different administration, in 1972, when a U.S. military that has finally figured out how to counter the insurgency is rejected by political leaders who bow to popular opinion and end the fight.
It has been recommended in multiple lists put out by military officers, including a former U.S. commander in Afghanistan, who passed it out to his subordinates.
The two books -- "Lessons in Disaster," on Mr. Obama's nightstand, and "A Better War" on the shelves of military gurus -- have become a framework for the debate over what will be one of the most important decisions of Mr. Obama's presidency.

The American involvement in and retreat from the Vietnam War embodies a critical lesson currently for Afghanistan. To see this, however, requires a correct view of the war, which (with the distortions and untruths by the left and their media) is denied the public.
In the 1950s, communist North Vietnam began a guerrilla campaign to take over South Vietnam, a movement subsequently reinforced by the North’s army. By the early 1960s, the South was losing, and consistent with American foreign and defense policy of containing communism, Kennedy escalated our involvement of military advisors, and Johnson further with American combat forces and air power in 1963.

However, by 1964, the South was in bad shape, with defeat likely. So, using an alleged attack on American ships as a rationale, Congress gave President Johnson a blank check to fully engage American forces in defense of the South. He did, and eventually 550,000 troops were involved by 1969. At that time, the North was practically defeated. Its army had lost every battle. The Viet Cong guerrillas the North used and controlled were almost wiped out in their Tet Offensive. In effect, the war was almost over with an American victory and an independent South, but the North fought on, believing that they could win the war in Washington, if not in the South.

They were right. By 1969, the noisy anti-war activists had taken their toll. A barrage of public protests, and a hostile media gradually eroded the initial strong Democratic support for the war, eventually turning them against it. There was widespread belief (fueled by the media) that the South was corrupt, authoritarian, weakly defending itself, leaving it to the American forces to fight, and were losing to the North. In 1974 Congress, controlled by antiwar Democrats, voted to curtail funding for American military activities in Southeast Asia with an eventual total cutoff of all funding. This in effect ended the American war effort in South Vietnam. Denied military aid and air support, the South was defeated by a limited offensive that with increasing success became all out. In 1975, Saigon fell as American helicopters tried to save a handful of South Vietnamese.

The communist victory over the South eventually cost 528,000 lives in executions and deaths in re-education camps, and 250,000 more Boat People fleeing on the ocean. For the totals killed or murdered, see here.

What is the lesson for Afghanistan in this sorry and bloody story. With victory in Afghanistan within our reach. We need only the will and to use the resources we have in great measure. Therefore, listen to our commanders, surge as necessary, and do not let the left snatch defeat from the jaws of victory again.

Tyranny In View--The Not So Stealth Obama Coup

2009-10-06T18:26:00.000-07:00

Source
As I have written before in my Tyranny Closing In—The Stealth Coup, I fear for the future of American democracy because of the power Obama and his cronies have now amassed.

Of course, there are no certainties here. One can judge only by the character of these people, their ideologies, their capabilities, world history, and what is possible and probable. Undeniably, this is not science but informed intuition. And I submit, it is all that we can go on.

Having said that see Joshua Muravchik's ”Devastating: Obama's Abandonment of Democracy and Human Rights”

The new president signaled his intent on the eve of his inauguration, when he told editors of the Washington Post that democracy was less important than “freedom from want and freedom from fear. If people aren’t secure, if people are starving, then elections may or may not address those issues, but they are not a perfect overlay.”

Also Kyle-Anne Shiver’s”Barack Obama, the Quintessential Liberal Fascist”

When Saul Alinsky began building his community-organization movement in 1930s Chicago, observers were watching Alinsky with one eye, while with the other eye observing the building of communist and fascist movements in Europe. It wasn't hard then to see in Alinsky's programs at home, elements of the people's revolution from Russia, as well as some of the same "in your face" tactics being employed by Hitler's Brownshirts.

What Alinsky's critics saw was the burgeoning of a national movement, the carefully manipulated construction of people's organizations, which all had two elements in common: (1) a collectivist creed, which denied the existence of personal responsibility; and (2) an amoral dogma, in which all means were justified by an imaginary utopian end.

Also Victor Davis Hanson’s ”Our Road to Oceania”

In George Orwell's allegorical novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four," the picture of "Big Brother" appears constantly in the adoring media.

Perceived enemies are everywhere - supposedly plotting to undo the benevolent egalitarianism of Big Brother. Citizens assemble each morning to scream hatred for two minutes at pictures of the supposed public traitor Emmanuel Goldstein. The "Ministry of Truth" swears that the former official Goldstein is responsible for everything that goes wrong in Oceania.

In Orwell's Oceania, there is a compliant media that offers "Newspeak" - recycled government bulletins from the Ministry of Truth. "Doublethink" means you can believe at the same time in two opposite beliefs.

America is not Oceania, but some of this is beginning to sound a little too familiar.

Also Declan McCullagh’s ” Bill would give president emergency control of Internet”

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

Also ” FEMA CONCENTRATION CAMPS: Locations and Executive Orders” says

There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) should Martial Law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. Ask yourself if you really want to be on Ashcroft's list.

Also John Byme’s item, “Obama will bypass Congress to detain suspects indefinitely” item:

President Barack Obama has quietly decided to bypass Congress and allow the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects without charges.

The move, which was controversial when the idea was first floated in The Washington Post in May, has sparked serious concern among civil liberties advocates. Such a decision allows the president to unilaterally hold "combatants" without habeas corpus -- a legal term literally meaning "you shall have the body" -- which forces prosecutors to charge a suspect with a crime to justify the suspect's detention.

More here.

We must understand that in applying much of the legal structure erected to fight terror, such as the Patriot Act, the government defines who is a terrorist. Any individual or group can be labeled “terrorist”. Consider that the Department of Homeland Security’s report, ” Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment“, targets as potential terrorists “most conservatives and libertarians in the country”--Stephen Gordon.

And so on, an on, and on.

It is clear that Obama and his close advisers, his cabinet, his czars, and top Congressional Democrats are convinced that they can eliminate mass poverty in the United States, prevailing inequality, the entrenched evils of capitalism, nuclear proliferation, and violence in the world. The only hindrances are those damn libertarians, conservatives, and Republicans—the vast right wing.

They have two solutions to this perceived and believed massive social injustice and violence. One is the stealth coup I described in the link to my blog above. The other is an outright coup. Now that all the logistics (much of which has been justified by the war on terror, illegal immigration, and the current depression) are in place, one thing remains. A great national emergency, such as the the burning of the Reichstadt in 1933, for the Nazis. For us, it can be a suicide bombing of a major Federal building, the assassination of a high federal official, the loss of thousands of lives in a gas attack, and so on. This crisis can be actual or contrived. Anything that would legitimize a declaration of a national emergency, the assumption of near total power by Obama, the postponement of elections, extensive censorship and control of the major media, and the “temporary” incarceration of opponents.

Beware and be alert.

Why Such Support for the Lie that is Global Warming?

2009-10-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

The decadal correlation strengths (r-squared) of both the Hadley and MSU satellite with
the corresponding CO2 is non-existent (r2=0.00). Source.

I have produced a number of blogs on global warming, usually with supporting figures and charts. They are:

”Is Global Warming A Criminal Conspiracy? Part II” 9/30/09

”Is Global Warming A Criminal Conspiracy?” 9/29/09

”Strange! Global Warming Data Disappears”9/25/09

”Antarctic melting! NOT” 8/22/09

”Yes, Global Warming Is About Political Power” 7/28/09

”The Great Global Warming Power Grab” 7/17/09

”Global Warming Is A Scam For Power” 7/04/09

To these I add the summary overview by Bert Tassoni, “Global Warming – Nonsense!”

These blogs and linked publications should establish that “global warming” is a lie, and moreover, a possible criminal conspiracy. Then why the incredible support by scientists, nations, the major media, and international organizations like the UN? Such overwhelming support that many equate global warming denial with Holocaust denial. So much so that government agents suppress contrary evidence, and scientists refuse to divulge data that might contradict the notion of global warming.

The explanation lies in the confluence of a number if interests. One is the politically strong environmental movement that has chosen to declare global warming as the central problem, using CO2 as the way to reign in and control the hated anti-earth industrial growth and capitalism.

Second are the socialists and Marxists in and out of government who also use this as a way to eliminate the evils of capitalism.

Third are the statists or fascists for whom global warming is an opportunity to increase government control of society and the economy. They believe that government must step in and resolve a global crisis of such magnitude. Thus, the Cap and Trade Bill and the numerous proposed controls and regulations to reduce CO2.

Fourth, not to be forgotten are the grants, contracts, and funds invested in dealing with global warming. This wealth and support to many would vanish were global warming known to be a lie.

Fifth, never underestimate the egos involved. By virtue of their writing, speeches, policies, and past actions, their reputations as politicians, scientists, and commentators depend on the idea of global warming continuing and growing.

Sixth, since all these interest infest the major media, it swallows the “truth” of global warming and its cause—CO2. Rejected is any possibility that the “evidence” is wrong or cherry picked or inconsistent. Thus, for a decade, the world has been misled and lied to, possibly criminally.

And finally, seventh, the vast public also has been duped by all those drum beating scientists, commentators, and politicians. Why not? They speak authoritatively. Are well respected. Why question their claim of a global crisis?

Perhaps it is time to, “Trust, but verify.”

It is Worse Than Celebrating the Holocaust

2009-10-02T20:40:00.001-07:00

Source
I have spent years documenting the mass murder (democide) of the Chinese people by Mao Tse-Tung. The resulting statistics, sources, notes, and descriptive history are in my China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900. My initial estimate of Mao’s horrible toll is in two parts:

Civil War-Sino-Japanese War 1923-1949 = 3,466,000 murdered

Rule over China (PRC) 1949-1987 = 35,236,000 murdered

At that time, I did not include China’s Great Famine, 1958-1961. From my study of what was available in English then, I could not define it as democide. However subsequent research has convinced me that it should be included. This changes Mao’s total to 76,692,000 (rounded off to 77,000,000) murdered.

This is now in line with the 65 million toll estimated for China in the Black Book of Communism, and Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s estimate in their Mao of “well over 70 million.” On this see my blog ”Getting My Reestimate Of Mao’s Democide Out.”

Even my earlier figure far surpasses the 21,000,000 murdered by Hitler, including the Holocaust conventionally estimated to be 6,000,000 Jews. Yet, New York's Empire State Building was illuminated in red and yellow to HONOR the 60 year bloody communist tyranny over China.

The souls of the tens of millions of Chinese victims cry for recognition in vain. Weep for them.

Is Global Warming A Criminal Conspiracy? Part II

2009-09-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Source

The story on global Warming is hidden data, data withheld from those who want to study them, indirectly getting the data, and finding the data actually yield results the opposite of what is claimed.

See arclein’s “Hockey Stick Fraud” where he says:

There is no way to be generous or to dodge this bullet. We now have outright confirmation that the data was deliberately selected to provide the dramatic eye catching result that was made it so famous. This is not science so much as a publicist’s dodgy manipulation of data to support a doubtful scheme.

I am certain every scientist has faced the frustration of months of hard work merely showing no evidence for the proposed theory. Once again our scientists had no evidence. So they merely selected the best data points in a statistical distribution and discarded the rest. I can prove anything if I am allowed to do that. Hell, I know of this great gold mine in which the grades exceed five ounces to the ton. – see this assay sheet?

When these guys floated their paper, they had no expectation anyone else would care and result were important in order to push their spurious claims. Then the world paid attention and they hid the data for ten years so no one could discover what they had done.

More here

Also, see Delingpole’s “How the global warming industry is based on one MASSIVE lie” in which he says

Those of you who saw An Inconvenient Truth may remember, if you weren’t asleep by that stage, the key scene where big green Al deploys his terrifying graph to show how totally screwed we all are by man-made global warming. This graph – known as the Hockey Stick Curve – purports to show rising global temperatures through the ages. In the part representing the late twentieth century it shoots up almost vertically. To emphasise his point that this is serious and that if we don’t act NOW we’re doomed, Al Gore – wearing a wry smile which says: “Sure folks, this is kinda funny. But don’t forget how serious it is too” – climbs on to a mini-lift in order to be able to reach the top of the chart. Cue consensual gasps from his parti pris audience.

Except that the graph – devised in 1998 by a US climatologist called Dr Michael Mann - is based on a huge lie, as Sceptics have been saying for quite some time. The first thing they noticed is that this “Hockey Stick” (based on tree ring data, one of the most accurate ways of recording how climate changes over the centuries) is that it seemed completely to omit the Medieval Warming Period.
According to Mann’s graph, the hottest period in modern history was NOT the generally balmy era between 900 and 1300 but the late 20th century. This led many sceptics, among them a Canadian mathematician named Steve McIntyre to smell a rat. He tried to replicate Mann’s tree ring work but was stymied by lack of data: ie the global community of climate-fear-promotion scientists closed ranks and refused to provide him with any information that might contradict their cause.

….what McIntyre discovered was that Professor Briffa had cherry picked his “tree data sets” in order to reach the conclusion he wanted to reach. When, however, McIntyre plotted in a much larger and more representative range of samples from exactly the same area, the results he got were startlingly different. [rather than a hockey stick trend sharply upward to global warming, he got a trend line downward to global coolling]

More here

“

Is Global Warming A Criminal Conspiracy?

2009-09-29T20:32:00.001-07:00

Cartoon source
In his very important badly titled publication “Paul Krugman Tries To Play Scientist, As Real Scientist Uncover Serious Flaw In Global Warming Data,” space systems and aerospace engineer Trent Telenko points out what may be a criminal conspiracy in the suppression and alteration of the data underling the belief in global and CO2 as its cause. He says

As [Paul] Krugman ably demonstrates, lay people should not jump into this debate without some experience and expertise in science, math and engineering. The real professionals, on the other hand, have discovered that the source of all the recent global warming is not CO2, but bad data used in climate models which forces the models to show recent warming – where OTHER DATA shows there is no recent warming.

Let me repeat this. The statistical models used by the High Priests of Global Warming are using a newly identified and specific data set which wrongly produces decades of warming where none exists in the raw temperature data 0r other data sets.

More here

The following is a plot from Telenko’s publication He says:

What this shows is that when you take out … suspected tree ring data, there is no global warming (black line) but actually global cooling. If you add in ALL the data sets from that region of Russia, there is no global warming (green line) at all. Only if you carefully select some special data from the world of data sets (red line) do you see something that could be advertised as global warming?

Source

Where goes Afghanistan and Iran?

2009-09-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source
Here is a very important analysis of “Obama's Move: Iran and Afghanistan, by George Friedman. Published by Stratfor as one of its Geopolitical Intelligence Reports. I agree with what Friedman says:

During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, now-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said that like all U.S. presidents, Barack Obama would face a foreign policy test early in his presidency if elected. That test is now here.

His test comprises two apparently distinct challenges, one in Afghanistan and one in Iran. While different problems, they have three elements in common. First, they involve the question of his administration’s overarching strategy in the Islamic world. Second, the problems are approaching decision points (and making no decision represents a decision here). And third, they are playing out very differently than Obama expected during the 2008 campaign.

During the campaign, Obama portrayed the Iraq war as a massive mistake diverting the United States from Afghanistan, the true center of the “war on terror.” He accordingly promised to shift the focus away from Iraq and back to Afghanistan. Obama’s views on Iran were more amorphous. He supported the doctrine that Iran should not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons, while at the same time asserted that engaging Iran was both possible and desirable. Embedded in the famous argument over whether offering talks without preconditions was appropriate (something now-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacked him for during the Democratic primary) was the idea that the problem with Iran stemmed from Washington’s refusal to engage in talks with Tehran.

More here

Understand the UN--It Is Thugsville

2009-09-26T08:51:00.001-07:00

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On December 16, 2004, while addressing the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan emphasized again the liberal, leftist line that the United Nations is not only central to dealing with global threats, but is “The only universal instrument that can bring states together in such a global effort”.

What a joke! By its own reckoning, the UN has failed in peace making, peace keeping, and conflict resolution. Sadly, it has become a weapon and a shield for the world’s dictators. It is thus corrupt to the core.
All dictators are not the same. Some are simply thugs who hide behind their guns and goons while they murder their captive citizens, condone extreme torture (a few even approve slavery and rape), and loot their country’s wealth and resources for personal gain, for power, for an ideology, or for a religion. At the present time, there are forty-three totalitarian thug regimes (rated unfree by Freedom House). These, along with the more moderate sixty partly free, but sympathetic and collaborative regimes, dominate the UN. They now defeat its mission, and have singled out one nation, Israel, for the UN’s venom, with the U.S. not far behind. Anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are the rule.

Of course, Barack Obama, with his inclination to appease dictators (actual or potential), defers to the UN, embracing it as part of his plans for global socialism, peace, disarmament, and nuclear nonproliferation.

I have arrived at this conclusion about the UN reluctantly, for I was its enthusiastic supporter early on.
What’s to be done? I don’t suggest withdrawal. The UN has too many useful functions, serves as a neutral forum for contact and communication between adversaries or enemies. When there is general agreement on conflicts, interventions, peacekeeping, refugees, humanitarian aid, sanctions, criminal tribunals, human rights, and so on, the UN does help save lives and promote human welfare and security.

Nonetheless, given the UN’s overall record, when millions have perished from war, democide, famine, and poverty, the good of the organization is undermined by its dictatorship members. Two things should be done. First, a democratic-nation-only-caucus should deal with all issues before the UN. Such a caucus now exists, but is still in its teething stage. It is all but invisible. But, it must be front and center in all UN debates and resolutions.

Second, we need an international governmental organization of all democracies to deal with issues on which the UN cannot or will not act, particularly the promotion of peace, human security, human rights, and democracy. I have written on such an Alliance of Democracies, and need not say more here. Given the UN’s problems, the need for such an organization is obvious. It would buttress the UN when it acts to promote democratic values, but, if it fails to do so, particularly because of dictatorship opposition, then the Alliance would be most useful.

There is already growing movements and governmental activities toward such an Alliance. Democratic activists, practitioners, academics, policy makers, and funders, have come together to cooperate in the organized international promotion of democracy. They call this a World Movement for Democracy. It has its own website, on line publications, DemocracyNews, courses, a steering committee, secretariat, and periodic assemblies. It now needs strong public support, and especially a formal way to deal with global issues.

Down with thug regimes and their UN power. Democracies of the world, unite.

Strange! Global Warming Data Disappears

2009-09-25T09:47:00.001-07:00

Source

So, the Obama government is eager to legislate and regulate global warming as though it exists, and that its assumed cause, CO2, is based on science. But there are no good records of global surface temperatures for science to study now. They are lost. As Patrick J. Michaels says in his “The Dog Ate Global Warming,”

Imagine if there were no reliable records of global surface temperature. Raucous policy debates such as cap-and-trade would have no scientific basis, Al Gore would at this point be little more than a historical footnote, and President Obama would not be spending this U.N. session talking up a (likely unattainable) international climate deal in Copenhagen in December.  Steel yourself for the new reality, because the data needed to verify the gloom-and-doom warming forecasts have disappeared.  Or so it seems. Apparently, they were either lost or purged from some discarded computer. Only a very few people know what really happened, and they aren’t talking much. And what little they are saying makes no sense.

More here.

Yet, Obama and his people want to greatly nationalize America’s society and economy on assumptions for which the data are not there. But according to a EPA suppressed scientific report (permalink not working, so see the first link in the text after the cartoon), what can be tested and verified does not support global warming or the supposed cause.

Then, what is going on here? A fraudulent world global warming crisis is being wielded by the left and socialists world wide to further massive government controls and nationalization. No matter it is false. It is a weapon to win great power.

The Clunkers Fiasko. Not a Parody

2009-09-23T18:57:00.000-07:00

Source

The Clunkers Fiasko. Not a Parody. See “Stung! Undercover celeb exposes Obama fiasco' Milk it, baby – It's free money': You won't believe what happens inside Cash for Clunkers operation”

While President Obama delivers speeches praising the alleged success of Cash for Clunkers, a former rebate processor for the federal program – also working undercover for WND – is calling it "complete chaos."
After the federal "Cash for Clunkers" program ended Aug. 24, the Department of Transportation reported that nearly 700,000 clunkers were taken off the roads and replaced by more fuel-efficient vehicles. Rebate applications worth $2.877 billion were submitted by the 8 p.m. deadline. The Transportation Department hired federal employees and private contract workers to process the rebates vouchers so car dealers would be compensated.
Former White House aide Kathleen Willey was hired as an employee with Vangent Incorporated, a company that provides information technology management and business process outsourcing services to the public and private sectors. Its clients include federal agencies such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the U.S. Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management
But what her employer did not know was that Willey, the author of the book, "Target: Caught In the Crosshairs of Bill and Hillary Clinton," was also taking notes on all she observed and experienced for [World Net Daily]

More here.

Hitler Myths

2009-09-21T12:48:00.001-07:00

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I have published about 500 blogs here, and on the republished Democratic Peace Blog. All blogs are listed here , with a week or two delay.

Of them all, the one most ignored and that strikes at a persistent myth, even among the most knowledgeable of the commentators, is the one on Hitler’s nonelection. You have heard it. “Hitler was elected,” presumably in a national election. But he was not. He lost both national elections in which he participated (see What? Hitler was Not Elected?
)He was appointed chancellor in a backroom deal by the political elite. What gives this myth its strength is that it is that it seems to show that even democratic elections can produce the worst tyranny. Realist like this idea as do leftists.

The most controversial of my blogs is also on Hitler. For the left it is a matter of their political religion that Hitler was right wing. So, when I say he was socialist here, those with the prevailing left wing ideology cannot allow it, and have attacked my blog in various ways, including trying to destroy it with 200 page nonsense comments (all cleaned up). On this it is even worse for the left. Jonah Goldberg in his Liberal Fascism his made a strong and well supported argument that today’s left liberalism and progressivism shares many ideas and beliefs with the fascism of Mussolini and Nazism of Hitler (please, not the Holocaust). I agree. One reason I am a freedomist.

As to my blogs describing and advocating the democratic peace, there have been many comments and questions, often repetitive, on them. So, I compiled them all and my answers into a Q and A.

Of course, and comments or questions on any of this are welcome.

Growing EMP concern

2009-09-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

EMP Cascade Effects
Source

Panel: Electrical grid vulnerable to terrorist attack
It sounds like a science-fiction disaster: A nuclear weapon is detonated miles above the Earth's atmosphere and knocks out power from New York City to Chicago for weeks, maybe months.
Experts and lawmakers are increasingly warning that terrorists or enemy states could wage that exact type of attack, idling electricity grids and disrupting everything from communications networks to military defenses.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is pushing Congress for authority to require power companies to take protective steps, which could include building metal shields around sensitive computer equipment.

Continue here

There is growing concern over the possibility of an EMP attack on the US. With Obama's abrogation of the missile defense promised to Eastern Europe, and his appeasement of Russia and Iran, the danger of a EMP attack is heightened. For more details on EMP, see here. Clearly, the Damocles Sword has inched closer.

Cyberdissidents.org—Great New Organization

2009-09-17T09:54:00.000-07:00

Photo Source

Founded in 2008, Cyberdissidents.org is an organization dedicated to supporting human liberty by promoting the voices of online dissidents. Our platform highlights the writings and activities of dissident bloggers in order to strengthen their voice and defend their freedom of expression.
We are a non-partisan group comprised of a diverse range of nationalities, religions and ethnicities. What unites us all is an ardent dedication to human liberty. Our staff and advisers come from a variety of countries including Syria, Sudan, Canada, Russia, Egypt, Iran, Israel, America and Jordan. We have great political differences, yet we all believe that the West has a moral duty to support those struggling for freedom. We encourage the participation of all who share our dedication to liberty, equality and human rights.
More here

Was The Democratic Peace Killed? Part VI, Death By Obama

2009-09-15T12:21:00.000-07:00

On the Democratic Peace

ON FOREIGN POLICY

I have shown the historical progress in foreign policies (both international and American) (see here) and the context—the nature of international relations – of such policies (see here). These have evolved through international conferences, which reset the status quo after the Napoleonic Wars and adjusted power relations to the facts of colonization; the focus on international organizations, such as the League of Nations, and law after World War I; and the rise of the theory and practice of political realism after WWII. These were all attempts to keep the peace and avoid war. When war occurred, new and hopefully better peacekeeping policies were created. Such policies (really new paradigms) often originated from the research and writing of scholars, practitioners, and international lawyers and experts.

During WWI, President Wilson argued that the war was going to make the world safe for (and thus spread) democracy. This notion was Europe centered and when the League of Nations died, so did the idea in American foreign policy. It was an anomaly with little support in the international relations scholarship of the time, even though Wilson had been a Professor of Political Science.
With the defeat and military occupation of Japan, Germany, and Italy in World War II, the question was what to do with these former enemies. Democratizing them was the controversial answer of the Truman Presidency, despite the strong academic belief that Japan, an Asian country with a long history of absolute authoritarianism, could not become a democracy. Democratization answered the immediate problem but did not become a rule of foreign policy at that time. Containing communism and the Soviet Union was the rule in 1948, and became entrenched along with the political realist paradigm.

In the later 1980s, with the successful democratic transformation of former enemies, during the presidency of George H. W. Bush the idea of spreading democracy penetrated realism. Not front and center, but it was there and followed when the opportunity to promote democracy occurred. This idea was criticized by realists as idealistic, a return to Wilsonianism.

In the meantime, theoretical and empirical research on the democratic and peace had reached extraordinary conclusions (see on the democratic peace and its bibliography here). Democracies do not make war on each other, and are a way to world peace. This was accepted by Bush’s successor, President Bill Clinton, who thus made democracy promotion one of the three pillars of his foreign policies (the two others were trade, and the use of force when necessary) and a major focus. He made clear the reason was that historically there is no war between democracies (see here)

President George W. Bush, apparently equally impressed by the research on the Democratic Peace, made the democratic peace his Forward Strategy of Peace (see here). It was the basis of his policy. He saw that promoting democracy—freedom—is the way to world peace, and in the fundamental national interest. Realists hated it. It was Wilsonianism reborn, and dangerous; they mistakenly thought it led to forcing democracy on other nations and thus conflict, violence, and war. But Bush and his Secretary of State Rice, stuck to it throughout his administration.

Realists often claim that Bush failed in promoting democracy; there was more democracy in the world when he became president than when he left it. Let us check this using the freedom ratings by Freedom House. For the period of Bush’s two terms, those nations whose rating improved to be the best for Freedom—a rating of 1—went from 29 to 50 in number, almost doubled. The number of electoral democracies remained at 121, and the number of free nations—with a rating of 1 or 2, and sometimes 3—decreased from 91 to 90. To best see the overall change, I averaged the ratings for all nations, and found that for political rights and civil liberties (which range from 1 to 7), those for Bush’s term went from 3.47(last year of Clinton’s presidency) to 3.26 for Bush’s last year. Considering that this is for all 193 nations, the change is significant. Bush’s Forward Strategy Of Peace did promote democracy in the world. Also note that Iraq (rated 6) and Afghanistan (rated 5) are not counted yet among the democracies.

ON PRESIDENT OBAMA’S FOREIGN POLICY

To characterize Obama’s foreign policy, let’s look at its major elements.

He apologizes to friends and enemies for past American foreign policy and actions, while ignoring the good that America has done, such as the Marshall Plan, economic aid, being the world’s major source of disaster relief, saving and freeing nations from communism, and democratizing Japan, Germany, and Italy. Also saving a million lives in Somalia and saving Muslim Bosnia and Kosovo; and freeing Kuwait and Iraq from Saddam Hussein’s rule, and Afghanistan from the Taliban, while aiding the constitutional democratization of both.
He placates and supports dictators and authoritarian “democrats,” such as Chavez of Venezuela, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Manuel Zelaya of Honduras, Evo Morales of Bolivia, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Hu Jintao of China, among others
He firmly believes in the thug ruled and failed UN and wants to support and use it as much as he can.
He believes in the smile and jaw-jaw approach to conflicts and enemies, such as North Korea and Iran. His administration has scheduled to meet with both, even one-on–one, without, to my knowledge, any preconditions.
He has clearly sided with the Palestinians against Israel, including giving aid to Hamas and making demands on Israel that favor of the Palestinians.
He has cut funds for missile defense, cut the defense budget overall, and has decided not to build missile defenses in Poland and Czechoslovakia against Iran as a carrot for better relations with Putin. He refuses to fund an upgrade in our nuclear weapons.
He is anti-nuclear proliferation to stable democracies, although nukes would help defend them.
He has set a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq and ending the Iraq War on August 31, 2010, but will leave a force of 35,000 to 50,000 troops.
He is clearly reluctant to increase American troops in Afghanistan for fear of world criticism.
He has changed the “War on Terror” to “Overseas Contingency Operation.” He says we are not fighting terrorists but al Qaeda, and that fight being our near total focus.
He has used the 9/11 anniversary, the memorial day to honor the innocent and the brave who perished at the hands of terrorists, to promote “community service.” 9/11 is simply another day to move his agenda.
He is now treating incarcerated terrorists as criminals, with all the rights of American criminals. At one point, some were read their Miranda rights when captured. Also torture, regardless of the immediate need to save lives, has been forbidden. Thus, he has changed a War on Terror to a police action as in pre-9/11. He is unnecessarily closing Guantanamo detention camp by January 22, 2010 as a sop to world and domestic leftist opinion.
He is a trade protectionist if so demanded by American unions.
He is pursuing the legal prosecution of those CIA agents that used “torture” on terrorists, although done under the guidance of the Department of Justice, thus undermining intelligence operations.

Where is democracy and human rights in all this? They do pop up occasionally in some of his speeches, but are not central to his foreign policy. Then what is? They are “the “three D’s” of defense, diplomacy, and development, with the emphasis being on diplomacy with friends and enemies, or the use of “soft power”. This is clearly a bow to the realist’s belief in diplomacy, but ignores what also should be a focus on hard power and power balances.

The democratic peace? Gone. Dead. If he has said anything, I could not find it. In this, he a 1960’s anti-war, socialist-radical activist. These radicals believed in love not war, that peace can be had by actively opposing American policies and hands across the seas.

So given all this, how do I characterize the Obama foreign policy? Not soft power, not smart power, not political realism. Might it be then to pacify or placate friend and enemies in what he calls the world community? Yes.

Is it then also to satisfy demands of friends and enemies? Yes

Is it moreover to relieve guilt about America’s past behavior? Yes.

And is Obama making concessions at the expense of realism? Yes.

Then his foreign policy is one of appeasement and appeasement is the way to characterize it.

Was The Democratic Peace Killed?—Part V, Prs. G.W. Bush's Forward Strategy Of Freedom

2009-09-10T11:36:00.000-07:00

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I have argued that fostering democracy abroad was part of the foreign policy of the three presidents who preceded Barack Obama. The latter two justified this by the democratic peace. For Clinton, it was one of three major goals. For G.W. Bush, the democratic peace comprised his overall foreign policy.

The democratic peace—democracies do not or virtually never make war on each other and is inherently a method of nonviolence—has been mentioned favorably by top leaders, such as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Clinton’s former National Security Advisor W. Anthony Lake, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The leaders of ASEAN signed a democratic peace oriented pact in October 2003, about which its spokesman M.C. Abad stated, “The introduction of the notion of democratic peace sets the standard of political norm[s] in the region. It means that member states subscribe to the notion that democratic processes promote regional security.”

That promoting a democratic peace was the center of G.W. Bush’s foreign policy is clear from his speech at the 20th anniversary of the National Endowment For Democracy. In it he proclaimed a Forward Strategy of Freedom. Although focused on the Middle East, it was general in tone, “As in Europe, as in Asia, as in every region of the world, the advance of freedom leads to peace.” Specifically, “As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of stagnation, resentment, and violence ready for export.”

He emphasized, “There are . . . essential principles common to every successful society, in every culture:

Successful societies limit the power of the state and the power of the military—so that governments respond to the will of the people, and not the will of an elite.

Successful societies protect freedom with the consistent and impartial rule of law, instead of selecting applying the law to punish political opponents.

Successful societies allow room for healthy civic institutions—for political parties and labor unions and independent newspapers and broadcast media.

Successful societies guarantee religious liberty—the right to serve and honor God without fear of persecution.

Successful societies privatize their economies, and secure the rights of property. They prohibit and punish official corruption, and invest in the health and education of their people. They recognize the rights of women.

And instead of directing hatred and resentment against others, successful societies appeal to the hopes of their own people.

The above principles were the foundation for the President’s new foreign policy—new in the sense that he had not so clearly articulated it before. He committed the United States to promote and foster freedom, and put dictators on notice that they will no longer be “excused and accommodated.”

The media’s reviews of the speech were mixed. The New York Times opined with reluctant praise:

Mr. Bush spoke well. He is right that Washington has failed to support abroad the values Americans live by at home. Too often, putting realpolitik ahead of freedom has backfired, causing anti-American rage. Mr. Bush is not the first president to promise to put democracy at the forefront of American policy. We hope he does a better job delivering on his promises than some of his predecessors.

Wrote the Washington Post,

Some critics cast President Bush’s speech on democracy in the Middle East Thursday as merely another effort to repackage his troubled and costly mission in Iraq. But the president deserves more credit than that: Not only has he been talking about a political transformation of Arab countries since before the war, but he’s right to conclude that such a project is vital to victory in the war on terrorism.

The more conservative The Washington Times praised the speech as a “Wilsonian call for freedom.” It editorialized:

In what is likely to be remembered as a central foreign policy address of his presidency, President Bush yesterday delivered a powerful message emphasizing the importance of democratic reform throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds.

The BBC has had few good words for recent American foreign policy, but on this speech its Washington correspondent Rob Watson wrote:

This speech may well turn out to be a defining moment in the presidency of George W Bush. Its message was unmistakable—that the countries of the Middle East must embrace democracy for the good of their peoples and the security of the world.

Although the speech was well accepted among foreign policy experts and commentators, they tended to describe it, as did William Safire on the PBS Lehrer News Hour, as “an idealistic Woodrow Wilson democracy speech.” Now, he might have meant to be complimentary, but generally for national security and foreign policy experts, and students of international relations, to label an idea or theory “idealistic,” especially, “Wilsonian,” is often, unlike The Washington Times above, to dismiss it as impractical, unrealistic, or naive. The dominant school of analysis among these people for generations has emphasized either the singular importance of superior power, or of the balance of power, in keeping the peace and securing national interests. They deem any theory that puts democracy or the type of political system at its center as unsophisticated about power and the workings of the international system. It is just not realpolitics. Many of these experts have yet to understand the massive research that has been done on the role of democracy and freedom in international relations, especially regarding peace and war. This research has established conclusively that the central concern should not be power, although it remains important, but a nation’s political system.

As shown by the documents, analyses, and data on my website, empirically and theoretically, Democratically free people have the least internal violence, turmoil, and political instability.

Free people have virtually no government genocide and mass murder. Freedom is therefore a solution to genocide and mass murder; the only practical means of making sure that “Never again!”
Free people do not make war on each other, and the greater the freedom within two nations, the less violence between them.
Freedom is a method of nonviolence—the most peaceful nations are those whose people are free

Regarding human welfare, consistent with President Bush’s description of successful societies:

Freedom—free speech and the economic and social free market—is an engine of economic and human development, and scientific and technological advancement.
Freedom ameliorates the problem of mass poverty.
Free people do not suffer from and never have had famines, and by theory, should not.
Freedom is therefore a solution to poverty, hunger, and famine.

By virtue of all this, those who continue to believe that a foreign policy focus on freedom is naïve, idealistic, and contrary to a realistic foreign policy are the unrealistic ones.

Two days after his speech, as if to double underline it, the President issued a proclamation naming November 9th as World Freedom Day. He proclaimed:

Fourteen years ago, freedom-loving people tore down the Berlin Wall and began to set a nation free from Communist oppression. On World Freedom Day, the United States joins with other countries in commemorating that historic day. The United States is committed to liberty, freedom, and the universal struggle for human rights. We strive to advance peace and democracy and to safeguard these ideals around the world.

Over two decades ago, in the last sentence to the last paragraph of the last chapter of my five-volume Understanding Conflict and War, Vol. 5, I wrote:

In total, some violence is inevitable; extreme violence and war are not. To eliminate war, to restrain violence, to nurture universal peace and justice, is to foster freedom.

And this idea was explicit in the diplomacy of Bush’s Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was educated in international relatons as a realist and converted to the democratic peace. In a December 11, 2005 speech, titled “The Promise of Democratic Peace: Why Promoting Freedom Is the Only Realistic Path to Security,” she said:

… we live in an extraordinary time -- one in which the terrain of international politics is shifting beneath our feet and the pace of historical change outstrips even the most vivid imagination….in times of unprecedented change, the traditional diplomacy of crisis management is insufficient. Instead, we must transcend the doctrines and debates of the past and transform volatile status quos that no longer serve our interests. What is needed is a realistic statecraft for a transformed world.
….
Our statecraft today recognizes that centuries of international practice and precedent have been overturned in the past 15 years. Consider one example: For the first time since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the prospect of violent conflict between great powers is becoming ever more unthinkable. Major states are increasingly competing in peace, not preparing for war. To advance this remarkable trend, the United States is transforming our partnerships with nations such as Japan and Russia, with the European Union, and especially with China and India. Together we are building a more lasting and durable form of global stability: a balance of power that favors freedom.
….
The phenomenon of weak and failing states is not new, but the danger they now pose is unparalleled. When people, goods and information traverse the globe as fast as they do today, transnational threats such as disease or terrorism can inflict damage comparable to the standing armies of nation-states. Absent responsible state authority, threats that would and should be contained within a country's borders can now melt into the world and wreak untold havoc. Weak and failing states serve as global pathways that facilitate the spread of pandemics, the movement of criminals and terrorists, and the proliferation of the world's most dangerous weapons.
Our experience of this new world leads us to conclude that the fundamental character of regimes matters more today than the international distribution of power. Insisting otherwise is imprudent and impractical. The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. Attempting to draw neat, clean lines between our security interests and our democratic ideals does not reflect the reality of today's world. Supporting the growth of democratic institutions in all nations is not some moralistic flight of fancy; it is the only realistic response to our present challenges.
In one region of the world, however, the problems emerging from the character of regimes are more urgent than in any other. The "freedom deficit" in the broader Middle East provides fertile ground for the growth of an ideology of hatred so vicious and virulent that it leads people to strap suicide bombs to their bodies and fly airplanes into buildings. When the citizens of this region cannot advance their interests and redress their grievances through an open political process, they retreat hopelessly into the shadows to be preyed upon by evil men with violent designs. In these societies, it is illusory to encourage economic reform by itself and hope that the freedom deficit will work itself out over time.
Though the broader Middle East has no history of democracy, this is not an excuse for doing nothing. If every action required a precedent, there would be no firsts. We are confident that democracy will succeed in this region not simply because we have faith in our principles but because the basic human longing for liberty and democratic rights has transformed our world. Dogmatic cynics and cultural determinists were once certain that "Asian values," or Latin culture, or Slavic despotism, or African tribalism would each render democracy impossible. But they were wrong, and our statecraft must now be guided by the undeniable truth that democracy is the only assurance of lasting peace and security between states, because it is the only guarantee of freedom and justice within states.
Implicit within the goals of our statecraft are the limits of our power and the reasons for our humility. Unlike tyranny, democracy by its very nature is never imposed. Citizens of conviction must choose it -- and not just in one election. The work of democracy is a daily process to build the institutions of democracy: the rule of law, an independent judiciary, free media and property rights, among others. The United States cannot manufacture these outcomes, but we can and must create opportunities for individuals to assume ownership of their own lives and nations. Our power gains its greatest legitimacy when we support the natural right of all people, even those who disagree with us, to govern themselves in liberty.
The statecraft that America is called to practice in today's world is ambitious, even revolutionary, but it is not imprudent. A conservative temperament will rightly be skeptical of any policy that embraces change and rejects the status quo, but that is not an argument against the merits of such a policy. As Truman once said, "The world is not static, and the status quo is not sacred." In times of extraordinary change such as ours, when the costs of inaction outweigh the risks of action, doing nothing is not an option. If the school of thought called "realism" is to be truly realistic, it must recognize that stability without democracy will prove to be false stability, and that fear of change is not a positive prescription for policy.
After all, who truly believes, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that the status quo in the Middle East was stable, beneficial and worth defending? How could it have been prudent to preserve the state of affairs in a region that was incubating and exporting terrorism; where the proliferation of deadly weapons was getting worse, not better; where authoritarian regimes were projecting their failures onto innocent nations and peoples; where Lebanon suffered under the boot heel of Syrian occupation; where a corrupt Palestinian Authority cared more for its own preservation than for its people's aspirations; and where a tyrant such as Saddam Hussein was free to slaughter his citizens, destabilize his neighbors and undermine the hope of peace between Israelis and Palestinians? It is sheer fantasy to assume that the Middle East was just peachy before America disrupted its alleged stability.
Had we believed this, and had we done nothing, consider all that we would have missed in just the past year: A Lebanon that is free of foreign occupation and advancing democratic reform. A Palestinian Authority run by an elected leader who openly calls for peace with Israel. An Egypt that has amended its constitution to hold multiparty elections. A Kuwait where women are now full citizens. And, of course, an Iraq that in the face of a horrific insurgency has held historic elections, drafted and ratified a new national charter, and will go to the polls again in coming days to elect a new constitutional government.
At this time last year, such unprecedented progress seemed impossible. One day it will all seem to have been inevitable. This is the nature of extraordinary times, which Acheson understood well and described perfectly in his memoirs. "The significance of events," he wrote, "was shrouded in ambiguity. We groped after interpretations of them, sometimes reversed lines of action based on earlier views, and hesitated long before grasping what now seems obvious." When Acheson left office in 1953, he could not know the fate of the policies he helped to create. He certainly could never have predicted that nearly four decades later, war between Europe's major powers would be unthinkable, or that America and the world would be harvesting the fruits of his good decisions and managing the collapse of communism. But because leaders such as Acheson steered American statecraft with our principles when precedents for action were lacking, because they dealt with their world as it was but never believed they were powerless to change it for the better, the promise of democratic peace is now a reality in all of Europe and in much of Asia.
When I walk past Acheson's portrait upon departing my office for the last time, no one will be able to know the full scope of what our statecraft has achieved. But I have an abiding confidence that we will have laid a firm foundation of principle -- a foundation on which future generations will realize our nation's vision of a fully free, democratic and peaceful world.

Now, with all this background on foreign policies, what is President Obama's and was the democratic peace foreign policy killed?

Health "Reform"? Big Sigh

2009-09-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Source

The most irritating aspect of the current health care debate is the use of the word reform, as in Health "Reform". Again, the left and its major media mouthpieces have won the rhetorical war. Because the public responds to them, the terms used to characterize a policy may make the difference between acceptance or defeat of a policy. The choice of words can cause public opinion to shift between positive and negative. The left, well aware of this, choose terms tactically. Conservatives seldom do, and often seem not even to realize there is a battle to fight.

Consider that "reform" means connotatively to improve, to make better. But what is involved in the health bills and plans being discussed is the nationalization of health, a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy. Hardly an improvement. Judging by what has happened in other countries with nationalized health care, it will mean treatment delays, rationing care, health care distortions, bureaucratic red tape galore, and bureaucrats making life and death medical decisions.

It is not "health care reform". It is health care "takeover" (or the clumsy, but correct, "nationalization"). Not "At stake for the president is getting Democratic factions on board with his plan and convincing Americans of the need for health care reform," but "At stake for the president is getting Democratic factions on board with his nationalization and convincing Americans of the need for an health care government take over."

But I despair. Even Fox has accepted the rhetoric. The left has won the rhetorical war again. "Reform" is set in concrete.

47 Million Uninsured? No, It is 13.6 Million

2009-09-09T10:27:00.000-07:00

Source

Robert Romano points out

According the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2006 report, “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States,” 46.9 million people are uninsured in the U.S. There’s only one problem with this statistic: approximately 31.85 million of them do not actually exist.

The numbers really cannot lie, although the report does. Out of a total population of 297.05 million, the report states on Page 20 that the “number of people covered by private insurance was… 201.7 million in 2006” and the “number of people covered by government health programs was… 80.3 million in 2006.”

Therefore, 282 million had insurance. Which means that out of a total population of 297.05 million, 15.05 million did not have insurance. Right?

Not at the U.S. Census Bureau. There, 297.05 million minus 282 million equals 46.9 million Americans uninsured. How?

Answer here

Poem and Music On Democide

2009-09-05T11:18:00.000-07:00

Source

ON DEMOCIDE

Pray tell, my brother, 
Why do dictators kill 
    and make war?
Is it for glory; for things, 
    for beliefs, for hatred, 
    for power?
Yes, but more, 
    because they can.

POEM SET TO MUSIC BY AND AT GARY BACHLUND

Obama’s Communist Czar—OMG

2009-09-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

Source˙

If an Obama “czar” who will advise him and regulate our capitalist economy were a Nazi by choice, would you be concerned about Obama, his values, his ideology, his worldview? How about an avowed communist advisor and economic ruler—not a sympathizer, but a self-proclaimed communist? Would that worry you?

It should. When it comes to mass murder, Nazis are pikers compared to communists. The number of communist mass genocide corpses exceeds by many, many millions the Holocaust victims. Overall, communist regimes have murdered more subjects than any other, well over 100,000,000 people. Those nations were border-to-border concentration and forced labor camps.

Anyone who now would choose to be a communist (or Marxist), as did green jobs adviser Van Jones, reveals an attitude which cheapens life, and a ruthless willingness to do anything (murder opponents) to further his cause. Such values are repugnant to any decent humanitarian.

Oh yes, he also advocates that 9/11 was an inside job by President Bush, pursues an anti-American agenda, and is involved in many radical activities.

Think of it. Obama’s choice to be an advisor and control a part our capitalist economy is this guy. He was chosen knowingly. We now have him to add to Obama’s other (terrorist William Ayers) and America hating (Jeremiah Wright) associates.

Said Valerie Jarrett, “close personal friend and Senior Advisor to President Obama,”

We are so delighted to be able to recruit him into the White House; we’ve been watching him, uh, really since as long as he has been active out in Oakland in all the ways he has, the creative ideas he has, and so now we have captured that

Was The Democratic Peace Killed—Part IV, Prs. Clinton's Foreign Policy

2009-09-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

Table source

To characterize Obama’s foreign policy, I must first examine those Clinton and G. W. Bush policies which he has discarded. Obama’s policy is new and revolutionary in philosophy and in details, best seen in comparison and contrast to what has gone before.

The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the demise of the Soviet Union (1991) during President George H. W. Bush’s Administration, made obsolete our half century old grand strategy of Containment (containing communism in its present borders). But what was to replace it? G.H.W. Bush provided no clear answer. Rather than articulating a new grand strategy of foreign policy, he preferred to follow several foreign policy principles. These were the traditional ones of collective security and defense, multilateralism (working with our friends and allies to achieve a common goal), opposing aggression, and protecting global oil sources from monopolization by an aggressive dictator. All these were involved in the 1992 Gulf War—the American led effort to defeat Iraq's invasion and occupation of Kuwait and its oil fields. Another foreign policy principle was that of nonproliferation which, to this day, underlies American pressure on North Korea to open its nuclear facilities to international inspection.

But relevantly here, in the last years of this Bush Administration high officials were making comments clearly showing appreciation of the relationship between democracy, international cooperation, and peace. Promoting democracy was an operating principle. Thus, we saw a variety of American attempts to help democratization in Eastern Europe and especially, in reborn Russia as well as in Latin America. Bush clearly linked aid for Russia to democratic peace. Still, while fundamentally realist in policy, this Bush Administration articulated no overall strategy within which these ideas had more than an ad hoc life. Perhaps it is unfair to demand one, for this, after all, was the Administration that saw and was partially responsible for negotiating the end of the Cold War. Clearly, however, they were moving toward a general policy of democratic peace, and might have articulated one if they had won a second term. But it was left to Bush’s successor, President William Clinton, to finally conceptualize such a policy.

From day one, the Clinton Administration had a firm overall foreign policy goal of democratization—to help other nations become democratic and to help solidify the newly democratic ones. The reason was a belief in the democratic peace. Clinton himself was aware that democracies do not make war on each other. In one of his speeches during the 1992 election campaign he said, “Democratic countries do not go to war with one another. They don't sponsor terrorism or threaten one another with weapons of mass destruction.” As President he expanded on this, as in his 1994 address to the UN General Assembly, "Democracies, after all, are more likely to be stable, less likely to wage war. They strengthen civil society. They can provide people with the economic and political opportunities to build their futures in their own homes, not to flee their borders." The foreign policy consequence of this view was made plain in his 1994 State of the Union address: "the best strategy to ensure our security and to build a durable peace is to support the advance of democracy elsewhere." It was the democratic peace.

This idea was a foreign policy principle shared by virtually all top officials in his administration. In foreign policy speech after speech, the basic understanding that democracies do not make war on each other was reiterated and the cooperative nature of democracies underlined. From this belief flowed a doctrine of democratization, called a guiding concept of (democratic) enlargement.

Moreover, this overall foreign policy goal was being implemented through a variety of organizations, many of which were specifically created during the Cold War to further democracy and some of which have changed their fundamental policies to put democratization front and center. Such have been the Agency for International Development (AID), the US Information Agency, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute of International Affairs, the Center for International Private Enterprise, and the Free Trade Union Institute.

To foster democracy, such agencies and organizations provided economic aid, helped to establish sound constitutions and the rule of law. They worked to improve civil-military relationships and especially the subordination of the military to elected civilian authorities; strengthen and democratize local governments, give decision and rule making and material aid (like computers) to elected legislatures. They furthered an independent and neutral judiciary and politically neutral police; improve the fairness, openness, credibility, and effectiveness of elections; and further civil and political rights and the rights of women and minorities, and much more.

As required by Section 603 of the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986, in July 1994 Clinton submitted his report elaborating A National Security Strategy of Engagement and Enlargement. This not only laid out his new national security strategy but also his foreign policy. In the signed preface the President defines the three goals of this strategy as

• To credibly sustain our security with military forces that are ready to fight.

• To bolster America's economic revitalization.

• To promote democracy abroad.

He believed

that our goals of enhancing our security, bolstering our economic prosperity, and promoting democracy are mutually supportive. Secure nations are more likely to support free trade and maintain democratic structures. Nations with growing economies and strong trade ties are more likely to feel secure and to work toward freedom. And democratic states are less likely to threaten our interests and more likely to cooperate with the U.S. to meet security threats and promote sustainable development.

So, Clinton’s foreign policy did not give up a basic concern for power and attention to diplomacy. It departed from realism in foreign policy in recognizing the importance of whether a nation’s regime is democratic. The democratic peace, although one of three goals, was a major guide to the Clinton foreign policy.

Afghanistan Is Winnable

2009-09-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Photo source

Taliban support at 6%. See Michael O'hanlon And Bruce Riedel, "What's Right With Afghanistan"

Cheney Says It All

2009-08-31T08:37:00.000-07:00

Source

Who says August is dull. On “Fox News Sunday,” former VP Dick Cheney, speaks out about Obama’s anti-security “very, very devastating” CIA betrayal

The Kennedy Love Dysfunction

2009-08-29T13:06:00.000-07:00

Source (Note: deaths of Boat People omitted)
Perhaps the worshipful major media simply happened to overlook these events in presenting Kennedy’s accomplishment.

”Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne“

”Ted Kennedy's Soviet Gambit”

No list is complete without the horror of South Vietnam. Kennedy was a leading activist and voice in opposition to the Vietnam War. To be sure, there were other outspoken opponents. But he was among the most influential and involved, who played a dominant role in Congress denying the South Vietnamese additional aid to defend themselves, and the American military the funds to support them. The North had been defeated militarily by the U.S. and the South, but without this aid the Communists were able to roll over the South’s forces, and seize the country. Similarly for Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge defeated government forces. The result was the predicted blood bath in South Vietnam and Cambodia (remember the “Killing Fields”). See the table above for a classification of the dead and murdered in the war, before, during, and after (deaths of the Boat People not included).

The post-war blood of millions is on Kennedy’s hands. Will the souls of all these victims, as well as Mary Jo Kopechne, wish him to RIP?

Was The Democratic Peace Killed?--Part III, Foreign Policies

2009-08-27T10:06:00.001-07:00

Source

I want to compare the democratic peace foreign policies of Presidents G.W. Bush and Bill Clinton to that of President Obama, which is uniquely his. I am not interested in particular policies or actions, but rather in specifying the paradigm underlying these policies, its operating procedures, and its world view.

In the last two centuries, Europe and the United States have gone through three foreign policy paradigms. Each was a measured way to keep the peace and deal with crises and threats to the major Powers that could lead to war. After the Napoleonic Wars ended in 1815, European Powers met in numerous conferences and congresses, in addition to consulting with each other, to first establish a new status quo, and subsequently to settle their issues (colonialism, freedom of the seas, navigation, new inventions, and the balance of world power). This is the jaw-jaw diplomacy paradigm. Possible antagonists should talk to each other to settle their differences. Thus, they had conferences on sanitary matters, statistics, maritime issues, free navigation of the Scheld, weights and measures, marine signaling, monetary questions, telegraphic signaling, metric system, railroad transportation, the slave trade, and so on.

When World War I bloodied Europe and reached into remote corners of the world, with nine thousand combat dead, it destroyed any intellectual pretentions that the meeting and talking paradigm led to a stable peace. In the global wreckage, even before the war was over, a new paradigm emerged. Irregular diplomatic gatherings were not enough. There must be a permanent international organization involving all nations and meeting regularly to deal with international issues and conflicts, help settle them, and above all, prevent violence -- a League of Nations. Also, it seemed, international law must be refined and developed further to establish the universal rules of international relations and the use and morality of power. Major Powers must pursue disarmament through all means. And diplomacy has to be structured and directed through international organizations and in accord with international law. The goal was a lasting peace.

So, after the war the victors, excepting the U.S., formed the League of Nations. They paid much attention to formulating the international law of war and peace, and creating functional international organizations to meet general international needs. Disarmament conferences met and established the proper or proportional arms permitted the major powers. All this was just the right process to achieve permanent peace, or peace in our time. That intellectual illusion – the political idealist paradigm of international organizations, law, and disarmament -- was blown apart by the bombs and 15 million combat dead of World War II.
Then a new paradigm emerged, a rigorous and systematic version of what has existed throughout the history of relationships between independent groups, whether tribes, city-states, or nation-states. This was the emphasis on power as the moderator of these relations, and on the balance of power as the critical instrument for diplomacy to work with. To see how old this idea is, read Thucydides' History of The Peloponnesian War (perhaps published shortly after 411 B.C.). But after World War II the old idea of power and its balancing was refurbished and systematized in a paradigm called political realism. The primary source of this was the writings of Hans Morgenthau on international relations theory.

His book Politics Among Nations in 1948 was a revelation to many and a basic textbook among diplomats and students (it was mine). It was a paradigm change. Morgenthau claimed that objective laws govern international politics. At the heart, a nation’s interests are defined by power. The realistic diplomat must think in terms of power—of other nations alone or in combination, and how such power affects one’s own nation. With that in view, power must be balanced and diplomacy is the way to do so and to keep the peace. This is now the major paradigm of the American foreign policy establishment, but not necessarily Barack Obama’s.
How then does the democratic peace fit in? It is an opposing paradigm, seen as a return to idealism by the realists and in conflict with their view of foreign policy. More on this in Part IV.

It Is Treason, But Nobody Will Say So

2009-08-25T23:32:00.000-07:00

9/11 jumper. Source

The CIA has released a heavily redacted 2004 evaluation by its Inspector General John Helgerson of the interrogation techniques the CIA used on captured, high level terrorists. The PDF is here
Question: what have these techniques achieved? Under the effectiveness heading, the report states the following

The detention of terrorists has prevented them from engaging in further terrorist activity, and their interrogation has provided intelligence that has enabled the identification and apprehension of other terrorists, warned of terrorist plots planned for the United States and around the world, and supported articles frequently used in the finished intelligence publications for senior policymakers and war fighters. In this regard, there is no doubt that the Program has been effective….

….operatives … had plans to detonate a uranium-topped dirty bomb in either Washington, D.C., or New York city….

Agency senior managers believe that lives have been saved as a result of the capture and interrogation of terrorists who were planning attacks….

In an interview, the DCI [Director of the CIA] said he believes the use of EITs [Enhanced Interrogation Techniques] has proven to be extremely valuable in obtaining enormous amounts of critical threat information fro detainees

Now, let me get this straight.

-The EITs used by the CIA were approved by the Justice Department in detail.

-They were effective in saving lives.

-This was done post 9/11, when there was much concern over more such attacks on the United States.

-There have been no attacks since 9/11.

-The interrogators were acting in good faith.

-The terrorists torture any captured Americans in the most horrible ways, and have no compunction about blowing up men, women, and children wherever gathered, even in churches and schools, or cutting off their heads.

-The terrorists violate every clause of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war.

Now, the Obama Justice Department is undertaking a special criminal investigation of the CIA agents involved. This will freeze American intelligence activities involving terrorism against us, severely set back American security, and probably financially ruin the agents due to the cost of their defense.

This is an abomination. From low to high, this administration has betrayed the CIA. With full understanding of the meaning of the word, I call it treason.

Antarctic melting! NOT

2009-08-22T19:31:00.001-07:00

Antarctica. Source

Look up in google “Antarctic melting,” and you will find about 99,400 English links. For “Antarctica not melting”, you will find about 37 links. Small wonder so many innocents believe in Global warming.
But, Antarctica overall is not melting. Only the smaller western side is. Ice in the vaster eastern side is increasing. Growing! How so if the globe is warming? On this see:

”ARCTIC ICE DISAPPEARING? DON’T YOU BELIEVE IT!!!”

”Global warming melting Arctic Ice: Manipulation of public perceptions

”Drop in world temperatures fuels global warming debate”

”Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Melting Away”

”Report: Antarctic Ice Growing, Not Shrinking”

What we have here is a fraud perpetrated enthusiastically and sometimes knowingly (see ”Greenpeace Confesses to Ice Cap Melting Exaggeration”) by those who seek power to control industrial growth, and the “corruption, pollution, and greed of capitalism”. How better to achieve this socioeconomic cleansing than to promote the idea of a catastrophic global warming as proven by Antarctic ice melting at a very dangerous rate. And the cause of this global warming? Why, coincidentally, it just happens to be the industrial by product—CO2. Of course, then, production must be controlled. And such control over the full might of all industrial powers demands socialist power. Thus, Obama’s Cap and Trade bill in Congress.

Do not be fooled. Our freedom and standard of living are at stake.

Was The Democratic Peace Killed--Part II, International Relations

2009-08-20T07:46:00.000-07:00

Source

To understand alternative foreign policies and that of the democratic peace requires understanding their context, which is international relations, also known as world politics, transnational relations, global society. What is the essence of this arena of empires, international organizations, states, nations, governments, groups and individuals --this sphere of diplomacy and war, treaties and alliances, aid and trade, migration and tourists?

To understand this greatest human theater, we must recognize first that international relations compose our largest society. As a society (as do all societies), it has two faces. One is of conflict, change, a struggle and dialectic of power. The other is of an equilibrium in international norms and structures which describe, at any one time, this society. Indeed, without a conflict view of international society, the normal state of affairs is stability, of functions maintaining the society and adjusting states to it. Indeed, within this snapshot view, international conflict appears deviant -- an aberration. Consensus and equilibrium rather than conflict would be the defining characteristics of this society.

International society also can be seen as changing configurations of power and balancing. International states continuously enter into new power balances, behaving within existing structures of expectations undergirded by previous balances. These structures exist through time and can become increasingly crystallized, and develop a rule-inertia, which is the sociological counterpart of habit. Some structures of expectations (like the UN Charter) formalize law norms, which define the membership in the structure, the rights and obligations of members, and authoritative roles (positions).

International society is then a complex of informal (one should not lie or aggress) and formal expectations (treaties), involving both general social norms and the official law. It has a defined membership (states), law norms delimiting rights (sovereignty) and obligations (as defined in system wide multilateral treaties, like the UN Charter), and authoritative roles (the Secretary-General of the United Nations; the five permanent members of the Security Council).

Therefore, international relations form an exchange society. It is dominated by bargaining power, which involves international trade, treaties, agreements, tourist and student movements, migration, technical aid, capital flows, exchange rates, and so on. All these activities usually manifest some individual, group, or state giving up something they value for something else they want more.

This does not deny the role of coercion in international society, as in Obama’s demand that Israel freeze its expansion of settlements in the disputed West Bank or else (unspecified), or American use of sanctions to punish North Korea for testing potential nuclear missiles and Iran for continuing development of nuclear weapons,

In this international exchange society, states are generally free to pursue their own interests; social behavior is normally cooperative and contractual. Rewards and promises are the basis of the society. Treaties, commercial contracts, and written agreements provide its explicit framework.

This international society is governed by the United Nations, a libertarian government. The secretary General is its executive, and the General Assembly and Security Council, its lower and upper legislative bodies. The International Court of Justice is its judiciary; and the various international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Meteorological Organization, are its administrative structure. Sanctions are applied, as when the Security Council voted an embargo on Iraq due to its support for terrorism and WMDs. The UN may even support a major war as it did to defend South Korea from North Koreans aggression in 1950. Nonetheless, states can ignore UN resolutions. By international law, states are guaranteed the rights of sovereignty, independence, and equality. These rights take precedence over this world government.

International relations is therefore a confederation, the weakest form of federation, in which each constituent-member state retains sovereignty and a monopoly of force is denied the central government. Its functions are janitorial, meeting international crises when called upon by states; resolving international conflicts when requested; providing judicial judgments upon appeal; and above all, through the network of international governmental and non- governmental organizations, providing an administrative structure for international transactions among states, groups, and individuals.

In essence, international relations is an exchange society with a libertarian political system. No government monopolizes force, no empire encompasses all of international relations.

Contrary to the intuition of many, international violence does not distinguish international relations. It is more peaceful than many states. Some states and those areas under their control are governed by terror and repression, where arrests, beatings, torture, and possibly death at the hands of the government are a constant threat. Such was the case under Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, and Mao. In the last century, states murdered about 262,000,000 people, while international and domestic wars accounted for about 55,000,000 war-dead.

Many believe international relations to be a state of nature: the relations between states are seen as though states were so many people living in a condition of anarchy, where each preys on the other and life is brutish and short. Each state is presumed to be insecure, all in a state of war, violence is the norm, and individual morality is alien to that of states. Coercive power is therefore supposed the regulator of international relations and diplomacy and war, its two faces. And therefore, a world government that monopolizes force, a global leviathan, is thought necessary to provide security and prevent violence. Many do not recognize that this state of nature is a fiction.

Just consider relations among Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland where there is simply no expectation of or disposition to violence. They are democracies. Problems arise in their relations, conflicts do occur, but none prepares for or entertains the possibility of violence against the other. They benefit, as do other democracies, from the democratic peace.

Indeed, the expectation of and disposition to violence between states is limited to very few bilateral relations, all involving nondemocracies, the most important of which today are the United States versus separately Iran, North Korea, and Russia; North versus South Korea; India versus Pakistan; Greece versus Turkey; Israel versus her neighbors and Iran; and Ethiopia versus Somalia. In a world of over 8,000 pairs of states, this propensity to violence is remarkably limited. In fact, because of the greater extent of transactions between nations and their contractual relations, international relations could better be characterized as a state of peace. This, especially in contrast to what goes on in many states.

Now, clearly, statesmen find the future essentially chaotic and unpredictable. They believe themselves governed by the "chain of circumstance." But as with violence, this unpredictability covers only certain relations for particular times. Much of international relations comprise clear expectations, high predictability, strong patterns. Conditions and patterns of trade, tourist regulations and flows, communications and transportation, diplomatic rules and principles, alliances and even the behavior that would cause a war, are known. We could hardly travel to another country or interact were it otherwise. Or does anyone doubt that at least a local war is most likely if the U.S. bombs Iran’s growing nuclear capacity?

International relations are no more chaotic than affairs within states. They are not anarchic. They are not normless, ruleless, nor lawless. They are not a state of war and violence is not the norm. States are not universally insecure. Coercion is not the rule. Rather, international relations comprise a global society and world culture with a limited government. Relations are generally harmonious, contractual. Bargaining power dominates. Reciprocity is the rule. Antagonism, conflicts, and violence exist, but generally less in intensity than within many states. Yes, states conflict, but it is astonishing that they do not conflict more often and more violently than they do.

In summary, in essence, international relations is an exchange society based mainly on bargaining power, not coercion or force, with a limited, libertarian world government.

Credit May Get Worse Before Better

2009-08-19T18:03:00.000-07:00

Source

Was The Democratic Peace Killed--Part I Bibliographies.

2009-08-17T15:37:00.000-07:00

Source
Note that the zero wars for democracies versus democraices continues from 1991 to 2009
Before the election of Barack Obama, much was written about the democratic peace, pro and con. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush based their foreign policies on it—as one of its pillars for Clinton, and as the core of Bush’s policy. But now, you hear almost nothing of it. In this and in subsequent blogs, I will try to determine what has happened to the democratic peace.

First, what is the democratic peace? There are the narrow and broad versions. The narrow one, being most well known and researched, simply says that democracies have never made war on each other (see above table). This is the most scholarly and scientifically researched idea of international relations, and as a result many students of the field now consider it a political law of the international system. Therefore, promoting democracy in the world is a way to peace, which Bush and Secretary Rice said many times.

The broad version includes the narrow and adds that democracies have the least internal violence and almost no domestic democide. Thus, by fostering human security, democracies serve as a way to peace and human betterment. There is also much research on this version, although discussants of the democratic peace usually have the narrow one in mind.

What are my sources for this? I have two bibliographies of democratic peace research and commentary, one for those published before 2000, and the other, just completed, 2000 and after. My interest is in the latter, since this will help answer the question about the current status of the democratic peace. To those to whom the democratic peace is an extraordinary idea, and in terms of peace, an unbelievable, idealist one, the earlier bibliography will be very useful. It presents the birth, replication, and early attempts to falsify the idea. Moreover, see my Democratic Peace Blog, which includes many analyses of the studies listed in this bibliography.

On balance, the bibliographies show that despite the negative critiques, attempts to falsify it, and assertions about negative cases, the democratic peace still provides a well researched and verified solution to war, democide, domestic violence, and human insecurity.

In Part II on the democratic peace, I will treat the idea within a foreign policy framework (such as Obama’s). The death of this solution to war and human security then will be easier to understand.

Tell Obama What You Think Of His Socialism

2009-08-16T19:22:00.000-07:00

Source

We have an opportunity to demonstrate to our elected officials, especially our Congressmen and those Senators up for re-election in 15 months, how we feel about the Obama-Pelosi Health Care legislation. Best of all it is simple (and as a side benefit it will really annoy the Greenies).

When we go to bed on Tuesday night, August 18, let's turn on all those lights in our homes (which do not interfere with sleep)--and all our outdoor lighting, perhaps even placing some extra lighting outdoors. Leave our lights on all night. Satellite photos will capture everything and there should be enough of a contrast to normal night time satellite imagery that our Washington pols will be carefully analyzing their own district / state "lighting" on these photos. Our message WILL be delivered--and we can count on the fact that our elected officials care more about being re-elected than anything else--and that includes party loyalty.

It's an easy, cheap, and effective way to deliver the message that we do not want to go down the socialist path. There are many options for improving our health care system. Tort reform, requiring a losing plaintiff to pay defendant legal fees, eliminating state mandates, allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines, and making insurance portable are but a few of the changes which would lead to a broad range of insurance choices and would bring down insurance rates substantially. Giving Americans--both employers and employees-- a choice should be the number one objective of any health care reform.

KEEP SENDING this e-mail / KEEP REMINDING everyone you know to participate and ask them to do likewise. We have an opportunity to be heard. Two hundred plus years ago, our forefathers did far more to fight for freedom and liberty against another "power grab". They put their lives on the line. All we have to do is turn on the lights!

If you 50 people each send to 50 additional and they to 50 additional and they to 50 additional and they to 50 additional we reach 300million (This assumes no duplicates --but it also only assumes 50 people per e-mailer. Let's just say we can get this done AND QUICKLY--if we each spend a few minutes.

Socialism One Law At A Time

2009-08-15T20:29:00.000-07:00

Cartoon Source

I have great respect for subject matter expertise and am inclined to listen carefully to those who write about their specialty. How then do I presume to write blogs about Obamacare, when I am neither a doctor nor medical specialist; global warming and Cap and Trade, when I am not a climatologist, and so on. Simple. My political science expertise includes the democratic peace and the history and development of democracy. Today, I see a great threat to American democracy in the far left and socialists controlling Congress, presidency, courts, federal bureaucracies, many state governments, Hollywood, and the major universities and colleges, foundations, and media.

The American Constitution and check and balances system that have protected American freedom no longer work to do so. Democracy is at bay. As I have pointed out, a sword of Damocles hangs ready to plunge tyranny into the heart of American democracy. I intend to help prevent this by speaking the truth about the creeping socialism we face. It is anti-American, as are many of its purveyors. As polls consistently show, the vast majority of Americans oppose socialism and its weaker version, liberalism. If they are made aware of what is happening, socialism will be defeated, as with Obamacare now.

For those who want to see my scholarly and scientific research on democracy and the democratic peace, my democratic peace blog is the place for that (for the list of its blogs, see here). Here, I am the commentator and analyst in defense of American democracy.

Obamacare To The Old—Drop Dead

2009-08-13T19:37:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

It is clear in the current Obamacare bills under considertion by Congressional Democrats that federal bueaucrats will decide whether the aged should live, or if that is too expensivie, to die. There now have been many autopies of the bills that support this conclusion. Let me quote from a couple. Bob Unruh in his article
“Obamacare for old folks: Just 'cut your life short’” says of this:

The proposal specifically calls for the consultation to recommend "palliative care and hospice" for seniors in their mandatory counseling sessions. Palliative care and hospice generally focus only on pain relief until death….

It also recommends a method for death: "the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration."

And there is the article by Steven Ertelt, ”Lawmakers Confirm House Health Care Bill Promotes Euthanasia Among Elderly” in which he says:

Two Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are confirming reports that the health care restructuring bill the House is currently considering promotes euthanasia. A leading patients rights advocate is worried about the effects of the legislation.
Betsy McCaughey, the former New York lieutenant government who is now a patient's rights advocate, notes that the government-run health care plan would require "end of life" counseling for seniors.
The counseling, she says, would be focused on telling seniors how to end their lives sooner.
In a statement sent to LifeNews.com House Republican Leader John Boehner Republican Policy Committee Chairman Thaddeus McCotter confirm those fears.
"Section 1233 of the House-drafted legislation encourages health care providers to provide their Medicare patients with counseling on ‘the use of artificially administered nutrition and hydration’ and other end of life treatments,'" the pair say.

Now, lets look at the relevant provisions in the Healthcare Bill HR3200
(Side comments from the source):

PG 425 Lines 4-12 Govt mandates Advance Care Planning Consult. Think Senior Citizens end of life

Pg 425 Lines 17-19 Govt will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of atty. Mandatory!

PG 425 Lines 22-25, 426 Lines 1-3 Govt provides apprvd list of end of life resources, guiding u in death

PG 427 Lines 15-24 Govt mandates program 4 orders 4 end of life. The Govt has a say in how ur life ends

Pg 429 Lines 1-9 An "adv. care planning consult" will b used frequently as patients health deteriorates

PG 429 Lines 10-12 "adv. care consultation" may incl an ORDER 4 end of life plans. AN ORDER from GOV

Pg 429 Lines 13-25 - The govt will specify which Doctors can write an end of life order.

PG 430 Lines 11-15 The Govt will decide what level of treatment u will have at end of life

Pg 469 - Community Based Home Medical Services=Non profit orgs. Hello, ACORN Medical Svcs here!!?

Also see Dorothy Rabinowiz ” Obama’s Tone-Deaf Health Campaign” and Matthew Daly, ” Palin stands by 'death panel' claim on health bill.”

Again, Why Vote Republican?

2009-08-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

[L]azyfair commented on my "Hope or Despair for the future of the United States of America":

Much of what you say is true in regards to the growth of statism and centralized power. But it is in no way a phenomenon of the left. Republicans and conservatives have taken every opportunity to embark on their own pet statist sprees whenever it has fit their agendas, which has been sadly all too often. Republicans are no more an answer to our current statist woes than Democrats. As you know, power is the disease - the left/right false-dichotomy is a dementia induced symptom that blinds.

It is true that Republicans impose their conservative values in many ways, and seek power to do so. Need I mention their opposition to legalizing dope, prostitution, pornography, and abortion. But these are conservative values. They are not generally fascist, totalitarian, statist, nor socialist, as are the leftists who now control our government. As a freedomist, I would much rather live under a Republican president and Congress than the current regime which is increasingly moving us toward a tyranny. For a vast distinction, compare the policies under Reagan and the two Bushes to what Democrats are now doing—the imposition of a full blown state-socialism on the country.

But why support Republicans instead of Libertarians, or some other party more in line with freedomism? Because third parties not only have no chance of winning a presidential election, but most likely will ensure the election of a Democrat. Might as well hope for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

Consider the 1992 presidential election in which Ross Perot, the third party candidate, had 18.9 percent of the vote, George H. W. Bush, 37.4 percent, and the winner, Bill Clinton, 43 percent. He was in effect elected by the votes Perot took from Bush.

Best to work within or with the Republican Party to change it in the freedomist direction.

Saudi Arabia—The World's Largest Women's Prison

2009-08-10T12:38:00.001-07:00

Photo source
Photo source

In a recent article, Wajeha Al-Huweidar, a journalist and human rights activist, characterized Saudi Arabia as “the world’s largest women’s prison.” It is that and more—a totalitarian society in which all women are slaves from birth to death. In her article she wrote:

Prisoners Can Be Released From Prison - But Saudi Women Can't

"The laws of imprisonment are known all over the world. People who commit a crime or an offense are placed in a prison cell... where they serve their sentence. [When they complete it], or get time off for good behavior, they are released... except in cases [where a person is sentenced] to life imprisonment or death. In Saudi Arabia, there are two additional ways to get out of prison early: by learning the Koran or parts of it by heart... or by getting a pardon from the king on the occasion of a holiday or a coronation - after which the prisoner finds himself free and can enjoy life among his family and loved ones.

"However, none of these options exist for Saudi women - neither for those who live behind bars [i.e. who are actually in prison] nor for those who live outside the prison walls. None are ever released, except with the permission of their male guardian. A Saudi woman who committed a crime may not leave her cell when she has finished serving her sentence unless her guardian arrives to collect her. As a consequence, many Saudi women remain in prison just because their guardians refuse to come and get them. The state pardons them, but their guardians insist on prolonging their punishment.

"At the same time, even 'free' women need the permission of their guardian to leave their home, their city or their country. So in either case, the woman's freedom is [in the hands of] her guardian."

Prison Inmates Are Stripped Of All Authority Over Their Lives - And So Are Saudi Women

"As is customary in prisons throughout the world, inmates are stripped of all authority and sponsorship over their own [lives]. All their movements are monitored and controlled by the jailor. The prison authorities decide their fate and see to their needs, until the day of their release. This is also the usual situation of the Saudi woman. She has no right to make decisions, and may not take a single step without the permission of her jailor, namely her guardian. But in her case the term [of imprisonment] is unlimited.

"The Saudi Mahram Law turns the women into prisoners from the day they are born until the day they die. They cannot leave their cells, namely their homes, or the larger prison, namely the state, without signed permission....

More here.

Tyranny Closing In—The Stealth Coup

2009-08-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

Moisés Naím has written an article, “Nouvelle Regimes In a Few Easy Steps”, that is a warning to us about what might happen with the socialist left in control of the American government, and unwilling to give up that power to the center or right. Yes, I know, it can’t happen here. But it can. Read how (understanding that the preparation can be adjusted to the unique American political environment)

The world no longer digests military coups as well as it used to. But now there's a new way for autocrats to cook up a grab for power.

This new recipe relies more on lawyers than lieutenant colonels, and uses referendums and constitutional amendments, rather than tanks and assaults on presidential palaces, as key ingredients. But the result is the same: a dictator who, while keeping up the veneer of democracy, retains power for a long time….

Preparation

1. Shake well the poorest segment of the population with a fiercely polarizing campaign. Sprinkle in resentment, political rancor and economic populism. Rinse away harmony while bringing social conflicts to a boil.

2. Come to power through a democratic election. This can be facilitated by having corrupt and discredited political rivals and a good vote-buying team. Stress the need to root out corruption and recover the wealth that the rich have stolen.

3. After winning that first election, hold other ones, but don't lose any. Elections aren't about democracy -- they're the garnish on your dish.

4. Change the top military command by promoting officers loyal to the president. Reward loyal officers with material benefits and punish the unenthusiastic. Spy on all of them, all the time.

5. Do the same with judges and magistrates.

6. Launch a campaign to change the constitution through a popular referendum. Coerce public employees to vote and make sure that some in the opposition campaign against participating in the referendum. Convince members of the opposition that their votes are irrelevant.

7. The new constitution should guarantee any and all rights to its citizens especially the poorest, while minimizing their duties and obligations. Promise to alleviate poverty and extinguish inequality. Bury inside the new constitution provisions, concocted in complex legalese, that weaken or eliminate the separation of powers, concentrate authority in the president and allow for his indefinite reelection.

8. Discredit, minimize, co-opt, buy and repress the political opposition.

9. Control the media. Tolerate a few tiny outlets that are critical of the government but have a limited reach. They will be your cover against accusations that there is no freedom of the press.

10. Repeat step number three. Indefinitely.

Says it all on Unemployment

2009-08-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

Chart source

Progress in Global Democracy

2009-08-07T07:16:00.001-07:00

Map source

We now have a clear enough understanding of the Obama foreign policy so that I can critique it from the perspective of the democratic peace. To do so, I must return to the question of global democracy, and the democratic peace. As you should know if you had followed my democratic peace blog (an outline of the content is here), I believe that by theory and its historical tests, democracy is a road to global peace and human security. Democracies have not made war on each other; have minimal domestic violence; commit the least democide by far. Democracies have no famines. All this may shock some of you, but see the proof on my website and the above mentioned democratic peace blog.

However, this theory and its tests have been applied generally to previous centuries and were done a decade ago by many researchers (see the bibliography of this research here.). More recent research has produced arguments calling the democratic peace wrong or a myth. I shall go over all this and report on it here and on the democratic peace blog.

For now, I just want to link you to the best sites on the progress of democracy and globalization. One to check is Freedom House. It tracks and evaluates political changes in all countries, and rates each country as free (liberal democracies), partially free (which include electoral democracies), or not free. Its count for liberal and electoral democracies in 2008 (labeled for 2009, and mapped above) is 119. Of these, 89 are free—liberal democracies. This exceeds the critical number of democracies required to reduce violence and war in the world .

For ten years now there has been among the democracies, a top level World Movement for Democracy that includes democratic, activists, practitioners, academics, policy makers, and funders. It has biennial global assemblies of all these members, the last held in Kyiv, Ukraine. Most important, its major purpose is the promotion of democracy. It has its own website, and also a monthly DemocracyNews.

Finally, the most significant journal in this area is the Journal of Democracy. It says of itself:

The Journal of Democracy is far and away the most important forum for current debates about the nature and spread of liberal democracy around the world. It is an indispensable tool for anybody interested in comparative politics or international relations. A model for how to present serious intellectual content in a clear and accessible way, a standing rebuke to both the slop that often passes for political journalism and the irrelevant gibberish that often passes for social science.

War on Terror Is History

2009-08-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

Photo source
And with his reduction in defense expenditures, particular in missile defense, the elimination of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp for terrorists captured in the War on Terror, and apologizing to muslims for their mistreatment by America, Obama has now ended the war on terror. It is over folks:

"It's official. The U.S. is no longer engaged in a "war on terrorism." Neither is it fighting "jihadists" or in a "global war."

President Obama's top homeland security and counterterrorism official took all three terms off the table of acceptable words inside the White House during a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank....

"We are at war with AL Qaeda"

See more here

Listen. Clunkers No, Missile Defense Yes

2009-08-05T12:14:00.001-07:00

Cartoon source

The Heritage Foundation has published a very important poll, if only the Democrats would listen to it. It says

The latest polls show most Americans DO NOT WANT more cash for clunkers (only 33% want additional funding), which would benefit only a few people, most of them car dealers.

But Americans overwhelmingly DO WANT missile defense, and they want it soon (78%, according to an April poll for Investors Business Daily; others find support near 90%). The most obvious disconnect is that the Administration wants another $2 billion or so to juice car sales at the same time it is cutting $1.4 billion from missile defense technologies that would protect all Americans and our troops and allies overseas.

This means that the an EMP attack is even more probable, the best choice of small, enemy nuclear powers or terrorists groups. Where are the Republicans and conservatives on this, and their media? Scream it from the rooftops.

A Clunker Government Running HEALTHCARE?

2009-08-04T21:02:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

Anyone who has bought into the notion of a government run health care plan will do well to examine the latest government enterprise, Cash for Clunkers. It was supposed to reduce the CO2 old clunker cars and trucks “contributed” to global warming (never mind that human caused global warming is a gigantic hoax). As minor as it was in the Obama accounting system (a mere billion dollars to disburse), the program presumably provided government the showcase to display its capacity to work like a small business.
Ha!
The program is a clunker. Designed to last for months, it ran out of money in a week. The chemicals necessary to destroy the engines of the clunkers were in short supply, dealers were not being repaid for the clunkers they bought, computer problems were tying up dealer applications for reimbursement, applications were taking too much dealer time and staff, dealers had to give up all privacy on their computers (see here), and the government is keeping secret from the public reports on the program. Not in the least, there was also widespread confusion over the meaning of the rules. Midway through it the EPA changed standards, forcing some who received $4,500 for their clunkers to return the money. Furthermore, a one-billion dollar program will be ballooning into a three-billion one, a typical underestimate of the funds needed.

Meanwhile, the Obama health industry nationalization scheme marches on in Congress. We’re talking here about the largest industry in the United States. In 2006, it involved four million jobs, and spent one dollar out of every six in the American economy. This is the huge industry that Democrats want to control, regulate, and eventually wholly nationalize.

Not Health Care Reform--It's NATIONALIZATION

2009-08-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

Everyone appears to have accepted the Democrat’s characterization of the health-medical system they are proposing as heath care “reform”.

To reform means to improve. The Democrat’s proposals improve nothing. They are simply a stealth maneuver with an outright NATIONALIZATION OF THE HEALTH SYSTEM—a complete government take-over of health care—as the eventual goal.

Why do Republicans always hand Democrats such rhetorical victories as they did by accepting “Red States” for conservative, “Blue States” for liberal (red is universally the color of socialism); “militants” for terrorists; “anti-war” (those who disagree become war lovers), pro choice (not pro abortion), gun reform (not control) and on and on. Now we have “reform” for nationalization.

Republicans must carefully calculate their rhetoric, upstage Democratic rhetorical lies, and drive home the fact that NATIONALIZATION of one-sixth of our economy will be the outcome of Democratic proposals. Each Republican should be shouting from the rooftops—Democrats want to NATIONALIZE the best and freest health care in the world.

Vietnam--Grabbing Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

2009-07-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

Table source

During the Vietnam War, I taught at Yale a cousrse on American National Security Policy and another on war. I also gave a number of speeches supporting the Vietnam War effort. I argued that defending the South and Cambodia was necessary to maintain the credibility of American Cold War defense alliances in Asia (of which South Vietnam and Cambodia were members), and elsewhere. We were committed to defend alliance members if attacked.

A second rationale was the great likelihood of a blood bath if South Vietnam and Cambodia fell to the communist North and Khmer Rouge. Both did in 1975. In the bloodbath which followed, the communists murdered millions. Remember the “Killing Fields. See my Statistics Of  Vietnamese Democide and Statistics Of Cambodian Democide . The above table gives the statistics for Vietnam.
Since then, the media have treated the communist takeover as an American defeat. This was not true militarily. Our forces actually defeated the North in every battle and overall destroyed their political/guerrilla front, the Viet Cong. But the Democrats who controlled our Congress succeeded in denying the South Vietnamese and Cambodian armies the supplies and air support needed to continue the fight. In effect, they handed Cambodia and South Vietnam over to the communists at a time when the North believed they were defeated and wanted to end the war.

Little has been written about this war won by our military and lost by the Democratic politicians and their supporting “anti-war” activists minority at home. Today many of these “anti-war” activist and communist supporters have influential positions in the academy, government, entertainment industry, and media. Now, Rear Adm. Jeremiah Denton has tried to correct this telling omission in his Vietnam War’s True Victory. Read it and understand what the Democrat’s would have done in the Iraq War, had President George W. Bush allowed them. He snatched victory from the Democrat’s jaws of defeat, and saved a successfully functioning, Iraq constitutional democracy.

A Picture of Democrat Nationalized Health Care

2009-07-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Chart source

Yes, Global Warming Is About Political Power

2009-07-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

See "The Global Warming Campaign Is Socialism's Last Stand" By Gary North, who says:

The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.

This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats. He did this in an article, "Reflections: After Communism," published by The New Yorker (Sept. 10, 1990)....

...he called on his socialist peers to get behind the ecology movement. Here, he said, is the best political means for promoting central planning, despite its inefficiency. In the name of ecology, he said, socialists can get a hearing from politicians and voters.

After viewing the evidence of professional climotologist, one may well ask how global warming that is so wrong could have become an international and American policy that would cost trillions and badly effect everyone’s life Witness the illegalization of the Incandescent bulb. The answer is simple, as shown by Heilbroner. In my words, it enables the promoters of global wrarming to achieve a socialist-like control of capitalism, that is to seize power.

See Exposing The Global Warming Myth that says:

At December's U.N. Global Warming conference in Poznan, Poland, 650 of the world's top climatologists stood up and said man-made global warming is a media generated myth without basis. Said climatologist Dr. David Gee, Chairman of the International Geological Congress, "For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming?"

Not until this power grab is exposed for what it is.

The Great Labor Camp Mortacracy That Is North Korea

2009-07-27T12:20:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

North Korea is a border to border concentration-labor camp. Understandably, North Koreans attempt to flee it and if caught are murdered. As they are for trivial things we take for granted in the West, such as distributing the Bible. On this see "Report: North Korea Publicly Executes Christian Woman for Distributing Bible". See also "North Korea 'executes Christians'".

North Korea is a totalitarian communist country that totally controls its agriculture and food distribution, and thereby has caused the death of millions of its enslaved people by starvation. Overall, the government, that is, its dictator Kim Jong-Il, has murdered over 3,000,000 North Koreans. It is a sad commentary on our age, that the international community of democracies allows such a murderous and enslaving to continue to exist.

What is this "Tyranny Closing In"?

2009-07-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

Source The Weekly Standard, 7/13/09

I have shown in a number of blogs here that tyranny is closing in on America. See nationalizing health and food, illegalizing dissension, squashing investigations, university leftism, unlimited preventative detention, and blog censorship.

What then is this tyranny as a government? I am, after all, a political scientist. In the context of my blogs, this is a most important question. What is this “closing in”?

First, note that there are two kinds of democracy -- electoral and liberal (in the sense of traditional liberalism). Electoral democracies have a near universal franchise, regular competitive and fair elections where voters can kick the “bastards” out of office. Liberal democracies are electoral democracies that also recognize human rights, such as freedom of speech, religion, organization, and the rule of law. As of 2008, there were 121 electoral democracies in the world, 90 of which were liberal democracies, such as Andorra, Cyprus, Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Mongolia, Nauru, Palau, South Africa, Uruguay, and the usually named Anglo-American and European democracies. Non-liberal electoral democracies include Bolivia, Guatemala, Liberia, Macedonia, Niger, Senegal, Suriname, and Turkey. (The source on the numbers and countries is the Freedom House Freedom IN The World 2008)

Now, tyranny is a negative term for governments that are undesirable from a democratic perspective. So dictatorships, fascist regimes, totalitarian systems—as were Nazism (Germany 1933-1945), Fascism (Italy, 1922-1944) communism (Soviet Union 1917-1991)—, absolute monarchies (Saudi Arabia), and military regimes (Japan, 1936-1945) are all tyrannies. Of course, we are nowhere near any such regimes. “Tyranny closing in on America” means the human rights we enjoy in our electoral democracy are becoming seriously compromised -- loss of much of our freedom of speech (just consider political correctness, hate crime laws, and the cost of criticizing Islam), religion (which already must bow to leftist secularism), and the increasing unfree market.

With our democracy gradually losing its liberal character, there looms the growing possibility of a one-party government where we can forget about fair political competition. One party control of the major avenues to power (as in Iran, Venezuela, and former communist countries) means fraudulent elections or referenda.

The power the Democratic Party now -- 72 million registered members versus 55 for the Republicans; its strong support among Blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, employed women, and other minorities; its dominance of college faculty, the major media, labor, and the entertainment industry; 256 seats in the House versus 178 for Republicans; and a 60 seat filibuster proof majority in the Senate—could be fertile ground for a dictatorship. A war, a profound national security threat, a deep socio-economic crisis at home could provide the rationale to take over the country. One thing, and only one thing, would constrain this. It is the deep tradition of freedom in America as well as in the Democratic Party, the heir of classic liberalism for many of its members. This tradition limited the fascism of Presidents Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt and their Democratic Congresses during World War I and the Great Depression. Despite the power they and Congress had then, elections proceeded normally and fairly.

Our liberal democratic culture still exists. Judging by the alternative media, such as blogs, talk radio, and networking groups, it is healthy and active. But tyranny is closing in. Beware.

Tyranny Closing In—Blog Censorship

2009-07-22T13:54:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

The tyranny imbedded in the Sword of Damocles that is hovering over the U.S is moving closer. See ”The latest Obama crackdown; taming an unruly blogosphere” by Vincent Gioia. He says

The recent Obama intended appointment of Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law professor, to the position of head of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is the next nail in the coffin of the First Amendment. In this position Sunstein will have powers that are unprecedented and very far reaching; not merely mind-boggling but with explicit ability to use the courts to stifle free speech if it opposes Obama policies….

Sunstein wants a system that includes a “notice and take down” law that would require bloggers and service providers to “take down falsehoods upon notice,” even those made by commentators.

OMG, I Cannot Believe The Health Nationalization Bills

2009-07-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

Image source

First, hear what Milton Friedman in Socialized Medicine, would have said about the current “health reform” bills before Congress.

Then read some contents of one or more of the bills: ”Shock: Inside the Healthcare Bill”. Some of what the bills contain are

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benes u get

Pg 29 lines 4-16 in the HC bill - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED!!!

Pg 42 of HC Bill - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose UR HC Benefits 4 you. U have no choice!

PG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access 2 individs finances & a National ID Healthcard will b issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access 2 ur banks accts 4 elect. funds transfer

PG 65 Sec 164 is a payoff subsidized plan 4 retirees and their families in Unions & community orgs (ACORN).

Pg 72 Lines 8-14 Govt is creating an HC Exchange 2 bring priv HC plans under Govt control.

PG 84 Sec 203 HC bill - Govt mandates ALL benefit pkgs 4 priv. HC plans in the Exchange

PG 85 Line 7 HC Bill - Specs for of Benefit Levels for Plans = The Govt will ration ur Healthcare!

Also see ”Obama Healthcare Step One: Killing Off the Old, Then They Are Going After Quadriplegics”. This points out that under the Health Nationalization Bills, your health and access to lifesaving medicine and equipment will be rationed. Government bureaucrats will put a dollar amount on your life, and if they deem it too costly, allow you to die. Your life or death is in their hands.

This raises the question as to whether this would be democide, for which the definition includes

that cause death by virtue of an intentionally or knowingly reckless and depraved disregard for life (which constitutes practical intentionality), as in a famine or epidemic during which government authorities withhold aid, or knowingly act in a way to make it more deadly.

If government willfully withholds medical treatment to the old or infirm who presumably do not deserve treatment in dollar terms, is it democide? If so, does this meet my prediction that as power grows at the center, democide is more likely?

We are even closer toward a deadly tyranny for America

No Matter A Socialist Economy Impossible, It Wins Power

2009-07-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

In my view, the best scholarly economic work on socialism is that by Ludwig von Mises, ”Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth”. For a summary and evaluation, See the Postscript ”Why a Socialist Economy is ‘Impossible’” by Joseph T. Salerno, to the above. Salerno says:

In “Economic Calculation in a Socialist Commonwealth,” Ludwig von Mises demonstrates, once and forever, that, under socialist central planning, there are no means of economic calculation and that, therefore, socialist economy itself is “impossible” (“unmöglich”)--not just inefficient or less innovative or conducted without benefit of decentralized knowledge, but really and truly and literally impossible.
At the same time, he establishes that the necessary and sufficient conditions of the existence and evolution of human society is liberty, property, and sound money: the liberty of each individual to produce and exchange according to independently formed value judgments and price appraisements; unrestricted private ownership of all types and orders of producers’ goods as well as of consumers’ good; and the existence of a universal medium of exchange whose value is not subject to large or unforeseeable variations.

Abolish all or ever one of these institutions and human society disintegrates amid a congeries of isolated household economies and predatory tribes. But not only does abolition of private ownership of the means of production by a world embracing socialist state render human social existence impossible: Mises’s analysis also implies that socialism destroys the praxeological significance of time and nullifies humanity’s uniquely teleological contribution to the universe

Nonetheless, socialism as an ideology and a program is a route to power, regardless of its universal failures and technical impossibilities. People are eager to help others, be part of a movement to do good, and to feel involved. Disguise the program with feel good rhetoric—social justice, equality, shared responsibility, hope, change, and helping the poor (Sound familiar?). Raise consciousness by characterizing the status quo as in crisis with impending disaster; as unjust and unfair; and as a system of exploitation. Then, socialism can win, as it has with Obama, be empowered, and then utterly fail.

How Could EMP Be the Death of America?

2009-07-19T15:36:00.000-07:00

Source

I have pointed out an EMP attack is a real and possibly impending danger to the U. S.—it hangs over the country like the Sword of Damocles.Sword of Damocles. For more on the threat, see "’EMP 101’ A Basic Primer & Suggestions for Preparedness”

War is Coming

2009-07-19T12:09:00.000-07:00

Photo source

Read this implicit threat against Iran. Iran nuclear arms worst threat to security: Gates from Secretary of Defense Gates. He said to the Economic Club of Chicago:

Iran is the one that concerns me the most because there don't seem to be good options (or a scenario) where one can have any optimism that good options will be found….

[The threat of Iran rests not only in Iran's apparent determination to seek a nuclear weapon, but in the] … inability of the international community to affect their determination to do that….

All of the outcomes are negative... If they achieve one, the possibility of a nuclear arms race in the Middle East is very, very real….

If something is done to prevent them from getting one, the consequences of that are completely unpredictable and frankly, very bad.

And Secretary of State Clinton warned Iran in her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that:

“…to these foes and would-be foes, let me say: You should know that our focus on diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal. You should never see America’s willingness to talk as a sign of weakness to be exploited. We will not hesitate to defend our friends and ourselves vigorously when necessary with the world’s strongest military. This is not an option we seek. Nor is it a threat; it is a promise to the American people.”

There is a way around this dangerous impasse over Iran’s growing nuclear capability. It is an American approved, Israeli air strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. I predict this will happen.

The scenario has these stages.

(1) Israeli fighter-bombers attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure using two Georgian airfields.

(2) Iran targets her surface to surface Shahab-3 missiles on Israel, and blockades the Strait of Hormuz with her naval and air forces.

(3) The U.S. moves its carrier task forces to keep open the crucial strait. About 17 million barrels of oil, more than any other oil chokepoint in the world, move through it daily and Iran cannot be allowed to close it.

(4) Military action between Iranian and American forces.

(5) Iran declares war on Israel and the U.S.

(6) Obama does not request a declaration of war from Congress, but does ask for a blank check to fight Iran. A huge majority approves.

(7) Obama appoints a “Military Czar” to oversee the undeclared war.

So What If A Lie?--It Is The Politics of Power

2009-07-18T09:15:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

In American domestic and foreign politics, lies abound. Their function is to gain, enhance, or secure power for the purveyors or their supporters.

The list of such lies—Bush lied, 9/11 was an inside job, the CIA and Vice President Johnson murdered Kennedy, America is an imperialist power, Israel has brutally suppressed the Palestinians, there is global warming, CO2 is causing global warming, only nationalization of the economy will cure the present economic crises, our health crisis demands nationalization of health—is endless. When these lies are imbedded in a structure of falsehoods and half-truths, and repeated often enough with conviction by the information/news gate-keepers in the major media, the public will believe them. Thus, lies become a source of power for the highest offices, for legislation, for court cases, for regulations, and for laws to control the American people.

This is how the power game is played. It was through incessant lies that fascism took root in Italy, Japan, and China (the Nationalist regime), Nazism in Germany, Communism in Russia, and China, all of one sort of socialism or another, and all tyrannies. Of course, we should not forget the American fascist tyranny under President Wilson, especially during WWI. (Surprised? Read your American history.)

These lies must be challenged with the truth, also repeated and repeated beyond count, by those who know it. Unless lies are shown for what they are, democracy itself is threatened again. For the power that such lies enable (increasingly obvious in the United States), can lead to a one-party state, a tyranny, where attempting to expose the lies can mean a heavy fine, ostracism, or even a prison sentence. This happened under Wilson and happens under all socialist governments. Punishment for telling the truth almost applies now to global warming, where journalists and scientists can be fired from their jobs for questioning this false claim.

This is now where we are headed. Republicans and conservatives are failing in their duty to protect democracy from socialist and progressive lies. They should be shouting the truth from the roof tops and out their windows. Perhaps a new party that will is timely and appropriate.

The Great Global Warming Power Grab

2009-07-17T11:26:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

First, see the two charts at"Global Warming Is A Scam For Power" that in themselves show how false global warming and its supposed connection to CO2.

Second, listen to this "The Great Global Warming Swindle."

You may not realize that this notion of Global warming does not fit scientific facts. What is claimed by global alarmists is not happening -- ice is not retreating, the earth’s recent temperature has not risen significantly, polar bears are not dying out, and oceans are not rising. Nor is there proof that human produced CO2 causes global warming. But the idea of global warming, even if glaringly false, is great for the socialists and progressive environmentalists. For if enough people (especially politicians) are made to believe this lie, it enables an incredible power grab. The idea can create, as it has, great fear. Purveyors of this lie can claim a global warming crisis. A disaster, unless we do something. And what must we do? Prevent CO2 emissions. Control capitalism at the root, of course.

Never mind the effect on the economy. These ideologues generally hate capitalism anyway. Now, the idea provides a means to power over capitalist industry and even activities in your home and at work. So they endlessly repeat the idea, and cunningly make it a social crime to deny it -- like denying the Holocaust.

Thus these ideologues have created, supported, and pushed for the so called Cap and Trade global warming, Bill. It narrowly passed in the House, and is being debated in the Senate.

If it does pass Congress, Obama will sign it. Then, unbelievable power will pass to the progressive socialists. And we will be much, much closer to tyranny because this lie was repeated so often that too many people came to believe it.

Tyranny Closing In—University Leftism

2009-07-16T16:32:00.000-07:00

The Sword of Damocles hovering over the U.S. is getting closer.

Cartoon source
University leftism is on a relentless roll. Academic freedom? The hallowed halls where open debate and conflicting ideas flourish? The sanctity of civil discourse? Ha! Not anymore. One side now has the freedom to state its views; others do so at their peril.

Professor Thomas Klocek of DePaul University in Chicago is a case in point. Quoting from Joseph Farah’s "When 'academic freedom' fails" article,

Last Sept. 15, the man who has taught critical thinking, college writing and cultures of the world at the Catholic university’s School for New Learning for the last 15 years, Klocek made the mistake of debating the subject of the Middle East with some extremists partial to Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Arab nationalists among the Students for Justice in Palestine and the United Muslims Moving Ahead at a student activities fair.

The informal debate was heated, with Klocek the sole defender of Israel and Middle East Christians in the room. But no blows were exchanged,
no verbal threats made. The spirited argument lasted between 15 and 20 minutes, according to everyone involved.

Nine days later, Klocek found himself the victim of an “emergency suspension” and unceremoniously kicked off the campus. No hearing by his peers. No formal complaints lodged against him. The unsubstantiated accusations by zealous students that Klocek made “racist” remarks was all that was needed to crush the claim of academic freedom at DePaul.

He was offered his job back if he agreed to apologize to the students and have his teaching monitored. He refused.

Now he has no job. . . .

You see, diversity is welcomed if, and only if, it agrees with what is the conventional wisdom in the rarefied atmosphere of academia. . . .Klocek’s students accused him of the unpardonable sins of “demeaning their ideas” and “dishonoring their perspective” and pressing erroneous assertions” and of using his power as a “professor over them” to force them to accept his arguments as true.

Exactly what did he say? He had dared to question the accuracy of literature asserting Rachel Corrie was “murdered by an Israeli bulldozer” and a verbal assertion that “the Palestinians are being treated by Israelis the same way Hitler treated the Jews.”

This is only one such story. There are volumes of horrific tales where the left have punished students and professors for their views, or in their mistaken belief in “academic freedom.”
Schools today are a major subversive force in our society undermining the idea of freedom, stealthily sliding us closer to tyranny. They indoctrinate our children and youth -- propagandize them into armies of “anti-war,” anti-globalization, anti-American, brain washed demonstrators and protestors. That is, before they eventually become teachers, businessmen, politicians and, of course, lawyers and judges, all to further, often unwittingly, leftist extremism.

What to do? Sunshine. Documentaries. Investigative journalism by blogs, talk radio, and the new media. Legislative hearings. Expose the truth. The left’s anchor to the schools -– tenure — could not survive an aroused silent majority.

Note this study."Leaning to the Left"
”Inside Higher Ed” (3/30/05 )
Three political scientists did a survey of 1,643 faculty members at 183 four-year colleges and asked them how they identified themselves politically. This article describes the results (full report not generally available):

Faculty members in the study were asked to place themselves on the political spectrum, and 72 percent identified as liberal while only 15 percent identified as conservative, with the remainder in the middle. The professors were also asked about party affiliation, and here the breakdown was 50 percent Democrats, 11 percent Republicans, and the rest independent and third parties.

That the contemporary American university is an anti-American, pro-socialist propaganda mill is suggested by the survey above, but the true meaning of this division and its dire consequences for individual freedom hits home only through personal experiences such as Professor Klocek’s, and my own.

I was a professor for about three decades in a Political Science Department composed of democrats, socialists and Marxists. As the lone libertarian and conservative, I experience the leftism and the personal cost of this in salary and influence, and witnessed the indoctrination of students who were getting nothing but left wing propaganda.

See also the article "Nearly all my professors are Democrats. Isn't that a problem?" Yes, it is, and so tyranny is closing in on the United States

Tyranny Closing In—Unlimited Preventive Detention

2009-07-16T09:36:00.000-07:00

The Sword of Damocles hovering over the U.S. is getting closer.

Cartoon source
See Preventive detention by Nicholas N. Kittrie. They say:

Circulating in White House corridors and through Justice Department offices is a proposal for the creation of a controversial new national system of preventive detentions. This latest proposed anti-terrorism measure might be merely an attempt to better meet the "need to incapacitate dangerous people," or it might extend so far as to encompass the "full gamut of national security issues from intelligence gathering to prosecution."

Not since the infamous 1950 McCarran Emergency Detention Act, passed over President Truman's veto, has serious consideration been given in America to a program that would surrender to the executive branch the power to indefinitely detain security "suspects.”

See also The Back Door Way to Ignore the Bill of Rights  which says:

Among the most shocking aspects of Barack Obama’s presidency so far has been his embrace of the power that George W. Bush assumed to incarcerate people suspected of terrorism for the rest of their lives, without a jury trial to determine whether they are in fact guilty of the offense. There is absolutely no reason why Obama and any future president cannot expand that power to other federal criminal offenses, including drug crimes and gun crimes.

And remember the Homeland Security Report that warned police departments of the rise in “right-wing” extremism. And then we have the proposal for preventive detention also circulating in the Obama administration.

Hmmm. A random coincidence?

The Democrats Continue to Kill American Security

2009-07-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

See U.S.: Reaction to the CIA Assassination Program by Scott Stewart and Fred Burton.

In April we discussed how some of the early actions of the Obama administration were having a chilling effect on U.S. counterterrorism programs and personnel. Expanding the minimum reporting requirements under the National Security Act will serve to turn the thermostat down several additional notches, as did Panetta’s overt killing of the covert program. It is one thing to quietly kill a controversial program; it is quite another to repudiate the CIA in public. In addition to damaging the already low morale at the agency, Panetta has announced in a very public manner that the United States has taken one important tool entirely out of the counterterrorism toolbox: Al Qaeda no longer has to fear the possibility of clandestine American assassination teams.

What the Democrats did in turning South Vietnam and Cambodia over to the communists, with a resulting bloodbath of several million, they are now unintentionally and stupidly doing to the United States. They might as well post a sign that says. "Islamofascists Welcome"

Will Obama Save American Democracy?

2009-07-14T12:23:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

As I have noted in previous blogs (see ”Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Health“, ”Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Food”, ”Tyranny closing in—Illegalizing Dissension”), a Sword of Damocles—EMP and Tyranny—hangs over America and it is closing in. Obama policies are responsible for this, but will he ultimately let the sword fall? Is tyranny under him our destiny?

Not necessarily. Obama is a 1960s peacenik. His most important policy goal is social justice --redistributing income and wealth to the poor and disadvantaged, thus promoting equality and social welfare.

To do this he needs the power of government. Political freedom and democracy (except for his own freedom and election) is secondary. The free market is a cesspool of greed and profit mongering. He has displayed these views in so many ways, as shown in the above linked blogs

Obama is not necessarily antidemocratic nor seeking a dictatorship. In his view, he is motivated by the most noble humanitarian impulses. He does not pursue power per se. But he must have socialist power to help the poor here and abroad. If tyranny is an unintended consequence, well, so be it. Government, after all, is a tool to be used. He is a creature of the French Revolution, not the American. For Obama, our Constitution, created to check and balance the power of government, is an inconvenient obstacle.

Some Foreign Policy Commentary Links

2009-07-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source

Why We Don't Want a Nuclear-Free World
The former defense secretary on the U.S. deterrent and the terrorist threat.

Obama’s Moscow Retreat

Promoting democracy – with realistic idealism?

Numbering the Days of Dictators

Obama's Democracy Problem

The Abandonment of Democracy

The Dumbing Down of Democracy

Obama emphasizes democracy, human rights in Ghana

Text of Obama's Ghana speech

Obama—The 60s Peacenik

2009-07-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Cartoon source
Obama’s worldview and foreign policy are that of the 1960’s peacenik (as was his mother’s — his father was an acquaintance of mine at the University of Hawaii where I met the girl who became Obama’s mother). His pronouncements have been carefully scrubbed to align with those of liberal Democrats and the professional foreign policy establishment’s realist theory, but are radical nonetheless. He fails to promote democratic freedom and the idea of the democratic peace. He ignores the fact that democracy is a method of nonviolence and the way to world peace and human security.

As a peacnik, Obama’s underlying theme (as it is in professional peace studies) is social justice, whether in foreign or domestic policy. That is, one should promote social justice (a key Obama word)—equality, and thus socialism at home and abroad. “Justice” comes first, before democracy, before freedom, before human rights. He also is a firm believer in the moral equivalence of governments, and thus not particularly unhappy with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Honduran President Manuel, and Evo Morales of Bolivia, who are all social justice, socialist promoters over democratic rule.

For Obama, there exists a moral equivalence between liberal democracies and socialist governments. After all, the latter use power to ameliorate poverty and underdevelopment.

As did the 1960s peacenik, Obama views previous presidents as having employed power to create an American empire—a military and capitalist empire that has cruelly dominated the world for profit and power. So he peppers his foreign policy speeches with apologies for what America has done to the world. In this he is not necessarily anti-American. He is simply a child nourished by the academic leftist culture.
It follows then, Obama the peacenik is antiwar. Never mind that we have sworn enemies bent on destroying us. He inherited the Afghan and Iraq Wars. He is withdrawing from Iraq and had to compromise with supporters of a surge in Afghanistan, but he has made it a limited and perhaps self-defeating one. He has severely cut the defense budget, refused to allow an upgrading of our nukes, and despite North Korea’s nuclear and missile developments, as well as Iran’s upcoming nuclear weapons, he has cut expenditures on our missile defenses and development. He is not hardening our military capability or civilian structures against a possible EMP attack. And he rejects the notion that we are war with Islamofascism. In his administration, the War On Terror is an “Overseas Contingency Operation”. Terrorists are merely another kind of freedom fighter with the possible exception of Al- Qaeda. They are “violent extremists”, if they are mentioned at all, which is rare.

Then there is our nuclear deterrence. He espouses antiproliferation and elimination of nukes as a global policy. He fails to recognize the importance of deterrence to our security and to our democratic allies. Elimination of all nuclear weapons would be disastrous for the democracies that then would have no nuclear deterrence against rogue nations or terrorist groups. This is where the fact of the democratic peace also is critical to policy. Democracies do not make war on each other, and so nuclear weapons in their hands only deter nondemocracies. They are no danger to other democracies. Nuclear weapons in the hands of Great Britain, France, and Israel are not the same as in North Korean or Iranian hands.

In sum, Obama not only endangers democratic freedom domestically, as shown in here (see ”Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Health“, ”Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Food”, ”Tyranny closing in—Illegalizing Dissension”), but he profoundly jeopardizes American security. Thus, these questions? How long will our threatened democratic freedoms survive Obama? How long before our enemies realize our vulnerability under him? When will the Sword of Damocles fall?

Iranian Ayatollah Montazeri Issues Fatwa Against the Regime

2009-07-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

Source of carton On July 11, 2009, the liberal Iranian website www.khandaniha.eu published a fatwa by Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, the most senior contemporary Shi'ite cleric. The fatwa was issued in response to a series of queries submitted to him by Iranian intellectual and cleric Mohsen Kadivar, pertaining to the legitimacy of the current Iranian government.

Source of fatwa

The following are excerpts from the fatwa:(1)

Query: "What is the ruling regarding holders of government positions, whom shari'a law requires to act justly, honestly, and wisely... if they [do not fulfill] these requirements to any degree, but behave in a manner diametrically opposed to them?"

Reply: "If none of the requirements mentioned in this query are met, this automatically, and without any need for impeachment, brings about the de facto collapse of the velayat [the 'jurisprudent,' meaning Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei] and of the government that is in charge of administering social affairs [i.e. the government of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] – and renders null and void all decrees issued by those who hold government positions...

"In the event of a breach of any article of the contract between the two sides – namely [the contract] between the position holder and the people, who appointed him – the people may remove the position holder from his post."

Query: "What is the religious duty of the people if these position holders insist on acting in ways that contravene the religious directive of 'commanding good and prohibiting evil?'"

Reply: "As I said, both religious law and common sense [dictate that] position holders who have lost the right to administer social affairs automatically lose their posts, and their rule is no longer legitimate in any way. If they remain in their position by means of force, fraud, or forgery, then the people must express their opinion regarding the illegitimacy and unpopularity [of these position holders], and remove them from their posts in the least harmful way...

"Obviously, this is a duty incumbent upon all [and not only upon specific individuals]... and none may evade it under any pretext. The elite [i.e. the clerics] have a special obligation [to carry out this task], since they are knowledgeable in religious and civil law, and have greater ability than [the rest of the people]. Their statements have greater influence and carry greater force; therefore, they bear a greater responsibility. They must present [the people]... with an alternative [option], while [preserving the people's] unity and ideological harmony, and establishing parties as well as public and private organizations."

Query: "Do the great sins listed below, and the [position holders'] insistence on committing them, contravene the 'principle of justice' and lead to the implementation of the 'principle of tyranny?'

"1. Ordering innocent people killed and causing their death;

"2. Ordering and being involved in an armed [campaign] of threats and intimidation, and of beating and wounding innocent people in the streets;

"3. The de facto prevention of senior ayatollahs from fulfilling their religious duty of 'commanding good and prohibiting evil,' by obstructing all reasonable and legal means of non-violent protest;

"4. Denying freedom and imprisoning anyone who acts or advises [others] to act [according to the religious precept of] 'commanding good and prohibiting evil,' and extorting false confessions through pressure;

"5. Censoring media and information…;

"6. Smearing all those who protested [following the elections]... and all those who opposed the position holders, [by calling them] 'mercenaries' and 'spies of foreign [forces]';

"7. [Spreading] lies, false testimony, and false reports on all matters concerning the rights of the public;

"8. Betraying the people's trust;

"9. [Practicing] tyranny, ignoring [the people's] opinion, and disregarding the clerics' counsel and warnings;

"10. Preventing rightful owners [i.e. the people] from taking possession of the common property – [that is,] the nation's destiny;

"11. Insulting Islam and demeaning religion by presenting Islam and the Shi'ia to the world as crude, illogical, aggressive, superstitious, and despotic."

Reply: "Committing the above sins, or insisting on [committing] some of them, is incontrovertible and clear proof of the absence of justice, and is [in fact] an essential characteristic of oppression and injustice… It is obvious that any sin committed in the name of religion, justice, or the law – and especially the [sins] mentioned above – [makes] evil increase, and also causes further distancing from the religion. [These offenses entail] the most severe punishment, in this world and in the world to come, since in addition to the evil sins of fraud and of distancing [people] from the religion, they also corrupt [the very principles of] justice and law.

"In cases where according to the position holders, the acts were just and within the law, while the majority of the people maintains that they were illegal... and [that they constituted] offenses against [the people's] rights, then there is a need to act according to a ruling by honest and impartial arbitrators agreed upon by both sides."

Query: "Does clinging to principles such as 'the supreme duty of preserving the regime' justify aggression against the legitimate rights of the people and the trampling of most of the moral directives and religious commandments, such as [the commandment to be] truthful and trustworthy? Can implementing justice be suspended... under the pretext of preserving the regime's interests? What is the believers' religious duty if some position holders confuse the regime's interests with their own, and insist on enforcing their mistake?"

Reply: "...Clearly, it is not possible to preserve or strengthen the Islamic regime via oppression – which contravenes [the precepts of] Islam. This is because the need for a regime stems [in the first place from the need] to dispense justice and to protect [the people's] rights – that is, to implement the directives of Islam. So how can injustice, oppression and [other] contraventions of Islam possibly [serve to] strengthen or preserve a just Islamic regime?

"A regime that uses clubs, oppression, aggression against [the people's] rights, injustice, rigged elections, murder, arrests, and medieval or Stalin-era torture, [a regime that] gags and censors the press, obstructs the media, imprisons intellectuals and elected leaders on false allegations or forced confessions... – [such a regime] is despicable and has no religious merit...

"The proud people of Iran know very well exactly how authentic [the detainees'] confessions are; they are like [confessions obtained] by fascist and communist regimes. The nation knows that the false confessions and televised interviews were obtained from its imprisoned sons with threats and torture, and that their aim is to cover up the oppression and injustice, and to [present a] distorted [image] of the people's peaceful and legal protest...

"The state belongs to the people. It is neither my property nor yours... When the Shah heard the voice of the people's revolution, it was already too late [for him]. It is to be hoped that the people in charge [today] will not let [themselves] reach the same situation, but will become more amenable to the nation's demands, and as soon as possible...

Query: "What are the religious indications for an 'oppressive rule [velayat, meaning Khamenei],' and what are the duties of the clerics and the believers [when faced with such a regime]?"

Reply: "...Society notices justice and injustice on the part of the rulers; the signs are clear to all... [Therefore,] it the responsibility of everyone to act in the face of injustice and in the face of the trampling of the people's rights – and to inform others of this responsibility. Furthermore, [both clerics and believers] must present ways to act in these circumstances... This is because it is inconceivable that someone would claim to be pursuing justice, but would in fact do nothing to implement it, under the pretext of fear or powerlessness..."

Where is Obama's Recognition of Freedom?

2009-07-12T12:11:00.000-07:00

Photo source

The idea of social justice drives Obama’s policies, not freedom.

Missing the "freedom agenda" on the Fourth of July

By Kori Schake

This weekend we celebrate our country's independence and the courage of those brave men who met in congress in Philadelphia to chart a path to greater liberty. Despite the considerable effort Jefferson goes to in the Declaration to enumerate the crown's depredations, and the very real grievances Americans had against the British government, we stand now far enough from the colonial experience to acknowledge we rebelled against perhaps the most humane and legally responsible government of its time.
And yet we rebelled. We are a country founded on the belief that people have rights, and they loan them in limited ways for limited purposes to their government. We were made great by distrust of a largely beneficial British government, and we remain great by distrust of our own.
Which is what makes our president's response to Iran's elections so discouraging. America's reflex -- our natural position as a country -- is to stand with a people against their government when that government is infringing upon their natural rights. But our president chose the course of deference to an authoritarian government as it repressed its own people. More

Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Health

2009-07-10T13:10:00.000-07:00

So, how is the Sword of Damocles Hovering over the U.S doing? Moving away, closer?
Closing in. Note this:

Cartoon source

Health Police Manufacture An Epidemic

No one likes being called "fat," "overweight," or -- most of all -- "obese." But the truth hurts, and the sooner Tom Cruise, Mark McGwire, Michael Jordan, and President Bush acknowledge their bloated physiques, the sooner they can trim down. What's that you say? These fitness fanatics aren't fat? They are indeed, according to the federal government's Body Mass Index (BMI) standard, which uses only height and weight to classify folks as obese, overweight, or government-approved….

The faulty Body Mass Index doesn't serve the health interests of Americans. It only serves the meddlesome interests of trial lawyers and food cops. Thanks to the BMI standard, we are incessantly bombarded with the misleading statistic that 61 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. Such figures are the weak statistical foundation on which food activists build their nutritional utopias, including arguments for fat taxes and obesity lawsuits. More

See also Steele warns of 'health police' who will enforce yearly physicals

Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Food

2009-07-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

So, how is the Sword of Damocles Hovering over the U.S. doing? Moving away, closer?
It is closing in. Note this:

Cartoon Source

HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply

A new food safety bill is on the fast track in Congress-HR 2749, the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. The bill needs to be stopped.

HR 2749 gives FDA tremendous power while significantly diminishing existing judicial restraints on actions taken by the agency. The bill would impose a one-size-fits-all regulatory scheme on small farms and local artisanal producers; and it would disproportionately impact their operations for the worse. More

See also Not what the American people ordered – HR 2749, martial law and the enslavement of their farmers.

Tyranny closing in—Illegalizing Dissension

2009-07-09T11:03:00.001-07:00

So, how is the Sword of Damocles Hovering over the U.S. doing? Moving away, closer?
It is closing in. Note this:

Attorney General To Classify Pro-Life, Pro-Gun Americans As Terrorists

 07-07-2009 •
NWV News writer Jim Kouri’s revelation.

An amendment to a bill swiftly moving through the US Congress will allow the Obama Administration’s Attorney General to classify Americans as domestic terrorists if they are pro-life, pro-gun and anti-big government. More

Tyranny Closing In—Sqashing Investigations

2009-07-08T19:52:00.000-07:00

So, how is the Sword of Damocles Hovering over the U.S. doing? Moving away, closer?
It is closing in. Note this:

Conyers Backs Off Probe Of ACORN

Mr. Conyers, Michigan Democrat, earlier bucked his party leaders by calling for hearings on accusations the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now (ACORN) has committed crimes ranging from voter fraud to mob-style "protection" racket.

"The powers that be decided against it," Mr. Conyers told The Washington Times as he left the House chambers Wednesday.
More here

Cartoon Source; studentnewsdaily.com

The Death of American Democracy

2009-07-07T18:30:00.000-07:00

The most serious and realistic threats today to the United States of America are two. One foreign -- the threat of an EMP nuclear attack on the country. The other domestic -- that Congress and President Obama will turn the country into a one-party, authoritarian state—a tyranny. These threats are a sword of Damocles hanging over us all. If it falls it would be a death blow to democratic freedom as we have known it. I have written a blog on each threat. On an EMP attack, see ” EMP—The Most Deadly Threat to the U.S.” . On the danger of authoritarianism, see ”Authoritarianism On The Way”.

Authoritarianism On The Way

2009-07-05T11:17:00.000-07:00

Mike Ramirez in the NY Post
I am particularly sensitive to signals that may foretell radical changes in our political system. First, I see that Obama has become a charismatic cult figure, much loved for who and what he is. His followers, including those in the media and schools, are devoted to him. He strokes this devotion with vague and comforting rhetoric that camouflages his lust for power. He will never admit to nationalizing health care. No, he will “reform our system by expanding coverage, improving quality, lowering costs, honoring patient choice and holding insurance companies accountable.” Who is going to oppose that?

Second, the Democratic Party, with Obama as its head, has a stranglehold on Congress. Hispanics, Blacks, gays, single and employed woman, unions, teachers, most foundations, thousands of lawyers, and the major media strongly support Democrats, in some cases by well over by 70-80% percent. Then there are the leftist groups and the very rich who provide many resources for the Democratic electoral campaigns. Need I mention ACORN?

Third, Democrats are blessed with an inept and hapless Republican Party which has been unable to provide meaningful and aggressive opposition. Republicans have no clear leader, being badly fractionated into supporters of Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, and perhaps a few others such as Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Despite what the Democrats in Congress have been doing to the country and on taxes, its generic poll average is 40 percent versus 35 for Republicans. This is a testament to the power of the Democrat’s organs, and the deceptive major media which hides and lies about the doings of Obama and the Democratic Congress.

It is possible that Democrats may further overreach for power, create an abominable scandal, alienate the media, and create a huge backlash. The Republicans may get their act together, and recover as they have in the past. But, the current power grab by Democrats has no precedent. We are seeing here not a trend line, but seizure of power by leaps and bounds.

The consequence may be an authoritarian political system—a one-party state.

We have a new state religion—secularism. Government suppresses free speech for the sake of political correctness, global warming, energy efficiency, and electoral fairness. Were I teaching now, I would be fired for speaking out on things I believe are true. Businessmen are not free to fire and hire, or now, even to pay workers what they wish. Big business is at the mercy of big government.

At the last count, Obama has created directly under his control, responsible to no one else, twenty-nine czars with far reaching power over our social and economic affairs, including compensation, energy, borders, drugs, intelligence, regulations, climate, urban affairs, health, cars, AIDS, green jobs, weather, and on and on and on. Even the courts, including the strict constructionists, have become statists. The federal government now thoroughly dominates the states. State sovereignty is a mirage. In effect, the balance of power, checks and balance system, created by the Constitution is a theory for political science courses, but no longer a reality.

If you think I exaggerate, ask yourself. Are you freer today than you were years ago, even six months ago?

Relevant Link

”The New America” by David Warren

Global Warming Is A Scam For Power

2009-07-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

For those who want to keep an open mind on global warming, or feel there is some truth to it and its association with CO2, the following plots may be helpful.

Note that there were many periods when the climate had become warmer than it is today without man generated CO2. Of course, man did come along, and the cave man did breathe and build fires. And in recent years as man’s industrial CO2 vastly increased, the climate has cooled however.

These plots are from the March 2009 research study, Proposed NCEE Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act. This is the very study that the EPA tried to suppress. (See “The EPA Silences a Climate Skeptic” by Kimberley A. Strassel)

It is a flat contradiction of the mantra of the Obama Administration and supporting Democrats. It undercuts their attempt at the super regulation of not only industry but every American. Their Cap and Trade global warming bill barely passed in the House. But pass it did, and is now before the Senate. The size of this breathtaking power grab has no counterpart in our history. And those seeking it will not give up this lust easily.

This is not just another step toward an authoritarian government, it is a gigantic leap.

Three Cheers for the United States?

2009-07-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

This was written over two years ago and posted on July 3, 2005 on the H-Genocide list, and someone reposted it on the Discussion group for the Association for Humanist Sociology. One discussant, William Du Bois, termed it "Bullshit." Alan Spector submitted a long list of American "evils," and democides, in rebuttal, and claimed I was "the most shallow sort of propagandist for U.S. imperialism." Chomsky, well known for his anti-Americanism, simply claimed I seemed "more like a small time thug than a leading scholar of anything."

Well, so as not to appear patriotic, excessive, right-wing, insensitive, or in whatever other way I hit people's hot buttons, I want to express the following as simply, yet as professionally, as possible. However, all this should have a question mark. Obama’s foreign policy is an old line realist and left wing one, and not the Forward Strategy of Freedom that was Bush/s.

There now is a force in this world systematically doing what we all want done: eliminating democide and its aggressive forces, while trying to supplant it with a way of preventing it in the future.

In 1999, the United States and its NATO allies saved Kosovo from the ongoing mass murder by the Milosevic regime. It had used its military and paramilitary forces to slaughter about 10,000 Kosovo Albanians and drive out of the country perhaps a million of these poor people. The American and allied intervention also paved the way for Slobodan Milosevic to be indicted by the International War Crimes Tribunal and extradited to The Hague in June 2001 to stand trial. We should cheer this.

In 2002, United States anti-terrorist war has reduced the number of terrorist attacks to 199, a 44 percent drop from the previous year; in terms of murdered, from 3,300 in 2001 to 725. We should cheer this.

In the last nineteen months, The United States and its allies have swept away two gangs of democidal thugs and prime supporters of terrorism. Saddam Hussein's gang perhaps murdered a million in war and democide; the Taliban gang murdered hundreds of thousands. About 50 million Iraqis and Afghans that were suffering the tyranny, torture, imprisonment, and murder of these thugs are now free and on the way to democracy [which has been achieved]. We should cheer this.

There have been democratic elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, and women have been given more freedom than they had before. We should Cheer this

In the memory of many of us still, the United States and its allies rid the world of the democidal fascist regimes of Japan (over 5 million murdered), Germany (over 21 million), and Italy (over 220 thousand); saved South Korea from the democidal prison-state of North Korea (so far many millions murdered), unsuccessfully tried to save South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from murderous communist bloodbath (ultimately murdering many millions), and saved the world from the democidal horror of Soviet Communism (about 61 million murdered). We should cheer this.

Surely, those who hate democide and the lack of human rights will note that the United States is the best possible ally in our cause. Indeed, we could characterize the United States (its administrations, its congress, and its people) as the swiftest and most effective democide and ruling thug cleanser and human rights promoter we could have wished. We should cheer this.

And what historical regime but the United States would have Western Europe and Asia prostrate under its military power in 1945, and yet work to democratize its former enemies, democratize them, give them independence, and then pull out. By comparison, the Soviet Union, the only other world competitor after it recovered from the war, subjected to its total political control those nations it occupied militarily. Some will put it in these terms: the US is the only nation that tries to devise an exit strategy even before military action takes place. We should cheer this.

What international organizations, international law, and the plethora of intellectual and academic analyses and solutions have been unable to do, the United States with one coalition or another has done. It has often left in its wake democracy or the process of democratization -- the only solution to democide and war that we know of and has worked. We all are better for it. We should cheer this.

Of course, the US has committed excesses. Of course, there is much to criticize. Of course, its foreign policies have not been perfect or always on the side of the angels. Of course, it has domestic problems. It is of and by imperfect human beings. But no matter. As we should be proud and happy over a fireman that has saved families from a burning home, no matter his personal imperfections or that he was clumsy, misplaced his axe, and forgot about the families' valuable antiques, we should cheer over what the United States has done.

Three cheers for the United States?

American Exceptionalism

2009-07-02T11:01:00.000-07:00

American Exceptionalism by Monica Crowley. She is quite right about the exceptional nature of America. She writes

American exceptionalism is grounded in the founding of the United States upon an idea, rather than upon the ambitions of men. Indeed, it was designed to be a nation of laws and specifically not of men, built on the concept of individual liberty and equal justice before the law, with freedoms ranging from speech to worship, and rights from gun ownership to assembly.

Multicultural, politically correct,comparisons to other nation do not apply, until maybe recently. And Obama is now doing his eloquent and policy best to erase that exceptionalism.

EMP—The Most Deadly Threat to the U.S.

2009-07-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

This shows a single EMP weapon detonated at the northwest corner of Iowa at about 600 kilometers high. The blast would blanket all of the United States. Even at the margins of the United States, the blast is still 50%.
Source: Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, Nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse Speech, June 9, 2005.

This shows the Johnston Island test of 1.4 megatons at a height of 870 KM, which effected electrical equipment in Hawaii over 1300 KM away.

Some years ago I was so impressed by the danger to our country posed by electromagnetic radiation (EMP) that I wrote a blog on it . This danger is greater today, especially with North Korea ‘s development of missiles and nukes, China’s growing nuclear arsenal, Iran’s accelerated nuclear development, not to mention what terrorist groups may buy, steal, or acquire. We must prepare our military generally, our civilian infrastructure, and ourselves for an EMP attack.

The delivery of such nukes over the United States need not be by long range missiles. Short range missiles launched from an innocent looking freighter off the American shore will do the job.

A good summary of EMP is in the Wikipedia here.. EMP can be created by one nuclear weapon exploded high above the country. The resulting burst of electromagnetic radiation can destroy all electrical and electronic equipment on the ground if they are not hardened against it. Airplanes would crash, and cars would stop running. Computers, telephones, cell phones, radio, television and all other electrical and electronic equipment would not operate. Nor would refrigerators, lights, electrical stoves, air conditioning, and electrical heat. People would soon begin to starve and die from lack of medicine. In short, without all things that make for modern and not so modern living, cities and towns would become a state of nature—the survival of the fittest, or most savage. Law and order would collapse, roving gangs would form to scavenge food, weapons, and women, and neighborhoods would have to organize for their own defense. In effect, the country would be plunged back into the Dark Ages.

You need not imagine this scenario. William R. Forstchen’s novel, One Second After, presents this horrendous possibility for just one family and one town, and I highly recommend it for its realism.

What then is our government doing to avert this catastrophe? Any military or civilian planning? There is not a word of it today from Congress, the military, or the major media. Bit, it was once of some concern, and that resulted in the Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from
Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack. The report says in part

Electrical power is necessary to support other critical infrastructures, including supply and distribution of water, food, fuel, communications, transport, financial transactions, emergency services, government services, and all other infrastructures supporting the national economy and welfare. Should significant parts of the electrical power infrastructure be lost for any substantial period of time, the Commission believes that the consequences are likely to be catastrophic, and many people may ultimately die for lack of the basic elements necessary to sustain life in dense urban and suburban communities. In fact, the Commission is deeply concerned that such impacts are likely in the event of an EMP attack unless practical steps are taken to provide protection for critical elements of the electric system and for rapid restoration of electric power, particularly to essential services. The recovery plans for the individual infrastructures currently in place essentially assume, at worst, limited upsets to the other infrastructures that are important to their operation. Such plans may be of little or no value in the wake of an EMP attack because of its long-duration effects on all infrastructures that rely on electricity or electronics.

The ability to recover from this situation is an area of great concern. Automated control systems have allowed many companies and agencies to operate effectively with small work forces. Thus, while manual control of some systems may be possible, the number of people knowledgeable enough to support manual operations is limited. Repair of physical damage is also constrained by a small work force. Many maintenance crews are sized to perform routine and preventive maintenance of high-reliability equipment. When repair or replacement is required that exceeds routine levels, arrangements are typically in place to augment crews from outside the affected area. However, due to the simultaneous, far-reaching effects from EMP, the anticipated augmenters likely will be occupied in their own areas. Thus, repairs normally requiring weeks of effort may take much longer time than planned.

To the extent it is reasonably possible, we should prepare for and protect against the consequences of an EMP event. Cold War-style deterrence through mutual assured destruction is not likely to be an effective threat against potential protagonists who are either failing states or trans-national groups. Therefore, preparing to manage the effects of an EMP attack, including understanding what has happened, maintaining situational awareness, having plans in place to recover, challenging and exercising those plans, and reducing vulnerabilities, is critical to reducing the consequences, and thus probability, of attack. The appropriate national-level approach should balance prevention, protection, and recovery.

We have now no such preparation or national level approach. People should be preparing and stocking up on essentials much more so than they would for a deadly hurricane. They are not being told to do so. It is as though there is an official conspiracy of silence so as to not panic the public.

Of course, the possibility of such an attack is very small, but not zero. But, the most improbable does happen. Need I mention 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. However unlikely an EMP attack is, we must balance that risk against the cost to the country and to us if it happens.

$20.3 million to Settle Palestinians, including Hamas, In U.S.

2009-07-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not. Here is Executive Order E9-2488 recently signed by Obama that will settle Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza at the cost to the taxpayer of 20.3 million dollars.

And here is the article by Thomas Costanzo that drew my attention to this.

Expect this. It is Obama at work.

Democide Vs. Other Causes of Death

2009-07-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

Democide Vs. Other Causes of Death

A question I often get is how all the murder committed by governments, virtually all by criminal dictatorships (sorry, that was redundant—I need only say dictatorships) compares to other causes of death, such as war and diseases. So, below I present such a comparison chart for the world’s average annual democide rate 1900-1987 to the world’s annual death rate from other causes (this is one of a number of my attempts to visualize the world’s democide toll— link here).

Note that governments murdered more people than all deaths combined due to traffic accidents, war, homicide, and alcohol.

The total murdered by governments over 1900-1987 was 170,000,000; a less systematic update of the toll brings it to 174,000,000 for 1900-1999. [I have had to update this democide to 262,00,000] Shocking, yes? Now, think about how little is said about democide in textbooks and the media. Even more astounding, isn’t it?

For a chapter long dissection of the meaning and definition of democide, see this link.

And so, democide goes on in North Korea, Sudan, the Congo, China, Laos, Liberia, the Ivory Coast, and dozens and dozens of other dictatorships, mainly not some big episode of murder that would make the news, but as the day-by-day operation of government agencies. In other words, murder is a normal daily operation of these thugdoms.

How do we account for this continuing carnage? In these post-Cold War years, it’s the bloody success of immoral noninterventionism and obsolete realpolitiks.. Stability trumps stopping the murderous thugs, you know.

Link of Note

”Congo death toll up to 3.8m” (12/10/204) Guardian Unlimited Special Report

“Six years of conflict in Congo have claimed 3.8 million lives - half of them children - with most victims killed by disease and famine in the still largely cut-off east, the International Rescue Committee said yesterday.

“More than 31,000 civilians die each month as a result of the conflict despite peace deals, the group said, citing mortality surveys prepared with the aid of on-site medical teams. The association has for years produced the most widely used estimate of deaths in the country.”

Much of this is democide. And it goes on. And on. And on.

Global Warming Is A Fraud and An Excuse To Grab Power

2009-06-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

See David Deming's "Global Warming Is a Fraud" who says in part,

As the years pass and data accumulate, it is becoming evident that global warming is a fraud. Climate change is natural and ongoing, but the Earth has not warmed significantly over the last thirty years. Nor has there been a single negative effect of any type that can be unambiguously attributed to global warming.

As I write, satellite data show that the mean global temperature is the same that it was in 1979. The extent of global sea ice is also unchanged from 1979. Since the end of the last Ice Age, sea level has risen more than a hundred meters. But for the last three years, there has been no rise in sea level. If the polar ice sheets are melting, why isn't sea level rising? Global warming is supposed to increase the severity and frequency of tropical storms. But hurricane and typhoon activity is at a record low.

As to power, consider the so called cap and trade, global warming bill that just passed the House. Among many other requirements, you will have to pass an inspection of your house to assure that it is global warming efficient before you can sell it. The arbitrary bureaucracy this alone will involve is nauseating to imagine.

It was a Prodemocratic "Coup" Folks

2009-06-30T10:34:00.000-07:00

"Honduras Defends Its Democracy" By Mary Anastasia O'Grady

Hugo Chávez's coalition-building efforts suffered a setback yesterday when the Honduran military sent its president packing for abusing the nation's constitution.

It seems that President Mel Zelaya miscalculated when he tried to emulate the success of his good friend Hugo in reshaping the Honduran Constitution to his liking. More here

OBAMA'S EPA QUASHES CLIMATE CHANGE SCIENCE

2009-06-29T08:03:00.000-07:00

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has obtained an EPA study of the "endangerment" to human well-being ostensibly caused by carbon dioxide emissions, together with a set of EPA emails indicating that the study, which concludes that carbon dioxide is not a significant cause of climate change, was suppressed by the EPA for political reasons. More here.

One cannot question the prevailing political/environmentalist religion

Hope or Despair for the future of the United States of America

2009-06-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

I need not write a long discourse on what is happening in America today. We have been creeping toward socialism and outright statism for the last 76 years, and Barack Obama is now accelerating this movement toward the end of our free market and liberal democracy. This country may well become an authoritarian state, soft tyranny, or even totalitarian if the interference in and regulation of individual freedom continues its geometric progression.

An exaggeration? Just note some recent events. Two auto companies in effect have been nationalized. The government so controls Ford, the remaining “private” company, that it cannot produce cars it thinks will meet public demand. Some big banks have been nationalized and the rest are under government control. Even regulating employee salaries of private companies is under serious consideration.

Already affected are myriad “small things”, such as water that flushes our toilets, the catsup and hamburger we buy, the light we use (incandescent bulbs will soon disappear), what we smoke, and the guns we buy. Our right to free speech is curtailed in certain ways, such as during elections. Political correctness rules. In the not too distant future, speaking ill of certain minorities will surely become unlawful, a hate crime to be added to those already on the books.

Our courts were meant to protect our constitutional freedoms. But our judges, even the strict constructionists, now are hard or soft statists. They interpret the constitution as allowing some version of government intrusion on business and private lives, and our property. Cities and towns can now take our homes for the development of business, and our ability to change a small pond in our backyard maybe prevented by law. And many more regulations are sure to come, such as those “religious ones” in response to the pseudo-scientific threat of global warming.

As if to confirm what I am writing, the House just passed the energy nationalization Clean Energy and Security Act that “would affect the way electricity is generated, how homes and offices are designed, how foreign trade is conducted and how much Americans pay to drive cars or to heat their homes.” “would affect the way electricity is generated, how homes and offices are designed, how foreign trade is conducted and how much Americans pay to drive cars or to heat their homes.”

American culture is now changing, largely in the Southwest. The region is being slowly Mexicanized. English is becoming the second language, and in many cities and towns, unnecessary. In the country as a whole, the manuals of what we buy are in Spanish and English.

The most appalling is the weakening of America in the world and in its security. Such is the cutback in missile defense just as North Korea is testing its long and short range missiles, and the refusal to recognize that we are at war, and to respond with an enhanced defense. Nothing exemplifies this better than Obama’s frequent apologies for previous American “failures” without articulating what we have done positively in the world to defend and aid both enemies and friends.

For more detail, I highly recommend Mark Levin’s excellent, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. (A best seller with 4.5 stars by 1,587 readers).

Is then a dictatorship of some kind with an alien culture our future? It would seem so. When the only real opposition party, the Republicans were in ultimate power controlling both congress and the executive, they were a Democratic “light” party. They never confronted the assumptions of the liberal statists. While paying lip service to freedom, security, and traditional American values, Republicans have cheerfully accepted the Democrat’s agenda, tweaking it here and there. That is why socialism and statism have advanced so far in three generations, even with so many Republican presidents in power. Note that the American Clean Energy and Security Act just mentioned would not have passed without the vote of eight Republicans.

Then should we despair about our future?

No, there is hope. Futures are not fated. We control it, as we do our individual lives. Freedomists, and patriots can change it.

How so? Three things. First, Americans are generally conservative. Polls show this. Leftists and statists are a minority. How then have they been able to grasp so much power and affect our freedom, regardless of public opinion? It is because most intellectuals -- the major media, and academia -- are from the left. Barack Obama happens to be the most charismatic of them all. He is unmatched in his ability to spout vague rhetoric which his listeners interpret to hear what they want to hear. As an added bonus, he is our first black president. Small wonder people are now are also heavily invested in the success of this celebrity president.

However, an alternative media now is gaining independent power. Blogs, talk radio, Fox News, a few conservative newspapers, magazines and books, and the new social media of Twitter and Facebook. All can finesse the statists and warn the people of the suppression of their freedom, and provide an avenue for action and communication. Statists cannot prevent this. The Iranian people got their words and pictures out despite government bullets and clubs.

Moreover, large sociopolitical systems as is America change in fits and starts, like earthquakes Such is the accession of Obama. Since he assumed power, he has been marching us toward socialism, as I have noted above. But, I think his election is an anomaly due to one factor. His victory was a gift from a Republican Administration, and not the win so many think..

It is not too late if Americans are made aware of what has been done to their freedoms and values. And that realization can only come from the new media, and a reinvigorated freedomist-conservative movement within the Republican Party. It will come, I am sure.

House Passes Climate Bill

2009-06-27T08:46:00.000-07:00

We should weep for the free market and individual freedom at this abomination and the associated religious like faith in global warming:

Landmark legislation to curb U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions was approved by the House of Representatives in a close vote late Friday, securing an initial victory for a cornerstone of President Barack Obama's agenda.

After months of negotiations, the Democratic-controlled House has narrowly passed sweeping legislation calling for the nation's first-ever limits on pollution linked to global warming. Stephen Power explains the bill's implications.
The 1,200 page bill -- formally known as the "American Clean Energy and Security Act" -- will reach into almost every corner of the U.S. economy. By putting a price on emissions of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, the bill would affect the way electricity is generated, how homes and offices are designed, how foreign trade is conducted and how much Americans pay to drive cars or to heat their homes. More here

Yes, The Iranian Revolution Is About Freedom

2009-06-26T07:49:00.000-07:00

See "Freedom craving 'fuelling Iran unrest'"

Also:

Iran today is a revolution in search of its Yeltsin. Without leadership, demonstrators will take to the street only so many times to face tear gas, batons and bullets. They need a leader like Boris Yeltsin: a former establishment figure with newly revolutionary credentials and legitimacy, who stands on a tank and gives the opposition direction by calling for the unthinkable -- the abolition of the old political order.
--More in Charles Krauthammer's excellent article "What Will Mousavi Do Next?"

Message to Obama: Don't coddle a thug

2009-06-25T12:07:00.000-07:00

President Obama came into office apparently believing that his non-traditional background, charisma and good intentions could placate dictators hostile to America and ease global tensions.

In these first six months, the new administration has made clear to Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega, Russia's Vladimir Putin and other strongmen like them that Barack Obama is not a mean-talking George Bush. A kinder, gentler United States has promised to push the "reset" button. In the interest of peace, an American president would finally be listening rather than lecturing, and willing to talk to authoritarian bullies without preconditions. See more by Victor Davis Hanson

The use of the term "thug" in the above by Hanson is most appropriate for dictators, and I apply it to them all the time.

Stopping the bomb what counts

2009-06-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

Raw numbers don't mean very much in the Middle East, where running into the streets to demonstrate, usually but not always against the Great Satan, is the national sport. It's more fun than evening prayers at the mosque.

What is impressive is the simple fact of the outpouring of popular sentiment in Tehran. Lifting even a finger to mock the indifference and arrogance of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Impertinence Be Upon Him), or even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Palaver Be Upon Him), is asking for a hard thump on the head, or worse. Usually much worse. More by Wesley Pruden.

Iran will change, on its own terms

2009-06-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

How ironic. A regime that came to power through a brutal revolution, in a country suspected of secretly developing a nuclear weapon, is now facing its biggest challenge from peaceful civil disobedience.

The street demonstrations by day and haunting chants echoing across rooftops by night are not — so far — a counterrevolution.

That's not even their intention. What they are doing, however, is forcing Iran's Islamic regime to face the same ideals that have swept across five continents over the last quarter of a century — the supremacy of popular will, justice, accountability and the transparency of power. More of Robin Wright's article

The Four Keys To Obama's Mind

2009-06-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Based on the 53 minutes and answers to 15 question, here's where President Obama's mind seems to be at:

1. Obviously, he wanted to send a direct message to Iranian people without intervening. (Non-intervening interventionalism.) He is still not willing to say that the election was illegitimate. He is still willing to talk to this regime, but he didn't say who that regime included. (Strategic ambiguity.) I think the key to understanding where he's at on Iran now: ""We don't know yet how this thing is going to play out. I know everybody here is on a 24 hour news cycle. I'm not." The soundbite will be the response to the Neda murder video. That's what the world -- and the Iranian protesters -- will hear. More at Marc Ambinder

Dodge Facts, Skip Details, Govern Chicago-Style

2009-06-23T10:57:00.000-07:00

We pundits like to analyze our presidents and so, as Barack Obama deals with difficult problems ranging from health care legislation to upheaval in Iran, let me offer my Three Rules of Obama.

First, Obama likes to execute long-range strategies but suffers from cognitive dissonance when new facts render them inappropriate. His 2008 campaign was a largely flawless execution of a smart strategy, but he was flummoxed momentarily when the Russians invaded Georgia and when John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. On domestic policy, he has been executing his long-range strategy of vastly expanding government, but may be encountering problems as voters show unease at huge increases in spending. More by Michael Barone

Understanding Obama

2009-06-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

This is a revision of the commentary The American Vs. French Revolutions—A Freedomist Interpretation to shed light on President Obama’s policies.

First, some history. During the Middle Ages, the power of kings was checked by the a belief in the higher laws of God, to which kings and commoners alike - the nation, country, or kingdom, in short, the State -- were subject. But with the 16th century Reformation and the conflict between Protestantism and Catholicism, the battle was decided for the State. The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended the Wars of Religion, and established the modern nation-state system.

The power of the State in the person of kings, unchecked by the Church, was now supreme. However, kings needed legitimacy, money, and men for wars, all of which required the approval of the aristocracy. Jealous of their own power, stingy in supporting their kings, the aristocracy was a counterweight to the State, which enabled some Freedom to survive. For most of the 17th and 18th centuries, the State and Freedom therefore existed in uneasy equilibrium -- neither complete, both limited.

Then, in the late 18th century two momentous Revolutions destroyed this balance, triggered a great battle between the State and Freedom. Freedom emerged victorious in one; the State in the other. The great historical struggle since has been between the principles and conception of these two revolutions, for as the old balance between kings and aristocracies was destroyed, the success of Freedom or advance of the State has depended on the triumph of one of these two sets of principles and conceptions.

The American Revolution was the first. As a struggle against monarchical and aristocratic power, it was an explicit attempt to establish the greatest possible common Freedom. The leaders were careful historians who knew their political philosophy. Descendents of the English tradition of common law and rights, they were influenced by the great liberal philosophers, such as Sir John Harrington and John Locke. They understood that Freedom would be short-lived, that defeating an imperial State would only unleash a new State at home, unless the power of the State could be shackled. Their efforts, after a short experiment with the Articles of Confederation, were soon enshrined in the Constitution of the United States in 1787. In simple words, the Constitution was a conscious attempt to limit the State and preserve Freedom.

The Constitution's basic conception is that man pursues different, and often selfish, interests. The maximum satisfaction of all these interests requires that no one interest dominates. And what prevents such domination is a balance among opposing interests. The Constitution makers saw interests as different species in nature. A balance among them is established as each in nature pursues his different and often contradictory desires and instincts. The balance then assures the life and independence of each.

But this conception is abstract and needs a supporting structure of rights to guarantee that interests can compete and balance. If all interests share absolute Rights, then the aggrandizement of any one would be prevented. So, with this conception of Freedom being the outcome of a balancing of interests, each sustained by natural rights, the Constitution embodies three principles. One is that all men have certain inalienable Rights standing above and limiting government, the agency of the State. Among these, as enshrined in the First Amendment, are the rights to the freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, and petition.

The second principle is that all governments carry within themselves the seeds of tyranny, of the absolute State, which can be limited only by a system of checks and balances. Thus, the Constitution balances aspects of monarchy, aristocracy, and the commons in the independent powers of the executive, judiciary, and legislature; it balances a democratic tendency to mob rule by protections of minority views and rights. It balances popular representation in the House of Representatives against the equality of large and small states in the Senate. And it balances the need to satisfy popular interests with the requirement for their careful and dispassionate consideration.
The third principle is that Freedom must reign, that no man working in his own interests can be unjust against himself, and that therefore, government must be limited to defining and administering the common law.

Government is to be an arbiter between interests, to serve a janitorial role of defending and maintaining the commonwealth. All else is the preserve of Freedom.

This conception of Freedom as an outcome of contending interests, each guaranteed inalienable Rights, and the three principles of Rights, checks and balances, and limited government, constituted the American Revolution -- a revolution that established and preserved Freedom down almost down to modern times.

Only a few years after the American Constitution was founded, a second revolution -- a Counter Revolution -- occurred in France. The French Revolution of 1789 was also a revolt against the power of a monarch and aristocracy. Its motto was Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. Its end was Social Justice. Its means were to establish the sovereignty of the people, and to eliminate social and political inequalities.

Unlike the American Revolution, whose philosophical ancestors were English liberals, the French Revolution was fundamentally fathered by the French radical philosophers, especially Jean Jacques Rousseau, and inherited the faith in reason engendered by The Enlightenment. René Descartes' trust in geometric like reasoning and Rousseau's belief in the common will and sovereignty of the people framed the conception guiding the French Revolution. This conception is mechanical. Government was seen as a machine, fueled by coercive power, and driven by reason; and its destination is Social Justice. Government is thus a tool to reach a future goal -- improving man. Those in charge of the State would therefore use reason to apply government to further and create Social Justice.

This conception is clearly different from that of the American revolutionaries. For the Americans, interests were the guiding force; for the French, it was reason. For the Americans, Freedom was to be preserved against the State; for the French, the State was used by reason to achieve Social Justice. For the Americans, individual rights were essential to protect interests; for the French, the collective, the sovereignty of the people, the general will stood above rights. Finally, for the Americans, no one interest could be entrusted with the State -- all interests had to be limited and balanced by their opposition; for the French, the State was a tool that should have no limit so long as Social Justice was pursued according to the common will.

These two conceptions -- one of a natural realm of competing interests with happiness and justice as an outcome of Freedom, the other of Social Justice achieved through the State directed by Reason -- entails opposing principles. Those of the American Revolution, as I have mentioned, were of rights, of checks and balances, of limited government. Those of the French were also three, and they are in direct contradiction.

The first principle is that the benefits to the Community outweigh individual rights. This is what the common will or sovereignty of the people means -- that individuals are members of a Community which takes precedence over the individual, and that the Community has a will to be gratified, a justice to be sought, which no individual should bar.

The second principle is that the State, and thus government as its agent, can be beneficent instruments of progress, a tool to be used to pursue the common will, the Community's betterment. Government, of course, had been feared when ruled by kings and aristocrats. But in the hands of the people, government can only serve the people's ends. Therefore, government should not be checked and balanced. Its powers should not be divided, for then the State is severely restrained. The Application of Reason to further Social Justice is crippled. Unlike the Americans, the French revolutionaries did not fear the State as such, but only the State in the service of the wrong class and bad ends.

And this led to the third principle of the French Revolution -- unlimited government. As the State's implement of Reason working on behalf of the Community, government should not be limited. If necessary to pursue Social Justice, government should centralize, regulate, and control. No local or provincial government, no local council, court or judge, should be able to limit or contradict the pursuit of Social Justice by the State; no minority interest should have precedence over the General Will.

No wonder, then, that the American Revolution forged a Freedom that has survived for most of America's history, while the French Revolution created a bloodbath and an unlimited State surpassing that of previous kings and aristocracies, a despotism ending in a Napoleon whose perfidy, aggression, and power was eventually defeated by the combined arms of the frightened monarchies of Europe. But the conception and principles of the French Revolution lived on to gain new vigor.

They underlie the revolutions of 1848 in Europe, the first stirring of socialism, the writings of Marx and the birth of communism and democratic socialism. The French Revolution was defeated but the Revolution was victorious. Infecting intellectuals everywhere, its ideas eventuating in the successful Russian Revolution.

So, the American and French Revolutions launched an historic struggle between two conceptions and two sets of principles. One fosters Freedom and peace; the other furthers a statism which mankind has seldom, if ever, before known, a disease that not only blighted half the world, but even with the defeat of its most monstrous version, communism, it still infects European politics, the American liberals, and especially, the socialist left.
The opposition between these principles remains the major schism today, the major historic battlefront. It is happiness and justice as an outcome of a free balance of opposing interests, each guaranteed inalienable Rights, versus justice to be sought by reason using the State. The principles are those of individual rights versus a collective benefit; of checks and balances versus government as an unchecked instrument; of limited government and common law versus reason using government to create new law to further justice. To put this into the current political framework, we have here the opposition between Leftists and Freedomists.

Now, consider which set of principles governs the American federal, state, and local scene today. Is it not an assumption of legislators, courts, and executives at all levels, and particularly President Obama, that they have a responsibility to use the State to create Social Justice? Are not laws, regulations, and rules created to this end, and individual rights forced to give way before the presumed needs and requirements of communities, groups, or minorities? Is not Reason (often in the cloak of science) applied through government, presumably to better our lives and to protect us against our own interests? Is not planning -- that incarnation of Reason -- king?
Of course. and the best measure of all this is that largely in the service of reason's drive for Social Justice, the State now confiscates directly and indirectly somewhere between 40 to 50 cents of every American's dollar, more than kings generally dared to take from commoners. All of our earnings for the first five to six months of the year is taken by government. And this does not include the governmentally induced, hidden tax, called inflation.

And our Freedom is suffocating under a very thick blanket of rules and regulations. For example, 74,937 pages in the federal Register in 2006 covered the federal government. And that was before Obama was elected.

Thus my assertion: the Freedom established by the American Revolution has been losing in the struggle against the Counter-Revolution. Yes, Freedom still lives. But we must not be blind to the State's grip on our lives. As a professional, as a businessman, as a family member, as one simply seeking happiness, most of what one does now is subject to government rules, regulations, and laws, and can be vetoed by judges or bureaucrats who are backed up, ultimately, by the gun.

Now, on this I should also be clear. It is fashionable in intellectual circles to soundly condemn the American political and economic system. Usually, what is desired in its place is one variant or another of democratic socialism or communism. I take a diametrically opposite stand. I say that we are gradually being converted from the American to the French revolutionary principles.

Political terms are slippery and often are used or misused for political advantage. The Constitution of the United States with its First Amendment established a republic and minimum, balanced government. Its economy was initially agrarian, but the freedoms of the republic were congenial to vigorous free market growth. Today, however, the United States is neither completely free market nor agrarian. In over 200 years the republic has turned into an industrial, mixed free market-socialist democracy, less than the European, democratic socialisms of England, Denmark, or Sweden, to be sure, but along the socialist path nonetheless in adopting the conceptions and principles of the French Revolution. In this lies the source of many of our social ills and domestic violence, and not in the free market or democracy.

But, we can still reverse directions. We are still heirs to the American Revolution; we still have sufficient freedom, and the future is what we make it to be. This task alone could be the focus of all our energy and ingenuity, were it not for the thug regimes and terrorists they support that threaten us from abroad. Nonetheless, I think we can fight both battles and win. It all depends on democratic peoples understanding that the American Revolution is dying from a possibly malignant cancer - the statism of the neo-French revolutionaries, of Obama and the American left - and in one form or another, domestic or foreign, it threatens us. The people's common sense and their desire for freedom will in the end win out, if they comprehend the battle being waged against them. It is the freedomist’s mission to assure this understanding.

How then would I characterize Obama in one word? In beliefs, social justice is his rallying cry, and equality his aim. In this he is a socialist. But not all his policies are socialist, and this can be confusing. While nationalizing some corporations, as a socialist would do, he has left some big ones largely independent, although under government control and more severely regulated. This is what the fascist would do. The best characterization of him, however, is neither socialist or fascist, but Statist. He does not fear government tyranny, as did the American Revolutionary. Rather, He sees government as a tool of reason for creating social justice and equality. In this he is heir to the French Revolution

The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test

2009-06-23T07:24:00.000-07:00

Successful revolutions have three phases. First, a strategically located single or limited segment of society begins vocally to express resentment, asserting itself in the streets of a major city, usually the capital. This segment is joined by other segments in the city and by segments elsewhere as the demonstration spreads to other cities and becomes more assertive, disruptive and potentially violent. As resistance to the regime spreads, the regime deploys its military and security forces. These forces, drawn from resisting social segments and isolated from the rest of society, turn on the regime, and stop following the regime’s orders. This is what happened to the Shah of Iran in 1979; it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 or in Romania in 1989. More here:

George Friedman, The Iranian Election and the Revolution Test

Ayatollah Khomeini Ordered Massacre of 30,000 in 1988

2009-06-22T10:02:00.000-07:00

Execution of Iranian homosexuals. source

Below republished from my Democratic Peace Blog

Part of the problem in communicating the nature of our enemies and their depths of depravity is finding the right words to describe the horrors they inflict on people. The following from an article, “Khomeini fatwa 'led to killing of 30,000 in Iran’” by the diplomatic correspondent Chrisina Lamb, helps (link here):

Children as young as 13 were hanged from cranes, six at a time, in a barbaric two-month purge of Iran's prisons on the direct orders of Ayatollah Khomeini, according to a new book by his former deputy.

More than 30,000 political prisoners were executed in the 1988 massacre -- a far larger number than previously suspected. Secret documents smuggled out of Iran reveal that, because of the large numbers of necks to be broken, prisoners were loaded onto forklift trucks in groups of six and hanged from cranes in half-hourly intervals.

Gruesome details are contained in, The Memoirs of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, one of the founders of the Islamic regime. He was once considered Khomeini's anointed successor . . . . The most damning of the letters and documents published in the book is Khomeini's fatwa decree calling for all Mojahedin (as opponents of the Iranian regime are known) to be killed. . . . the fatwa reads: "It is decreed that those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the Monafeqin (Mojahedin) [regime opponents] are waging war on God and are condemned to execution."

. . . . According to testimony from prison officials -- including Kamal Afkhami Ardekani, who formerly worked at Evin prison -- recently given to United Nations human rights rapporteurs: "They would line up prisoners in a 14-by-five-metre hall in the central office building and then ask simply one question, 'What is your political affiliation?' Those who said the Mojahedin would be hanged from cranes in position in the car park behind the building."

He went on to describe how, every half an hour from 7.30am to 5pm, 33 people were lifted on three forklift trucks to six cranes, each of which had five or six ropes. He said: "The process went on and on without interruption." In two weeks, 8,000 people were hanged. Similar carnage took place across the country.

Link of Note

”A 14 year old boy is sentenced to 85 lashes for breaking his Ramadan fast!” (11/16/04 )

A 14 year old boy died on Thursday, November 11th, after having received 85 lashes; according to the ruling of the Mullah judge of the public circuit court in the town of Sanandadj he was guilty of breaking his fast during the month of Ramadan.

But, we shouldn’t intervene in Iran, even to help the anti-regime, democratic movement. Right? Yes, tell that to the dead souls of the 30,000 (among hundreds of thousands) slaughtered, and the 14-year-old boy. And all their surviving loved ones.

Why Are Revolutions As Is That in Iran Like Earthquakes?

2009-06-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

A martyr to freedom. Born in 1982, her full name was Neda Agha-Soltan. She was shot and killed by a basiji riding by on a motorcycle. She is buried at Behesht Zahra cemetery in Tehran (Source)

Neda alive. (source)

Tectonic earthquakes occur because the earth’s many tectonic plates move in relation to each other, not smoothly, but in fits and starts. Where there is contact between these plates, there may be long periods where friction holds the plates still. Then as the force for their movements builds up, it eventually overcomes the friction, and the plates suddenly jump to a new balance between friction and potential movement. The earth is still, apparently solid, until the friction gives way and we have an earthquake.

Social affairs often follow this pattern, particularly revolutions (and war). There is usually a long period in which a people's desire for change, such as for greater freedom, builds up over time. Sociopolitical dissatisfaction and tension grow, and eventually can be felt in the air. And then something occurs that crystallizes the discontent, and triggers a mass uprising. Such was the case with Iran in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini and his Mullahs overthrew Shah Pahlavi's monarchy to create an Islamic republic. Since then, Iranians have become increasingly dissatisfied over their lack of freedom, democracy, and over the Mullah's enforcement of Sharia—Islamic law -- a totalitarian legal system which governs the most personal and intimate behavior.

Thus, Iran was ready for a trigger event. There was in Iran, as among all people, a natural reluctance to endanger oneself and one's loved ones, to risk prison, torture, and death. This was the friction that prevented large scale protests and demonstrations until now. The reelection of incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the context. A blatantly stolen election provided the trigger. And the people’s dissatisfaction turned into trembling outrage at this final injustice. They have turned on their authoritarian government with a massive outpouring of protests—a sociopolitical earthquake— not simply over the election fraud, but more profoundly, at their lack of freedom.

Links of Day

Robin Wright's "The evolution of Iran's revolution"

Robin Wright, the author of "Dreams and Shadows: The Future of the Middle East," has been covering Iran since 1973. She is a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

"Freedom craving 'fuelling Iran unrest'"

And then there is Obama's terribly weak response. So, let us consider his world by Victor Davis Hanson
"Obamaworld"

Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and author, most recently, of "A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War."

One blog, Three Pillars

2009-06-20T11:33:00.000-07:00

My Freedomist View is based on three pillars. One is a theory of conflict, war, democide, and cooperation called the Conflict Helix, which can be found on my website, especially in my five volumes of Democratic Peace. These tests are best exemplified by Statistics of Democide.

The third pillar is the lifetime of research I have done on the historical, social, and political role of freedom. This research has been posted on the above website and blog, and is reflected in my The Bluebook of Freedom.

Link of Day

"3 foreign women dead in Yemen, al-Qaida suspected"
I trust these women were read their rights when captured. And given a fair trial and right of appeal before execution.

Iran--Freedom Ahoy in pictures and articles

2009-06-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Drop Dead, Obama says to Iranian protesters

Public Wary of Obama

Obama Clueless on Iran

Understanding the Age of Obama

Analysts See Demonstrations Bringing Fundamental Changes to Iran

Iran's People Revolution in pictures

2009-06-18T06:25:00.000-07:00

SLIDESHOW of the Day

Iran's People Revolution in pictures

Iranian Election Revolution—Drop Dead Obama Tells Protestors

2009-06-17T12:06:00.000-07:00

"Seven die as Iran gripped by greatest protest since Islamic revolution"

Link of Day

"Obama refuses to 'meddle' in Iran"

On Iran's People's Uprising

2009-06-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

Link of Day

Ahmadinejad at Press Conference: 2,000 or 3,000 People Took to the Streets, Like Spectators at a Soccer Match

2009-06-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

Link of Day

Western Misconceptions Meet Iranian Reality

Why This "A freedomists View" Blog?

2009-06-14T19:38:00.000-07:00

This is a blog for those who want to foster freedom, through communication and activism, at home and abroad. Whether you are a Democrat, a Republican, a Libertarian, or conservative or liberal, if you believe that individual freedom is foremost, as a right of all people and as an obligation to free those now suffering repression and enslavement by the dictators of this world, this blog is for you.

Why invent a new term, freedomist or freedomism? Why not one of the conventional political party labels?
Because freedom is not their central theme, although a few of their leaders may emphasize such in some instances. Among Republicans, former President
Bush is representative. Mr. Bush was a Freedomist in his foreign policy, to a much lesser extent in his economic policies, and not at all in his traditional social conservatism.

Democrats, including President Obama, who is to the far left of his party, and liberal Congressional Democrats, may want to spread democratic freedom, but give precedence to the UN, normalcy, and stability in international relations.
National defense is important, but second to diplomacy, international aid, and building bridges to past and present enemies. Moreover, Democrats are soft socialists at home, believing in nationalization, tight economic regulation and controls, spreading the wealth, equality, and cradle to grave welfare. However, on social matters (such as prostitution, drugs, and abortion) they do emphasize freedom, rhetorically and in their policies.
Surely then, the libertarians are much closer to what I mean by freedomists. As a youth, with my heart on my sleeve, I was a democratic socialist. In the early 1970s, persuaded by the arguments of
Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek, and Milton Friedman, I became a libertarian. And libertarian is what I called myself until recently. I remain so in domestic policy, which is to say the more freedom from regulation, government ownership, control, taxation, and oppressive laws, the better, up to a point. I am not an anarchist, but believe social justice means minimal government consistent with protecting and guaranteeing equal civil and political rights to all.
However, on foreign policy libertarians, with some exceptions, are isolationists fundamentally opposed to foreign involvements and interventions. They want international relations also to be free, with free trade and commerce, and freedom for other countries to do whatever they want with their people. Not our business.

On this, libertarians are blinded by their desire for freedom, not realizing that everything, including freedom, demands contextual qualification (should a carrier of a dangerous infectious disease be free to spread it far and wide, perhaps killing thousands with it?). Isolationism makes the world safe for the gangs of thugs (dictatorships) who murder, torture, and oppress their people, and rule by fear.
Not our business, the libertarian still will say. Thus we must infer that such a horrific violation of his fundamental belief in freedom is fine, as long as somebody else is suffering, and not I, my loved ones, nor my friends.
This is blindness to the libertarian's own welfare. In an age of readily transportable biological weapons, such as anthrax, and nuclear weapons, a country like the U.S. no longer can afford to ignore what goes on elsewhere in the production and deliverability of such weapons. Those who hate the democracies and their libertarian values will not hesitate to use them. We are vulnerable. Involvement and intervention in the rapacious affairs of thug regimes are necessary to protect democracies, not to mention advancing human rights and the freedom libertarians praise. Quite simply, no thug regimes can be trusted with either the possession or the capability of producing such weapons.

I believe many of you are freedomists (“ist” meaning a follower or believer in certain beliefs, such as in socialist or feminist). Come, join me. Subscribe to this site. Be part of an intellectual network of freedomists, and help promote freedomism.

A Freedomist View

What? A Solution To War, Genocide, And Mass Murder

47% Will Pay $0 Income Tax in 2009

World Nonproliferation Is Politically Asinine

The Prescient Peace Prize For Appeasement

A docudrama Of The Armenian Genocide

March 30, 1916 Sambayat, Turkey

Forty-three Miles Away

Link of Note

"Statistics of Turkey's Democide:Estimates, Calculations, and Sources" By R.J. Rummel

Vietnam and the Afghanistan Debate

Tyranny In View--The Not So Stealth Obama Coup

Why Such Support for the Lie that is Global Warming?

It is Worse Than Celebrating the Holocaust

Is Global Warming A Criminal Conspiracy? Part II

Is Global Warming A Criminal Conspiracy?

Where goes Afghanistan and Iran?

Understand the UN--It Is Thugsville

Strange! Global Warming Data Disappears

The Clunkers Fiasko. Not a Parody

Hitler Myths

Growing EMP concern

Panel: Electrical grid vulnerable to terrorist attack

Cyberdissidents.org—Great New Organization

Was The Democratic Peace Killed? Part VI, Death By Obama

Was The Democratic Peace Killed?—Part V, Prs. G.W. Bush's Forward Strategy Of Freedom

Health "Reform"? Big Sigh

47 Million Uninsured? No, It is 13.6 Million

Poem and Music On Democide

Obama’s Communist Czar—OMG

Was The Democratic Peace Killed—Part IV, Prs. Clinton's Foreign Policy

Afghanistan Is Winnable

Cheney Says It All

The Kennedy Love Dysfunction

Was The Democratic Peace Killed?--Part III, Foreign Policies

It Is Treason, But Nobody Will Say So

Antarctic melting! NOT

Was The Democratic Peace Killed--Part II, International Relations

Credit May Get Worse Before Better

Was The Democratic Peace Killed--Part I Bibliographies.

Tell Obama What You Think Of His Socialism

Socialism One Law At A Time

Obamacare To The Old—Drop Dead

Again, Why Vote Republican?

Saudi Arabia—The World's Largest Women's Prison

Tyranny Closing In—The Stealth Coup

Says it all on Unemployment

Progress in Global Democracy

War on Terror Is History

Listen. Clunkers No, Missile Defense Yes

A Clunker Government Running HEALTHCARE?

Not Health Care Reform--It's NATIONALIZATION

Vietnam--Grabbing Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory

A Picture of Democrat Nationalized Health Care

Yes, Global Warming Is About Political Power

The Great Labor Camp Mortacracy That Is North Korea

What is this "Tyranny Closing In"?

Tyranny Closing In—Blog Censorship

OMG, I Cannot Believe The Health Nationalization Bills

No Matter A Socialist Economy Impossible, It Wins Power

How Could EMP Be the Death of America?

War is Coming

So What If A Lie?--It Is The Politics of Power

The Great Global Warming Power Grab

Tyranny Closing In—University Leftism

Tyranny Closing In—Unlimited Preventive Detention

The Democrats Continue to Kill American Security

Will Obama Save American Democracy?

Some Foreign Policy Commentary Links

Obama—The 60s Peacenik

Iranian Ayatollah Montazeri Issues Fatwa Against the Regime

Where is Obama's Recognition of Freedom?

Missing the "freedom agenda" on the Fourth of July

Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Health

Health Police Manufacture An Epidemic

Tyranny Closing In—Nationalizing Food

HR 2749: Totalitarian Control of the Food Supply

Tyranny closing in—Illegalizing Dissension

Attorney General To Classify Pro-Life, Pro-Gun Americans As Terrorists

Tyranny Closing In—Sqashing Investigations

"Statistics of Turkey's Democide:
Estimates, Calculations, and Sources"
By R.J. Rummel