heinous criminals

Robert Higgs (FB):

To look at these people, you'd hardly suspect that they are the most heinous criminals, that some of them have sent subordinates to murder thousands of innocent men, women, and children; that some have overseen the kidnapping of millions of Americans who have violated no one's just rights; that some have subordinates who routinely bully and threaten sick and dying people by withholding from them medicines, treatments, and medical devices that might save their lives or diminish their suffering; that some oversee subordinates who enforce rules that keep millions of persons out of gainful employment; that some oversee subordinates who extort trillions of dollars from people who have done nothing to deserve such plunder -- and that every one of them lives by receiving extorted money.

To the naked eye, these capi di tutti capi seem to be well-scrubbed, well-dressed, middle-class, inoffensive, and even affable people, as different as anyone can imagine from the thugs who lurk on city street corners menacing passers-by with ominous glares and taunting catcalls. Yet their criminality is many orders of magnitude greater than that of the common urban miscreant. The greatest criminals know how to conceal their true character and, much more important, how to misrepresent -- indeed, to turn upside down -- the nature of their true roles in society.

The State Is Too Dangerous to Tolerate

The State Is Too Dangerous to Tolerate | Robert Higgs

NATO

Disband NATO! por jacob g. hornberger:

Deception and double-cross are precisely what NATO did to Russia after the end of the Cold War. They promised Russia that when the Warsaw Pact dissolved, NATO would go by the wayside too. It was a lie. They never intended to dissolve NATO. After all, dissolving NATO might mean no more crises, and everyone knows that crises are an essential prerequisite for the continued existence of the U.S. national-security state.

So, while the Warsaw Pact was disbanding, NATO was expanding … eastward, inexorably absorbing the countries that had formerly been members of the Warsaw Pact. The expansion brought NATO closer and closer to Russia’s borders. Anti-missile systems close to Russia were planned. And then NATO proposed to absorb Georgia and Ukraine, which would place NATO (including Germany) right on Russia’s borders and even place Russia’s longtime military bases in Crimea under NATO jurisdiction.

an Impossible Libertarian Dream

Not Even Achieving an Impossible Libertarian Dream Will Suffice:

Libertarians dream of cutting back the bloated Leviathan under whose weight people now struggle simply to catch their breath—breathing freely being almost beyond imagination. A few of us dream of eliminating the state altogether, however much we recognize the impossibility of doing so. Many more libertarians, however, believe that in propitious circumstances, the state might be slashed substantially.

We want a free society, but not even cutting real federal outlays by half would allow us to attain that goal. Indeed, it would leave us with the amount of real federal outlays the government actually made in 1984; and the Leviathan of 1984 is exactly the one of which I wrote in the original preface of my book Crisis and Leviathan, as follows:

Now, in virtually every dimension, our lives revolve within rigid limits circumscribed by government authorities; we are constrained continually and on all sides by Big Government. Regulations clutter the landscape. Governmental spending equals almost four-tenths of the gross national product.”

In short, just half the federal government’s current real outlays would suffice to sustain what I referred to in the mid-1980s as “that awesome aggregation of forces, programs, and activities we know as Big Government.

.. cutting the government’s real outlays in half is impossible unless some freakishly unlikely event, such as an enormous asteroid’s striking the earth, should occur. The only realistic libertarian goals—the only ones with even a ghost of a chance of attainment—are tantamount to removing a few grains of sand from the beaches of southern California. Not even the realization of my hypothetical “impossible dream” can create a free society; indeed, it can’t even bring us close to such a society. We have come too far; the monstrosity the American people have built is much, much too heavy for them to push off. So far as turning the United States into a free society is concerned, we simply cannot get there from here.

Paraísos fiscais

From Rags to Riches: The Cayman Islands Revolution | Learn Liberty

A escravatura dos tempos modernos

A escravatura dos tempos modernos:

E, no entanto, se substituirmos o protagonista principal desta história pelo Estado tudo passa a ser permitido. É permitido que trabalhemos 6 meses do ano só para pagar o punhado do feudo ao suserano Estado. Estamos proibidos de estipular um valor abaixo daquilo que este decreta. Estamos sujeitos à ampla discricionariedade dos legisladores, dos burocratas e da panóplia de indivíduos cuja vida se resume a impor sobre a vida dos outros. É o “bem comum”, clamam.

The Truth About Taxes

The Truth About Taxes

incurable fanatics

Lawrence W. Reed:

When someone accuses you of being a "fanatic" because you're passionate about liberty and concerned about the harm its erosion does to real people, cite this:

If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow-creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large

William Wilberforce, addressing attacks on his anti-slavery positions in 1816.

What is Social Justice?

What is Social Justice?

Hitler and the socialist dream

Hitler and the socialist dream:

It is now clear beyond all reasonable doubt that Hitler and his associates believed they were socialists, and that others, including democratic socialists, thought so too.

.. His differences with the communists, he explained, were less ideological than tactical. German communists he had known before he took power, he told Rauschning, thought politics meant talking and writing. They were mere pamphleteers, whereas "I have put into practice what these peddlers and pen pushers have timidly begun", adding revealingly that "the whole of National Socialism" was based on Marx.

That is a devastating remark and it is blunter than anything in his speeches or in Mein Kampf ..

The claim that Hitler cannot really have been a socialist because he advocated and practised genocide suggests a monumental failure, then, in the historical memory. Only socialists in that age advocated or practised genocide, at least in Europe, and from the first years of his political career Hitler was proudly aware of the fact. Addressing his own party, the NSDAP, in Munich in August 1920, he pledged his faith in socialist-racialism: "If we are socialists, then we must definitely be anti-semites - and the opposite, in that case, is Materialism and Mammonism, which we seek to oppose." There was loud applause. Hitler went on: "How, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-semite?" The point was widely understood, and it is notable that no German socialist in the 1930s or earlier ever sought to deny Hitler's right to call himself a socialist on grounds of racial policy.

Recycle Smarter

Recycle Smarter than a Third Grader! | Learn Liberty

Rant Liberal do Dia

Não querem trocar umas ideias sobre o assunto?

Jovem, se és 1) um idealista "útil" 2) simplesmente queres viver à custa de outros 3) um sociopata animalesco -- junta-te a nós: temos lugares no parlamento e nas autarquias, tempo de antena e tratamento fofinho nos media, arruadas e bandeiras, festivais de Verão e bancadas de honra no Campo Pequeno, e foices e martelos para cobrires todo o país de vermelho!

Snowdern

Snowden to EU: No legal means challenge mass surveillance (FULL VIDEO)
Snowden to EU: No legal means challenge mass surveillance (FULL VIDEO)

Salário mínimo, política pulha e canalha

Salário Mínimo = excluir por legislação a gente menos produtiva do mercado de trabalho = política pulha e canalha.

Os ausentes por João Miranda

Socialism vs Capitalism

David Boaz: "Socialism vs Capitalism"

Confiança

Cronista Convidado: À Confiança por Pedro Boucherie Mendes:

.. É tempo para avançar e o cimento deve ser outro, o da confiança. Sem grande poesia, só precisamos de menos estado e mais confiança entre nós. Menos leis e regulamentações, menos carimbos e menos impostos e mais apertos de mão, sorrisos e palavras. Mais ambição e mais competição. Menos nivelamento por baixo, menos medo e mais ousadia. Mais bravata e menos cautela e caldo de galinha. Um estado gordo, cheio de dinheiro e ilusão atrai compadrio, arranjinhos, conhecimentos, almocinhos, jantarinhos, iniciativas e eventos. Não é isso que criticamos à boca pequena nos tais destinos do mundo novo? Que há uma elite, um estado que parece dono daquilo e que dificulta as coisas, os negócios e as iniciativas? Cá era igual e essa sombra, mesmo a enfraquecer, ainda nos arrefece. Mas estamos a aquecer.

A dívida, o défice, os buracos nas contas são tão maus que estão prestes a tornar-se indizíveis, mas é objetivo que estamos melhor. É factual. Estamos falidos, foi-se o garantismo do estado, acabaram os financiamentos, enterramos Keynes, mas muitos de nós estão vivos e agora é connosco. Com as pessoas, os indivíduos, entre eles. Uns a puxar pelos outros.

Are People Born Good?

Are People Born Good?

Secessão

89% of Veneto residents vote for independence from Rome

The Public-Private Role Reversal

Glenn Greenwald: The Public-Private Role Reversal

Secessão - precedentes

O "precedente do Kosovo":

Confesso que me parece díficil perceber o raciocínio que diz que um país proclamar a sua independência sem o reconhecimento do estado soberano não pode ser, mas já pode ser obrigar a tiro o estado soberano a conceder a independência - é um pouco como ser contra o roubo por esticão (agarrar a mala de alguém e desatar a fugir) mas já não ser contra o roubo à mão armada (apontar uma pistola a alguém e dizer "a mala ou levas um tiro").

Libertarian Infighting

Libertarian Infighting

What Libertarianism Is

What Libertarianism Is, and Isn't:

Libertarianism, in other words, in its pure and undiluted form, is intellectually rigorous, morally consistent, and altogether exciting and thrilling. It need not and should not be fused with any extraneous ideology. This can lead only to confusion, and to watering down the central moral claims, and the overall appeal, of the message of liberty.

Resisting the Growth of Governments

Resisting the Growth of Governments (Don Boudreaux)

Nuances

4 Concepts About the Ukraine Crisis That Shouldn't Be So Hard to Understand:

4. It is possible to believe it's bad that Russia's sticking its snout into its neighbor's affairs and that it would be dumb for the U.S. to intervene to stop it.

Disagree with any of those combinations of views that you want. But don't act as though they're inconceivable. There have been a lot of logical leaps in the debates over the ongoing crisis, particularly—and most dangerously—from the folks who don't seem able to understand #4.

Kirzner on Rothbard & Libertarianism

Kirzner on Rothbard & Libertarianism

Libertarians not nice

Top 10 Reasons Libertarians Aren’t Nice To You por Christopher Cantwell:

10. Ridicule works.
9. If you already have an ideology, we’re actually not terribly concerned with convincing you.
8. We’re not trying to win elections
7. We’ve already had this discussion a hundred times
6. All those “what ifs” you’re so concerned about, they’re called choices.
5. I can’t teach you economics in 140 characters or less
4. We actually are smarter than you
3. Our moral superiority is justified
2. We’re not asking for much
1. You always resort to violence

Rant Liberal do Dia

Esta escumalha não se esconde. É aquela "coerência" que tanto elogiam quando finalmente se tornam "bons comunistas". Interessante é que a maltosa social-democrata tem os mesmos princípios, mas fica-se pelo impessoal* -- "sustentabilidade do sistema social", etc. Que uns sustentem outros que nem conhecem. E quanto mais mecanicamente, e mais eufemísticamente, tudo isto for gerido, melhor. Entre uns e outros, estamos bem entregues.

O comunismo, ou como viver à custa dos filhos dos outros

* palavra mais adequada seria "a-individual", afinal todos eles gostam muito _de_ pessoas, desde que bem organizadinhas em escalões para abate fiscal. Não falam é _das_ pessoas - dos indivíduos. Ao nível individual o grotesco de facto vem ao de cima.