Secession and Nullification

Walter E Williams - Secession and Nullification

Edward Snowden & Ayn Rand

Did Edward Snowden Draw His Main Inspiration from Ayn Rand?p por Jeffrey Tucker:

.. This makes sense of so much. In the novel, everyone faces a gigantic and oppressive state apparatus that is gradually pillaging the producers and driving society into poverty. Each person who confronts this machine must make a decision: join it, defend it, ignore it, or fight it through some means. Those who take the courageous route know better than to take up arms. Instead, they do something more devastating. They walk away and deny the regime their own services. They decline to partake in their own destruction. In so doing, they are doing society a great service of refusing to have their talents contribute to further oppressing society.

There we have it. Edward Snowden must have had this riveting story in his mind. As any reader of Atlas can attest, the book creates in your mind a huge and dramatic world filled with epic moral decisions. People are tested by their willingness to stand up for what is right: to stand as individuals confronting gigantic systems against which they otherwise appear to be powerless. Her message is that one human mind, inspired to action by moral principle, can in fact change the word.

Here is where Rand’s book is decidedly different from all the other postwar literature in defense of freedom against the state. She was emphatic about the individual moral choice. She created a fictional world, a tactile and unforgettable world, in which history turns on doing what is right, regardless of the personal risk and even in the face of material deprivation.

3-D Printed Gun

Cody Wilson: Happiness is a 3-D Printed Gun

Ilegitimidade democrática

Watch Politicians Snap When Alternative Media Journalist Asks them One Short Question:

One of the best and most crucial questions that Helfeld has asked over the years is simple enough: “can you delegate a right that you don’t have to someone else?”
This simple question has caused dozens of politicians to either become aggressive, run away, or both because it points out that they do not have the right to do the things that they do in the name of government.
To use an example, if an average citizen does not have the right to steal from his neighbor, then he can not go ahead and vote for one of his friends to do it. Furthermore, if a particular group, even a group with a majority in a certain area decided to vote for themselves or one another, to steal from innocent people, they would not be justified in doing so. In this situation, these people would essentially be granting a privilege to another person that they themselves did not have, which is obviously a ridiculous idea.

However, this is exactly how democracy and representative government works. The power of the politicians is supposedly granted by the people. However, average people don’t have the right to do things that politicians and agents of the state do on a regular basis. Therefore, the people living in a democracy never had the authority that they allegedly gave their government to begin with, which means that this authority does not exist and that the government does not have a right to use it.

Climate Change NOT Alarming

Climate Change: What's So Alarming?

End the Fed

End the Fed To Really ‘Make America Great Again’:

Federal Reserve-generated increases in money supply cause economic inequality. This is because, when the Fed acts to increase the money supply, well-to-do investors and other crony capitalists are the first recipients of the new money. These economic elites enjoy an increase in purchasing power before the Fed’s inflationary policies lead to mass price increases. This gives them a boost in their standard of living.

By the time the increased money supply trickles down to middle- and working-class Americans, the economy is already beset by inflation. So most average Americans see their standard of living decline as a result of Fed-engendered money supply increases.

Electoral College

Let's Expand the Electoral College:

The current confusion about the mechanics of the electoral college appear to be largely a function of the fact that it is now widely forgotten that the United States is intended to be collection of independent states, and not a unitary political unit.

For an illustration of why a system like the electoral college is so essential, we can look to the European Union. Consider, for example, if the European Union were to hold a union-wide election for a single chief executive. (The EU does not hold such an election, however, because the EU is controlled by appointees, and because there is no president in the conventional sense.)

If the EU were to do this, we would immediately notice that a small handful of large and populous member countries could dominate election and policy decisions union-wide. Without some sort of mechanism to even out these disparities, smaller states wold continually be at the mercy of the larger ones.

speak ill of the dead

By all means, let’s speak ill of the dead this week:

And that’s the real takeaway from Castro’s contemptible existence. We shouldn’t constrain his infractions to the realm of economics—he chose socialism over capitalism; what an idiot—because the evil of his legacy is so much more instructive and universal than that. Castro’s Cuba is a reminder that government, given expansive power, will inevitably enrich itself and abuse others, regardless of whether it claims to be acting in the name of tradition, nationalism, the poor, science, whatever. This truth applies however incremental the state’s interventions might be, whether in Havana or at the VA. And just as Castro ascended in a relatively advanced Latin-American nation, so, too, could it happen here, if we allow government to seize more than it should.

That may be the only good to come from Castro. He died less than a month after Election Day and bequeathed to us a timely lesson.

Gun Freedom

An AR-15 in Every Home: 3D Gun Printer Cody Wilson on Resistance, Trump, the Media, & More

donde vem a legitimidade do Estado

Tiros na água…:

Na verdade falta tudo, porque ao Estado nada escapa. E eu todos os anos me interrogo porque é que em vez de andarmos a discutir este ou aquele número, a justiça deste ou daquele imposto, a relevância desta ou daquela fábrica de baterias operada por robots, não discutimos antes o seguinte: qual é a legitimidade do Estado para cobrar impostos, determinar o que estudam os nossos filhos, quantos filhos devemos ter, tratar-nos da saúde, transportar-nos, quem recebemos em nossa casa e quanto lhe cobramos, a quem damos boleia e quanto lhe cobramos, o que comemos ou o que bebemos? Era isto o que deveríamos debater até à exaustão: donde vem a legitimidade do Estado para nos saquear, se endividar em nosso nome e no fim, não satisfeito, ainda determinar onde gastamos o pouco que nos sobrou depois do assalto?

the Myth of Nordic Socialism

Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism

Liberdade do Estado

Poupar é ser livre por André Abrantes Amaral:

A extrema-esquerda, e este PS que lhe dá palco, não gosta de quem poupa porque quem o faz não precisa dela. É independente, livre de escolher outro caminho. A sociedade ideal, a sociedade estável, é aquela em que se trabalha no Estado ou em empresas que estejam debaixo do olho do governo. Se somarmos a isso o não termos qualquer poupança que nos valha nos tempos de aflição, não passamos de ovelhas de costas viradas para os lobos. Poupar tornou-se um ato de resistência.

Ódio de classe! por Maria de Fátima Bonifácio:

Também aprendi a “acumular dinheiro”!!! Quer dizer, a poupar o necessário para evitar depender de terceiros. Aprendi o valor da independência, condição da liberdade, o meu valor supremo .. Tenho orgulho de classe. Porquê? Porque a civilização burguesa, a que pertenço, foi a primeira civilização na História a dignificar o esforço e o trabalho.

Debunking White Privilege

Debunking White Privilege: The Economic Reality

O Papa anticapitalista

La última del Papa Francisco: "Las empresas no deben existir para ganar dinero":

Si la semana pasada el Papa Francisco comparaba el cristianismo con el comunismo ignorando el genocidio que acometió este régimen durante décadas, este jueves, el pontífice argentino carga contra los empresarios del mundo.

En su discurso, el pontífice argentino les recordó que considera que "el dinero es el estiércol del diablo" y sostuvo que las empresas "no deben existir para ganar dinero", sino "para servir"

El Papaflauta:

A ustedes les puede sorprender la frase, pero se la explicarán mejor si tienen en cuenta otra afirmación que el Papa ha hecho en la misma audiencia, y que ya había pronunciado anteriormente: "El dinero es el estiércol del diablo". Ahí es nada.

Pero ahora ya tiene uno que pensar que, tal y como apuntaba Federico Jiménez Losantos este domingo, estamos, simplemente, ante alguien que no es capaz de pensar con claridad, por decirlo de una forma suave. Ante una persona que no sólo tiene una empanada teológica –e ideológica– de primera, sino que, directamente, necesita ayuda profesional.

Viniendo de cura rojo, el Santo Padre ha derivado en Papaflauta. Es un camino que podía resultar previsible pero que no deja de parecernos bastante lamentable a aquellos que, desde fuera del seno de la Santa Madre Iglesia, en los últimos años habíamos encontrado en ella una institución que, con sus más y sus menos, defendía grandes valores que muchos podíamos compartir: la libertad y el ser humano.

Algo que es evidente que Bergoglio ha decidido no hacer.

Virtue-signalling

"Virtue signalling" mini-film by James Bartholomew BBC 2 Daily Politics

Government Has a Toxic Personality

Government Has a Toxic Personality:

Travis Bradberry, the “emotional intelligence” columnist for Forbes, recently wrote a viral piece on toxic personality types and why you should stay away from them. Such toxicity can’t be fixed. They drain you emotionally. They sap your creativity. They disable your ability to function at your highest level. They bring down everyone around them. They make you unhappy. The only thing you can do is get away.

As I read it, it occurred to me that government itself manifests each of these traits and adds a few more, which explains why people want government out of their lives. Sadly, it’s not so easy as just walking away.

The Person Who Always Takes, Never Gives | The Passive-Aggressive | The Constant Downer | The Punisher | The Liar

The original article says that the solution to toxicity is to walk away. We keep trying. We vote the party in power out and a new party in, but the problem persists. We seek reforms and can’t get them. This is an institutional problem. There is no solution besides changing the institutions.

The article is right. We can’t be truly functional, creative, and happy until we get the toxicity out of our life, regardless of the source.

non-entitlement mentality

Nathaniel Branden - Capitalism vs The Vision of a Risk-Free Universe

How Libertarian Activists Helped Impeach Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff

How Libertarian Activists Helped Impeach Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff:

The backstory is of particular interest to libertarians. Today's impeachment probably wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the Free Brazil Movement, a libertarian activist group that was determined to bring Rousseff down. The group helped organize a succession of demonstrations over the past year and a half that involved millions of anti-Rousseff protesters. In May of 2015, the Free Brazil Movement led a 33-day, 750-mile march from São Paulo to the federal capital of Brasilia while carrying an impeachment bill to deliver to Congress. After arriving in Brasilia, members of the group sat down with congressional leaders to make their case. Throughout the process, the group continued to meet with members of congress, promising to mobilize their constituents against them if they didn't come out in favor of impeachment.

Feet voting

The Most Effective Way To Vote

Refuse to Vote

I'm an Economist and I Refuse to Vote:

My honest answer begins with extreme disgust. When I look at voters, I see human beings at their hysterical, innumerate worst. When I look at politicians, I see mendacious, callous bullies. Yes, some hysterical, innumerate people are more hysterical and innumerate than others. Yes, some mendacious, callous bullies are more mendacious, callous, and bully-like than others. But even a bare hint of any of these traits appalls me. When someone gloats, "Politifact says Trump is pants-on-fire lying 18% of the time, versus just 2% for Hillary," I don't want to cheer Hillary. I want to retreat into my Bubble, where people dutifully speak the truth or stay silent.

Indeed, if, like von Stauffenberg, I had a 50/50 shot of saving millions of innocent lives by putting my own in grave danger, I'd consider it. But I refuse to traumatize myself for a one-in-a-million chance of moderately improving the quality of American governance. And one-in-a-million chance is grossly optimistic.