Month: February 2016

Why America Needs Ted Cruz

Whatever else might be said about Ted Cruz, there is absolutely no denying that he is a true conservative.

It’s late on a Friday night, and a band of friends have been tearing it up at bar after bar. It’s been a night to remember, and they will be talking about it for weeks to come, at least the parts they remember. It’s time to head home to their wives, and the drunks start to argue which of them should drive the group home. The two rowdiest drunks insist they are fine driving the others home, because they have been doing it for years. The third grabs the keys from the other two, insisting that since he bought the drinks, he gets to drive.

This starts a new round of arguing, when the bouncer walks out of the bar and sees these poor drunks scuffling in the middle of the parking lot. He snags the keys from the drunken louts and, with a steely eye, firmly tells them that they can either ride with him, or they can call a cab, but none of them is leaving that parking lot behind the wheel of a car. That’s Ted Cruz. Sure, he might be a giant buzz kill for politicians drunk on the fun house of mirrors that is Washington, DC politics, but he’s on the right side of fundamentals.

Most importantly, Ted Cruz is the only candidate on the right side of the fundamentals. Whatever else might be said about Ted Cruz, there is absolutely no denying that he is a true conservative.

Ted Cruz is right on the Constitution. Only Rand Paul brought up the Constitution as much as Ted Cruz. If we want our Republic back, then we need to retake our Constitution. Say what you like, he is as close to dead on regarding the constitutional principles as any political candidate in 25 years. He not only believes in the Constitution, he lives by it. If Ted will not reestablish the limitations on the office of President, outside of Rand Paul, I can think of no other man or woman in political office that would.

Ted Cruz has been there and done that. Before becoming a Senator in 2012, Ted Cruz worked for the Great State of Texas under Governor Rick Perry, a staunch conservative from one of the reddest of red states. There he fought to defend the religious freedoms of Americans, especially in the public venue. He also fought to defend the Second Amendment. He has done more for true conservative Americans before he even became a Senator than most of the GOP Senators have achieved in their long careers.

Ted Cruz does not back down. Once Ted Cruz has staked out a position on the issues that is consistent with his ideological values, he draws a line in the sand and he stands on it. He’s called out Democrats funded by crony corporatists and far left lobbyists from all sides. He’s called out his own party leadership for caving on the budget, the debt ceiling, ObamaCare and other compromises of the constitutionally protected Natural Rights of Americans. He’s paid a price for his principles. He may have been only one voice out of hundred in the Senate, but he cannot be said to have been a complacent voice.

Ted Cruz stood on the Senate floor for 21 hours straight, fighting against ObamaCare. If that is not clear enough indication of his opposition to that abominable transgression against the Constitution, then, short of violence, there isn’t a way to express dissent. At over 21 hours, Ted Cruz’s filibuster is the 5th longest filibuster in the country’s history. What more can we ask of a Senator? Nothing.

Ted Cruz understands the threat from Islamic Terrorism and Illegal Immigration. While he took flack for his statement about trying to make sand glow, it’s time for the American People to understand that our enemies abroad do not process information the same way that we do. They do not fundamentally value life. They do not have any remorse or civility. When even a Muslim woman can decapitate a 4 year old child, and parade around in the street crying out “Allahu Akbar” while holding the child’s head in the air, we are not dealing with rational actors. It is time to make sand glow. As far as border security, Ted Cruz alone has been a vocal proponent of serious immigration reform since 2011. No matter what diversions and misrepresentations of his position the other candidates may try to put forward, we can simply go back to interviews he gave to Texas media when he was running for office. His position has been the same then as it is now: close the border and deport all illegal aliens.

Ted Cruz has the best solution to our economy and our tyrannical tax enforcement system of all of the candidates. A flat tax is not the position of Liberty is For the Win (my position is abolishment of all personal income taxes), but it’s close enough. He has a plan for entitlement reform. He has a proven record as a fighter against regulation, against high taxes, and will dismantle, brick by brick every regressive policy put into place by Obama for the last 7 years. This will undoubtedly create another 30 year period of long-term growth and prosperity much like that we saw after Reagan.

It’s this simple.

Cruz-bebravebefree

If you truly believe that Liberty is For The Win, then there is literally no other candidate to vote for.

Ted Cruz for president of the United States of America.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Liberty 101: Rule of Law

Societies have organized themselves into rigid caste systems, where a select few possessed all power and all rights, and the populace possessed little power and few, if any, rights.

Our cultural identity as Americans is based firmly upon the Natural Rights of John Locke: the Right to Life, the Right to Liberty, and the Right to Property. Because every individual is entitled to these same rights, each individual has imposed upon them a moral duty to respect the rights of all other individuals, thus no individual has any right or entitlement to impose upon another individual’s rights without his or her consent. What do we do, however, when someone does infringe on another’s Natural Rights?

The fact is that there are those who will act maliciously against others and that accidents will happen. For the bandit who will seek to do harm for his own benefit, or for the dog that breaks loose of its kennel and digs up a neighbor’s garden, there must be some system of just recourse. Since every individual is entitled to the same justice as his neighbor, for his moral actions and wrongs, Natural Rights necessitate the Rule of Law.

Rather than trying to rehash the nature and reason of Rule of Law and its philosophical role in the government of free people, Let’s refer to one of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Government, in the American sense, draws its political authority from the “consent of the governed“, and is necessarily based upon the principles of life, liberty, and property. It is the consistent abuse of these rights that were the justification of the Revolutionary War. And it was the defense of these rights that were the foundation of the Constitution a decade later.

“When kings the sword of justice first lay down,
They are no kings, though they possess the crown.
Titles are shadows, crowns are empty things,
The good of subjects is the end of kings.”
-Daniel Defoe-

Imagine for a moment, playing a game with friends or with your children, where the board, the dice, and pieces all seem familiar enough, however every move and outcome is dictated by a single player. For a time, the game plays much like you would expect it, and your progress is allowed so long as it is inoffensive to the ruling player. Inevitably, your progress becomes inconvenient to the game’s arbiter, so the rules change. Every turn becomes progressively more and more difficult for you. Should you challenge the arbiter’s authority, any progress you made is nullified, and you are disqualified.

For the majority of human history, this has been the norm of civilization. Societies have organized themselves into rigid caste systems, where a select few possessed all power and all rights, and the populace possessed little power and few, if any, rights. From the dark ages of antiquity, the stark differences between religious, political, crafting, and slave castes distributed the power of arbitration upon the few, though this justice was arbitrary at best, and capricious at its worst. It was against this inequity that Socrates railed, and it was by this inequity Socrates was sentenced to death.

For thousands of years, in many different forms, this authority of the few, through divine assent, was the face of justice. While punishing bandits and thieves, this caste justice also punished political dissent through murder and brute repression. The transgressions of King George III enumerated by Jefferson had been practiced by the British Crown for centuries. The seizing of property and abolishing of legitimate self rule were part and parcel of the ruling privilege.

The Revolution, fueled by the Enlightenment values, was an attempt to end this tyranny of the few. First, it hurled the myth of a divine “right to rule” by a blooded aristocratic elite into the dustbin of history. Second, it established the equality of free people, or, at the very least, provided the fertile soil from which the seedling virtues of the Declaration of Independence would sprout into a nation of free men and women.

“The judge who always likes the results he reaches is a bad judge.”
-Antonin Scalia-

At the time of the founding, our nation was unique in the world, but the struggle against the encroachment of a dynastic ruling caste remains. This was the primary concern of James Madison when he wrote the first draft of what would become the US Constitution. The very concept of a career politician was not only antithetical to our national character, it is completely hostile to it, and yet it has sadly become a norm of our society. As has always been the case for thousands of years, where a political caste appears, it always requires the advancement of the rights of these arbiters and infringes the rights of the ruled.

How much different is our present political culture to the hypothetical game discussed earlier? A willfully contemptuous administration prosecutes patriotic dissenters as “terrorists“, while issuing executive orders in clear contravention of the Constitutional limits of his office. A populist corporatist candidate insults and slanders his way into political authority, after years of abusing his political connections to torment private citizens who stand against him. Where is the Rule of Law when political dissent is treated with the same contempt as criminal behavior?

The Constitution is the once crisp set of rules that came with our country. It’s been scribbled upon, stained, stepped upon, and frequently lost, but it will always remain the rules by which our country was intended to function. No one is above it. No one is beneath it. If those in power do not wish to abide by the rules of the game, then it’s well past time to remind them that they are just people, like the rest of us, entitled to exactly the same rights and beholden to the same duties as we are. If they think that their positions of authority grant them leave of their duty to protect our Natural Rights, then they have willfully transgressed against us, and, just like any other criminal, forfeited their Natural Rights.

If the people who have entrenched themselves as a ruling caste have, as they seem to have, become convinced that they are no longer answerable to the rules of our nation, and that the authority of rulership can be passed among them like a prize granted to Governors or Congressmen or Corporate King Makers as a matter of privilege, rather than public service, then it is time for the American People to resort to the only two rules that matter: the Second Amendment and the Declaration of Independence. If this “ruling class” will not listen to the People of their own accord, then it is up to the American People to make them listen.

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.“
-Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence-

The People have a duty to force their government to remain subservient to them, not to be subservient to their government. Laws are instituted to ensure justice, not to infringe upon the rights of the people. A people who, for generations, prove that they are unwilling to protect their Natural Rights against tyranny deserve tyranny.

“[T]he tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time
with the blood of patriots & tyrants.
 it is it’s natural manure.“
-Thomas Jefferson-

A free people must always demonstrate that they will insist, through force of arms if necessary, to be free, because as there are thieves who seek to deprive others of their property, and murderers who seek to deprive others of their lives, there are always despots who seek to deprive others of their liberty and are enemies of free people everywhere.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Liberty 101: Property

So far, these abuses of “eminent domain” have benefited no one except trial lawyers who specialize in evicting widows from their homes.

We’ve reached the last and most abused of the Natural Rights. Just like the Right to Liberty, the Right to Property exists as an extension of the Right to Life, an individual’s right to his life, health, and livelihood. To secure these things, the individual is granted a right to own land on which he may build a home to shelter him or develop for productive purposes (ex: a business or farm). Per Jeffersonian liberalism, this Right to Property extends to the individual’s Right to Pursuit of Happiness, so the individual may also own transportation and valuables consistent with his needs and wants, as long as he acquires these things through honest labor without violating the Right to Property of others.

The Right to Property seems straight forward and goes hand-in-hand with the freedom of contract from the Right to Liberty. The freedom of market and enterprise frees the individual to make the most of his livelihood, allowing him to maximize his well being to the full extent of his potential. Despite the explicit protections afforded by the Second Amendment (ownership of arms), Third Amendment (security of domicile against government encroachment), Fourth Amendment (privacy and protection from seizure of property), and Fifth Amendment (security of private property without due process of law or for eminent public use), this fundamental Natural Right continues to come under regular attack by powerful political and corporate entities.

“The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every
citizen in his person and property and in their management.”
-Thomas Jefferson-

In 2005, working through an ostensibly non-profit real estate developer with significant ties to government, the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), politicians from the governor’s office of Connecticut on down to the mayor of New London decided to redevelop the Fort Trumbull area of New London, CT. They envisioned a bustling office building complex with modern residential housing that they believed would attract a major pharmaceutical manufacturer. The only snag was that people had been living in Fort Trumbull for decades, so their plan required that dozens of existing homes be demolished.

Pleading “eminent domain“, the governmental and corporate entities argued the proposed project would expand the city’s tax base and create jobs, which represented a “public use“, even though the property was going to be turned immediately over to a private corporation. Susette Kelo and many of her neighbors, among them a blind 80 year old widow, refused to sell their homes, and forced the NLDC to take them to court.

The court battle went all the way to the Supreme Court where, in a shocking defeat of Natural Rights, the court decided 5 to 4 in favor of the City of New London, evicting the residents from their homes and allowing the city to destroy (and in rare cases relocate) the homes of the hold outs. How did things turn out for New London? The pharmaceutical manufacturer chose to locate their headquarters elsewhere. Almost all of the affected families left New London, CT. And the development lots sit barren of any commercial or residential buildings, so the government cabal drove people out of their homes for nothing.

“Everybody coming into Atlantic City sees this terrible house instead of staring
 at beautiful fountains and beautiful other things that would be good.”
– Donald Trump –

Just 9 years earlier, in 1996, real estate mogul and GOP presidential candidate, Donald  J. Trump gained international infamy as he tried, in collusion with the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority (CRDA) of Atlantic City, NJ, to force an elderly widow out of her home so he could build limousine parking for his casino and hotel. Through months of abuse, harassment, and court proceedings, Vera Coking, then in her 70’s, fought Trump’s and the CRDA’s attempts to force her out of the home she raised her children in.

In 1998, the courts found that the intention of the CRDA (a governmental agency) to take Coking’s house through the power of “eminent domain” and immediately turn it over to a private owner (Trump) did not meet the Fifth Amendment definitions of “public use“. The elderly widow’s home and her Right to Property was saved. Had the case been brought just a few years later (after Kelo), it is certain that the CRDA and Trump would have easily condemned Vera’s home and forced her to leave the home that she had lived in for half a century.

Worse, after bitterly fighting an elderly widow for years in the courts, Trump sold his stake in Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, NJ, and the casino and hotel officially shut its doors in September 16, 2014, as the entire casino industry in New Jersey struggles in the post Recession economy. So far, these abuses of “eminent domain” have benefited no one except trial lawyers who specialize in evicting widows from their homes.

In 2009, 3,362 miles away from Atlantic City, NJ, in a quiet, rural area in the northeast corner of Scotland, a few miles outside of Aberdeenshire, Donald J. Trump again attacked the Right to Property of several families who lived for decades in the little town of Menie, Scotland. Instead of a casino, Trump had decided to build a luxury hotel and “World’s Greatest Golf Course” resort (presently rated 2.1 out of 5 stars).

While the homes and properties of these families weren’t included in the original land purchased for his golf course, Trump believed that they detracted from the physical beauty of his golf resort. In 2009, he attempted to strong arm the Aberdeenshire Council to use its power of “compulsory purchase” (British equivalent to eminent domain) to force the home owners off of their property, and to give the land to Trump International Golf Links Scotland (TIGLS) so he could bulldoze their homes.

In the course of the very public political fight, Mr. Trump resorted to harassing the residents with barrages of law suits, police and security harassment and verbal abuse, going so far as to accuse Michael Forbes, a farmer, part time fisherman and quarry worker who lived on the property with his widowed mother, of “living like a pig” among other personal attacks on Scottish national television. As of the publishing of this article, the home owners have retained ownership of their properties, however Mr. Trump has made every effort to hide their homes from view of the golf course behind artificial dirt mounds dozens of feet high.

For more information on this, watch this documentary: Fighting Trump (2011).

“By nature’s law, every man has a right to seize and retake by force
his own property taken from him by another by force or fraud.”
-Thomas Jefferson-

Until now, we’ve only talked about transgressions by private or semi-private entities, colluding with political power to usurp the Right to Property of private individuals. While these infringements have disrupted the liberties and livelihoods of the citizens of Atlantic City, NJ, New London, CT and Menie, Scotland, there remains a far worse transgressor of Right to Property, one that has put otherwise honest and law abiding men and women into prison and claimed the life of at least one good and honest man.

To put things into perspective, the largest private land owner in the United States is John Malone, at a staggering 2.2 million acres. The entire city of Washington, D.C. is only 43,710 acres, so John Malone owns enough land to fit the capital of the United States into it over 50 times, which would result in a city of roughly 33 million people. This hypothetical city would be the largest in the world, by population, surpassing even Shanghai at over 24 million people.

At present, the United States government owns more than 608.9 million acres of land (excluding military bases and the capital). That is a plot of land 13,930 times the size of Washington, D.C., resulting in a city of over 9.2 billion people. This hypothetical city’s population is greater than the entire population of the planet. So what is the US government doing with this land?

  • The National Parks System controls 79.6 million acres.
  • The Fish and Wildlife Service controls another 89.1 million acres.
  • The Forest Service controls 192.9 million acres.
  • The Bureau of Land Management controls 247.3 million acres.

What is the federal government doing with this land? Nothing. Not military bases. Not airports. Not “forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings”, as is clearly spelled out in the Constitution of the United States, Art I, Sect. 8, Clause 17. The land that the United States government owns is just empty terrain, shrub land, desert, forests, and wilderness, each outside of the constitutional purview of the federal government. The United States government is simply holding much of this land, to the detriment of the States and the People.

When Cliven Bundy, a rancher in Nevada, let his cattle graze on US Government claimed shrub land, federal law enforcement officers seized his cows, without due process, and even resorted to shooting livestock found on federal “property”. This lead to a stand off between patriot militias and federal agents, which threatened to lead to violence for weeks. A newly appointed director of the Bureau of Land Management, Neil Kornze, reversed course, and pulled federal agents out of Nevada, allowing Bundy to continue to use the land for grazing his cattle.

In January of 2016, another dispute between the Bureau of Land Management and ranchers lead to patriot militia men to occupy a vacant federal building in Oregon in a peaceful protest. This time protesting against failure of the federal government to maintain the forests against wildfires and the unlawful seizing of property from families that had land titles to thousands of acres of land for generations, tracing back to the earliest days of land purchases, predating even the establishment of territories in some cases.

The federal enforcement did not back down this time, leading to another armed stand off that lead to death of Robert “LaVoy” Finicum, a rancher who had a long running land dispute over land that the BLM claiming thousands of acres that Mr. Finicum’s family had held the deeds to for decades. He was gunned down by federal and state law enforcement officers who refused to allow him to speak to a County Sheriff who was sympathetic to his concerns. What every man and woman who loves liberty must ask themselves is: Is land that is being unused for any Constitutional purpose worth the life of a human being?

As important as it is that the American public pay attention to very real and serious political debates surrounding freedom of speech, of religion, and to keep and bear arms, the lack of attention to the very serious loss of the Right to Property has lead us to this very precarious point in America’s history. Any government that believes itself able to freely ignore any of the Natural Rights of the individual ultimately believes it may ignore all of them.

At least one man has given his life for the Right to Property. How many more must give their lives before Americans have had enough?

Next Article: Rule of Law.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Liberty 101: Liberty

Suffice it to say that, to some at least, fundamental liberties are serious enough to die for. To others, they are more than enough reason to kill over. In each instance, it is often a matter of who shoots first.

In towns and cities across the United States in 2009 and 2010, groups of citizens gathered to peacefully protest against the perceived political overreach of a federal government that has exceeded the bounds of its Constitutional authority. These protests lead to Tea Party conservative gains in the US House of Representatives, US Senate, State Legislatures and Governors across the United States in 2010, 2012, and 2014. This political uprising continues to this day.

In 1989, students gathered in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China to peacefully protest against the political overreach of the Chinese government. That authoritarian government sent tanks and soldiers to suppress the student demonstrations, leading to the deaths of  up to 400 to 800 dead students, though the Chinese government claimed only 200 to 300 civilians died during a “counterrevolutionary rebellion“, describing the protesters as militants hostile to the Beijing regime. This triggered a harsh crackdown on dissent that eventually brought about a series of political reforms in China.

In January 2016, protesters, from various militia and patriots groups, with disparate political complaints, occupied the empty headquarters of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, near Burns, Oregon in a protest against the Federal government. On January 26th, 2016, federal and state law enforcement attempted to ambush Robert “Lavoy” Finicum, age 54, and Ryan C. Bundy, age 43, and several of their friends and relatives on the way to negotiate with the Sheriff of Grant County, Oregon. Mr. Finicum fled in one of two vehicles and, being unable to stop the vehicle on an icy county road, crashed into a snowdrift beside a police roadblock. Law enforcement officers fired upon the truck containing unarmed women and children, even after Mr. Finicum had gotten out of the vehicle, his hands in the air (according to the witnesses in the truck). He was gunned down from behind, apparently trying to draw a gun from his pocket. The law enforcement officers continued to fire upon the truck for two minutes, despite no shots being fired from the vehicle, wounding one of the occupants. None of the occupants, including Finicum himself fired a single shot.

On another cold day in December of 1773, colonists boarded merchant ships and destroyed an entire shipment of tea, in a demonstration against a 1¢ tax. A year and a half later, in the early morning of April 19, 1775, 100 British soldiers sent to seize and destroy supplies and weapons of American rebels in Lexington, Massachusetts found instead 77 American patriots who refused to surrender their arms. Thus began the American Revolution.

Take these events as they are, no more and no less. Their significance can only be known in the fullness of time. Suffice it to say that, to some at least, fundamental liberties are serious enough to die for. To others, they are more than enough reason to kill over. In each instance, it is often a matter of who shoots first.

“A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth,
general or particular; and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences.”
– Thomas Jefferson –

Let us continue our discussion on Natural Rights, moving now to the fundamental Right to Liberty. Please recall that the Right to Life both necessitates and depends on the Right to Liberty, because understanding this interdependence is crucial to understanding Liberty. In short, because an individual owns their life, health, and livelihood, he is entitled to the means necessary to defend his life, health, and livelihood, and this is the basis of Liberty.

As was discussed in the previous essay, the rights also impose upon the individual duties to his fellow citizens, respecting all of their liberties via reciprocal rights and the Social Contract. In no way does a Liberty impute a right to subvert or infringe the rights of others, especially via the imposition of state authority. This is fundamental to the principles of Natural Rights and to American Culture.

The first and most basic Liberty is freedom of thought, where the individual is free to employ his reason to the best of his ability to improve his lot, free of coercion by any party, especially the state. This includes religious convictions, as well as the absence thereof. The individual is free to associate with like minded individuals, forming political groups that further the political interests of the group as a whole and the individuals in aggregate.

To enable the individual to defend and enact his rights, he is free to speak his thoughts and opinions in a manner that is consistent with the social contract, avoiding causing harm or physical injury to others (ie: shouting “fire” in a crowded theater). The individual is free to read as well as publish written works consistent with his beliefs. He is free to act in any manner as he sees fit, working or playing, so long as he does not impose upon others against their will. The individual may enter into contracts with others, as benefits his goals of maximizing his well being and that of those he needs to provide for.

Finally, the individual may arm himself in order to protect himself from physical harm and to protect his liberties. He does so against any who may infringe on his Natural Rights, be it another individual with criminal intent or his own government. The interests of the individual, particularly the right to self protection, is held in constant tension in any society, where the authority of the state to maintain rule of law naturally will come into conflict with men and women of varying temperaments acting as they will, most often consistent with the social contract of reciprocal rights. Other times not.

When a faction uses its collective power to enact laws that are inconsistent with these concepts, we naturally expect to see cultural conflict increase, especially between groups with deeply held beliefs. The question that we face, as a society, is whether we are fundamentally a society of Natural Rights or not.

  • If a book is published that is offensive to so many that it could inflame individuals from around the world to violence indirectly in protest, does even an offended majority have a right to silence the writer, infringing on his speech Liberties? The answer is no.
  • When companies are forced to provide birth control under mandated health insurance plans, despite this being against the owners’ deeply held religious beliefs, can a culture tolerate the infringement of the owners’ religious Liberties? The answer is no.
  • If a gunman murders dozens of children in a horrific massacre at a public school, where the government has infringed on the Liberty of self protection by forcing all adults to disarm themselves before entering the building, does this grant the morally outraged of society to demand a state infringement on every lawful citizen’s self protection Liberties? The answer is no.
  • When workers in a state decide that they no longer wish to be forced to associate with powerful unions that they may have fundamental political disagreements with, does the state have the power to violate their Liberty and force them into compulsory membership in violation of their freedom of association Liberty? The answer is no.
  • If a politically powerful organization specializing in women’s healthcare issues that also participates in the destruction of human life in the womb requires the aid of federal dollars in order to continue their operations, does the state have the power to violate the religious Liberties of those who find abortions to be an aberration, forcing them to continue to support this institution against their wills? The answer is no.

The fundamental Right to Liberty, in whatever form it may take, and in whatever context it may be discussed, is nonnegotiable. If a conflict arises between Liberty and the authority of the state, then, when no imminent harm can be conclusively shown and no systemic infringement of Natural Rights can be demonstrated, Liberty must always win.

Men and women are willing to lay their lives down everyday for the Right to Liberty. Are you?

Next Article: Right to Property.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Economics Speed Round: February 2016

The latest economic report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis came out on January 29th, 2015, and there is simply no spinning it.

Real gross domestic product… increased at an annual rate of 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015…

A 0.7% GDP growth for Quarter 4 (October-December) is not only poor, short of actual negative numbers, it is positively dismal. Worse, if we continue reading:

The increase in real GDP in the fourth quarter primarily reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), residential fixed investment, and federal government spending…

Notice, GDP growth was “primarily” driven by consumer spending (Christmas season shopping), implied home purchases or investments (but more likely rental property improvements), and federal spending. And the report later goes on to say that weakness in consumer spending and residential purchases caused the weakening GDP growth. And now the really bad news.

Federal spending isn’t actual economic activity, as it, at best, represents a zero sum reallocation of economic growth that was already counted in another sector of the economy. Take out 0.5% for federal spending (a low end estimate), and real GDP growth in Quarter 4 was practically 0%. Assuming a 1.0% contribution from federal spending, real GDP growth was negative in Quarter 4, indicating the start of a possible recession.

On the employment front, the latest jobs report came out on Friday, February 5th, though the Iowa Caucus buried the news.

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 151,000 in January…

This number again is less than half the 312,500 jobs a month LibertyIsFTW asserts is necessary to reach full employment by the end of Obama’s second term. And, worse still, the “big finish” for December of 292,000 jobs was revised downward to 262,000, taking the air out of the December jobs numbers the left hyped a month ago. At 151,000 jobs created in January, the economy is barely accommodating new workers entering the job market.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged in January, at 2.1 million, and has shown little movement since June. These individuals accounted for 26.9 percent of the unemployed… In January, 2.1 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, little different from a year earlier… Among the marginally attached, there were 623,000 discouraged workers in January, essentially unchanged from a year earlier.

Since the economy is not hitting 312,500 jobs per month, this is totally expected. To make any dent in these numbers now, jobs created would have to be closer to 500,000 a month, and that’s unlikely with an annualized GDP growth rate of 1.78% for 2015.

With the Federal Reserve core loans rate still below 1.0%, there is no room to stimulate an economy that has remained flaccid for most of the last 7 years under Obama. LibertyIsFTW has predicted a recession in 2016 as early an Quarter 3, however the Quarter 4 2015 numbers indicate that we may already be in that recession.

That’s the Economics Speed Round for February. Catch everyone next month.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Liberty 101: Life.

Without the Right to Life, no other right or liberty even exists.

As it has become increasingly obvious that many self identifying “conservatives” do not understand what “conservatism” is trying to conserve, we have no choice but to go back to school on fundamental conservative ideology. Even if it sounds dogmatic, these core liberal values of Life, Liberty, and Property, as well as the Rule of Law, are absolutely nonnegotiable, and anyone that does not hold these core principles simply cannot be considered a “conservative“.

Consider this: if not the liberal values of the Enlightenment Era and founding of our nation, then what exactly are you trying to conserve? The anti-liberal pro-Slavery values of the Antebellum South? The anti-liberal Segregationist values of the Jim Crow Era? The anti-liberal Progressive values of the late 19th Century? The anti-liberal crony corporatism of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries? The anti-liberal socialist values of the early 20th Century? The anti-liberal collectivist radicalism of the mid-20th Century?

Clearly, only the Enlightenment Era values of liberality and individual freedom are worthy to be the cornerstone of “conservatism“. Having inspired both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of our Republic, these values are the bedrock of our national cultural identity. Where the political power rests in the aggregate authority of the People, being a nation of equals, all entitled to Natural Rights and subject only to the Rule of Law.

The next few essays will be dedicated to each of the core liberal virtues that undergird conservative ideology: the Natural Rights (Life, Liberty, and Property) and the Rule of Law. Each of the Natural Rights will be discussed on its own, with connections to modern applications and conservative political positions.

“Whoever sheds human blood,
    by humans shall their blood be shed;
for in the image of God
    has God made mankind.“
Genesis 9:6

Life is the first of the Enlightenment liberal principles core to conservative thought, and it is the most important as it is the foundation for all of the principles. Put simply, the Right to Life is the principle that an individual has a Natural Right to life, health, and livelihood to his or her own maximum potential. The Right to Life also implies that the individual owns both his physical body and his labor and is entitled to act as is necessary to secure his life, health, and livelihood to his fullest potential.

Because everyone is entitled to the same rights of life, health, and livelihood, the Right to Life imposes a duty (via the social contract) upon the individual to respect the Right to Life of others, and vice versa. The individual is expected to avoid behaviors that endanger the life, health, and livelihoods of others.

This concept of reciprocal rights is the basis for everything from criminal laws prohibiting murder, physical assault, and reckless endangerment to civil tort law penalizing negligent behavior that results in the accidental death or injury of others. It is why liberal societies avoid killing the innocent even in the conduct of war, and why capital punishment is reserved only for those proven guilty beyond any reasonable doubt of heinous murder who also pose a significant risk to others.

Life is precious and is the fundamental value upon which all other liberal rights and liberties are based, because the Right to Life necessitates the other rights and liberties. If an individual is not given rights to speak or to arm themselves, their Right to Life depends entirely on the good behavior of others. Should a dictator rise to power or even so much as a criminal gang form in the individual’s neighborhood, the individual soon finds himself at the mercy of these bad actors.

If an individual is denied rights to own property or retain ownership of the profit of their labors, then they are denied the ability to secure their livelihood to their maximum potential. It would reduce them back to a meager state of subsistence living, where the future cannot be invested in with any certainty, as any external force, either the state or a criminal actor with state power, can seize their property and profit without recourse. Even if the individual is compensated for the “fair market value” of their property and even the financial expense of moving, the loss of community and emotional disruption the individual may suffer can be beyond compensation.

These arguments are self evident, only because the principle of Right to Life. If an individual lives only at the pleasure of the King (or the State), then no other rights apply.

“A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.“
Attributed to Joseph Stalin

The Right to Life exists because of the Judaeo-Christian culture of western civilization, only from which could the Enlightenment have been possible. From the moment the tradition that bore Socrates, Plato, and Sophocles found its answer in the Biblical tradition, society began to bubble in a cauldron of faith and wisdom that resulted in the natural conclusion that all Life has value because it “is endowed by its Creator“. Without the endowment of supernatural worth, we become no different than the beasts of the field. Like the beasts of the field, our individual value is wholly subsumed within the collective herd.

Should it become necessary to sacrifice a few of the weak or the old for the collective good, then that is what will happen. There is no difference whether these deaths are decided by predators or by government officials imposing their benevolent tyranny from above. This is why only in the collectivist state utopias was systematic barbarism able to murder millions of souls. In these illiberal societies, human life was only valuable as long as the collective state authority deemed it so.

Without the Right to Life, the other Natural Rights become meaningless, and the conservative position becomes nothing more than a quaint diversion opposing the monolith of state utilitarianism of the collectivists. Embracing the Right to Life, the conservative position becomes an absolute against which no other ideological stance can find purchase, because they require transgression against these Natural Rights.

Conservatism is not merely an opinion or a quaint diversion. It is a moral and ideological imperative that the Founding Fathers were willing to lay their lives on the line for. Are you?

Next Article: Right to Liberty.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW