Here is a concise and lucid overview of the moral and legal bases of Ron Paul’s foreign policy position. (It really does look like Bachman and Santorum are passing notes to each other–probably saying something like, “Holy Crap! This guy actually BELIEVES this Bible stuff!”)
To watch video, click:
For my review of this book, click: Continue reading…
I have a bit of a twitter problem–it keeps me up way past my bedtime and delays me from starting my day’s work. I’m not sure whether or not to feel guilty about this. Am I educating myself or amusing myself? Does this count as work or leisure? Is following twitter the future equivalent of reading the newspaper everyday, or is it merely a narcissistic distraction? Well, this morning decided the issue: I happened upon a tweet by @libertarianmike: “The chances of being harmed by terrorists are mathematically minute. The chance of being robbed by your own govt? That’s easy:100%–J.Sobran.” I recalled that my father (a Classical Liberal like Ron Paul) loved Joe Sobran, but I still pegged Sobran for a neo-con, so complete had I thought was that sect’s dominance of
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQQUbaBiNTs] [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_owONAOdmEc]
Sometimes talk radio makes me crazy! It didn’t always, though. As a matter of fact, I used to find great comfort in listening to my favorite hosts when I lived in Southern California. During those years, there were several hosts I relied on to keep me sane, one in particular I dubbed “the Voice of Reason.” These hosts’ rational arguments against the false hope of entitlements and the impossibility of a centrally-controlled economy provided me a constant palliative to all the liberal rhetoric to which I was daily exposed in LA. I sloughed off the growing social agenda these hosts seemed to be pushing and also decided to give the benefit of the doubt to Bush & Co. on invading Iraq–who was I to presume to understand the complexities of geopolitics? Eventually, however, I stopped listening to
Piers Morgan asks Ron Paul what he thinks about Rick Santorum calling him “disgusting.” Also, toward the end of the interview, Morgan accuses Paul of being “completely unaware of what your staff are doing half the time” because a tweet dissing Jon Huntsman went out without Paul’s prior approval and was later deleted. In a slimy move, Morgan has Huntsman on a split screen watching Paul’s reaction. (The tweet is actually pretty funny: “@JonHuntsman, we found your one Iowa voter, he’s in Linn precinct 5 you might want to call him and say thanks.”) To his credit, Huntsman is a good sport, responding, “I have to tell you, at the end of the day, I actually found it to be pretty humorous.
I recently found Our Enemy the State, by Albert Jay Nock, under a chair in my kids’ playroom–I must have bought it long ago and misplaced it. I flipped the book open to a chapter: “Politics and Other Fetiches,” and despite the unpromising chapter heading I was immediately riveted. Although written in 1935, Our Enemy (more…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9CYtfqG20o&feature=youtube_gdata
Here is a letter I sent to the editor of the Wall Street Journal regarding an article published on December 22. (I imagine they get millions of letters after they slam Ron Paul, but hey, this is what the Internet is for!)
Dear Sir:
In her opinion piece, “What Ron Paul Thinks of America,” Dorothy Rabinowitz implies that Ron Paul, like Barack Obama, hates America. This could not be further from the truth. Dr. Paul loves America, but it’s an
“What? You Don’t LOVE It?!”
I read in today’s Wall Street Journal that Homeland Security bought Montgomery County, Texas, a $300,000 surveillance drone. Not only does this smack of both the surveillance state and crony capitalism–the US government is promoting drone sales abroad as well–but it’s an abuse of taxpayers’ money to use federal funds to pad the policing power of municipalities. Federal funding of municipal responsibilities eliminates even the indirect possibility of connecting the costs and (alleged) benefits of government spending. In this case in particular, the benefits themselves are clearly mixed. The title of the article tells the story: The Law’s New Eye in the Sky: Police Departments’ Use of Drones Is Raising Concerns Over Privacy and Safety.