If the American people had to actually pay for the wars, would we still have the wars?

Carl Levin calls for a war tax.

The new Republican purity test

Republicans considering ideological purity test for candidates:

Ten members of the Republican National Committee are proposing a resolution demanding candidates embrace at least eight of 10 conservative principles if they hope to receive financial support and an official endorsement from the RNC. The "Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan's Unity Principle for Support of Candidates," is designed to force candidates to prove that they support "conservative principles" while opposing "Obama's socialist agenda," according to The New York Times' Caucus blog. The proposal highlights the ongoing tug-of-war for the ideological soul of the Republican party, and has been met with skepticism both inside and outside of the party.

Here's the purity test:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama's "stimulus" bill;

We support shrinking the debt by cutting taxes, spending more than the entire world on war armaments and by extirpating some nebulous "wasteful spending" and earmarks.

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;

We support a completely dysfunctional health care system where the number one cause of middle-class bankruptcy is medical debt. We'll continue this whole charade about magical "free-market solutions" brought to you by the free-market fairy.

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;

I'll give the Republicans this one. They do seem to oppose cap-and-trade.

(4) We support workers' right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

When did the Republican Party become the party of workers' rights?

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

We support taking in millions and millions of immigrants. They just have to be legal. Then, they can assimilate into America and vote for the Democrats as our party continues a futile pandering effort to attract minority voters.

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

We don't know what victory means and cannot define it, but we should never withdraw from pointless military adventures because it is a "sign of weakness." We should have listened to MacArthur in Korean and nuked the Chinese because it was "military recommended." By staying in Iraq and Afghanistan for 100 years, we will eliminate the national debt.

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

We continue to search out new markets to spread the gospel of freedom and democracy.

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

We will continue to mobilize our base by pretending we care about their issues and do absolutely nothing to stop gay marriage, abortion, or anything else. Once we reclaim power, we will continue to pursue tax-cuts for the rich, raid the treasury, invade nations under false pretenses and push the agenda of our neoconservative and corporate backers.
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

We continue to support insurance bureaucrats rationing health-care. We will continue to pretend to fight against abortion while our own insurance policy for the RNC covers elective abortion.
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership;

We believe in slowly eroding liberties, unlike the Democrats, who prefer quickly destroying liberties.

God bless the RNC. They sure do try.

P.S: Am I the only one whose stomach churns at the constant invocations of Ronald Reagan?

Americans that Lew Rockwell Hates

"Companies That Unions Hate" from LewRockwell.com

How dare these firms provide jobs for hardworking poor people in the Third World, and good prices for their customers here, promoting the international division of labor and international peace, rather than go out of business with lazy, protectionist, nationalist unionoids in Uncle Samland? I pledge in the coming year to patronize all members of the “2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame”: Abercrombie and Fitch, Gymboree, Hanes, Ikea, Kohl’s, LL Bean, Pier 1 Imports, Propper International, and Walmart.

I, for one, will cheer when the vaunted "international division of labor" prices Lew Rockwell out of the market for libertarian hallucinations. A man, who openly gloats, in prideful vanity, about the economic annihilation of his own nation deserves a fate befitting of the middle-class Americans he derides as "unionids."

Here's Lew Rockwell on free trade:

But, generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.

Oops! That was Karl Marx.

Has the whole world lost its mind?

‘Climate change pushes poor women to prostitution, dangerous work’

Joseph Holandes Ubalde is my new favorite journalist. He cuts straight to the propaganda.

The effects of climate change have driven women in communities in coastal areas in poor countries like the Philippines into dangerous work, and sometimes even the flesh trade, a United Nations official said.

Suneeta Mukherjee, country representative of the United Nations Food Population Fund (UNFPA), said women in the Philippines are the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the country.

It's the perfect liberal calamity! Not only does"climate change" strike non-Western peoples with greater havoc, it's such a a perfect dream that it strikes women even worse. Here's U.N Bureacrat Suneeta Mukerjee's masterful logic:

“Climate change could reduce income from farming and fishing, possibly driving some women into sex work and thereby increase HIV infection," Mukherjee said during the Wednesday launch of the UNFPA annual State of World Population Report in Pasay City.

It gets even better:

Based on the UNFPA report, there are 92 million Filipinos in the country as of 2009 and that number is expected to balloon to more than 146 million in the next 40 years.

Of the 92 million Filipinos, about 60 percent are living in coastal areas and depend on the seas for livelihood, said former Environment secretary Dr. Angel Alcala.

Alcala said that “we have already exceeded the carrying capacity of our marine environment."

Wait a second. If the carrying capacity has already been reached, then why all the fuss about rising HIV rates? Isn't the entire goal population control?

But as the sea’s resources are depleted due to overpopulation and overfishing, fishermen start losing their livelihood and women are forced to share the traditional role of the man in providing for the family.

Wait, I thought global warming and resource depletion was bad for women? Isn't the goal to empower women by destroying the traditional culture? Isn't empowering women a good thing? Now I'm confused.

Alacala, who also heads the Angelo King Center for Research and Environmental Management in Siliman University, said some women often pick out shellfish by the coastlines, which exposed to storm surges.

Women who can no longer endure this work often go out to find other jobs, while some are tempted to go into prostitution, Alcala added.

Who hasn't lost a job and been tempted to go in to prostitution Mr. Alcala?

In an interview with the Inter Press News Agency, Marita Rodriguez of the Centre for Empowerment and Resource Development, Inc. said women are taking the brunt of climate change.

"Aside from their household chores and participation in fishing activity, they have to find additional sources of income like working as domestic helpers in affluent families," she said.

Of course, there's always prostitution.

A Window into a Nightmare:

Where a twenty-five dollar contribution to an intellectually bankrupt magazine staffed by incurable halfwits, is all that it takes to defend Christendom and the West.

Where electoral politics are nothing more then a farce designed to give the impression that we still have a republic. Where petty non-issues function as tools to motivate hordes of impassioned activists into electoral warfare.

Where keeping your society safe requires massive injections of fear and paranoia cloaked in a nightmarish garment of deception. Where your liberties are routinely thrashed in support of “keeping you safe” from nightmares concocted by fear mongers masquerading as the guardians of your freedoms.

Where your politicians and media go scouring the globe in search of freshly manufactured monsters to destroy.

Where authentic issues are ignored and never actually dealt with.

Where events on the other side of the world are turned into propaganda that is imbibed daily. Where ubiquitous fear and delusion powers the mania for perpetual war.

Where your neighbors line up at soup kitchens in order to eat, while your government loots the treasury to prop up behemoth financial institutions who are accountable to no one.

Where the government steadfastly denies their wicked agenda until it’s conspicuous. Then they switch gears and tell you its all been done for your own well being.

Where words no longer have meaning, where mass culture is constantly upgrading to newer forms of deviancy. Where what was widely considered bizarre and boorish is now praised as innovation.

Where the heroes of times past are hurled into the dustbin of history in favor of contemporary fabrications that accord obeisance to the propaganda interests of the usurpers.

Where pretentious men in custom tailored suits can lend credibility to noxious nonsense without rebuke, regardless of how much carnage, destruction, and death their brainless dribble has caused. Where these men are lauded as luminaries, experts, and scholars.

Where truth is regarded as toxic. Where a cavalcade of artifice is required to maintain the counterfeit reality presented to us.

Where a fantasy economic system is peddled without interruption to have the serfs believing their declining standard of living and the continuously rising income inequality is a wonderful thing. Where losing your livelihood becomes an “incredible opportunity” and the population waits patiently for bread crumbs to trickle down.

Where one is conditioned to place a premium on the health of the global economy and neglect the well-being of their own.

Where complete and utter deracination is normalized and then promulgated as the path to a brave new world.

Indeed, a window into a nightmare.

Re: Cinematic Thoughts

After reading Gordon's excellent piece, I stumbled across this news.

On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, and only a quarter of all TVs on the market currently meet that standard.

Throughout the years, I've come to the realization that the most energy efficient and worthwhile way to use a television is to simply turn it off.

Then there's this little factoid:

More time spend watching TV means less time for other opportunities. According to Nielsen Media Research, the average American watches about 4 hours of TV each day (or 28 hours/week, or 2 months of nonstop TV-watching per year). In a 65-year life, that person will have spent 9 years glued to the TV.

Cinematic Thoughts

A few evenings ago, I happened to be sitting beside the fireplace enjoying a glass of fine bourbon and a wonderful movie with the missus. That film was Ronald F. Maxwell's 1993 Civil War film, Gettysburg. Perhaps it is because to some extent I consider myself to be a neo-copperhead, that I found the following scene containing a speech given by Confederate General Lewis Armistead (played by actor Richard Jordan) in the moments prior to Pickett's Charge, to be most inspiring.



While I consider this to be an emotionally uplifting scene, at the same time I felt quite disheartened. The sense of pride in local culture displayed here has all but vanished in a contemporary America where most of the general public goes no further than cheering for their local university or professional sports teams. Is the ever continuing erosion of the Tenth Amendment and state sovereignty the culprit? Or is the open borders policy enacted by the United States government to blame? I am sure they both play a part, as does the epidemic of mass media addiction this country is currently suffering from. Would things be any different today if our government operated solely within constitutional limits? I would like to hope so, but honestly, I have no way of knowing. What I do know is this: we can all learn something from General Armistead and his band of rebel soldiers, that wherever you may be from, please turn off the television set once and a while, get to know your neighbors, cherish the time spent with friends and family, take pride in your local culture and heritage, and let all of the world know that you are here this day.