Gun Control Won’t Eliminate Guns

by Mark R. Crovelli via LewRockwell.com

No single issue in the American political arena illustrates the similarity of American liberals and American conservatives than the issue of gun control. This claim will no doubt appear counterintuitive, because conservatives and liberals have been bickering over gun rights for as long as anyone can remember. Liberals love gun control and conservatives loathe it. The difference between the two groups couldn’t be starker, right?

What all the superficial bickering between the two groups conceals, however, is a fundamental agreement that gun control can actually work. Starry-eyed liberals believe that government is indeed capable of keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, as if would-be-armed-robbers actually care whether or not it is legal to own guns. Conservatives innocently fear that government is capable of keeping guns out of the hands of all ordinary Americans, as if government prohibition has ever actually worked. Both groups, in other words, believe that if the government chooses to control or outlaw something, its laws will actually make that thing disappear.

It doesn’t take a degree in economics, however, to realize that both groups are hopelessly mistaken to think that gun control can actually work. Conservatives are wrong to fear that government can effectively control or prohibit anything, including guns, and liberals are wrong to believe that government gun control will keep guns out of the hands of would-be criminals.

In order to see why this is true, one need only take a look at how well drug prohibition has been in the United States. Certain “drugs” have been prohibited in the United States for generations, and yet they are still so plentifully available that you even find them in American prisons. Marijuana got to be so plentiful and cheap in the early 1980’s, in fact, that drug smugglers had to start looking around for more profitable drugs to sell, like cocaine. The same thing happened later on to cocaine as more and more smugglers (including Ronald Reagan’s CIA and Bill Clinton’s buddies in Arkansas) stepped in to supply more cocaine, and prices fell through the floor to the point that crack cocaine was available virtually everywhere. The same was true of alcohol during prohibition. The point is; if the government’s laws have completely failed to eliminate the market for drugs, what on Earth could make anyone believe their laws will actually eliminate the market for guns? Sure, prices will be higher than they otherwise would be without asinine gun laws, but let’s at least be honest and admit that the gun market in the United States isn’t going away anytime soon.

In addition to the obvious failure of drug prohibition in the United States, there are dozens of examples of how gun control has failed internationally. In Brazil, for example, more than half of the guns in the country are estimated to be unregistered – which is to say, they are illegal. In Mexico there is exactly one legal firearm dealer in the whole country, while there are approximately 250,000 guns smuggled into the country every year illegally. I was told by several Palestinians in the West Bank during a recent trip (where guns are basically completely illegal) that you could even buy American-made M-16’s if you have enough money, or settle for cheaper AK-47’s if you don’t. If people want guns, there will be people who are willing to sell them. Duh.

These points should be obvious to anyone who has ever been around gun people in the United States. To be sure, there are some Americans who own guns (usually inherited from their fathers) and who don’t care about them or don’t even know how to use them. These people would probably even hand over their guns to the government unhesitatingly if they were told to do so. But there is a different type of American gun owner who is not about to hand over his guns, no matter what the laws say. To this type of gun owner, the spread of gun laws is interpreted as a sign that he needs to buy more 6″ PVC pipe to bury in his yard. To think that this type of gun owner will be disarmed by a bunch of thieves and blowhards in Washington is beyond naïve. His guns may go in the ground or in the wall for safekeeping, but they sure as hell won’t wind up in a government scrap heap.

Liberals who think this type of gun owner can be disarmed by government fiat are completely delusional, and so are conservatives who fear that gun control is going to lead to widespread surrender of arms. Gun control laws will only disarm those that don’t care about guns in the first place. Everyone else will be able to find and buy guns just as easily as they can find and buy crack cocaine or meth, which is to say that it will still be insanely easy. You will probably even see guns popping up alongside drugs in prisons, like in Latin America, if gun control is ever really enforced in the United States. If history is any guide, the ATF and the CIA will probably be the biggest black market suppliers, as they were with heroin and cocaine.

None of this is to downplay either the sheer idiocy or the other evil effects that gun control laws will have on the United States if they continue to proliferate as they recently have been. Inducing Americans to bury the guns that they use to protect their homes and their families will definitely lead to more needless robbery and murder. Inducing Americans to make their firearm purchases from the same people that try to sell meth to their children will definitely and needlessly hurt a lot of people. Inducing the gun market to go black will definitely raise prices for guns above their current level. And arresting people for “illegally” carrying guns to defend themselves is the very definition of tyranny.

The point is simply that gun control cannot and will not eliminate the market for guns in America. Since this is the major selling point for gun control, the debate will continue to be an idiotic and pointless mess until people start to realize guns can’t be eliminated by government fiat. If libertarians and conservatives concede that government prohibition can work, (as many foolish conservatives who believe in drug prohibition have to), they will lose the argument. Drug prohibition has been a complete and utter failure, and gun control will be too.

This is the most effective and honest argument that libertarians and conservatives can make.

May 20, 2013

Mark R. Crovelli [send him mail] writes from Denver, Colorado.

Copyright © 2013 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

The Best of Mark R. Crovelli

Disappearing Moral Underpinning of America

 

[Editor's Note: The following post is by TDV contributor, Jayant Bhandari]

Reminiscent of communist countries, Obama’s photograph greeted me on my arrival at the Los Angeles airport. “Welcome to the United States of America.” Typically when I hear someone say “the United States of America” instead of “America”, my heart starts to beat faster. I know I am usually facing someone arrogant and nationalistic, someone vicariously proud of the achievements of the US but lacking his own. He is likely a couch potato who thinks that when “his” team wins it somehow reflects well on him. This is the definition of a fanatic. Communication with such people is invariably impossible and irrational, for they don’t reason; they come from a self-proclaimed position of superiority, with nothing to show for it.

I like people being able to express their nationalistic, sexist, and racist feelings. How else can I challenge them? But when such feelings are expressed by a gun-trotting, insensitive, unaccountable immigration or TSA agent, who by “law” can never do any wrong, and to who whatever I say can be used against me, I am usually at a loss of words.

When a US immigration guy asks if I intend to work in the US, should I say that I am a free human being and will live and work wherever I want to? Or should I say that the US is no longer an attractive jurisdiction for new immigrants? Should I say that whether I am married or not—a question I was always asked as long as I held the Indian passport—is none of his business? Should I charge him for being racist? Should I tell him that asking me about what I am carrying in my bag is an uncivilized question? And should I alert them that when they so mechanically and single-mindedly looking for water bottles and toiletries, they are failing to critically look for other dangerous items that might get smuggled in?

When they ask me if the purpose of my visit is personal or business, I have no option but to lie, for anyone who loves what he does, the two are intertwined. “Answer me in yes or no,” the officer would instruct me during my naïve days when I wanted to respond truthfully before signing. When dealing with bureaucracies one must rehearse what one would say. One must play in one’s mind several possible scenarios before the encounter, to check for any flaws in the to-be told story. One must know how to speak half-truths. And perhaps even an outright lie when one can get away with it. One must accept that one is dealing with an automaton, someone with no feelings and respect for the fact that he is a servant of those who pay taxes. Despite all the rehearsals, one still finds one’s statements twisted and misconstrued by the arrogant bureaucrat. And then one is admonished—with no right to object—by the TSA.

Here is an Indian joke: One guy used to beat up his wife every evening, on one pretext or another. One day he brought a certain vegetable for dinner preparation. Three different kinds of dishes could be made out of that vegetable. She knew that if she made one kind, he would beat her, accusing her for not preparing the other. Adamant that she wanted to avoid getting beaten that day, she decided that she would split the vegetable into three parts and prepare all three dishes. She and her toddler son would have eaten whatever her husband had not. Unfortunately, just before the husband came home, her son defecated on the kitchen floor. She knew her husband now had a reason to beat her. Thinking quickly, she covered it with a pot, hoping to clean it up when her husband had gone to sleep. When she put the dinner in front of her husband, as expected, he became very angry, for he wanted a different kind of dish. Promptly, she produced it. Of course he changed his mind and said he actually wanted the third version of the dish. So, she produced the third version. Feeling very agitated, for he had failed to find a reason to beat her, he lashed out that he wanted to eat poop. She uncovered the pot. This joke is similar to my many encounters with the TSA and US immigration.

Despite the above, over the last one year, I had found TSA and custom officials in the US smiling more and being more considerate. I had been impressed that they had ignored small faults and had smiled at me. When I opted out of the porno-scanners, they very courteously called for someone to pat me down. Moreover, making me less defensive was the fact that for the last three months I had been traveling around in Asia. In Singapore, security check—done by private security—has hardly any line-ups and is very quick and courteous. In Thailand and Malaysia, security screening is more of a show than reality. In none of these places or in China or Hong Kong do you encounter a busybody.

I know of no country other than the US that requires you to go through an immigration process, pick up your baggage from the carousel and then check it back in and redo full security and the immigration routine again, even if you are merely transiting through the US. In other countries, you would be allowed to proceed straight to your other plane unhindered.

I had a connecting flight in LA and I was getting late. Those in a hurry were given special coupons by my airline for a separate lane, so that they could be processed quickly. Alas, there was no immigration officer for that line. Three immigration officers were standing right in front of us, jokingly negotiating if one of them should go to the booth and process us. But they had no interest in such trifles. I have a Global Entry card that allows me the option to go through iris-scan at a machine instead of talking with an immigration officer. Whenever possible I prefer this option. Given that I was stuck in that non-moving line, I asked the TSA automaton if I could leave and go to the machine. Very confidently she told me that my card would not work in LA and shouted that I should learn to respect the rules. When she went elsewhere to satisfy her ego, I sneaked out to check-out through the machine, which did work for me. I am still very surprised—despite frequent encounters like this—when I consider that she was required to know just four or five simple things in life but she still failed.

Now in a panic mode, I waited for my bag, which was delayed. After collecting it I ran towards the customs, not realizing that they now have a red marker for people to stay back from the custom officers while they deal with one person at a time. I saw the red mark a bit too late; and two officers were already hurling abuses at me. Unlike custom officers elsewhere, who mostly stand in a corner and who come to you only if they must open your bags—a rarity—the ones in LA sit in chairs, looking carefully at each form.

But they must sit. Their physique is such that there is no way their knees would accept them for too long if they stayed standing. One must ask if such obese agents who cannot take care of themselves are capable of taking care of me. One must ask what is so intellectual about those custom forms that they should require officers to mull over them at length.

Malaysia no longer requires you to fill any kind of form whatsoever. If you are a citizen, resident or a frequent flyer, you don’t fill up any form or talk with anyone in HK or Singapore. Often I am out of these airports within minutes after my plane lands. This could be counter-intuitive to arrogant bureaucrats, but making a major song and dance about security, making it complicated and slow, and mostly stupid, has made the US airports and airspace—and increasingly that of Canada—very unhealthy and unsafe.

My next task was to recheck my bag and then go back for security screening. The TSA officer verifying IDs was joking with everyone. I was itching to move on. But he was in no mood to let people through. He was in a long, never-ending discussion with two other TSA agents, discussing who among the couple facing him had a more smiley face. He remarked about their ages and how he thought they were so different despite being a couple.

Next, just ahead of me, was a lady with her late-teen daughter. The TSA guy asked the girl to “come forward and show me your pretty face.” I stood with a blank face contemplating if I should object and call for his supervisor. But who am I to object when the mom was obsequiously acknowledging his instruction? Was he a pervert? Of course, for he said what he did in a position of power while he held them and me involuntarily? Did the mom compromise? Of course, she did. The daughter is experiencing and learning things that she will accept as natural when she grows up. That is the recipe of a totalitarian society, where people no longer know their and other people’s personal space. Would I have compromised in the mom’s place? The more Orwellian the US becomes, the more likely it is that I would have. I always do in India.

If I must be abused, I prefer it to be a straightforward abuse. At least there is no moral ambiguity in this. Being held up while he humoured with us was repulsive. It leaves people confused. How do you deal with someone who is seemingly nice to you when he is holding you involuntarily? To me if I must be stopped involuntarily, civilized conduct requires that the officer process me as soon as possible, unless I take the initiative to small-talk.

I refused to smile at his stupid jokes. He found fault in my boarding card. I had to go back and bring an airline agent to get my boarding pass accepted.

I rushed to my gate and I was happy flying out of the US. What an irony! All my childhood, I wanted to move to the US. Some of the nicest snd most generous people I have ever met live in the US. It is still in many ways the greatest place in the world. But the US has chosen to accept tyranny exactly when many other countries are giving it up. Unfortunately, the private sector in the US is so productive that it provides abundant resources to sustain a grotesque and arrogant government. Things do seem to improve once in a while—as I thought they had over the last one year—but it is often one step forward and two steps backwards. I was in error in thinking that TSA had mended its ways. Once you have chosen a path of Statism, an optimist rational person might think that the consequences would provide a feedback to correct the predicament. Alas, the consequences are not so apparent and moreover increased Statism muddles people’s thinking, making them incapable of thinking straight. Perhaps, as in every society in the past, the US must walk the whole path to fuller Statism—like a cataract which must fully develop before being operated on—suffer its consequences in all its nakedness, before there is a chance of a reversal.

[Editor's Note: If you think the day may be coming when you will have to fly out of the US...permanently...then click here to take this important step for permanent expatriation.]

Jayant Bhandari, a resident of Singapore, is constantly traveling the world to understand it and to look for investment opportunities, particularly in the natural resource sector. He advises institutional investors about his finds. He also runs a yearly seminar in Vancouver entitled “Capitalism & Morality.” Find him at http://jayantbhandari.com.

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The Police State

 The Police State

Brian Wilson talks to Lew Rockwell about the Boston bombing, the IRS, and Ron Paul.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lewrockwell-show/2013/05/17/370-the-police-state/

 

10 Amazing Charts That Demonstrate The Slow, Agonizing Death Of The American Worker

Yep, just another 3rd world banana republic. — jtl, 419

From: The Economic  Collapse

The middle class American worker is in danger of becoming an endangered species.  The politicians are not telling you the truth, and the mainstream media is certainly not telling you the truth, but the reality is that there is nothing but bad news on the horizon for workers in the United States.  In the old days, when the big corporations that dominate our society did well, that also meant good things for American workers since those corporations would need more of us to work for them.  But in the emerging one world economic system that our economy is being merged into, those corporations have other choices now.  For instance, the big corporations can now choose to limit the number of “expensive” American workers that they employ by shipping millions of jobs to the other side of the world.  And from their perspective, it makes perfect sense.  They can make much bigger profits by hiring people on the other side of the planet to work for them for less than a dollar an hour.  If they can get good production out of those people, then why should they hire Americans for ten to twenty times as much, plus have to give those Americans health insurance and other benefits?  Another major factor in the slow, agonizing death of the American worker is technology.  We live during a period when technology is advancing at a pace that is almost unimaginable at the same time that it is steadily becoming cheaper and cheaper.  That means that it is going to become easier and easier for companies to replace workers with robots and computers.  As I have written about previously, it is being projected that our economy will lose millions of jobs to technology in the coming years.  Yes, some of us will still be needed to help build the robots and the computers, but not all of us will.  And of course the overall general weakness of the economy is not helping matters either.  The American people inherited the greatest economic machine in the history of the world, and we have wrecked it.  Decades of very foolish decisions have resulted in the period of steady economic decline that we are experiencing now.

America is simply not the economic powerhouse that it once was.  Back in 2001, the U.S. economy accounted for 31.8 percent of global GDP.  By 2011, the U.S. economy only accounted for 21.6 percent of global GDP.  That is a collapse any way that you want to look at it.

Today, American workers are living in an economy that is rapidly declining, and their jobs are steadily being stolen by robots, computers and foreign workers that live in countries where it is legal to pay slave labor wages.  Politicians from both political parties refuse to do anything to stop the bleeding because they think that the status quo is working just great.

So don’t expect things to get better any time soon.

The following are 10 amazing charts that demonstrate the slow, agonizing death of the American worker…

#1 Wages And Salaries As A Percentage Of GDP

As you can see, wages as a percentage of GDP are hovering near an all-time record low.  That means that American workers are bringing home a smaller share of the economic pie than ever before.

#2 Average Annual Hours Worked Per Employed Person In The United States

We are an economy that is rapidly trading good paying full-time jobs for low paying part-time jobs.  The decline in average annual hours worked that we have witnessed represents the equivalent of losing millions of jobs.  There has been an explosion of “the working poor” in the United States, and this trend is probably only going to accelerate in the years to come.

#3 Manufacturing Employment

As you can see, there are less Americans working in manufacturing today than there was in 1950 even though the population of the country has more than doubled since then.  The United States has lost more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001, and yet our politicians stand around and do nothing about it.

#4 Employment-Population Ratio

This is one of my favorite charts.  It shows that there has been absolutely no employment recovery at all since the end of the last recession.  The percentage of working age Americans that have a job has stayed under 59 percent for 44 months in a row.  How much worse will things get when the next major economic downturn strikes?

#5 Labor Force Participation Rate

This is how the Obama administration is getting the “unemployment rate” to magically go down.  They are pretending that millions upon millions of Americans simply do not want to work anymore.  As you will notice, the decline of the labor force participation rate has accelerated greatly since Barack Obama entered the White House.

#6 Duration Of Unemployment

The average amount of time that it takes an unemployed worker to find a new job has declined slightly, but it is still far above normal historical levels.  It is a crying shame that it takes the average unemployed worker two-thirds of a year to find a new job, but this is the new economic reality that we are all living in.

#7 Delinquency Rate On Residential Mortgages

Since there are not enough jobs for all of us, and since our wages are not rising as rapidly as the cost of living is, a whole bunch of us are falling behind on our mortgages.  As you can see, the mortgage delinquency rate has only dropped slightly and is still way, way above typical levels.

#8 New Homes Sold

American workers also don’t have enough money to go out and buy new homes either.  Yes, new home sales have rebounded slightly this year, but we are nowhere near where we used to be.

#9 Consumer Credit

Millions of American families continue to resort to going into debt in a desperate attempt to make ends meet.  After a slight interruption during the last recession, consumer credit once again is growing at a frightening pace.

#10 Self-Employment At A Record Low

Since there aren’t enough jobs for everyone, why aren’t more Americans trying to start their own businesses?  Well, the reality of the matter is that the government has made it exceedingly difficult to start your own business today.  Taxes, rules, regulations and red tape are choking the life out of millions of small businesses in the United States.  As a result, the percentage of self-employed Americans is at a record low.

As all of these long-term trends continue, the middle class will continue to shrink, poverty in America will continue to explode and government dependence will continue to rise.

The numbers don’t lie.  Today, the number of Americans on Social Security Disability now exceeds the entire population of Greece, and the number of Americans on food stamps now exceeds the entire population of Spain.

We are in the midst of a horrifying economic collapse, and the next major wave of that collapse is rapidly approaching.

Are you ready?

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Rutherford Institute Presents Arguments in 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Over Civil War Heritage Group’s Right to Fly Confederate Flag

From: The Rutherford Institute

May 16, 2013

RICHMOND, Va. — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit heard arguments today in a First Amendment lawsuit filed by The Rutherford Institute, which alleges that the City of Lexington, Va., violated the Constitution by prohibiting a civil war heritage society from flying the Confederate flag on flag standards maintained by the city.  Institute attorneys asked the appeals court to reverse a ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia, which dismissed the lawsuit on behalf of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) on the grounds that the City was free to adopt an ordinance denying private parties the use of flag standards along City streets even though it had previously allowed local organizations to fly their flags from the standards. In arguments to the three-judge appeals panel, Rutherford Institute attorneys contend that the City’s motive for adopting the flag ordinance—allegedly in response to an SCV request to fly the Confederate flag and because of the City’s opposition to the message conveyed by that flag—was colored by a desire to silence the SCV’s speech.

Sons of Confederate Veterans logo

“The First Amendment was penned by the Framers of the Constitution to protect our ideas and speech, both the popular and the unpopular,” stated John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “The issue here is not whether the Confederate flag should be displayed but whether we, as Americans, remain committed to the idea of free speech. If we allow the censoring of something simply because it may be controversial, we open the door for the government to discard anything deemed disturbing or offensive.”

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is a nonpolitical fraternal organization that seeks to recognize and preserve the heritage and history of military personnel who fought for the Confederate States of America during the Civil War. In early 2010, the SCV began planning and organizing a parade to be held in January 2011, in Lexington, Va., a city with rich ties to Confederate history. For example, Lexington was the home of Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, who is also buried in Stonewall Jackson Memorial Cemetery. Gen. Robert E. Lee also is buried in Lexington at the chapel of Washington & Lee University, where Gen. Lee served as president from 1865 until his death in 1870. Lee-Jackson Day has also been designated as an annual holiday every January in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As part of its preparations for the parade, the SCV requested permission to temporarily display the Confederate flag from street standards owned by the city.  In years past, other groups, such as college fraternities, had been granted permission to fly their flags from the standards for special events. Although the SCV’s request created some controversy, city officials granted them permission to temporarily display the Confederate flag during the January 2011 event. However, at a March 2011 meeting to discuss the policy governing use of the flag standards, several persons expressed opposition to the Confederate flag display. Subsequently, in September 2011, the City adopted an ordinance providing that only the national flag of the United States, the flag of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City flag of Lexington may be flown from the standards on designated holidays. In filing the First Amendment lawsuit in January 2012, Institute attorneys alleged that the City not only violated a 1993 injunction assuring the SCV of the right to display the Confederate flag but also discriminated against the SCV in violation of their right to free speech and equal protection under the law. The Rutherford Institute is working in conjunction with attorney Thomas E. Strelka of Roanoke, Va., in representing the SCV.

Legal Action

Click here to read The Rutherford Institute’s brief in SCV v. Lexington

Press Contact

Nisha Whitehead (434) 978-3888 ext. 604 (434) 466-6168 (cell) nisha@rutherford.org

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Learn how to fool facial recognition cameras and video surveillance. Watch this.

Reblogged from PATRIOTS AND PAULIES (Politics & News):

• 

KRISTI KIRK (PatriotsandPaulies.wordpress.com) - Do the TrapWire and Facebook facial recognition scandals leave you feeling uneasy? Want to KEEP YOUR FACE from being DATABASED? Simply wearing a hat, sunglasses or even a mask does little to prevent facial recognition by today's sophisticated video surveillance systems and security cameras utilizing facial recognition software. Fortunately however, for those who value privacy, there are still a few tricks that may keep your face from ending up in a government, marketing or law enforcement database.

Read more… 304 more words

Storm Clouds Gathering

by Andrew P. Napolitano via LewRockwell.com

Government is bad for personal freedom. That argument is premised upon the truism that everything government does interferes with freedom because it either prohibits or compels. Everything it owns it has taken from others. Much of what it says is divorced from the truth. President Obama, like President George W. Bush, has argued that his first job is to keep America safe, and if he impairs personal freedom in the process, that is a small price to pay for safety. Many of my colleagues in the media on the left and right have bought this argument, notwithstanding its fallacies.

Until now.

This past week, we learned that the IRS has targeted for additional scrutiny the tax exemption applications of groups with whose messages it disagrees. We also learned that the Department of Justice obtained the personal telephone records of hundreds of reporters and editors employed by the Associated Press without a search warrant issued by a judge. And during this past week we learned that the White House, the Department of State and the CIA all engaged in a conspiracy of disinformation so that the official version of events of what caused the murders of four Americans at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya, would not impair Obama’s re-election campaign in 2012.

The common threads in all of this government secrecy and lying are a general rejection of government’s moral obligation to tell the truth, a disturbing yet brazen willingness to evade and avoid the restrictions the Constitution has deliberately built around government, and a glib admission that the government can do as it pleases so long as it can politically get away with it.

The Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause requires that the government treat all similarly situated entities in a similar manner. The Constitution’s First Amendment prohibits the government from using the speech and expressive activities of persons in America as a basis for the disparate treatment of them.

Thus, on its face – that is, on the basis of what the IRS has admitted and without any further investigation – we have violations of these constitutional principles. If the IRS were to examine the applications for tax exemption of Media Matters with the same level of scrutiny as it does with Tea Party Patriots, it would not run afoul of these principles. But Congress has given the IRS broad latitude to scrutinize the behavior of the taxpayers it chooses to scrutinize, and the IRS has given itself authority to probe, prod and plunder wherever it wishes. I say “given itself,” because the IRS has rule-making power, which when overlooked by Congress (as is almost always the case) actually serves to enhance IRS powers beyond what Congress permits.

Short of criminal behavior such as bribery or conspiracy, the IRS employees who have singled out applications for tax exempt status for more scrutiny based on anticipated political expression are subject to removal from office, but they cannot be prosecuted or sued. Here again, Congress is to blame, as both Republicans and Democrats have used and abused the IRS to their advantage, and neither party inwardly wants laws that will prevent it from doing so in the future. Is this what you expect of our tax collectors?

The First Amendment also assures the right of professional journalists to seek and protect their sources, and it gives them immunity from government prosecution or retribution for truthfully publishing matters of material public interest, even when it involves information stolen from the government. The Supreme Court taught us this in the Pentagon Papers case.

Moreover, the Fourth Amendment requires that if the government wants private information about who stole its secrets, it needs a search warrant from a judge. But the Patriot Act, which was celebrated by some in the media whose telephone records have since been seized, permits federal agents to write their own search warrants when they seek records from a third party like a telephone company and can claim that pursuit of terrorists is at stake. The Patriot Act makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment, and the government knows that. When the government chills free speech, we all suffer. Thomas Jefferson preferred newspapers without government to government without newspapers. Whose personal records will the government authorize itself to seize next?

The lesson of Benghazi is that we had no lawful right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the Libyan government. It was unlawful for Obama to bomb Col. Gadhafi without a congressional declaration of war. The organized assault on our consulate was the unintended consequence of us using force to infuse American-style democracy on a people whose culture is unable and unwilling to accept it.

But the president’s people were terrified that the murder of our ambassador to Libya during the 2012 presidential campaign might impair Obama’s re-election chances. So they and he tried to rewrite history, and the more they and he lied the more they and he needed to lie to cover up their original lies. Would you retain an employee who lied to you about the deaths of innocents and lied more to cover up the original lies?

Now, back to Bush and Obama and the president’s job. According to the Constitution, the president’s first job obligation is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. According to the Constitution, that means preserving Americans’ freedom first and safety second. Freedom is our natural state and is the ultimate natural right. Safety is a need that we ourselves can provide when unimpeded by the government. If the president keeps us safe but not free, he is not doing his job. Do you know anyone who feels freer or even any safer because the government trampled personal freedoms and so far has gotten away with it?

Reprinted with the author’s permission.

May 16, 2013

Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.

Copyright © 2013 Andrew P. Napolitano

The Best of Andrew Napolitano

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E-Verify = E-Total State

 

[Editor’s Note: The following post is by The Dollar Vigilante  contributor, Wendy McElroy]

The total state needs total information. How else can it track every dollar to snatch, every child to draft, every opinion to slap down? The monitoring of movement will always be done covertly or – if revealed – in the name of safety and fairness.

Obama assumed office with a vow to lead the most transparent White House in American history. Now another Godzilla Act has another massive gotcha that steps closer to the total state. The 800 plus page Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 (S.744) was introduced in the Senate on April 17 by a powerful group of bipartisan senators known as the “Gang of Eight.” And, as the comedian George Carlin once said of bipartisanship, it “usually means that a larger-than-usual deception is being carried out.”

Section 3101 of S.744, “Unlawful Employment of Unauthorized Aliens, contains a mandatory “Identity Authentication Mechanism” that mandates a biometric ID database for almost every adult in America. The so-called “Photo Tool” database would be administered jointly by the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). It would include not only personal information but also photographs from state-issued ID such as a driver’s license. Every adult who drives or travels, who opens a bank account or intersects with a government agency requires a state-issued photo ID. This means almost every adult in America will be on record with the most powerful domestic surveillance and police force in the world.

The ostensible purpose of the database is to prevent the illegal employment of undocumented immigrants. Employers would be legally obligated to “E-Verify” every person they hired; that is, they would be required to “match the photo on a covered identity document provided to the employer [by the job applicant] to a photo maintained by a US Citizenship and Immigration Services database.”

The American state does not care about the financial cost E-Verify inflicts on business or taxpayers. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) estimates the cost at “about $4.1 billion in initial setup costs and $8.5 billion in ongoing annual costs to government, businesses, and employees.” Additionally, if a specified 5,000 special agents are hired at an annual compensation that starts at “$45,416 per year, the new hires will likely cost taxpayers at least $2.27 billion over the next decade.”

The American state does not care about the penalties E-Verify would inflict on employers or minorities like Hispanics who would become high-risk employees – translation, less employable. After all, the employers would pay huge penalties for employees who bypass or somehow fake verification. David Bier of CEI explained, “The Senate legislation will increase penalties for illegal hiring, paperwork mistakes or technical errors in the process, which further incentivizes discrimination….[Another] reason for avoiding foreign-born or ‘foreign-looking’ individuals is that if unauthorized workers beat E-Verify by assuming others’ identities, employers could lose much of their workforce overnight” if the authorities find out.

The American state does not care about the social control E-Verify inflicts on individuals. The Act has a clear potential if not the likelihood of becoming a civil liberties train wreck. Once the bureaucracy is in place, there is no reason for E-Verify to stop with employment; there are reasons for the state to expand the program’s mission. The DHS could demand the verification of identity and a collection of data every time a person accesses a finance service, buys a home or car, boards a plane or train, applies for a license, seeks health care, casts a vote, requests a government service, or logs into a social network.

Defenders of S.744 reply that the Act allows the database to be used only for the purpose of hiring; the Act expressly forbids the establishment of a national ID database. They should read history. Social Security numbers were introduced in 1935 by Obama’s hero Franklin D. Roosevelt. They were explicitly prohibited from being used for any purpose other than tracking accounts within the Social Security program. People were expressly forbidden to use a Social Security numbers for identification. Cards issued from 1946 to 1972 had the words “for social security purposes, not for identification” printed prominently across their face. Today Social Security numbers are an unofficial and universal form of national ID without which it is difficult to function in the mainstream of society.

Two-thousand and thirteen moves faster than 1935. The evolution of Social Security numbers from innocuous from ubiquitous took decades; the evolution of S.744 may take months. Moreover, the Act does not restrain the type of biometric data to be gathered and used. Although S.744 currently mandates only the storing of photographs, it explicitly provides for the “development of specific and effective additional security measures to adequately verify the identity of an individual whose identity may not be verified using the photo tool.” The Act makes vague reference to “additional security measures” that may be required to keep up “with technological advances” and to provide “a high level of certainty as to…identity.” Vagueness in law favors the state. The news outlet Policymic observed, “There is no higher level of certainty than DNA.”

The political circumstances surrounding S.744 are also cautionary. For example, last week Senator Orrin Hatch filed a proposed amendment to launch the process of collecting biometric data (e.g. fingerprints, iris scans) on all foreigners departing the United States. This is a considerable expansion of S.744′s mission. And, yet, criticism from Hatch’s fellow-Senators focused upon the amendment’s economic cost, not upon its expansion of the Act.

Of course, any mission drift is likely to occur in silence, except for the official denials that it is occurring at all. Silence and denial have become the SOP of government agencies. Civil libertarian Glenn Greenwald addressed the recent revelation that “all digital communications – meaning telephone calls, emails, online chats and the like – are automatically recorded and stored and accessible to the government after the fact.” Greenwald identifies this process as the very definition of the “ubiquitous, limitless Surveillance State”. Why do Americans tolerate total surveillance? One reason is that “[t]he real capabilities and behavior of the US surveillance state are almost entirely unknown to the American public because, like most things of significance done by the US government, it operates behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy.”

State verification is state control. The DHS could easily control social and financial interactions by delaying or refusing verification. It could create second-class citizens by tagging dissenters or others targeted for a denial of ‘privileges’ like logging onto the Internet, accessing their bank accounts, or buying land. Chris Calabrese – a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union – observed of S744, “It starts to change the relationship between the citizen and state, you do have to get permission to do things. More fundamentally, it could be the start of keeping a record of all things.”

That would constitute the start of the end.

[Editor's Note: The US descent into a total police state continues. The best remedy remains geographical. If it is at all in your power, start taking the steps to get out and perhaps end your relationship with the empire entirely. Click here to learn more about second passports and how they can help you.]

Wendy McElroy is a frequent Dollar Vigilante contributor and renowned individualist anarchist and individualist feminist. She was a co-founder along with Carl Watner and George H. Smith of The Voluntaryist in 1982, and is the author/editor of twelve books, the latest of which is “The Art of Being Free”. Follow her work at http://www.wendymcelroy.com.

 

 

 

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U.S. Government Siezes Bitcoin’s Bank Account.

Written by Gary North of The Tea Party Economist based on an artile in the St. Louis Post Dispatch

Bitcoin has been promoted as digital money, an alternative to fiat money. The company’s owner’s will now get to test their theory. Their fiat money just got frozen by the federal government. The Feds seized Bitcoin’s bank account.

 

Everyone with any understanding of the U.S. government knew that something like this would happen. Maybe the owners planned for this. Maybe the fiat money in their account is like the $20 bill that people put in their upper drawer in the bedroom dresser: “easy money” for burglars, who will take the money and run. But one thing is for sure: the owners look silly.

If you are going to create an alternative currency, (1) have your citizenship in the Bahamas, (2) have your bank account in the Cayman Islands, (3) have your company set up on the Isle of Man, (4) register your domain name in Russia, and (5) have your site’s servers in the Netherlands.

The owners have Bitcoins in digital accounts. They announced this from the start. Maybe they can pay their lawyers with bitcoins. We will see. So will they.

Senator Chuck Schumer jumped in. He accused the company on online money laundering. He called on the government to shut them down.

People who bought bitcoins had made a lot of money this year. One Bitcoin was worth $13.50 at the start of the year. It soared to $110. It was worth pennies a couple of years ago.

If it stays at $110, that will be a good sign that the project is working.

Federal law requires organizations that provide money transmission services to register with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In March, FinCEN issued guidance classifying Bitcoin exchanges as money transmitters. But according to a warrant sought by ICE and approved Tuesday, Mr. Gox had failed to register as the law requires, subjecting its funds to forfeiture.

The Bitcoin system is digital and decentralized. The Feds cannot trace the flow of funds. But they surely can confiscate digital dollars.

Continue Reading on www.stltoday.com

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Latin Without Cicero: Musings of a Southward Bent

Remember this the next time you hear some spittle chin comment on what a great and prosperous country is the uSSA (after almost 40 years of the War on Poverty).  - jtl, 419

by Fred Reed via Fred on Everything

For many, Mexico remains a land of Pedro  sleeping away his days leaning against an adobe hut, sombrero pulled low over  his face, with a burro drowsing nearby. Apparently this is actually belived. An American woman of immoderate idiocy  once asked me by email whether Mexico had paved roads.Such folk seem to have in  mind, if mind they have, the Mexico of the age of Pancho Villa. As best I can tell, they have no  ideas at all of the rest of Latin America.

For the record, a paved road in Mexico. The  Baluarte Bridge, between Sinaloa and Durango. It is used exclusively for burro  traffic.

In reality, a much neglected location, things are a tad different. The Mexican economy  prospers. Per-capita GDP rises rapidly. Goldman-Sachs predicts that Mexico will  be the world’s    seventh  economy by 2020. I´ll believe it when I see it, but it´s not called Goldman because it doesn´t know about money. Poverty  assuredly exists, but I am aware of no city that has achieved the dysfunction  of Detroit, Newark, Camden, Birmingham, and so on. The birth rate is way down.  Literacy is up. Shopping malls are indistinguishable from those in America. Old  pot-holed roads exist next to new highways.

Mexico, as popularly conceived. Close enough for government work.

But Latin America is not just Mexico. There is  an actual civilization south of Texas, a whole unsuspected world, and much of  it is not remotely primitive. If you transported Buenos Aires to Italy, say,  or to Spain, it would not seem out of place.

Detroit.

Buenos Aires. As the photo makes clear, Latin cities are dismal slums.

Vi and I have spent days walking the streets of Lima  and Buenos Aires and found them to be modern, agreeable, and usually very  pretty cities, highly civilized in a distinctly European way, and in general  delightful. If one regards southern Europe as part of the First World, it is  hard to see how Argentina, Chile, and Colombia can be excluded.

        Newark

Bogota. An enlightening example of the civilizational incapacity of Latinos.

On the other hand, Bolivia is decidedly backward, often  lacking roads of any kind, paved or not. Ecuador, while lovely and pleasant, is  not quite midway between Bolivia and Argentina. Venezuela is nasty and  dangerous. Latin America is not one place.

I belong to a list-serve of highly bright people,  some of whose names you would know, who are serious academics and writers and  such. They are intensely concerned with the idea of IQ. They assert that  Hispanics have a mean IQ of 89, Mexicans in particular of 87, American blacks  of 85, and regard the book IQ and the  Wealth of Nations as demonstrating that GDP per capita depends on IQ. The  idea is hardly implausible. It is hard to see how a population of low  intelligence could build and run a modern city, for example.

A problem with this theory is that its proponents  are attributing a result in fact—economic success,  level of civilization—dependent on many variables to a single factor, IQ.  It doesn´t work. For example, according to IQ and the Wealth, Italy has a mean  IQ of 102, the US of 98, and yet the US has been greatly more profuse in its  engendering of both money andextraordinary technology. The advanced countries of  Latin America resemble Italy in such things as are visible from their cities. And  of course if GDP per capital is a function of IQ, then the IQ of the Chinese  must be rising at a hell of a rate. Perhaps their heads will explode.

Brazil, specifically Embraer, designs and  builds these babies, and others, used by countless airlines. Building airliners  is a characteristic of people of low IQ. The remains of such craft are often  associated with Neanderthal burial grounds.

Curious. Checking the CIA Factbook, I find that the  rate of literacy in Argentina is 97%, in Mexico, 86%, and in the United States,  99%. Though I don´tknow where the figures come from, or how literacy is  defined, the first two seem plausible. However, the US Department of Education  says that 14%  percent of American adults are illiterate. Let’s see, 14 from 100 is…86.

I  don´t vouch for the exactitude of these numbers, but they would seem to  indicate that northward things are perhaps not as rosy as we would like our  roses to be. And, having spent a lot of time on the ground southward, I note  that are a lot more culture, civilization, brains, and talent in those climes  than most Americans believe. I hesitate to suggest that we do anything so  extreme as to pay attention. It´s because I believe in the sanctity of tradition.

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