I apologize for not having written any articles lately. I will do my best to push out at least 1 article I feel is important every week at minimum. I finally got hired as a precious metals broker. My days are generally packed, and my weekends are the only free time I have now. If you guys need any help investing in physical precious metals for delivery or are interested in Precious Metal IRAs, I would be happy to help. Thanks for your following and sharing my articles.
The party of limited government? I think not. The GOP seems to be split between people who actually adhere to most of what the platform is supposed to be, meanwhile the other side seems to have no problem voting to increase taxes, especially in a period of massive recession. I'm not talking about 3 or 4 Senators. 26 of them voted for this tax increase. These are the same Senators that say we can't vote to cut foreign aid to our enemies, but we can sure raise taxes on the American people during horrible economic times. Imposing internet sales tax is going to hurt the consumer, not help the consumer. The government does not need more money. It needs less money. It needs to stop spending money we don't have on things we don't need, like studying the sex life of the mosquito. I think we have more pressing issues to deal with. The GOP keeps making it easier and easier for Rand Paul to use them as a punching bag in the 2016 election. Keep it up.
Remember that dangerous precedent that I said the United States was setting with its foreign policy in one of my previous articles? Well, what is happening in the Syrian Civil War is a great example of this precedent in action.
The Syrian Civil War has been going on for a while right now. But is it really a civil war? Do you remember the United States along with other powers funding Libyan militias and "revolutionaries" to overthrow Qaddafi? They ended up being terrorists and Al Qaeda militants. You thought the United States would learn from its mistakes, but apparently not. It is simply very difficult to tell whether these groups are really fighting a civil war, or engaging in acts of terrorism against the people and governments of these nations. Yet, we still send them weapons and money. Simply put good intentions are not enough. It would be wise and prudent to let them solve their own problems, instead of funding, arming, and supporting peolpe who may turn out to actually be our enemies.
The conflict in Syria has been going on for a while now. Militants are engaging the Syrian government and people in armed conflict, bombings, snipings, beheadings, all many other disgusting things which a government like the United States should consider reprehensible. Getting to the point here, Syria launched an airstrike into neighboring Lebanon a few days ago, targeting militants who crossed the border into Lebanon, and the global community led by the United States condemned such actions. Is this some kind of really bad joke? Do countries like the United States, Britain, and France not do this on a regular basis while the global community is silent? What about the western and european bombings in Libya, Mali, Yemen, and countless other nations? We call it defending freedom and we call them horrible out of control dictators when they do it. There is no other way to put it. This reaks of hypocrisy and the nations that continue to condemn other nations acting in self defense.
It should be noted that it is public information that the United States among other nations are openly arming and funding the militants engaging in war againt the Syrian government. So it is open and public knowledge that a group of powers are ganging up on smaller more defenseless nations. And no one says a thing? Does this mean I support the Syrian government and everything they do? Absolutely not. But I'm not going to blame them for defending themselves. They've actually acted with incredible restraint, when confronting an alliance of powers determined to destroy it. But Syria has no other choice, it is the little kid in the school yard surrounded by older children with metal baseball bats ready to beat it to a bloody pulp.
So are these militants freedom fighters or are they terrorists? At the very minimum we shouldn't be funding and arming them, because historically these groups have turned out to be our enemies, not our friends, and certainly not in support of individual freedom. Apparently, even after 9/11 we continue to arm our enemies. Have we lost our minds?
Some WeAreChange members were able to ask Lindsey Graham some questions as he was leaving an event. As soon as he answered the first one and more questions were asked, he made his way out trying to get to the car as soon as possible. He did continue to answer questions while walking, but he interrupted the girl at one point, as to extend his answer so that no more questions could be asked. I found that very interesting. He never answered whether the disposition matrix is enough.
Okay Mr. Graham, thanks for being polite for once, however, we would like answers to the questions. What exactly are the characteristics that make someone an illegal enemy combatant? That is the important discussion that we are not having right now. Here's one simple question. Can I, as someone who disagrees with you politically, specificaly who disagrees with your foreign policy, be branded as an enemy combatant for somehow "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy? Next question is what exactly is aid and comfort? I hope you understand now that these questions and concerns are legitimate.
The debate seems to be taking this road, and it's a lose lose for people like Lindsey Graham, because his answer is the government has unlimited power, and that is why he needs to rush away before there is any time for more questions.
There are so many exciting stories that I don't have time to write all of them, but this one seemed more important than the others for the time being.
A couple of days ago one of my friends who trades with me in the FOREX market told me something about a freezing and confiscation of cyprus bank accounts. Today I saw the news actually being reported and some of the market reaction. What this has to say about the euro is one thing, but what this has to say about about fiat money is another. Almost all of the currencies in the world are basically paper backed by nothing of tangible value. In other words, today "money is debt," as they tried to teach me in my economics classes in college. I laughed in class, but apparently, the professors don't get it.
I'll leave the economics up to you to figure out for the moment, as the political implications of these things are much more interesting. The world has still not climbed out of the market downturn from 2008. The DJIA is just south of where it was right before the crash. Expect huge resistance. And ontop of this, the fundamentals have not changes. They've only gotten worse. All of this with the continuing eurozone crisis and now bank confiscations and impending runs? Something major is just around the corner.
And Stewart Varney on Fox Business Channel thinks this is somehow impossible in America. A lot of ignorant Americans will wake up one day to a horrifying truth. The only question is when.
I saw a lot of people commenting both positively and negatively on the results of the straw poll. Let's look at a comparison of Ron's victory in 2011 with an organized effort and Rand's 2013 victory in the aftermath of the 2012 election.
CPAC 2011 Ron Paul Victory
CPAC 2013 Rand Paul Victory
Rand has lots of things working against him. There never has been the amount of vitriol and negativity towards Ron Paul like there is for Rand, in the Liberty Movement. He has a large portion of the Liberty Movement that outright hates him by people holding old grudges regardless of the facts allowing their emotions to get the better of them. Some others think so highly of themselves that they don't believe that as human beings like the rest of us, that they could be wrong as well. He has the enormous establishment and neocon machine working against him, along with the still large legion of followers they have been duping. Rand is clearly using a different strategy than his father, and some people hate him for that. We know the machine that Ron faced in 2008 and 2012. That is what Rand is going up against.
With no organized effort to win this straw poll, he still came out ontop by only 2%. This is a confirmation that his strategy IS WORKING. We didn't slam the CPAC polls, but the neocons definitely knew who to allocate their votes to. They certainly did, and guess what, they lost. Now imagine the amount of power we will have as the years pass and the time towards the election comes near, when more skeptics stand with Rand. By that time, the vast majority of the negative voices should admit they were wrong, just like Justin Raimondo has done. An organized effort to win will outdo Ron's previous number of 3,742 and you can bet 90% of those extra votes will be from the Liberty Movement there to do their job. All that is necessary to win, is the ability to educate a sizeable portion of the GOP. This is great news!
What say you?
Rand Paul entered the ballroom to the tune of the song "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. Many people were dubbing it "Enter Randman." He opened up with a connection to his recent fillibuster which drew huge applause and crowd positive crowd interaction.
Right away, Rand went to work on the contingent he is competing with. He said "No one person gets to decide the law, and determine your guilt or innocence." He then threw them some red meat by quoting Lincoln, who stated, "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man give him power." He connected this to the comparison of candidate Obama and President Obama, hitting him hard on the NDAA indefinite detention provision, disproving the claims that Rubio said made America better. They ate it up without even realizing it.
Rand Paul said, "Good intentions are not enough. If we destroy our enemy, but lose what defines our freedom in the process, have we really won? If we allow one man to charge Americans as enemy combatants, then what exactly is it that our brave young men and women are fighting for?" Here is is defining and creating a record of being pro-military and pro-troops, exactly the opposite of how his competition would like to paint him.
"Our Bill of Rights is what defines us. It is what makes us exceptional. To those who would dismiss this debate as frivolous, tell that to those who sacrifice their lives and limbs. Tell that to the 6,000 soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tell them the bill of rights is no big deal." Neocons are going to have a hard time trashing Rand like they did with Ron. The crowd received him incredibly well for these pro-military statements even though they know he is skeptical of our current foreign policy.
He went on to further establish his Conservative credentials. Rand said, "We desperately need a new course and new leadership. The path forward for the GOP is rooted in respect for the Constitution and respect for the individual. We need to guard all of our liberties. The Republican Party has to change by going forward to the classical and timeless ideas enshrined in our Constitution. When we understand that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, then we will become the dominant national party again. It's time for us to revive Reagan's law, for liberty to expand, government must shrink, for the economy to grow, government must get out of the way." He is sticking his neck and challenging the status quo while using quotes from people they like such as Reagan. His challenge is direct and easily understandable.
One of the next things Rand says, I knew would get some Libertarians upset. Rand said, "This month I will propose a 5 year balanced budget. My budget eliminates the department of education (massive applause) and devolves power and money back to the states where they belong. My 5 year budget will create millions of jobs by cutting the corporate income tax in half, creating a flat personal income tax of 17%, and cutting the regulations that are strangling american business." A lot of good stuff, and then the 17% flat tax thing. We all know our ideal number is 0% ... but if you look at the 2013 tax brackets ... something like 90% of the country fall somewhere between 15% and 25%. He needs to be more specific on the details of what he means, especially for those who are in the 0% to 10% tax bracket. It is a move in the right direction from where we are now.
He has a lot of great statements in this speech, so I'm just going to quote them all and comment afterwards. "The Constitution must be our guide. In order for Conservatives to win nationally, we must stand for something. We must stand on principle. We must stand for something so powerful and popular, that it brings together people from the left, the right, and the middle. The GOP of old has grown stale and moss covered. I don't think we need to name any names do we? Our party is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom. The NEW GOP will need to embrace freedom in both the economic and personal sphere. If we are going to have a GOP that can win, liberty must be the backbone of the GOP. We must have a broad message and vision that must be based on freedom. There are millions of Americans young and old, native and immigrant, black, white, and brown, who simply wish to live free, to practice their religion, free to choose whether their kids go to school, free to choose their healthcare, free to keep the fruits of their labor, and free to live without government constantly being on their backs, I will stand for them! I will stand for you, and I wish everyone who values liberty to stand with me." (huge Applause)
And as I finish this article, Rand Paul just won the CPAC 2013 Presidential Straw Poll with 25% of the vote in first, 2% more than Marco Rubio at 23% in second. In third came Rick Santorum with 8% of the vote. In my last article, I told you that this is what you are going up against. The neocons are going to push Rubio and push him hard as the alternative to Rand. If you watched CPAC, you know they already threw people like Christie and others under the bus.
Let's lock our arms together and defeat these tyrants once and for all. Next year, if we organize just like Ron Paul did in the 2011 CPAC Poll, we will dominate with 40+% of the vote. Expect the neocons to organize against us as well. Total votes were down from 2011 when Ron Paul dominated. There were at least 1,000 less votes this time. Imagine if all of those were for Rand. The neocons would being trembling in fear. Let's finish them job.
Oh and Ted Cruz just came out as the keynote speaker drawing huge support for a more Libertarian philosophy in support of Rand.
While watching Marco Rubio's speech today at CPAC 2013, I thought I'd write an analysis of his speech.
Before I get started, I thought it was important to note, as Rubio did himself, that he got started in politics through the Tea Party Movement of 2010, a movement largely adopted by the GOP from the original Tea Party Movement back in 2007 during the Ron Paul Presidential Campaign. He owes his political existence to the Libertarian Wing of the GOP and Ron Paul, whether he wants to admit it or not. This is your competition for 2016.
Rubio started his speech by saying "The good people are the ones who do things right and don't complain. Infighting between Conservatives is a foolish notion." Apparently he thinks that everyone who calls themselves Conservative is one. If it wasn't for arguing and picking fights with people when they are dead wrong on an issue, millions of people wouldn't have woken up to realize that people like McCain and Graham are NOT for limited government nor are they Conservative. Fighting and arguing is a good thing. It is how we learn and grow.
He then went on to say 3 things that I actually agree with, that turn out to be quite Libertarian as well. He said that pushing our kids to go to a 4 year college is not the right thing to do. College is not for everyone. We need engineers, plumbers, and other technical jobs that can be achieved through technical certifications. Next, he went on to talk about broken families. Surprisingly, he said that we should NOT use government, but we can help tackle this problem through families, churches, and other types of voluntary organization, just like Ron paul has said in the past. Lastly, he mentioned that Americans should be able to buy health insurance from any company in the country that is willing to sell it to them. These are things we can all agree on.
Rubio then began to talk about something I knew was coming, which indicated that he is still a Neoconservative. He mentioned something call the China Dream, a book written by a Chinese General, stating that the goal of China should be to surpass the United States as the pre-eminent economic and military power in the 21st century. They are in a race to see who can lead world progress in the 21st century. He then goes on to list a bunch of reasons why China should NOT be the leading power in the world.
Rubio said that the Chinese Government does not provide internet access to its citizens. I highly doubt that there is no internet in China. Is it highly regulated and censored? Absolutely. Does america regulate and censor the internet? They are certainly trying to. Remember the SOPA and CISPA acts that congress tried to pass? Well Rubio happened to be one of the original cosponsors of that legislation before the Libertarian Wing of the GOP forced him to back off. If you think that Chinese regulation and censorship of the internet is bad Marco, then why are you trying to implement it in America?
Next, he says that the Chinese Government will hold its citizens as prisoners with no recourse. Is that not what the US Government passed in the indefinite detention of American citizens provision of the NDAA 2012? Why is the government putting legislation in place that would threaten its own citizens? Unfortunately for Rubio, he voted for NDAA 2012, Senate Bill 1867. I'm pretty sure he knows what he is doing while saying things like this, while hoping to keep these kinds of things out of the spotlight.
Then, he says the Chinese Government tortures and coerces people until they get confessions from them. Do we not engage in this behavior too? Do we not have prison camps overseas and CIA black sites, both of which engage in torture, while claiming it is lawful and legal, because it is outside the United States? There seems to be a clear double standard here.
Rubio said that the Chinese Government restricts the people's ability to assemble. Here in America we have free speech zones and need permits to exercise our distaste how they want us to, when they want us to, and if they want to allow us, because someone else might be insulted. The US Government does the same. He went on to say that if you escape China somehow, that the Chinese Government will put pressure on a foreign government to return you. That's called extradition. It's a common thing all governments have done for a really long time. The US Government has been doing this for what seems like forever. It seems like China is doing excatly what the US Government wants to do. All the things you are complaining about are presently happening here, Mr. Rubio.
So where is this "better" America that you speak of that should lead the world. Pay attention to the words he uses here. Rubio said that we (HAVE) something different, special, and historic in America and that we had an idea called America that still works. We no longer HAVE what Rubio claims we do. The truth is we HAD those things, and we no longer have them. It can't be both Mr. Rubio. We either have it or we don't.
He then offers some proof that he believes exemplifies how America still works. He claims that China is copying us. I tend to disagree. I see America becoming more communist while China is moving in a more capitalist direction. That should be quite obvious. We seem to be copying them in many respects, with all of the things Rubio cited above, not the other way around. And if they really are trying to copy us as Rubio claims, we are setting an incredibly dangerous precedent with our foreign policy. So somehow when America does regime change, drone bombings into foreign countries, nation building, unilaterally invading other nations, threatening them with sanctions, and torturing and ceorcing its enemies, this is a good thing? But when China "follows" American lead on these issues in the future, it will be a bad thing? What happens when these kinds of things are done against Americans by a foreign power? These are serious questions that need to be addressed.
We need a little less chest pounding "America is the greatest country that will ever exist in the history of the world nonsense," and a little more humble understanding of what we are doing. Human beings are fallible. We could be making mistakes.
Rand's sudden burst of popularity has a lot of people scared and angry. On one side you have hardcore neocons who actually believe their philosophy like John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Bill Kristol ... etc ... and on the other side you have viscious Libertarians who still can't get over the fact that Ron Paul was not going to win electorally in 2012. The backhanded ridiculous comments are not getting the neocons anywhere, so how far will you think they get you? Case in point, what Rand Paul is doing is actually working. The fact that you are dissatisfied with the "game" of politics does nothing to negate that fact. If you are not willing to engage in electoral politics, then at least let other people do it. Do some Libertarians yell at you when you choose to do things your own way? Probably. But what kind of real Libertarian is that? Libertarians don't tell other people what to do. And mocking other people is childish and gets you nowhere.
The Contract From America polls Rand in first place out of 190,000 votes, ahead of Scott Walker in second , and Marco Rubio in third. This is where the real fight is, not yelling and screaming at eachother because we want to control what other people are doing. If you do want to yell and whine, you are free to do so, but I don't think it's going to get you anywhere, and it certainly is not helping.
Even the language Rand is using here is language that can be interpretted and manipulated in many ways, so that he cannot be painted into a corner. Specifically, his statements on entitlements were awesome because he painted the other side as penalizing, while he said we should fix it for those in the system because we are good people and we owe it to them. It should be recognized that you are dealing with a well educated principled man who understands politics and is using and will use it to our benefit. I would hope that you guys stop trying to throw water on this brushfire of liberty that we worked so hard to start.
Here's a short 10 minutes video I thought I would share which outlines the origins of due process and what is happening to it today. While I may disagree with some things Chomsky says on other topics, he seems to have the historical significance of the situation correct.