Now the truth is out

... for anyone who still had doubt that the Occupiers were preaching Socialism. Note the Ché Guevara graphic...

Capitalism isn't the problem. Corporate cronyism with government is.

I wonder how the young lady will feel if she gets her way -- and then discovers that she will not be allowed to protest the new régime.

Virtual buckeye to Terri Lynn Dewell.

"Leftist intellectual" now an oxymoron

And I'm tempted to take the "oxy" off of that last word.

Years ago, during the Vietnam protests, the socialist intellectual was a force to be reckoned with. You had to be sharp to come up with good conservative arguments to counter their positions.

Forty years later, having mostly gotten their way, the left has gotten soft in the head, as evidenced by these "Occupiers" of Wall Street, as reported in Rebellion.

Exhibit A: 

Inteviewer: "Why should I pay your college tuition?"
Occupier: "I can say what I want!"

Uh, I need a stronger case than that, kid.Obviously you don't have the smarts to get a scholarship...

Exhibit B:

This dude was probably motivated by that childish retort to an insult, "It takes one to know one."

Exhibit C:
I'll have to quote Old Rebel himself on this one:

Gee, who said the Occupy "Fill in the blank" protesters were a little fuzzy about their goals? Oh, yeah, I said that.

Well, this should clear things up. First, this group of Occupiers protests the banks and their influence in the central government.

But this leader of the Occupiers goes ballistic when he sees an "End the Fed" sign and rips it up. (Warning: Language.) Um, the Federal Reserve is the mother of all banks -- it's a privately owned megabank that controls the money supply. Sounds like a whole lotta unaccountable power to me.

To summarize in three words: Dumb and Dumberer.

Earth to Herman Cain: The third "9" in your plan is unconstitutional

Most of us have heard by now of Herman Cain's infamous 9-9-9 tax plan, where he would favor a 9% federal income tax, 9% federal corporate tax, and a 9% federal sales tax. It's bad enough that he wants to give the feds a new tax source*, but he needs to know that a federal sales tax is unconstitutional!
Here is the evidence:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the U.S. Constitution:

No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.

That clause was amended by the Sixteenth Amendment (which itself ought to be repealed):

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Note that the power granted to Congress is limited to income taxes. For any other direct tax, Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 still applies.

There is another reason that we should oppose the 9-9-9 plan. Can there be anything good for the middle class to have the feds tax money going in and going out.** Herman Cain's plan taxes individuals twice, income and sales tax, and it taxes corporations twice, corporate and sales tax.
I think Michelle Bachmann had the right idea. Turn the numbers upside down and you get 6-6-6 -- the devil is in the details.
* Fox News says that we are still paying taxes based on a bill to finance the Spanish-American War!
** Of course, Ohio has been doing this to us since the income tax was adopted in 1973, but we could still repeal it if we so desired. Getting the feds to repeal a tax is almost impossible.

The mainstream media are doing their part

Mitt Romney

I have always said that Democratic candidates for President are nominated, but the Republicans are anointed. Clearly, Republican liberal Mitt Romney is the "anointed one," but there is unrest within the ranks. Will the Republicans break the hold of their handlers the way they did in 1980 with Ronald Reagan? We shall see. Those who love freedom can find at least three better alternatives in the field (my opinion: Ron Paul, Michelle Bachmann, and Herman Cain, in that order).

End the Fed

We are beginning to understand it, and yes, we are probably going to have a revolution soon...

If you don't understand how the Federal Reserve is robbing us all, read G. Edward Griffin's The Creature from Jekyll Island. A good and fairly objective introduction (despite the OccupyWhatever sidebar) appears in Salon.com with the title "Who Actually Owns the Fed and Why That Must End."

Update Oct. 14: If you do not have time to read Creature from Jekyll Island, you can download a one-hour audio version on eBay for 99¢.

Virtual buckeye to Andy Myers.

The United States is NOT the "freest nation on earth"

In fact, according to the Index of Economic Freedom, published by the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, the United States -- barely -- ranks ninth among the 179 countries surveyed. The top six in order are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Canada -- we sit between Denmark and Bahrain.  And we are not "free", we are "mostly free." We have lost our freedoms so gradually, we do not realize just how much has been lost. Chuck Baldwin gives a recap in Vdare.com .

Who's behind the campaign against Issue 2?

As the Ohio Liberty Council has observed, We Are Ohio (the anti-Issue 2 movement) clearly is not "a bipartisan, grassroots movement speaking for Ohio’s middle class." The truth is reflected in the campaign finance figures submitted to Secretary of State Jon Husted in July, displayed on a graph at the Ohio Liberty Council site that I was unable to reproduce here. Note how the contributions are grouped: $3.7 million from international unions, $2 million from Ohio unions, and less than $40,000 from individual donors. As an objector in a union shop myself, I know that much of that money was forced in union dues from employees who disagree with the leadership's politics. Follow the links at the bottom of the post, then decide for yourself whether We are Ohio is looking out for the public interest.

Choosing our friends

When I was a child, my mother told me that "you are known by the friends you keep." That advice has served me well, particularly since I have started publicly stating my political views through this blog. I have made many friends, most of them good; a few I have had to defriend or put some distance between myself and them, because I do not want to be associated with their approach to change.

I bring this up because I found some of my libertarian friends being seduced by the Occupy Wall Street movement, its sister movement Occupy Together, and the latter's affiliates in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown (links on the Occupy Together home page).

Since the stated purpose of Occupy Together is to show solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, it is reasonable to assume that they share the same vision. So what is the vision of this movement that has held a continuous protest in New York City since Sept. 18?

"We are the 99%," says Occupy Wall Street (Oct. 1):

We are unions, students, teachers, veterans, first responders, families, the unemployed and underemployed. We are all races, sexes and creeds. We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent.

As members of the 99 percent, we occupy Wall Street as a symbolic gesture of our discontent with the current economic and political climate and as an example of a better world to come.

The previous day, they posted this message:

OccupyWallSt.org stands in solidarity without brothers and sisters in Boston who are marching on Bank of America.

The language and rhetoric is redolent of union activism and leftist protest organizations.

Their symbol is a clenched fist, the historic symbol of the socialist movement. While they agree with us that the Federal Reserve Bank should be abolished, there is nothing in their demands, their rhetoric, or the way they operate that suggests that they are libertarian in any way. Rather, they mirror the leftist approach used in the protests against the Vietnam War and against Wisconsin's collective bargaining bill last winter. Their message is heavily laced with class envy.

They idolize President Obama, but think he does not go far enough.  

Those who are familiar with George Orwell's novel 1984 might suspect that this is a case of Big Brother setting up his own Emmanuel Goldstein (the straw man representing the opposition, but who believed essentially the same thing).

At first blush, Occupy Wall Street really does appear to represent the "99%," but once you peel off the outer layers, you see that it fosters the same kind of socialism that President Obama wants to foist upon us.

We may soon experience revolution. Some of our people may even be desperate enough to want one. But if Occupy Wall Street and its friends are the vanguard of the revolution to come, we will get a dictatorship of the proletariat, and "dictatorship" is likely to be putting it gently.

We just abolished the rule of law

Eric Peters at LewRockwell.com demonstrates how, in the execution of Anwar al-Auluqi, an American citizen, we have just allowed our President to execute any of us -- at will.

America has not been a “country of laws, not men” for many years but now it’s official. The state’s fangs have been bared. Within living memory, presidents and congresscretins were at least nominally bound by law. They paid lip service to it and if caught transgressing, there was usually embarrassment if not punishment – and for awhile, the abuse would stop or at least be dialed back a little bit.

No more.

Now, not even a letter d’ cachet is required. All that is required is for the eye of Obama (or that of his successor to the purple) to fall upon you. Improbable, you say? Idiot, sez me.

Idiot, because you – if you believe you’re safe – believe that the laws of human nature do not apply to our Great Leaders, merely to Great Leaders of other countries, who are not spayshull like us. Idiot, because – if you believe you are secure – you believe that precedents don’t set policy. That once established they are always and inevitably expanded upon. That once any individual is subject to arbitrary state terror any of us may be subjected to arbitrary state terror – and the only thing holding it back (for the moment) is that the eye of Obama has not (yet) fallen upon you and yours.

No more is there the restraint of procedure, of the submission of evidence to a jury in open proceedings, to weigh against the charges leveled. Indeed, charges are no longer required – let alone a finding of guilt based upon evidence. Merely:

Ah ahm the decider! And ah have deecided!

Oh, surely, it is now enunciated in a more polished and highbrow manner by the current Don. But it is the same thing, essentially. I decide. From Lincoln to Hitler to Bush II to The Constitutional Scholar: Fuhrerprinzip. Power flows from on high, incarnated in the person of the leader.

I am being hysterical you say?

Yes, I am. Because I see where this is headed and what it will come to mean for all of us, eventually – or for any of us, that is, who might find ourselves described as “domestic extremists” for disbelieving in the principles of IngSoc and expressing criticism of the same.

In one of my early posts (January 2008), I listed ten steps to fascism. This act has completed Step 7 (Target key individuals). The Establishment already controls the press (Step 8), which leaves only Steps 9 and 10: to assert that dissent is the same as treason, and to suspend the rule of law.

Mr. Peters and I then quote the dissident German pastor Martin Niemöller's famous comment about how Germans allowed the Third Reich to be established. It is worth reproducing here:

First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Perhaps the more contemporary version will be:

First they came for the Arabs, and I did not speak out because I was not an Arab.
Then they came for the gun owners, and I did not speak out because I did not own a gun..
Then they came for the Tea Partiers, and I did not speak out because I was not a Tea Partier.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Let me make one final comment that will surely offend some people, but I am sure it is the truth: Anyone who thinks that we will change course by electing anyone other than Ron Paul as President or by electing a Republican Congress is a fool. And I am not totally convinced that electing Ron Paul will do anything except slow it down a bit, since he would still have to contend with that Congress.

There is no hope, if we do not take responsibility ourselves. We must build up our state government to resist the tyranny to come, first by passing measures like Issue 3 against forced health care; then honest money, and if necessary, secession.

Virtual buckeye to Charles Earl.

Update 10/3: Paul Craig Roberts gives a concurring opinion at LewRockwell.com: In his article, "The Day America Died," he shows how the federal government and the military have been brutalized, with the support of many "patriotic" Americans who fear terrorism so much that they are willing to trash the very document that protects them. His conclusion:

Readers ask me what they can do. Americans not only feel powerless, they are powerless. They cannot do anything. The highly concentrated, corporate-owned, government-subservient print and TV media are useless and no longer capable of performing the historic role of protecting our rights and holding government accountable. Even many antiwar Internet sites shield the government from 9/11 skepticism, and most defend the government’s "righteous intent" in its war on terror. Acceptable criticism has to be couched in words such as "it doesn’t serve our interests." 
 
Voting has no effect. President "Change" is worse than Bush/Cheney. As Jonathan Turley suggests, Obama is "the most disastrous president in our history." Ron Paul is the only presidential candidate who stands up for the Constitution, but the majority of Americans are too unconcerned with the Constitution to appreciate him.

To expect salvation from an election is delusional. All you can do, if you are young enough, is to leave the country. The only future for Americans is a nightmare.

As I expressed above, I remain a bit more hopeful than he is that the situation can be changed. But not much. I could leave -- Canada is not that far away -- but emigration does nothing to weaken the tyrant.

Federal judge rules Patriot Act unconstitutional

MS-NBC, not usually noted for being a "wingnut right-wing" news source, reports that a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act has been ruled unconstitutional by District Court Judge Ann Aiken. The Foreign Surveillance Act allowed searches without warrant in cases where the FBI was gathering intelligence on foreign citizens. The USA PATRIOT Act extended the FBI's ability to conduct secret searches in terrorism investigations on U.S. citizens.

In this case, Portland, Oregon, attorney Brandon Mayfield's fingerprints were found on an object in a blown up subway car in the 2004 Madrid bombing. The evidence was insufficient to establish probable cause, but prosecution was permitted under the provisions of the act.

  

It goes without saying that the federal government will appeal, but this, at least is another small victory for the Constitution at a time when it appears to be under siege.

Virtual buckeye to Bill Yarbrough.