Ben Stein accuses Ron Paul of being an anti-semite

This clip is amazing for two reasons. First of all, Ben Stein comes off as a complete and total jackass. He can't refute a logical argument, so he responds with an ad hominem attack.

Second, notice who is in the middle frame? That's Shelia Jackson-Lee (my "representative" in Washington). And she can't even get a word in! That in and of itself is a notable event. It's often said in Houston that the most dangerous place in town is between Sheila Jackson-Lee and a microphone. (BTW...when I met Sheila at a town hall meeting in December she was nothing but gracious and polite to me. Despite our disagreements on just about everything, we at least had civil discourse.)

But back to Ben Stein. Stein first came to prominence as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, a noted anti-semite. I really don't understand why people this this guy is so intelligent. He knows next to nothing about economics and every time I see him on Fox Business or CNBC, he is arguing for big government, bailouts, Keynesian stimulus, and printing money out of thin air. He's an apologist for the state - not a free market thinker at all. And apparently he knows even less about human behavior and foreign policy.

Dick Morris. Radical? Extremist?

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I am on Dick Morris's emailing list. I like the old boy, in spite of his rather sordid political past and in spite of the fact that he and I are not exactly ideological twins. I have read four of his books to my profit and continue to follow his columns and remain interested in where his mind is going. Dick is a political animal who loves the game and knows how to play it. Perhaps when he was burned by the Clintons, or perhaps as a result of his personal failings, I'm not sure, but somewhere along the line he gained a political conscience. I find him well worth my time just about any time he drops something in my inbox.

The following is something I received from him about five days ago, right after the Senate had turned Benedict Arnold on the Republic and the Constitution by enacting the most anti-freedom, tyrannical legislation in our history. First, read his words, then afterwords I will comment.

If they beat us in the Senate, we will fight them in conference. If they beat us in conference, we will fight them in the House. If they beat us in the House over healthcare, we will fight them over cap and trade. We will fight them over immigration and amnesty. We will fight them over the deficit. We will fight them over the debt. And we will fight them in 2010. We will fight them in the House. We will fight them for Senate seats in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and Arkansas. We will fight them in Colorado and North Dakota and California and Washington State. We will fight them in Illinois and in New Jersey. We will never, never, never, never give up! Our country is at stake!

All our defeats do is to teach us the futility of appealing to moderate Democrats and the necessity - the dire necessity - of replacing them with committed Republicans. There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat in Congress. There are simply those whose votes the leadership does not need in order to promote its socialist agenda.

We will not place our faith in the Nelsons or the Lincolns or the Liebermans or the Landrieus of the Senate. Nor in the Blue Dogs of the House. All we do when we depend on them is to permit them to raise their price and up the ante for their vote. We will place our faith only in the Republicans who oppose them and who will bring the collective insanity which has gripped Washington to an end.

But we will continue to fight each battle in Congress because it is only by blunting Obama's momentum and by demonstrating to the voters of America how their Democratic members of Congress are only automatic votes for socialism that we have a chance to triumph in 2010. And triumph we will. We can only hope that there is still a country to take back!

Stay with us! Help us! Fight with us!

Now that you have read that, I have a couple of questions, and because they are good questions I will also take the opportunity to answer them as good questions deserve good answers.

Question #1 - Is Dick Morris a right-wing extremist?
Answer - Hardly. Morris infamously worked for William Jefferson Clinton as a political strategist for years. He was the brains behind Bill's buffoonery.

Question #2 - Yeah, but that was then. This is now. Has he become a right-wing extremist?
Answer - Again, no. His views are quite moderate I assure you. He still thinks in terms of "government solutions" to societal ills. He still thinks in terms of doing government better and more efficiently as opposed to taking government out of the equation. He is, in short, a moderate statist . . . similar to George W. Bush.

What he is, however, is patriotic. He is also astute enough to realize that Barack Hussein Obama is not. He can see what this administration has done, and is doing to the Republic. He is awake enough to realize that with the enactment of legislation such as this the American idea, the American experiment, is over.

Look at these excerpts again:

"Our country is at stake!"

"There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat in Congress. There are simply those whose votes the leadership does not need in order to promote its socialist agenda."

"And triumph we will. We can only hope that there is still a country to take back!"

I can remember when this sort of rhetoric was reserved for radicals and extremists alone. No longer. There was a time when men like Dick Morris would have cringed at rhetoric such as this. Now they use it.

Constitution Class (Part 1/7) - Property and Your Rights

I received word today that Michael Badnarik, the 2004 Libertarian Party candidate for President, self-described iconoclast, and self-made expert on the Constitution, property rights, liberty and freedom, had a heart attack while at an event in Wisconsin. I thought this would be a good time to re-watch his classic 7 part series on the Constitution and liberty, available on Google Video.

Here is Part 1 which deals primarily with the concept of property and how property relates to liberty.

John Stossel - The Debate Is Over? Really?

Posted by James Spurgeon.

Scientific Accuracy (Trust Me On This One)

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In a hurry this morning. Let's see what I can put up quickly for the cause.

Science is a method of acquiring knowledge and information, not an infallible source of knowledge. No, really. Science is a method, not a source. Ironic, is it not, that while science itself would seem to require skepticism, many in the scientific community would like for us to drop all skepticism when it comes to their latest, greatest theories. In fact, those of us who remain skeptical are dubbed ignorant rubes or worse. Scientists, it would seem, no longer have to prove anything. We should just believe them.

To do this I have to assume that they are (a) unbiased, (b) infallible, (c) have my best interests at heart, and (d) are capable of rising above the interests of those who are funding them (usually government).

Wow.

Why should I give that much benefit of doubt to anyone? Are scientists super-human? Are they made from a better mold, cut from a finer cloth?

Really?

I like science and scientists, don't get me wrong. I am addicted to Discovery Science. I share with them an insatiable desire, that wanting to know. But, I have been around the block one too many times to just accept everything anyone says without question. History proves me right in this attitude.



Does it not?

Radical Theory Change in Science

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In light of the recent revelations about the doctoring of records and data by global warming scientists at East Anglia University for the stated purpose of shaping public opinion for the advancement of a political cause, and in the face of the arrogance of those on the Left who insist that we all believe their global warming theory because of "consensus" and because the evidence is in and the debate is now over, and because making this sentence even longer will probably succeed in annoying every English teacher I ever had, I dredged up this old post from my old blog to present it to you, here and now, still relatively fresh and relevant.

Professor McGrath is a scientist and Christian theologian. He has written several books including at least two answers to noted atheist Richard Dawkins. I found the following quotations in one of those books and used them as a catalyst for the post. Enjoy.

Alister McGrath brings up an interesting observation in Chapter three of his Dawkins' God--Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. In that chapter he has a section entitled "The Problem of Radical Theory Change in Science." Here is a quotation:

When I was learning physics at school, I gradually became aware of an awkward contradiction within what I was being taught. On the one hand, I was being assured that the theories of modern physics were completely reliable, the most secure form of knowledge that humanity could ever hope to possess. Yet every now and then, we would venture into a strange, twilight region in which it would be explained to us, in hushed, conspiratorial tones, that "physicists once used to believe this, but don't now." . . . At first, I thought that these old-fashioned views dated back to the sixteenth century. But the awful truth soon became clear. The acceptance of these new ideas dated from about forty years earlier. "Once" turned out to mean "quite recently."--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.102, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Yep. I've noticed that sort of thing myself. No, I'm no scientist, but I am a television nerd--which means I watch all the nerd channels. You know what they are--the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, NatGeo, Discovery Science, History International, etc. I watch shows dealing with astronomy, cosmology, dinosaurs, you name it. One cannot watch many of these programs without coming across statements like the one McGrath notes above. Scientific theories are always changing, always being revised, many being completely discarded and replaced. They are always getting it wrong.

Now is that a bad thing? Of course, not. Scientific discovery is a road paved with wrong ideas, but as we learn and discover further, we grow. Isn't that wonderful?

There's something else I've noted in the scientific community from watching those nifty little nerd channels. Scientists are always arguing with each other. They seldom all agree on their theories and some are even ridiculed for their ideas by their colleagues. Sometimes even, the ones who are ridiculed turn out to be right. Sometimes a scientist comes along who challenges the prevailing opinions, is ridiculed, but in the end, through his diligent experimentation and research, it turns out that he was right and he changes the face of science for a few decades (until the next guy comes along doing the same thing).

All of this is easily evident to the untutored layman like me. Yet at the same time it is astounding how arrogant the scientific community is. Imagine, for instance, a guy like Richard Dawkins. An intelligent man by all accounts, well-learned, articulate, funny, thorough, logical, Dawkins is also arrogant--arrogant to the point of expecting people to radically change their worldview because of a scientific theory. Of course, as McGrath points out, even if one were to accept the theory of evolution as genuine it does not then necessarily follow that one's theism or Christianity be discarded.

Nevertheless, here is Dawkins--who cannot prove his theory. He may be able to point to a mound of scientific evidence, yet the necessary proof is as of yet unproduced. But Dawkins ridicules those who do not accept the theory as fact, even though scientific theories have a way of being found wanting and, after being replaced by new and better ones, being cast upon the forgotten heaps of antiquated errors that litter the landscape of scientific history.

Please, guys. Keep studying, keep learning, keep discovering. I shall watch with an interested eye. But, at the same time, how about adding in a dash of humility to that theoretical cauldron? The stew you are offering will go down much better if you do.

A little more from McGrath:

Historians and philosophers of science have produced long lists of scientific theories, each of which was believed by one generation to be the best possible representation of reality, yet which were abandoned by later generations, in the light of new discoveries and increasingly precise measurements of what was already known. Some theories have proved remarkably stable; many have been radically modified, and others abandoned altogether.--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.104, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

And:

Scientific theorizing is thus provisional. In other words, it offers what is believed to be the best account of the experimental observations currently available. Radical theory change takes place either when it is believed that there is a better explanation of what is currently known, or when new information comes to light which forces us to see what is presently known in a new light. Unless we know the future, it is impossible to take an absolute position on the question of whether any given theory is "right." What can be said--and, indeed, must be said--is that this is believed to be the best explanation currently available. History simply makes fools of those who argue that every aspect of the current theoretical situation is true for all time. The problem is that we don't know which of today's theories will be discarded as interesting failures by future generations.

If theories are thus subject to erosion, what of worldviews that are based upon them? . . .Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.104,5, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Statists and Violence

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

What do Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Fidel Castro, and numerous others all have in common?

Besides being twentieth century statists who saw government as the end-all solution to every human problem . . . they were all brutal murderers who (ab)used government to murder their own citizens on a very large scale.

They made Tim McVeigh look like a piker.

And what do Ted Kaczynski, Bill Ayres, the Black Panthers, and other sixties radicals have in common? They are all leftists who murdered people in the name of their revolutionary cause.

The Left has a long history of violence in the cause of its statist ideology and has murdered millions. Yet, let someone stand up for individual liberty and he is labeled an anarchist or a Timothy McVeigh by some idiot, leftist drone.

This is done for a reason. It is a tactic known as "poisoning the well" and is utilized by those who are losing the argument and cannot substantively promote their viewpoint.

This is why those of us who champion the individual against the collective are labeled with such epithets as racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. This is why all politicians on the right are mocked as stupid while all of the leftists are honored as being the smartest people in the room.

Poisoning the well. Obviously everyone who opposes tyrannical government is a murderer in the bud. We are all Timothy McVeighs.

By the same (il)logic then, all environmentalists are Ted Kaczynskis, everyone who supports government-run health care is a Hitler, and all who believe that it "takes a village" are Stalins, Lenins, and Maos.

Right?

Obama: Traitor to Sovereignty and Liberty?

Amdiral Mike Mullen on civilian casualties of war

I'm home at lunch watching Admiral Mike Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff) speak to soon-to-be-deployed troops at Camp Lejeune. Addressing the subject of civilian casualties, he said that killing civilians is a "strategic failure" that makes an otherwise successful mission a failure.

Adm. Mullen: killing civilians is a moral failure, not a strategic one. There is no acceptable level of civilian casualties in war. Killing innocent people is wrong, and when indiscriminate weapons are used it is murder.

Texas Congressman almost gets it

Rep. Lamar Smith, a San Antonio-area Republican, recently said of ACORN:

Not a penny of taxpayer's dollars should go to fund an organization that time and again has abused federal funds and the American people's trust.

I agree with the gentleman from San Antonio. We should immediately stop funding the US Government, an organization run by criminals that constantly abuses federal funds and violates the American people's trust by violating our civil liberties; that spreads death and destruction throughout the world in the name of "democracy"; that steals from the poor through the printing of paper money; that places the ambition and materialistic desires of evil politicians above the liberty of the people; and which fails to fulfill the one moral and desirable function of government in a free society, which is to protect individual liberty.

Government - not capitalism - is the problem

One of my frustrations with today's so-called conservative leaders is that they too often concede the premise of an argument to our opponents on the left. For example, yesterday I had a conversation with a co-worker who qualified her endorsement of free market capitalism with a disclaimer that "we just need some rules that will keep people from being taken advantage of".

This is a position that I hear often, especially in the wake of recent corporate and financial scandals. The statement assumes that fraud and deceit are necessary characteristics of free markets – a patently false assumption that I rarely hear challenged. The only source of fraud and deceit in truly free markets comes from the government and the greedy politicians.

Capitalism

Capitalism is the process where people engage in mutually-beneficial transactions arrived at through peaceful cooperation with one another. In barter economies a farmer may trade a bushel of corn to his neighbor for ten gallons of milk. The price of a bushel of corn would be 10 gallons of milk; the price of a gallon of milk would be 1/10 a bushel of corn. These terms were arrived at through peaceful negotiation – not coercion. Nobody held a gun to their head. And the trade was mutually-beneficial. The corn farmer already had much more corn than he wanted, while the dairy famer's children can only drink so much milk.

Today we use money to determine the relative worth of goods and services. In our example a bushel of corn would be worth 10 times more dollars than a single gallon of milk. The use of money allows other capitalists and consumers to discern important information about the relative worth of all goods and services in the economy. Some capitalist will look at the price of corn, determine that he can produce it for less, and start planting corn. This drives down the market price of corn for everybody – which by definition means that producers of all other goods and services can now buy more corn. Everybody wins in true free market capitalism.

Did you notice what things were not necessary in the example? Fraud and deceit are most definitely not necessary for true free market capitalism. Sure they may exist, and should be dealt with appropriately by the legal system, but fraud and deceit are not required. And coercion is most definitely not a part of free markets. You are always at liberty to not transact, if the market price is higher than you want to pay.

Regulation

Let's look what happens now when the government gets its greedy hands involved and regulates the free market. Assume that the government taxes corn to raise money for the military. Corn farmers must pass that tax on to consumers by raising the price of corn; but they won't be able to pass on the entire tax because there are close substitute products for corn (other vegetables) that consumers could switch to. So the price of corn goes up and profits for the farmers go down. You will eat less corn because it's more expensive, and instead eat more Brussels sprouts. (You really don't like Brussels sprouts, but at least you can afford them without having to cut something else out of your budget.)

As for the farmers, the smallest farmer will now go out of business because he can't produce and sell corn at a profit under the new regime. The average farmer stays in business but can't make as much money as before. Corporate farms will also be hurt, but not as bad because they will be better able to absorb the price hit.

The government, which is collecting money despite being a net negative to society, sees the price of corn rise and is now outraged. It decides to regulate corn prices and sets up a blue-ribbon panel to study the issue. The panel, comprised of politicians from corn-producing states, Ivy League economists and CEOs of large corporate farming companies, decides that the market needs a federal regulator to ensure that prices are "fair" and that the food supply is "safe" for consumers.

The new Department of Corn is headed by the former CEO of GoldCorn Sacks, a large farming conglomerate with close political ties to the current administration. It recommends increased safety procedures for corn production and new rules for marketing of corn. All farmers must make significant capital investment to meet the new rules. Many small farmers simply retire rather than deal with the hassle and added expense. They would like to continue selling corn, and their neighbors would like to continue buying it, but the law is the law.

More Unintended Consequences

Meanwhile the price of corn has increased again to reflect the cost of the new regulation. The corporate farmers can easily afford the new regulations and pick up even more market share from the little guys. You have to eat even more Brussels sprouts and less corn due to the new pricing. Society in total loses because corn is more expensive relative to all other goods and services.

The government has funded its army, and is now exploring the possibility of setting up a similar tax and regulation system for milk. The proceeds of that tax will be used to buy food (corn, not Brussels sprouts, which everybody HATES) for the former corn farmers to eat. And some money will also be used to create job training programs so displaced agricultural workers can perform administrative tasks at the Department of Corn.

The representative who chaired the blue-ribbon committee received record campaign contributions from political action committees associated with Big Corn. It's an election year, and he will have a primary challenger, but should be able to outspend her thanks to these donations.

The biggest campaign issue looks to be whether or not to put tariffs on imported corn. Corn is primarily imported from the nation of Cornutopia, which due to a number of factors including soil conditions and weather, can produce only corn and nothing else. The Cornutopians are the most efficient producers of corn on Earth by necessity. But, imported corn is being sold at less than the market price of domestic corn, so the representative believes that allowing "unfettered free markets" would cause small American farmers to go out of business. He supports the tariff because, in his words, "I stand with the little guy – not the big corporations."

Winners and Losers

The former family corn farmer now depends entirely on the government for basic subsistence through food stamps and other welfare programs. Society as a whole is worse off: because of the increased price of corn, many people that would otherwise prefer the tasty yellow vegetable have to eat other, less appealing vegetables. (Chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy and…zucchini!)

The government has caused two things to happen. First it decreased the quality of life for society as a whole (because corn makes people happier than other vegetables). Then it made society poorer by taxing the corn that was consumed. So government was able to direct some of the people's money to itself, despite the fact that society as a whole was made worse off by government's actions.

Of course some people DID benefit from the new regulations. Big Corn certainly benefited because it now has less domestic competition. And after the elections, the tariff insulated corporate corn growers from Cornutopian corn as well. The politicians benefited because the campaign contributions ensured their entrenchment in office virtually indefinitely.

More Politics

The young representative – now considering a run for Senate in two years – was recently appointed to the House Committee for Foreign Relations. The Committee has pressured key trading partners (all countries in which GoldCorn Sacks has operations) to institute corn regulations as well. This will allegedly protect consumers globally from "dirty, unregulated corn" which countries like Cornutopia produce.

Cornutopia, now unable to sell its corn in the world's 10 largest markets and unable to grow any other crops, experiences extreme civil unrest, famine, and eventually a military coup. The democratically-elected government has been overthrown and replaced by a socialist dictator. The U.S. begins mobilizing it's army, which was initially funded by corn taxes, to fight the dictator. The plan is to install a new, hand-selected replacement (although "elections" will be held because the goal is to spread democracy, and the new leader has to be viewed as legitimate). The new soon-to-be democratically-elected leader has already agreed to force the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Corn upon the Cornutopian growers in exchange for half a billion dollars in foreign aid.

Because the war to spread democracy to Cornutopia is so expensive, and because we must support the troops at all costs, the legislature is now considering increasing taxes on all food products, including increasing the tax on corn. A dollar just doesn't go as far as it used to.

Summary

And all of this happened because in the beginning our "leaders" did not challenge the assertion that free market capitalism needs regulation to operate fairly. To summarize:

Free market capitalism: Cooperative, mutually-beneficial, peaceful, resources allocated based on the value that you provide to other people

Government regulation: Coercive, benefits only the politically connected, violent, resources allocated based on arbitrary decisions made by bureaucrats

So the next time somebody argues with you that we need more regulation because "free markets get out of control" or "we need somebody to make sure everything is done fairly" – be sure to challenge them!

Ron Paul discusses perpetual war on FOX Business

Ron Paul appeared on FOX Business Channel today to discuss President Obama's asinine Afghanistan policy and the very real possibility of perpetual war in the Middle East.

Global Warming - Scam of the New Millenium

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Not much time to write, but for a delicious holiday morsel, try this.

Apparently, some hackers broke into some computer files for the University of East Anglia and these files contained some pretty enlightening and embarrassing information about collusion and conspiracy within scientific and academic ranks to keep the global warming fires burning, as it were. In short, global warming is a scam and the lid has been blown.

Here is a sample from the above-linked article in the Wall Street Journal:

This is downright Orwellian. What the Post describes is not a vigorous debate but an attempt to suppress debate--to politicize the process of scientific inquiry so that it yields a predetermined result. This does not, in itself, prove the global warmists wrong. But it raises a glaring question: If they have the facts on their side, why do they need to resort to tactics of suppression and intimidation?

It is hard to see how this is anything less than a definitive refutation of the popular press's contention that global warmism is settled science--a contention that both the Times and the Post repeat in their articles on the revelations: "The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument," the Times claims. The Post leads its story by observing that "few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate," and that "nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal." (As blogger Tom Maguire notes, this actually overstates even the IPCC's conclusions.)

The press's view on global warming rests on an appeal to authority: the consensus among scientists that it is real, dangerous and man-caused. But the authority of scientists rests on the integrity of the scientific process, and a "consensus" based on the suppression of alternative hypotheses is, quite simply, a fraudulent one.

That guy is a lot more generous than I am.

Frauds. That is what they are. Frauds and liars and thieves.

Also, check out this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And, of course, this.

I am so glad that with all the fraudulent religious, right-wing, Christian nutcases out there we can at least trust the scientific community to give us the truth.

What is Law?

The proper role of government in a free society is to defend individual rights. Governments do this through application of the law; without government there would be no law.

But what is the law? And by whose authority does government enforce laws? Frederic Bastiat provides the answer in his essay from 1848 entitled The Law.

Existence, faculties, assimilation — in other words, personality, liberty, property — this is man.

It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogue subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.

It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws.

What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly for this defense. And what is property but an extension of our faculties?

Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual — for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.

For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces?

Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all.

The Real Reason for War

Why do we have wars? Because it elevates the role of the state in our lives, of course. I mean what better way a tyrant like Carl Levin to increase the pressure of his jackboot on our throats than to help start a war, then use it as an excuse to raise taxes?

Of course maybe we should consider ourselves lucky that all the government wants from us is a figurative arm and a leg; the innocent women, children and other non-combatants on the other end of American bombs will sacrifice those things quite literally.

Deregulate marriage!

Posted by Allen Lewis

In 2005 the State of Texas Constitution was amended in an effort to ban gay marriage and same-sex civil unions. Article 1, Section 32 of the Texas Constitution reads:

Sec. 32.
(a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.
(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

Former attorney, US Senate candidate and current candidate for Texas Attorney General Barbara Ann Radnofsky believes that subsection b may actually ban all marriage in Texas.

Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.

She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

In my view, this would be glorious news for everybody that is truly concerned about the sanctity of marriage. The government has no moral right to regulate marriage. Citizens should not have to pay the state for a license granting the right to enter into any type of contract, marriage included. We should not have to ask the state's permission to get married. The government should not be involved in marriage in any way whatsoever.

The institution of marriage has been irreversibly harmed in this country, but it's not for the reasons commonly cited by many conservatives. The state has taken what should be a sacred contract between two people - something that has historically been sanctioned by a religious authority - and made it the domain of the government.

By placing marriage (or more succinctly, the right to marry) in the domain of the law, our government has served only to perpetuate the insulting notion that the state should regulate the most personal of choices in our lives. We should deregulate marriage immediately.

Judge Andrew Napolitano and Nullification

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I love the Tenth Amendment Center Blog. Like our friends over at the Repeal the 17th Amendment Blog, they are pretty well focused on one thing. I hope you will check them out from time to time as they raise consciousness on these important issues. I continue to look to the 10th amendment as the most viable cure available out there for out-of-control federal (or as Napolitano points out in the following video, national) government. Despite being a bit long, this clip is fabulous and enlightening. I viewed it at the aforementioned Tenth Amendment Center blog and liked it enough to want to put it here. It also serves as a good companion for the video in Allen's last post and together they make for a good introduction to Judge Napolitano. When Judge Napolitano begins his segments on constitutional law we will bring them to you as well.

Debra Medina on Freedom Watch

Posted by Allen Lewis

Debra Medina, who is running for Governor of Texas against two absolutely awful (but powerful) career politicians - Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison - appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano today.



I had the honor of working with Debra as a co-organizer on the 2008 Houston-area End the Fed rally. Debra is a true champion of liberty and freedom, unlike Governor Gardasil and Kay Bailout, who use the rhetoric of liberty when it suits them but govern and legislate, respectively, as leftists.

Walter Williams on Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and American Academia

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Professor Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and for several years served as the Chair of that department. His weekly columns appear in 140 newspapers nationwide.


Go here to see a list of books written by Walter E. Williams.

The following is a portion of his most recent column. Click here to read the entire thing.

Walter Williams: Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening's keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that's equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here's the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.

Professor Kors asks why are the horrors of Nazism so well known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. It's acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR's hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it's acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama's communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao Tsetung was one of her heroes. Whether it's the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism -- a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Academics, media elites and leftist politicians both in the U.S. and Europe protested the actions and military buildup of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet Union. Recall the leftist hissy fit when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and predicted that communism would wind up on the trash heap of history.

Professor Alan Kors did not say this but the reason why the world's leftists give the world's most horrible murderers a pass is because . . .

Well, don't you want to know why? To find out what Professor Williams's answer is, go to the column and read it.

Pelosi . . . Are You Serious?

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I found this at CNS News. Click here for the whole article.

After this short audio clip, I'll quote some from the news article.



Now from the news article:

Currently, each of the five health care overhaul proposals being considered in Congress would command every American adult to buy health insurance. Any person defying this mandate would be required to pay a penalty to the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1994, when the health care reform plan then being advanced by President Clinton called for mandating that all Americans buy health insurance, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office studied the issue and concluded:

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

CNS News also sent the following questions to Pelosi's office:

“If it is the Speaker’s belief that there is a provision in the Constitution that does give Congress this power, does she believe the Constitution in any way limits the goods and services Congress can force an individual to purchase?" CNSNews.com asked. "If so, what is that limit?”