The Spirit of the Founders: RJ Harris 2010

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Peter Schiff was right

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Libertarian Republicans Are The Solution To Big Gov't

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Thank you, Congressman Michael McCaul!

Thank you, Congressman Michael McCaul for co-sponsoring HR 1207!

I really appreciate you getting behind Ron Paul's bill to audit the Federal Reserve. It's a great start.

I see that Gun Owners of America gives you an A- rating, not too bad, better than most.

Please keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

Your Constituent

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The truth behind Ron Paul

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Adam Kokesh

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Why I'm Voting for Rep. Ron Paul - (Sen. Joe Balyeat)

Why I'm Voting for Rep. Ron Paul - (Sen. Joe Balyeat)
I don't take this public statement supporting Rep. Ron Paul lightly. Of course, I don't agree with everything Ron Paul believes. But these are the key reasons I'm voting for him:

Ron Paul is the only candidate who will veto deficit spending and tackle the national debt head on. Take a look at these numbers. The national debt is $9 Trillion 200 billion ($9,200,000,000,000). That's not just a theoretical number, not just on paper. This is real money owed by the US government, backed up with real CDs, savings bonds, etc. Every penny of which will eventually have to be paid back to real people. Much of this debt is is now owed to foreign nations. Let me break this down to numbers you might understand better. Many of you think you're debt-free, you pay all your bills each month and have your house paid off. Even if you're personally debt free, the federal deficit has put you in debt up to your eyeballs. With 300 million people in the US, the national debt is $30,600 per person, $122,402 for every family of four in the entire country. Just the interest alone that we must pay on this debt is dragging our economy slowly down the drain. If we don't address this issue immediately, we will be saddling the backs of our children and children's children with an enormous debt load that they simply cannot bear. I'm voting for Ron Paul for the sake of my 15 year old daughter, and my 4 year old grand-daughter. Ron Paul understands economics, and Ron Paul doesn't just talk the talk, like so many politicians. Ron Paul has walked the walk. In 20 years in Congress, Rep. Paul has never voted for an imbalanced deficit budget.


Many of you say you love Paul's economic policies, but can't forbear his Iraq war policy. I've got good friends serving in Iraq, my Dad was a WWII marine corps sergeant. I understand fully why President Bush went in. But that doesn't change the fact that, by a huge margin, most of the nation doesn't understand or agree with us staying there any longer. Consider this - If we nominate any Republican other than Ron Paul, do we run the risk of handing the election to Hillary, or Obama? In our zeal to save Iraq, are we handing over our own nation to the disastrous rule of radicals? In our dogged determination to save their nation, are we destroying our own?

According to the National Zogby polling firm, Ron Paul stands the best chance of beating Hillary in November precisely because he takes the war issue completely away from her and the democrats. And Paul will extricate us from Iraq with honor - basing all his decisions upon the firm foundation of the US Constitution. That's why he's received more support from military personnel than all the other candidates combined.

Finally, the economy is not the only issue where Ron Paul has walked the walk. All these other candidates talk like conservatives during the Republican primary. But only one man has a track record that matches his rhetoric. An unwavering 20 year record - Ron Paul. A record on gun rights, on prolife issues, on wasteful spending, on intrusive government regulation and freedom.

Of course the mainstream media has ignored him; they've also ignored Montana, and the wishes of Montanans. There's one way to keep the media from ignoring Ron Paul and ignoring Montana any longer - if Ron Paul wins Montana. Let's make a statement this time that can't be ignored; let's send our delegates to the national convention pledged to the man whose record matches his rhetoric - Congressman Ron Paul.

Senator Joe Balyeat

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The Secret to the Ron Paul Phenomenon

December 15, 2007 |
Pay attention, all you politicians and campaign managers who yearn to discover the secret to building Paulian-level support (yes, I predict a future adjective in the making). I will share the secret with you, but first the bad news: You may as well forget it because it can't be done.

Let me say that again. It can't be done. It can't be created or made to happen. It only happens spontaneously when a certain precondition exists.

What's the precondition, you ask? That's the "secret".

While I admire his modesty, I will disagree with Paul when he says that people are just responding to the message...though that's certainly an important part of it. It's also, and primarily, the character of the person involved. It's who you are—or more to the point, who you've been. The sort of man that Ron Paul is is unique in the contemporary political scene, and that is what droves of people are responding to. The politician or campaign staff hoping to generate a similar grassroots phenomenon needs to understand that you either are 'that person', or you aren't. You can forget all the consultants and strategies; it's something that can't be manufactured or learned, it's got to be lived. The framework for the Ron Paul phenomenon began some thirty years ago, when he first went to Congress and cast his very first vote. That's the sort of stuff it takes: A decades-long, unflagging personal devotion to and undeviating record of defending liberty and constitutional republican government.

In short, it requires integrity and integrity can't be faked. You either got it or you ain't. And the market will make that judgment.

Watch the extended PBS interview with Paul here.

Read more at REPUBLICAN RENAISSANCE

Posted by David McClain on 12/15/2007

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Just how honest and accurate are those polls, anyway?

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Open letter to Senator Hutchison, Senator Cornyn, & Representative McCaul

Senator Hutchison, Senator Cornyn, Representative McCaul:

I request you support anything and everything Ron Paul does.

His honor, integrity, and loyalty to the Constitution are legendary. He sets the standard that all our public servants should follow.

Therefore, I request you endorse Ron Paul for President in 2008.

Thank you,

Richard

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An Open Letter to Sean Hannity

An Open Letter to Sean Hannity
by William R. Tonso
by William R. Tonso


DIGG THIS

Dear Sean:

It really ticks me off royally when you and your allegedly conservative talk-radio colleagues dismiss all critics of the Iraq War as liberals who are interested in nothing more than winning back the presidency and/or who hate America. There may be liberal war critics out there who are primarily concerned about putting Hillary or Obama or Edwards or any Democrat in the White House, or who hate America, but you know full well that there are many Americans with impressive conservative/libertarian credentials who consider the war to be not only a blunder but downright criminal.

For several months, I’ve considered calling you to take you to task for misleading the listeners who consider you to be such a great American. But I used to listen to you regularly and still listen to you occasionally, and I know how you treat callers or guests with whom you disagree. My intention was to put you on the spot by simply naming a number of prominent conservative opponents of the war and to ask you to explain to your listeners why you don’t acknowledge these folks and their arguments. But I knew that you’d simply talk over me and accuse me of being a liberal, an accusation that to you and your "great American" listeners is enough to discredit anything the person so labeled says. So I considered presenting my anything-but-liberal pedigree first, but I’ve heard you talk over many callers and guests who have tried to resist your dismissal of them as liberals. So I decided to cope with my frustration through an open letter to you, as I once did with one to your pompous colleague, Rush Limbaugh.

You’ll probably never see this letter, but that’s all right, because though I’m writing it to you, it’s really aimed at your listeners, and some of them will have it brought to their attention by friends who aren’t as impressed by your rants as your listeners are. Even if I had called you, I was going to try to avoid arguing with you, as tempted as I’m sure I would have been to do so. No, I’m not afraid to argue with you, because I don’t think you’re that sharp. It’s just that I know your position on the war, I consider it to be simplistic, and I also know that I’m not going to change your constipated mind, so why should I argue with you on your court playing by your rules?

Sean, you’ve had George Will on your show a number of times, and you apparently consider him to be conservative. Yet the following comments he made to the libertarian Cato Institute don’t seem in sync with the prevailing Bush-bunch assumption going into the war that the Iraqis were just chafing for liberty and that a western-style democracy would be established in Iraq in a matter of months.

Tony Blair – a good American – gave a speech about values to a joint session of Congress three months after Baghdad fell. He said that our values are not Western values, they are values shared by ordinary people everywhere. False. The world is full of ordinary people who do not define freedom as we do, who do not value it as we do, who prefer piety, ethnic purity, religious solidarity, military glory, or the security of despotism. There are still all kinds of competing values in the world, and liberty has to be fought for and argued for and defined. It is a learned and acquired taste.

Isn’t George skating on thin ice here? Doesn’t he seem to be questioning the administration and talk-radio-conservative mantra about all those purple-fingered Iraqi voters with their new constitution being good to go if it weren’t for those foreign terrorists causing problems? Is George a closet liberal, Sean?

And then there’s your buddy Pat Buchanan, who you have on your show rather often. I subscribe to his The American Conservative magazine and regularly read his columns on the Internet. Pat seems to think that he’s conservative, yet he’s adamantly opposed to the Iraq war and so are all of those who write about it in his magazine. According to Pat, the war in Iraq "was not thought through. It was not only mismanaged, it was an historical strategic blunder to begin with." And in a recent issue of The American Conservative, he noted that if we buy Bush’s claim that we’re "fighting for the right of Islamic peoples ‘to speak, and worship, and live in liberty,’" we’re caught in a dilemma. "Devout Muslims in Islamic lands do not believe people should be free to blaspheme or insult the Prophet. They do not believe all religions are equal or should be treated equally. They do not believe Christians should be free to preach in their lands. The punishment for those who do, and for those who convert from Islam in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia as well as Iran, is death." He goes on to note that wherever free elections have been held in the Middle East Islamists have won over Western secularism and asks: "Should U.S. soldiers die for democracy in the Islamic world, when democracy may produce victory for the political progeny of the Muslim Brotherhood? Is that worth the lives of America’s young?"

One of my favorite contributors to The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich, would have answered Pat’s question with a resounding NO! even before he recently lost his Army lieutenant son in Iraq. Bacevich, himself a retired Army colonel who now is a professor of international relations and director of Boston University’s Center of International Relations is the author of The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War. You probably haven’t heard of this book, Sean, because I suspect that it’s not on the neocon/warmonger reading list. But the blurb on the inside of the dustcover pretty well sums up Bacevich’s argument, and it’s short enough to not tax your attention span.

In this provocative book, Andrew Bacevich warns of a new and dangerous obsession that has taken hold of so many Americans, conservatives and liberals alike. It is the marriage of militarism to utopian ideology – of unprecedented military power wed to a blind faith in the universality of American values.

This perilous union, Bacevich argues, commits Americans to a futile enterprise, turning the United States into a crusader state with a self-proclaimed mission of driving history to its final destination: the world-wide embrace of the American way of life. This mindset invites endless war and the ever-deepening militarization of U.S. policy. It promises not to perfect but to pervert American ideals and to accelerate the hollowing out of American democracy. As it alienates others, it will leave the United States increasingly isolated. It will end in bankruptcy, moral as well as economic, and in abject failure.

And Sean, even your late friend the outspoken Colonel David Hackworth (USA retired) believed that going to war with Iraq had nothing to do with combating terrorism and was a blunder. In one of his columns, he wrote:

So, fighting Iraq bears not the slightest resemblance to our triumphant World War II march across Europe. Almost the entire Arab world views us not as liberators occupying that bludgeoned country solely to pull Iraqis up by their sandal straps, but as Crusaders who’ve returned to finish the dirty work the Christian world started a thousand years ago. Deep in the hearts of most Arabs, we’re just the latest wave of infidels who are into violating their sacred land.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here, Sean? Are George Will, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevich, and the late David Hackworth liberals and/or America haters because they’ve pointed out that other peoples aren’t like us and don’t appreciate the attempts by our government to make them like us? And is former Republican strategist Kevin Phillips a liberal for writing in his American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil, and Borrowed Money in the 21 Century that while the attack on Iraq was "at bottom about access to oil and U.S. global supremacy," it also had other intentions. "One was to fold oil objectives into the global war against terror. A second was to cement the U.S. dollar’s hegemonic role in global oil sales – and thus in the world economy. A third was to keep the invasion’s purpose broad enough to allow the biblically minded Christian right to see it, at least partially, as a destruction of the new Babylon, on the road to Armageddon and redemption."

I can just hear you – "Phillips is just an establishment Republican, not a real conservative." Okay, then how about columnist Paul Craig Roberts, the assistant secretary of the treasury under your idol Ronald Reagan, and a strong constitutionalist?

The evil that America has brought to Iraq transcends the tens [more likely hundreds] of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have been killed and maimed in the conflict. The evil goes beyond the destruction of ancient historical artifacts and the civilian infrastructure of a secular state and the decimation of lives, careers, and families of millions of Iraqis. The violence and killing that Bush brought to Iraq has spread antagonism between Sunni and Shiite throughout the Middle East with potentially draconian consequences. Bush’s war has turned Muslim hearts and minds against America and made terrorism an acceptable means to resist American hegemony. With his mindless war, Bush has created more terrorism than the world has ever seen.

Funny, Sean, how someone like you who is always talking about evil fails to see the evil done by our own government in our name in Iraq and elsewhere.

Here’s another interesting comment from Roberts for you to mull over:

American public opinion is being manipulated. In the name of protecting ‘American freedom and democracy,’ the Bush regime rides roughshod over both as it ignores both the public and Congress and proceeds with a catastrophic policy supported by no one but the Bush Regime and a cabal of power-mad neoconservatives.

Nothing can stop the Regime except the immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney. This is America’s last chance.

RIGHT ON!

I doubt if you ever read Charley Reese’s column, Sean, but he’s another strong constitutionalist and he made an interesting observation about a speech Bush made at West Point. "He didn’t talk about world terrorism. He talked about reshaping the Middle East, a fool’s errand if there ever was one. Our precious people are not dying for peace and freedom in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are dying for corporate profits and to make the Middle East a safer place for Israel. The only people who are dying for freedom are the Iraqis and the Afghans who want to free their countries of our presence." Yeah, I know, to you and your simpleminded ilk anyone who comes close to criticizing Israel is an anti-Semite, another label like "liberal" that allows you to stigmatize your opponents and avoid rationally examining their arguments.

Funny how you guys get so understandably rankled when you’re accused of being racists for justifiably criticizing the NAACP, or Jesse Jackson, or affirmative action, but are so ready to label anyone anti-Semitic who justifiably criticizes Israel, our political establishment’s relationship with that country, or even neoconservatives. So here’s another such comment from another strong constitutionalist, columnist and former National Review editor Joe Sobran:

No matter how much you love the Zionist state, it’s absurd to say it represents ‘our vital interests’ [as did Republican Senator John Warner of Virginia]. The opposite is more nearly true. We are embroiled in endless futile wars in the Middle East because our government supports Israel – a state based entirely on what in this country would be flagrantly illegal racial and religious discrimination – no matter what it does. It’s hard to say which is the worst feature of American policy in the Middle East, its shameless venality and hypocrisy or its sheer irrationality. It would make sense only if huge oil reserves were discovered under Tel Aviv.

Not being in his head, I don’t know if Sobran is an anti-Semite or not – but I doubt that he is. I DO KNOW THAT I’M NOT AN ANTI-SEMITE, however, and I agree with his comments. I thought that I’d better capitalize and bold type my disclaimer, because I know that you and your faithful are as good at selective reading as are the liberals you always criticize. Probably still won’t do any good, though. There was a time when I was a great admirer of Israel. I saw it as a spunky little country whose people had learned from the Holocaust that it doesn’t pay to be meek or weak. But then a few years back, I was listening to Benjamin Netanyahu explain why a certain policy in the Middle East would benefit the United States, when it dawned on me that the policy he was pushing might well benefit Israel but it wouldn’t do anything good for the United States. I’ve become ever more distrustful of Israel and its American neocon and theocon supporters since then.

Sean, I could go on giving examples of people you ignore on the political right who never approved of the war or who have changed their minds about approving of it. I’ve never heard you dwell on Bill Buckley’s defection. A number of the original war opponents on the right have been listed by neocon David Frum in his National Review article "Unpatriotic Conservatives." Those on Frum’s list that I’ve already mentioned include Buchanan, Reese, and Sobran, and, with the exception of columnist Robert Novak, most of the rest have links to the paleoconservative Rockford Institute and its magazine, Chronicles, or to Lew Rockwell and his libertarian blog.

Incidentally, I recently heard your fire-breathing, chicken-hawk, and I might add, obnoxious, buddy, Mark Levin interview Novak about his recently released autobiography. Though Novak was one of the conservatives Frum accused of being an unpatriotic America hater for opposing the Iraq War, and he acknowledges his opposition to that war in his autobiography, that fearless interviewer Levin, who regularly accuses opponents of the war of being liberal America haters, didn’t say a thing about the war and had nothing but praise for Novak. This, even though Novak, whose heritage is Jewish, has lamented in writing that "the hatred toward the United States today by the terrorists is an extension of hatred of Israel," and that "the United States and Israel are brought ever closer in a way that cannot improve long-term U.S. policy objectives."

Sean, our former representative from southwestern Indiana, Republican John Hostettler, was one of six members of the House to vote against war with Iraq. If people hereabouts heard you call him a liberal, you’d be inundated with lawsuits brought by folks you caused to hurt themselves laughing. And then there’s Ron Paul, another of that six who, as you know and much to your chagrin, is now running for president on the Republican side. You try to ignore him as much as possible, but he’s the only person in the race on either side who has integrity, principles, and is a strict constructionist and original intenter concerning the Constitution. He also takes seriously the philosophies of the Founders that, as I pointed out in my open letter to Rush, you so-called conservatives ignore. George Washington: "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible" (emphasis added). Thomas Jefferson: "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none" (emphasis added). John Quincy Adams: "America . . . goes not abroad seeking monsters to destroy." I know, you don’t think that Paul has a chance, and you may be right – but you don’t know why. He has the whole establishment against him.

As far as the war and its disastrous impact on our Bill of Rights go, you and your talk-radio so-called conservatives are nothing but useful idiots for the establishment. You all uncritically support wars anyplace the neocons tell the bumbler in the White House to start them, and any police-state method implemented in the name of security, but then you all get upset with that same bumbler when he and many on the Hill, including liberals, refuse to clamp down on illegal immigration and to protect our national sovereignty. Do you ever stop to wonder how the guy you think is so right when it comes to war and measures impacting the rights of ordinary Americans can be so wrong when it comes to protecting our own borders and sovereignty? Might there be some connection between his foreign and domestic policies? The following comments by LewRockwell.com blogger Steven LaTulippe, like Paul a physician and former Air Force officer, might give you something to think about. That should be a new experience for you.

When evaluating his [Paul’s] chances, it’s important to accept one fact about contemporary America. This is not a democracy, and certainly not a constitutional republic. America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving a ‘choice’ between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Ron Paul is a freelancer running on three specific ideas:


The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution.

America should deconstruct its empire, withdraw our troops from around the world and reestablish a foreign policy based on nonintervention.

America should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.
This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were ever implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

Did you understand any of that, Sean? Who benefits from both open borders and the war? Not the American people. The various factions of our establishment aren’t concerned about us or our country; they’re interested in cheap labor (Indian, Chinese, Mexican, or any other), oil and other natural resources, manipulating our currency, selling expensive weapons systems, or implementing Utopian domestic or international agendas, etc., and maintaining social control through police-state methods and/or social engineering, primarily in order to acquire money/power for themselves and, in some cases, secondarily, for selected allies, associates, or clients.

As you may have guessed, I’m a supporter of Ron Paul, the non-establishment candidate, whether he has a chance or not. He’s the only politician to come down the pike in my nearly 74 years who I can truthfully say I support without qualification. I’m tired of choosing between Puppet A and Marionette B. I’m ashamed (with qualification) to admit that I voted for Bush II twice. The qualification is that my votes actually were against Al Gore and John Kerry from the liberal side of the establishment who I still think would have been worse than W, both domestically and internationally – though in my mind, the gap between them and him has narrowed considerably. I hoped – silly me – that W and his side of the establishment meant it when they promised not to engage in the nation building so dear to the hearts of the Clinton bunch. And, though I had no faith that he would appoint Supreme Court justices to my liking, I knew that neither Gore nor Kerry would do so. Even after he and his neocons had launched their criminal war with Iraq, I pinched my nose real tight and voted for Bush again. I didn’t see the Kerry side being any better on the Middle East, was still concerned about the Supreme Court, and knew that if Kerry won he’d push to extend or make permanent the idiotic and unconstitutional Clinton "assault weapon" ban. I’m a no-compromise supporter of the Second Amendment-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms as the teeth of the Bill of Rights. It’s not a guarantee of sportsmen’s rights. And since I’ve written many critiques of the gun-prohibitionist movement, a number of which can be found on the Internet, you can check my claims yourself if you think that I’m just some liberal not willing to admit it.

I despised the Clinton Administration, with its meddling in the Balkans and elsewhere, coziness with the UN, massacre of American citizens at Waco, and attack on the right to keep and bear arms and general trashing of the Constitution even without the excuse of 9-11. And I never thought that the day would come that the Republican side of the establishment wouldn’t provide me with a viable lesser evil to Hillary Clinton if she became the Democratic candidate for president. It has come. I won’t vote for any of the collection of establishment fools, fascists, and socialists that the major parties are offering up this time. I can no longer find any lesser evils among the establishment candidates, and I won’t make the mistake of voting for a warmonger again.

I suspect that you’ve never heard of Smedley Darlington Butler, even though you’re a worshipper of military heroes and Butler was certainly a military hero. So I’ll tell you a little about him drawing on a guest column I wrote for our local newspaper, the Evansville Courier & Press. In 1898 at 16, Butler lied about his age so that he could join the Marines, get a commission as a second lieutenant, and fight in the Spanish-American War. He was brevetted captain during the Boxer Rebellion before he turned nineteen, and became the Corps’ youngest major general when he was 48, retiring at that rank in 1931. He was one of only 19 people to win two Medals of Honor, and one of only 20 to receive the Marine Corps Brevet Medal that was awarded to Marine officers before they were eligible to receive the Medal of Honor. Pretty impressive, huh?

But when Butler looked back on his career, he not only didn’t like what he saw, he wrote and spoke about what he didn’t like, which I suspect is why you haven’t heard about him. In War is a Racket, his 1935 book, Butler wrote: "For a great many years as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket. Not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it." He defined a racket as "something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

In a 1935 magazine article, Butler wrote:

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service, and during that period I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico, and especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

And Butler made it clear that it was the guys who were propagandized into fighting them, particularly those who don’t come back or who come back maimed or psychologically damaged, who foot the bill for wars. He wrote about them eloquently. You regularly help propagandize guys into fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Sean.

Butler was a Republican candidate for the Senate in 1932 and a popular speaker through the 1930s. He spoke to veterans and pacifists, communists and church groups. He believed "in the adequate defense of the coastline, and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight." He believed that our army shouldn’t leave the country, that our navy shouldn’t go more than 200 miles beyond our shores, and that our military planes shouldn’t go beyond 500 miles for patrol purposes. I suspect that he might extend those limits, if he were still around, to compensate for today’s advanced air and sea technology, but I doubt that he would change his overall position. He wrote: "I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights" (emphasis added). BRAVO!!!! An admirer wrote that Butler "demonstrated that true patriotism does not mean blind allegiance to government policies with which one does not agree." I would add that while he was often a hero when he was in the military, he became a patriot after he left it, but you and your useful idiot colleagues might find it difficult to understand that, Sean. For you guys, criticizing Bush and his neocons is the same as hating America.

Back in the days when I was of military age, all able-bodied males were eligible to be called up for military service. Having grown up during the flag-waving days of WWII, and since service was expected, though I never considered making a career of the military, I wanted to serve and eagerly jumped at the chance to get a commission through Southern Illinois University’s Air Force ROTC program. I did nothing heroic, but I’m quite proud of my service, because I spent most of my active-duty years at radar stations of the North American Air Defense Command. Those were the days, the mid-to-late ’50s, when the big concern was that the Soviets would send their bombers over the polar route to nuke us. If they had come, it would have been up to crews like those of which I was in charge to detect them, and to ground control interceptor (GCI) directors like me to guide our interceptors to their targets via radio and ground radar and set them up on their attack vectors so that the bombers could be shot down. Purely defensive – Butler would have approved. I was never called upon to harm people in other parts of the world who happened to be bugging our establishment at the time. Though I never thought about that in those days, I often think about it since the neocons got us stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan, and I should have thought about it back in Vietnam days or even before then.

Sean, you’re always saying that our troops in Iraq are fighting for our freedom. Bull! A case could be made that American troops haven’t fought for OUR freedom since the Revolution, or with some qualification, the War of 1812, since the British were back on our turf then. Since then only the USSR could have done us great harm and we managed to avoid fighting them. The Confederate States were trying to leave the Union (as they had a right to do), not to conquer it, and the Union fought to keep them from leaving, not to free the slaves. Various American Indian tribes, Mexico, Spain, the Kaiser’s Germany, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Iraq weren’t interested in conquering the United States, and couldn’t have done so if they had been interested, and Islamic militants can’t conquer us now. Washington, D.C. is far more of a threat to our remaining freedoms than are Islamic militants. And as nasty as the Nazis and Japanese imperialists were, many folks including John Toland in Infamy: Pearl Harbor and Its Aftermath, Thomas J. Fleming in The New Dealers’ War: FDR and the War Within World War II, and even his supporters like Robert Stinnett in Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor and most recently, George Victor in The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable, have convincingly shown that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the darling of the neocons, provoked them into fighting us when they were doing their best to avoid doing so. Butler was right – war is a racket.

Well, I’ve had my say, Sean – and got across much more than I would have if I’d called you. If, on the basis of their rejection of the neocon stand on Iraq you think that people like George Will, Pat Buchanan, Andrew Bacevitch, the late David Hackworth, Kevin Phillips, Paul Craig Roberts, Charley Reese, Joe Sobran, Robert Novak, and Ron Paul are, or were, liberal America haters who want nothing more than to have Democrats run the country, you’re an idiot. If you don’t think that these guys and others on the right who agree with them on Iraq are so motivated, you’re misleading the listeners you claim to be faithfully informing. If you aren’t aware that such prominent Founders as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Quincy Adams strongly warned against our country messing around in the internal affairs of other nations, you’re ignorant. If you are aware that they opposed such interference in the affairs of other nations and reject their position, you’ve neglected to inform your listeners of the Founder’s views and explained why it’s conservative to reject them. If you’ve never heard of General Butler, that’s understandable, since the militarists you worship aren’t inclined to publicize the war-is-a-racket philosophy he acquired through hard-earned experience. If you are aware of what he wrote years back and you can still cheerlead for what’s going on in Iraq today, you’re disgusting. Many of us are on to you, Sean. You’re far from being a Great American. RON PAUL IS A GREAT AMERICAN! As far as the war goes, you and your so-called conservative colleagues are nothing but useful idiots to our own establishment – no faction of which, left or right, could care less about protecting our national sovereignty or the original intent of our Constitution – and that establishment is a far greater threat to us and our remaining freedoms than any Middle Eastern religious/political movement.

Cheers!
William R. Tonso

August 25, 2007

William R. Tonso [send him mail] a retired sociology professor (University of Evansville) who has written a lot on the gun issue, both sociological and pro-Second Amendment. His recent book, Gun Control=People Control, is a collection of eleven of his essays previously published in Liberty, Reason, Chronicles, and Gun Week.

Copyright © 2007 LewRockwell.com

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CNN Question of the Day on Ron Paul

CNN’s Jack Cafferty just gave a wonderful report on Ron Paul, and has asked for his question of the day:“Should more people be listening to what Ron Paul has to say?”

Tell him: caffertyfile@cnn.com

Original post by Eric A. Garris

My reply:

Dear Mr. Cafferty,

I just read that you gave a wonderful report on Ron Paul, and made this your question of the day: “Should more people be listening to what Ron Paul has to say?”

Thank you for asking! Here's my answer:

Absolutely yes!
Ron Paul has more integrity and honor than all the rest of Congress put together.His record of upholding and defending the Constitution is unmatched.
Ron Paul's ideals, if put into practice, would fix a lot of our country's problems.
Ron Paul is not like all the others.

Thank you for your consideration.

Regards,

Me

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Open Letter to Congressman Michael McCaul

Dear Congressman McCaul,

Ron Paul said, "We should take our marching orders from the Constitution!". I whole-heartedly agree. I would love to see your voting record match his.

I wish everyone in Congress and the Senate would honor their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution the way Ron Paul does. I am convinced that this would resolve most of our country's problems.

Therefore, I request that you follow Dr. Ron Paul's example. He has a proven track record of upholding and defending the Constitution that spans over three decades, and I'd like to see you do the same.

Thank you very much,

Me

FOLLOW-UP - 10/19/07

Well, it appears Anonymous may have been right. It has been over two weeks since I emailed Rep. Michael McCall, and I haven't seen or heard a peep from him, not even in snail mail. I don't see why every Senator and Congressman are referred to as "The Honorable...", BTW. Most of them do not honor their oath of office to uphold and defend the Constitution, so, as far as I'm concerned, are not "Honorable".

On the other hand, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison has an excellent record of replying to my communications.

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NRA Members, please sign this petition now

Are you a member of the NRA? I am, and I'm not pleased with Joaquin Jackson being on the Board of Directors. Remember this guy: NRA Director Says Five Rounds is Enough ?

(see the poster and video at the bottom of the page for more info)

If you're as disgusted as I am, please sign the Petition to Recall Joaquin Jackson and send it to the provided address. And tell all your shooting buddies. Here's a link to a PDF version: Petition JJ Recall.pdf

Please send them to the Petition Sponsor at:

JJ Recall c/o Jeff Reed
P.O. Box 14118
Newport News, VA 23608

And while you're at it, consider joining Gun Owners of America, it's only $20 and they promise a no-compromise approach:
Membership Info
Join, Renew Or Contribute Online

They have a very convenient legislative action center: Legislative Action Center

Thank you.

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Open Letter to Congress re: The "Read the Bills Act"

Congress needs to start reading the laws it passes. Please introduce DownsizeDC.org's "Read the Bills Act." I know you have the power to introduce this legislation on your own, without waiting for anyone else. I urge you to do so. This is a much-needed, common sense reform. I can see no justification for not introducing it. I'm telling my friends about it, and I look forward to hearing that you've introduced it. You can find the text of the legislation here:
http://www.downsizedc.org/rtba_legislation.shtml

9/25/07 Update: Here's the reply I got from Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison:

"Constituent Response From Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison

Dear Mr :

Thank you for contacting me regarding the Read the Bills Act. I welcome your thoughts and comments on this issue.

The Read the Bills Act is a legislative proposal created by the organization Downsize DC. This legislation would require all bills to be read aloud in Congress, read by all Congressmen before they are voted upon, and published on the Internet at least 7 days before a vote. Congress would also be required to announce the date they will vote on the bill.

I assure you that in representing the people of Texas, I pay close attention to the legislative agenda and am always well informed about the issues being considered. Serving Texans well requires diligent scrutiny of the implications of each and every vote.

The legislative process in the Senate is complex and making additional requirements to read lengthy bills aloud on the Senate floor, or know the precise voting schedules in advance, could significantly hinder its ability to function practically or efficiently. Legislative texts and relevant information is available through the website www.thomas.gov. The Senate legislative calendar is also available through the website www.senate.gov. Should the Read the Bills Act be introduced in the Senate, you may be certain I will keep your views in mind.

I appreciate hearing from you and hope you will not hesitate to keep in touch on any issue of concern to you.

Sincerely,
Kay Bailey Hutchison

Please do not reply to this message. If you have additional comments, send your remarks through Senator Hutchison's website at http://hutchison.senate.gov/. Thank you."

No reply yet from Senator John Cornyn or Congressman Michael McCaul.

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Hasta la vista, PajamasMedia

Well, those Pajamas Media people did it again - they removed the best candidate, Dr. Ron Paul, from their straw poll. And so I have removed them from my blog. Good riddance!

From their website: "Over 130,000 votes have been cast in the weekly PAJAMAS MEDIA PRESIDENTIAL STRAW POLL. The thirty-fifth week has officially begun.
NEW DEAL: Pajamas Media editors have noted that the number of weekly votes in our poll has diminished drastically from the tens of thousands cast at the outset. For months now, many readers have been complaining to us about the increasing inutility of the poll because of vote-swarming by second tier candidates. Many voters have lost interest and are not participating. Websites that had run our widget were no longer doing so.
Something needed to change.
Therefore, especially since the campaign itself appears to be narrowing its focus to front-running candidates, henceforth the Pajamas Media Poll will be restricted to those first tier candidates listed on the front poll page of the leading online poll aggregator Real Clear Politics. As of now, that is four candidates on the Democratic side and five on the Republican. We will change our lineup on the Sunday after RCP does, if it does."

So basically, it's not fair that Ron Paul supporters are more fervent and dedicated than those of the other candidates? Crybabies.

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RON PAUL FIGHTS POWERFUL PLUTOCRACY

RON PAUL FIGHTS POWERFUL PLUTOCRACY

The more support Texas representative gains, the more the global elite are taking notice

By Steven LaTulippe

Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) is gaining steam in his presidential campaign and the establishment is preparing to stop him at any cost. His fundraising statistics reveal a blossoming, Internet-based movement that is uniting libertarians and other concerned citizens from across the political spectrum.

His performance in the media has been sharp, and his organization is honing its message. But if Paul remains a viable candidate, he faces a set of obstacles unlike any other. When evaluating his chances, it’s important to understand contemporary America: This is not a democracy and not a constitutional republic.

America is a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving voters a “choice” between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Paul is a freelancer running on specific ideas. The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution, should deconstruct its empire, withdraw troops from around the world, reestablish a foreign policy based on noninterventionism, abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.

This is not a political agenda or party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

The reasons for this are obvious. Through its control of the Federal Reserve, the banking elite makes billions of dollars in unearned profits and exerts enormous influence over the American economy. Countless industries and special interest groups (both foreign and domestic) have sprung up around our so-called defense and national security budgets. The bureaucratic elites who dominate the federal government despise the Constitution’s limitations on their power and view the document as just an archaic “piece of paper.”

They will not “walk away” if Paul is elected president. When its authority over the Southern states was challenged in the 19th century, the oligarchy suspended the Constitution and launched a bloody war that killed three quarters of a million people. They arrested newspaper editors, deported antiwar congressmen, and burned down American cities.

A century later, the oligarchy nuked two Japanese cities, killing thousands of civilians in the twinkling of an eye. When its marginal interests were threatened in Southeast Asia, the oligarchy launched a devastating war that killed over a million people and left the region marinating in toxic defoliating chemicals.

To further its interests in the Middle East, the oligarchy slapped horrific sanctions on Iraq that so far have killed 250,000 children (and then trotted out Madeleine Albright—one of Clinton’s blood-stained trolls—to smugly declare that the deaths were “worth it”).

If the oligarchy would behave this way to protect its often marginal interests, what would it do to stop a devastating assault on its very existence?

The attack on Paul will begin in earnest when it appears he has an even remote possibility of winning. It will follow a fairly predictable path: The first step is already in play. The establishment will start by simply ignoring him, by using its power in the mainstream media and their influence over campaign donors. It will try excluding him from debates. This strategy is already failing. The Internet and talk radio are outside the elite’s direct control and are being used effectively by Paul to “get the message out.” Theestablishment will generate ridicule and fear mongering.

Paul’s ideas will be grotesquely distorted in establishment media “hit pieces.” They’ll say he wants to permit heroin use in public schools, or that he wants old people to die in the streets without their Social Security checks, or that he wants to allow greedy industrialists to dump toxic waste into your drinking water.

The next arrow in the oligarchy’s quiver will be scandal—real or fabricated. Usually, this takes the form of pictures, billing records, etc. involving financial or sexual hi-jinks. For these folks, it would be child’s play to implicate him in some sort of phony ethical, moral, or financial skullduggery (doctored pictures, sordid media accounts from “eyewitnesses,” etc.).

If Paul somehow survives this assault, the oligarchy will move on to the criminal justice system. On some fine day, a stretch limo will pull up to the Capitol Building and one of the establishment’s hit men (Jim Baker or maybe Vernon Jordan) will ooze into Paul’s office for a “chat.”

Maybe Paul forgot to fill out Form X109/23W on his 1997 income tax return? Or drained a mud puddle when he built his new house that could be classified as a “wetland”? Or maybe a close relative is in hot water with OSHA/FDA/IRS/youname-it (federal prosecutors love to go after relatives in order to gain “leverage”). Paul’s sentence could be lessened if he agreed to drop his candidacy as part of a “plea bargain.”

Ayn Rand once stated that the hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, incomprehensible laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution. If all this failed and if Paul remained a threat to win the presidency, the establishment may decide to let him take office and then use their considerable influence to ensure his presidency ended in failure—mostly through their control of Congress, the federal bureaucracy and the mainstream media.

The oligarchy’s problem with this strategy is that it entails considerable risk. As president, Paul could use the powers of the office to inflict untold damage to the imperial structure (especially if he chose to withdraw American troops stationed overseas). Worse, he could appoint anti-tyranny “ideologues” to a variety of positions in the federal government. The damage to the oligarchs could take decades to undo.

Steven LaTulippe is a physician practicing in Ohio. He was an officer in the Air Force for 13 years.

(Issue #37, September 10, 2007)

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Got integrity?

Q: What do all the American Presidents, Congressmen, Senators and other Federal employees have in common?

A: They swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.

Q: How many Presidents, Congressmen, Senators and other Federal employees can you name who actually uphold and defend the Constitution?

A: I can only name one - Ron Paul. If a piece of proposed legislation violates the Constitution, he votes against it. He has more honor and integrity than all the other Congressmen and Senators put together.

All the other 2008 Presidential candidates are sock puppets for the oligarchy.

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Open letter to New Hampshire Senator Robert Clegg

Senator Robert Clegg

Quote: “That guy (Paul) is the most un-American person in this country as far as I’m concerned,’’ said Hudson Republican Sen. Robert Clegg, a big Huckabee backer.

My response, sent via email (robert.clegg@leg.state.nh.us) :

Mr. Clegg,

Did you actually say, "That guy (Paul) is the most un-American person in this country as far as I’m concerned," in reference to Dr. Ron Paul?

If you actually said that, then those of us who know better can only conclude that you are either abysmally ignorant of the facts, or a liar. Perhaps there's another option I haven't considered yet. Which is it?

Dr. Ron Paul is the ONLY Congressman I can think of who consistently upholds and defends the Constitution at every possible opportunity. How's your track record on the Constitution, Senator? If your track record isn't as good as Dr. Ron Paul's then perhaps you really aren't in any position to question how 'American' Dr. Paul is or isn't.

Extremely skeptical and unimpressed,

me

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What is government for?

The only legitimate function of an honest government in a free society to protect the rights of the people.

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