02/24/12

Faith Under Fire – The Global Threat to Religious Freedom

Faith Under Fire

Please join us for this eye-opening Chicago-area conference on the worldwide crisis in religious freedom. We will examine the plight of persecuted religious minorities in Islamic countries as representatives of these communities offer riveting testimony. Key members of the U.S. Congress will discuss the latest legislation and actions intended to prevent genocide. Recognized international and national experts will offer insightful analysis of policy issues and the global threat to religious freedom.

Register now!

GROUP PRICING: If you are interested in purchasing tickets in bulk at a discounted rate, please contact the Center for Security Policy at 202-835-9077 and we will be happy to process your order by phone.

Presented by the Center for Security Policy

02/24/12

It Doesn’t Matter Who Poisons You

By: T F Stern
T F Stern’s Rantings

There’s an old truism, “It doesn’t matter who poisons you, you’ll still be just as dead.” The first time I heard that it had to do with permitting a friend to steal your dream of success by letting them pour cold water on it. So many of us punch the time clock when we arrive at our jobs, punch out at lunchtime, punch in for the second half and then punch out on the way home. Doing anything different scares many folks away, so living a different “dream” is frightening. Marginal poverty is “safer” than risking failure of the unknown, going into business for yourself; but I’m rambling now.

This morning there was an article by David Wolman at Times.com explaining how the North Korean government was printing counterfeit $100 and $50 dollar currency in order to prop up the won.

“These ultra-counterfeits are light years beyond the weak facsimiles produced by most forgers, who use desktop printers. As an anti-counterfeiting investigator with Europol once put it: “Superdollars are just U.S. dollars not made by the U.S. government.” With few exceptions, only Federal Reserve banks equipped with the fanciest detection gear can identify these fakes.”

You might say, jokingly, Korean printed paper money is about as worthless as the money printed by our own government. (I don’t hear anyone laughing, that was a joke, hummm…) The U.S. Treasury continues to add billions of dollars to the supply which in turn devalues currency which is already in the hands of the citizenry; some might call this theft on a grand scale, others might even consider it treasonous to intentionally destroy the foundations of society.

“According to the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, superdollars may be part of the regime’s effort to acquire materials for nuclear weapons.”

Just so you know, that line was supposed to be aimed at the North Korean attempt to destroy the U.S. Dollar; however, it could easily have been directed at the Obama administration which has done more to destroy the value of the dollar than all previous administrations put together. Remember, it doesn’t matter who poisons you, you’ll still be just as dead.

Wolman’s article takes off on a tangent a bit further down; equating folks who exchange cash for goods with criminals or whacko survivalists. Apparently, anyone who doesn’t go through the formality of banks, either with checking accounts or “plastic,” folks like that are a fringe element of society tending toward being unscrupulous.

“At the risk of infuriating cash-hoarding militia members, anonymity-obsessed ACLU’ers, the U.S. Treasury, Russian mob, Laundromat owners, and just about every person who has ever hid a purchase from a spouse or income from the government…”

There was another reference in the article, an important warning which might be overlooked by folks. The people in North Korea woke up one morning only to find their ability to purchase everyday items was devastated.

“The won was devalued by 100 percent, which meant 1,000 won suddenly had the purchasing power of 10 won. (Imagine waking up to (a) learn that a slice of pizza costs $250.)”

This same thing happened in Zimbabwe in 2007. It can happen anywhere governments print money that has nothing of real value to back it up.

“One US dollar now buys 30,000 Zimbabwe dollars on the official market, having previously earned 250 Zimbabwe dollars.”

Can you imagine going to the grocery store and having to take a suitcase to carry cash instead of a wallet? It wouldn’t matter much, Zimbabwe grocery stores didn’t have anything to sell because the entire infrastructure had been destroyed; nothing was making it to the market place.

Moving right along; the spot market on gold is an interesting way to determine the cost of inflation. Several years ago, the price for an ounce of gold hovered around $400; that same ounce of gold this morning will cost you $1848. What has been the cost to U.S. citizens who’ve had to sit and watch their life savings destroyed because their own government has been attacking the marketplace and devaluing the dollar in leaps and bounds?

In case you missed the lesson today, it doesn’t matter who poisons you, you’ll still be just as dead. We have a chance to slow down our rate of destruction, perhaps even reverse course come November. Elections have consequences, throw these rascals out!

This article has been cross-posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government & The American Constitution.”

02/24/12

Government will abuse great power – guaranteed

By: Chad Kent
CDN

The experience of every age convinces us, that we must not judge of men by what they ought to do, but by what they will do; and all history affords but few instances of men trusted with great power without abusing it, when with security they could.

John Trenchard, Cato’s Letters #60

What John Trenchard is saying in modern language is: When we decide what power to give to the politicians in our government, we can’t base that decision on what we think they should do. We need to base that decision on what we know they will do. Throughout history, almost every time a government has been given a lot of power, the politicians have abused it as soon as they thought they could get away with it.

Why does that matter?

Well if we know that a government is that likely to abuse great amounts of power, we ought to keep that in mind as we decide how much control we want it to have over our lives.

But over the past few decades we have gotten increasingly willing to trust our government with power. In fact, the people in this country who pride themselves on being reasonable and realistic (admit it, you know someone like this) will often dismiss anyone who raises concerns over the dangers of growing government power as paranoid. But history tells us the idea that the people in government will abuse the power we give them isn’t paranoia, it’s almost a guarantee.

In other words, it’s extremely reasonable to be over-protective of our liberty. Look at it this way: do you lock your doors before you leave your home? Isn’t it a little paranoid to think that someone’s going to try to come in your house and take your stuff? Of course not, experience tells us that there are thieves out there trying to break into houses. It’s just common sense to do whatever you can to protect your possessions.

Our God-given liberty is the most valuable possession we have – or will ever have in our lifetime. It’s time we started treating it that way.