03/2/12

Occupy Phoenix Goes Full Stalinist: Let’s Re-Educate ALEC CEOs via Hard Labor

Hat Tip: BB

Environmentalist Private Property Rights War

Hat Tip: Nancy Jacques

03/2/12

Rio for Real! Fly with a bird

Hat Tip: ThirdWaveDave

ParaHawkUSA

03/2/12

History Tells Us We Are Headed For Tyranny

By: Chad Kent
CDN

What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating of all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or the aristocrats of a Venetian senate.”

Thomas Jefferson

It’s just a fact that concentrating power in one area will lead to the destruction of liberty. Government power is a lot like radiation. In small amounts, radiation can cure cancer. But if you concentrate too much of it in one area – like a nuclear bomb – it will destroy everything in its path.

This is why the Founders were so careful about widely distributing power when this nation was formed. Power in this country was divided up not only among the three branches of the federal government, but also throughout many state and local governments.

But over the last 100 years, we have continually transferred more and more power to Washington D.C. – and more specifically, to the executive branch. We’ve gotten to the point where our federal government now has control over our health care and – in some cases – what we eat. As Jefferson points out, history tells us this won’t end well for us.

This isn’t a theory – we know that concentrated power destroys liberty. We can’t continue to disregard the experience of history and expect to keep our freedom. That would be like continually increasing the dose of radiation for a cancer patient and assuming that it wasn’t going to kill him at some point.

So we can either continue on our path of giving more and more power to Washington D.C. or move in the direction of more evenly distributed government. Either way we know what the result will be – it’s up to us to choose freedom or tyranny.

03/2/12

Do our politicians understand why they are passing laws?

By: Chad Kent
CDN

“[T]he end of law is, not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom.”

John Locke, The Second Treatise of Government

The purpose of making laws isn’t to prevent people from doing something, it’s to maximize their freedom. The proper role of government is to protect our God-given rights** – so the laws passed by governments should make our rights more secure.

As counter-intuitive as it is, this means that when the government passes a law – that law should actually make you more free – not less. Unfortunately, few if any of our current politicians understand this concept at all. Think about how many of our recent laws prohibit us from making our own choices. We now have laws that dictate what we must teach in schools and what we must feed our children while they’re at school. We also have laws that ban one product after another. None of this makes us more free.

So how can a law make people more free? Simple. When a government makes a law prohibiting theft, that makes everyone more free. Since a person knows that no one is allowed to steal his possessions, he doesn’t have to spend all of his time at home trying to protect his property from the rest of society. That gives him the freedom to leave his house and go into town to get a job, start a business, or whatever else he wants to do. This law against theft allows him to make the most of his liberty.

The value of understanding the true purpose behind making laws – and forcing our politicians to understand it – is incalculable. It is the difference between living in a society that constantly tries to control our behavior and one that helps us make the most out of the greatest gift on earth – Liberty.

**They are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, among these are Life Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.– That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…

03/2/12

Americans Held by Egyptian Government Headed Home after $300,000 Payment Agreed to for Each One

Hat Tip: BB

100 Fundraisers Later, What Did Obama Forget?

Hat Tip: BB

03/2/12

Obama’s “Anything But Oil” Energy Plan Strangling Dems Reelection Bids

By: Jeffrey Klein
Examiner.com

In an extraordinary flash of brilliance, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) came up with the remarkable idea of having the Saudi’s step up their production of oil to staunch the relentless rise in gas prices at the pump–which are hitting his very vocal (some say whiny) constituents the hardest–distracting him from an otherwise quiet, do nothing day in the U.S. Senate.

Earlier this week, Schumer bravely sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D), urging her department to convince Saudi Arabia to increase their [oil] production, according to a FOXNews article today.

“While Iran plays games with [its’] oil production, to punish the international community for holding them accountable for their rush to develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia has the capacity to blunt Iran’s influence by increasing its production levels to capacity,” Schumer said in a written statement.

And in a move that leaves Schumer’s temerity for dead, the Iranians have stepped up their ‘counter-insurgency’ oil game against the U.S. and world oil markets, without leaving their desk, as reported in Dunstan Prial’s FOXNews article yesterday.

The Iranian government simply posted a glaringly graphic “Breaking News” item on its’ Press TV website–a 24-hour news channel owned by Iranian government–declaring “Oil Prices Hit 10-month High after oil pipelines exploded in the east of Saudi Arabia.”

As a result, oil surged above $110 a barrel in after-hours trading Thursday.

Once the news item was discovered by the Saudis, their officials issued a statement around 4 p.m. EST saying the report was untrue, calming the already jittery oil market.

Even though Chuck Schumer doesn’t really care about what is happening in the rest of the world, or for that matter even the rest of the United States, he does care about his 19,465,197 constituents becoming outraged by the fact that as of Wednesday, February 29th, the average price of gasoline in New York state blew past the $4 per gallon mark, unabated.

Both parties have stressed the importance of weaning the U.S. off foreign oil–but how that is accomplished illustrates the polar opposite views of reality between Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats desperately want to accelerate the use of non-fossil fuel energy and have focused on it to the exclusion of domestic oil production–and any sitting U.S. president that tells you different either doesn’t know…or he’s lying.

Take for example the testimony of Secretary of Energy, Stephen Chu, this past Tuesday, when Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-MS), asked Chu … “Is the overall goal to get our price of gasoline down?”

Chu replied, “No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy,” according to Mike Emmanuel’s FOXNews article this past Wednesday.

In stark contrast, the Republicans focus on the reality that the majority of the world runs on fossil fuels, and that will not change for many generations. And, dependence on foreign oil can only be eliminated by increasing domestic production right here within our own borders–beginning right now.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) captured the parallel universe perspective of Democrats when he said … “They seem determined to undertake policies that actually drive up the price of oil and gasoline because of their hope that we will somehow live in a world where only solar panels and wind turbines are necessary.”

The mainstream media has been desperately trying to carry the water for President Obama–mainly by not investigating the efficacy of his “all of the above” energy plan. However, it is becoming “heavy water,” as the administration nuclear reactor goes “red-line critical;”overloaded by constantly having to pushback against common sense, fact and economic reality.

A certain, rich irony comes from imaging President Barack Obama shouting his baseless, anti-oil rhetoric, while standing on top of his growing, billion dollar pile of failed solar panel companies, which rings loudly that what he is really selling is an “Anything but Oil” energy policy.