Tag Archives: Dictatorship

All credit card transaction to be reported to the IRS

“Ron Paul: Housing Rescue Bill Has Provision That Will Require All Credit Card Transactions Be Reported To The IRS

Texas Congressman Ron Paul, in a 7 minute video message, has spilled the beans on the so called “Housing Rescue” bill just passed by the House, and soon to be passed by the Senate.

The bill is some 600 pages long. Sneaked into the bill is a provison that will require that all credit card transactions be reported to the IRS.

Further, the bill gives approval to increase the national debt by $800 billion. It also requires that those in the mortgage industry be fingerprinted.

With 600 pages, who knows what else was sneaked into this bill? With 600 pages of legalese, you can sneak in a lot. Once the report is in its final form, we are going to attempt to read it,and file a complete report.”

video at economicpolicyjournal.com

Who the hell are these people? And why don’t they step forward and explain themselves?

UPDATE:
–The Senate has passed this duplicitous, exploitative, 600-page-long legislation.

The Myth of War’s Economic Benefit

This great article from thepeoplesvoice.org discusses the economic impact of Iraq and includes many book excerpts including the following:

One of the most pernicious economic myths is the idea that war helps the economy. In reality, war is destructive and it always results in economic retrogression and misery. The US economy didn’t really recover until 1946, when the immediate postwar period witnessed the dismantling of the command economy in favor of a much more liberalized market economy. Peace brought military demobilization, deregulation, and perhaps most importantly, a seventy-five percent reduction in government spending. This was a genuine peace dividend and it set the stage for America’s legendary post-war economic boom.
–War and Economic Decline

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has blamed the Iraq war for sending the United States into a recession. On Wednesday, he told a London think tank that the war caused the credit crunch and the housing crisis that are propelling the current economic downturn. Testifying before the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee the following day, he said our involvement in Iraq has long been “weakening the American economy” and “a day of reckoning” has finally arrived.
–Is the Economy a Casualty of War?

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has blamed the Iraq war for sending the United States into a recession. On Wednesday, he told a London think tank that the war caused the credit crunch and the housing crisis that are propelling the current economic downturn. Testifying before the Senate’s Joint Economic Committee the following day, he said our involvement in Iraq has long been “weakening the American economy” and “a day of reckoning” has finally arrived.
–Is the Economy a Casualty of War?

For big government we now have “The Perfect War,” everywhere and nowhere, secret and interminable. The war will justify ever expanding police powers, higher taxes, and more controls over the citizenry. You can see easily how Washington thrives on war. Since Sept 11th, there have been no nasty challenges to government spending and waste, no tedious debates over things like social security “lockboxes,” nor “political” attacks upon the Presidency. Congressmen and Think Tank experts get lots of TV time and most everyone jumps to obey government orders and support more regulations. Any groups opposed to American military interventions overseas appear unpatriotic and are marginalized, while press coverage of the war is restricted, using the last Gulf War as a model. Big Government, as Orwell wrote, thrives from unwinnable wars; it doesn’t get any better than this.
–John Basil Utley, Alternative to Unending War, Ludwig von Mises Institute

Forget a third party, I’d settle for a second.

Yahoo News: Rivals hide immigration similarities

I agree with this post on campaignforliberty.com:

“McCain and Obama basically agree on immigration, says an amazed Yahoo. What’s the big surprise? They basically agree on monetary policy, fiscal policy (John 100-Years-In-Iraq-Is-A-OK McCain is not credible here), global warming, and much more. Even foreign policy doesn’t really separate the candidates: Obama gives us a lot of boilerplate about how this is no time to retreat into ‘isolationism,’ etc., and has grown hawkish on Iran.

This is why third parties can never be allowed into the debates: the game would be up when the two ‘major’ candidates were shown up for the clones they always are. (Oh, and did I say ‘third’ party? A second party would be a good start.)”

Back to Basics: Freedom, Democracy, Liberalism, Conservatism

Happy 4th of July.

A few years ago, Congressman Ron Paul wrote this brief essay clarifying some of George Orwell’s “meaningless words.” My paraphrase:

Freedom: The absence of government coercion. Our Founding Fathers understood this, and created the least coercive government in the history of the world. The Constitution established a very limited, decentralized government to provide national defense and little else. All government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else, government action requires taxes.

Democracy: The word “democracy” is found neither in the Constitution nor the Declaration of Independence. Democracy is simply majoritarianism, a tyranny of the majority, which is inherently incompatible with real freedom. James Madison: “[under a democratic government] there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” John Adams argued that democracies merely grant revocable rights to citizens depending on the whims of the masses, while a republic exists to secure and protect pre-existing rights. A truly democratic election in Iraq, without U.S. interference and U.S. puppet candidates, almost certainly would result in the creation of a Shiite theocracy.

Liberalism: Liberalism once stood for civil, political, and economic liberties, but has become a synonym for omnipotent coercive government. The political left equates freedom with liberation from material wants via a large and benevolent government that exists to create equality on earth. To modern liberals, men are free only when the laws of economics and scarcity are suspended, the landlord is rebuffed, the doctor presents no bill, and groceries are given away. But philosopher Ayn Rand (and many others before her) demolished this argument by explaining how such “freedom” for some is possible only when government takes freedoms away from others. In other words, government claims on the lives and property of those who are expected to provide housing, medical care, food, etc. for others are coercive – and thus incompatible with freedom.

Conservatism: The political right equates freedom with national greatness brought about through military strength. Like the left, modern conservatives favor an all-powerful central state – but for militarism, corporatism, and faith-based welfarism. Unlike the Taft-Goldwater conservatives of yesteryear, today’s Republicans are eager to expand government spending, increase the federal police apparatus, and intervene militarily around the world. “Conservatism,” which once meant respect for tradition and distrust of active government, has transformed into big-government utopian grandiosity.

We must resist any use of the word “freedom” to describe state action. We must reject the current meaningless designations of “liberals” and “conservatives,” in favor of an accurate term for both: statists. Every politician on earth claims to support freedom. The problem is so few of them understand the simple meaning of the word. Read more from lewrockwell.com

“. . . man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.” ~ Ronald Reagan

Heroes Act of 2008, Citizenship and Taxes

“Congress just passed a new law that will stop your capital — or at least a good portion of it — at the border, should you decide not to be a U.S. citizen anymore. Is it, perhaps, in preparation for the possibility that Americans might rebel at the debt and taxes incurred by their government by leaving for lower-tax locales?

You probably didn’t notice this little provision inserted into the Heroes Act of 2008, passed by Congress on June 17. The headlines in the press release about the law were about the increased benefits for veterans and families of deceased military.

But Richard Kohan of Price WaterhouseCoopers drew my attention to one section of the act, which states that anyone voluntarily giving up his or her citizenship will be taxed on all of his assets as if he or she had sold them — paying capital gains on assets that have increased in value, even though they have not been sold.

That’s right. While everyone in the media is focused on keeping aliens out of America, Congress has voted to lock its citizens – or at least a good portion of their assets — into America! Maybe they’re thinking that patriotism won’t be enough to keep the smart money from recognizing the coming increases in the tax burden.”

Read more from mainstreet.com

I think they’re bracing for the bad times on the horizon. Locking us in, so we tax-payers can continue to pay the government’s debt.

–Worst June Dow Jones performance since Great Depression
-Intimations of a July banking collapse rumbled though the Internet this weekend while mainstream news orgs like The New York Times and CNN pulled their puds over swift boats and Amy Winehouse’s performance technique. Something is happening, and you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones…? to quote the master. Read more from jameshowardhunstler.typepad.com

What The Government Wants to Know . . .

. . . and what the people’s champion in Congress is doing about it.

The following appears on Dr. Ron Paul’s Congressional website:

“You may not have heard of the American Community Survey, but you will. The national census, which historically is taken every ten years, has expanded to quench the federal bureaucracy’s ever-growing thirst to govern every aspect of American life. The new survey, unlike the traditional census, is taken each and every year at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it’s not brief. It contains 24 pages of intrusive questions concerning matters that simply are none of the government’s business, including your job, your income, your physical and emotional heath, your family status, your dwelling, and your intimate personal habits.

. . . .

Keep in mind the survey is not voluntary, nor is the Census Bureau asking politely. Americans are legally obligated to answer, and can be fined up to $1,000 per question if they refuse!

I introduced an amendment last week that would have eliminated funds for this intrusive survey in a spending bill, explaining on the House floor that perhaps the American people don’t appreciate being threatened by Big Brother. The amendment was met by either indifference or hostility, as most members of Congress either don’t care about or actively support government snooping into the private affairs of citizens.”

Read more from www.house.gov/paul

Global War on Political Dissent Progressing in Europe

London:

“London police have announced a ban on anti-war campaigners hoping to protest against President George Bush’s visit to Downing Street this Sunday. The Whitehall ban has been immediately condemned as a ‘totalitarian act’ by the playwright Harold Pinter, while Stop the War organisers are urging people to defy it and to demonstrate nearby in Parliament Square.” Read more from thefirstpost.co.uk.

France:

“Not content with simply limiting itself to blocking despicable child sex abuse, a move three major ISPs in the US also agreed to today, the French government feels it necessary to go a radical step further and decide for its citizens whether or not they can view content it considers inappropriately racist and or linked to terrorism.

In fact, worse still is that any site is now game for a French blockade, as Sarkozy’s government is inviting people to send in huge long lists of sites which offend their delicate sensibilities. The French government, which will purportedly be able to receive complaints from Internet users in real time, will be able to add sites to a so called ‘black list’, which it will then force national ISPs to block.” Read more from theinquirer.net.

-Among my five prediction for 2008, was “the threat of child predators will be leveraged as an excuse to regulate the internet, or internet access.” Fascism is being carried to us with (arguably) good intentions and great slogans. I wonder if skaskiw.com might be considered linked to terrorism, since I advocate something other than obliteration of Islamic nations and peoples, since I sometimes say “Palestinian” without saying “terrorist,” since I refuse to hate or fear anybody, since I believe in liberty, in the Constitution.

Hillary Clinton Controversies Ignored by the Media

–Top Clinton adviser, Mickey Kantor, calls Indiana residents “shit” and “white niggers.” (watch video)
–Anne Lewis, another top Clinton adviser, says “The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel.”
–Taking sniper fire in Bosnia
–Her talk of Iran’s “total obliteration.”
–Criticising the closure of an Indiana factory that she helped close
–Iraq Lies
–The terrifying number of dead Clinton associates, including White House Aide (some say lover) Vince Foster, and going all the way back to Arkansas
–past association with cocaine smuggler Jorge Cabrera
-and many, many more.

I realize that these issues have not been entirely ignored by the media – the Bosnia stuff, for example, made the news for a few days – but compare it to the rabid coverage of statements made by Obama’s former pastor. If pastors are so important, why don’t they cover the fundamentalist idiocy of McCain’s former pastors?

I’ll answer that: because Obama, despite his genuflecting to the powers that be, is a bigger threat to the establishment than McClinton. Obama hasn’t been around long enough to prove his loyalty, so his scandals are promoted. McClinton’s are buried.

Our Government’s War Against the Constitution

DOJ memo says “Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.”

“The American Civil Liberties Union has uncovered details pertaining to a secret Justice Department memo from October 2001 that reveals the Bush administration effectively suspended the Fourth Amendment where domestic counter terrorism operations are concerned.” (Read More from Infowars.net)

I once took an oath . . . something about supporting and defending the Constitution . . . something about all enemies . . . foreign and domestic.

See Also:
FBI Pamphlet says “If you encounter any of the following, call the Joint Terrorism Task Force.” Then, without explanation, includes “‘Defenders’ of the US Constitution against federal government and the UN.” See for yourself: pic1 pic2