Monday, December 2, 2013

Are you a Socialist?


ARE YOU A SOCIALIST?
Most of the folks who see my blog would say they're not. But I wonder what they would say after reading the following paragraphs:

Are you a Socialist???
According to both Ludwig von Mises and F.A. Hayek, you are if you are not an opponent of the welfare state and the whole system of “progressive” taxation that funds it. Socialism started out meaning “government ownership of the means of production” with the ostensible purpose being “equality.” But the socialists of the world quickly determined that it would be easier to allow (heavily regulated) private enterprise to exist and then plunder it with taxes to fund their utopian dreams.
-Thomas DiLorenzo

When you think about it, this is a brilliant plan. When America had slavery the slave master was face with several considerations.

1) First he had the high expense of buying a slave. The cost was very expensive, ordinarily taking almost a decade for the buyer to break even on the original cost.

2) He had to provide food, clothing, shelter and healthcare for his slaves. Records of the antebellum period show all these things constituted considerable expenses. The provision of these made up about 90% of compensation for labor, according to records.

This change in socialism, allowing business to remain in the hands of private ownership was genius. Because the government makes the laws, it meant that government could then plunder those in the so-called "private sector" as they pleased, but never having to worry about providing food, clothing, shelter and healthcare for those who are plundered.

Under such a concept, the government still, in reality, owned everything. It simply did not take everything, but graciously allowed "Private sector workers" to keep some of the fruit of their labor.

This provided the illusion of ownership for the worker up to a certain point. But it was not true ownership, because, at their whim, the government overlords could come in a take any amount they determined "government" (aka, the politicians and the connected special interests) might "need."

Put succinctly, ending chattel slavery and beginning the political slavery incrementally instituted through socialist programs greatly increased the number of slaves as a consequence of the so-called Civil War.

What we're beginning to see is that political slavery, owned and operated as it is by the government, unlike chattel slavery, is much more virulent, much more pervasive, and almost impossible to eradicate short of a complete revolution or---dare I say it---secession from the soul killing, cancerous government run socialist slave system.

Now, if a plantation owner in the early 19th century did not have to buy slaves and take on the burden of daily care for them, but could yet plunder any portion they wanted of their forced labor, these slave owners would have though they had died and gone to plantation slave owners heaven. This arrangement would constitute the slave owner's version of having your cake and eating it too.

Our central government, having consolidated all power in itself, having plundered the states of their sovereignty and instituted socialist programs and individual taxation of income, was able to realize that "heaven on earth," that "have your cake and eat it too" slavery arrangement plantation owners could only dream of.

What's more, "We the Plundered" have come to view it as normalcy, and those of us who advocate it have become the unwitting, hapless victims of Stockholm syndrome, defending with our last breath the socialist slave masters who rule us according to their arbitrary whim from Mordor on the Potomac.

The Russian people were never able to accept their Bolshevist version of socialism as normalcy, because it was a full-blown version, with government ownership. It was apparently to the Russian people they were under an oppressive slave system ruled by elites.

Until now, the genius of Fabian socialism and progressive socialism in America is that they preserved the illusion of private ownership. This mere appearance of private ownership has sedated Americans and made them increasingly accepting of increasing degrees of socialist control and oppressions, all done in the name of the public good or "the greater good," or "compassion," or some other such flimsy and transparent pretext.

But, as Lincoln said, we can't stay half-slave and half-free. Our elite government betters apparently agree, and are pushing for full-blowing government established and operated enslavement of "We the Plundered."

As a consequence, America is on the cusp of going full bore into the system that collapsed the Soviet Union. But our socialist leaders, blinded and overreaching due to their past successes here, are too stupid to see it. As with the devil at Calvary, as with Mr. Smith in the Matrix allegory, the very moment the socialists believe they have final and complete victor in AmeriKa  will be the moment their twisted, dehumanizing vision will collapse under the weight of its own corruption.

Maranatha.

That's how I see it. What say you, Komraden?

Monday, November 11, 2013

Armistice Day 2013

I'm going to say this here, because few others will understand this rightly. 

Armistice day 2013

I'm DONE with the military! Why?
Because they are nothing but an arm of the exercise of Federal tyranny. 

It may be we have fought just wars in the past. The war against Hitler was one, for sure. BUT, we shoulder a lot about the blame for Hitler because of the humiliating terms Wilson forced in WWI.

Other wars, the War to Prevent Southern Independence, and the Spanish American War were monstrous evils and injustices, as was the Mexican war. They were not wars of defense, but wars of choice and aggression. They were unjust and imperial wars--wars of conquest, oppression and suppression. 

The evils of the war in the Philippines following on the heels of the Spanish American war is little known by Americans, but it is a period of shame that should have awakened the American conscience. But, it did not, because the press made sure few knew of it.

Since that time the young men and women in the American military have been little more than the pawns of the imperial designs of the American military complex and the Yankee, international bankers. 

And they have been duped into growing empire under the euphemism of "serving their country" by  being brainwashed into believing the absurd notion that invading other sovereign nations and killing tens of thousands of their citizens, most of whom are clearly non-military, is "protecting our freedom" and serving Americans. 

Nothing could be more false. The government lies to our military just as they lie to the citizens. To repeat, growing empire is not "protecting our freedoms." Rather, it is taking the freedoms of others--usually in the name of "democracy," and taking our freedoms by making us hated the world over.

I do not blame the youth in our military. I understand how they are yet unable to think with any depth. (If they were they'd not be in the military). 

I understand they have not been trained to think at all--they don't know how to make the critical distinctions needed to understand the lies and contradictions their leaders and politicians present to them. No, I do not blame them. I feel sorry for them. 

No amount of sincerity, no amount of sacrifice under false pretexts, can justify what the military is being used to do in OUR NAME, the name of We the People. 

The government is a renegade institution, lawless, tyrannical, despotic, and aggressive. The government cronies and thugs speak to us about "individual sacrifice for the common good." But they, as rulers of the government, are all out for themselves, at the cost and sacrifice of everyone else. 

The military is brainwashed into serving that institution of liars and usurpers in the name of patriotism and protecting our freedoms. 

I just can't take it. The rhetoric of this day makes me gag. I'm sorry for our young men duped into carrying out acts of tyranny by the false rhetoric of politicians. But to pretend this awful reality does not exist out of consideration of and compassion towards the families of the fallen is to lay the ground work for the making of more victims of Imperial lies and abuses in the future.

You who object say you're a conservative. So am I. 
You who object say you're a patriot. I do not doubt it.  So am I. 

Since we don't agree, I have a simple question to pose in the hope of finding some clarification for our manifest cognitive dissonance: "Exactly what is it you are loyal to?" 

Personally, I favor loyalty to peace, liberty and prosperity, and to treating others as we think we should be treated.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

On the 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address


I begin by quoting no friend of the south, the Baltimore newspaper man, H.L. Mencken.

Here is what he wrote on Lincoln's Address:
"The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history…the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination — that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."

One could say that virtually every statement in the address begs the question in some way. The first, for instance, claims that 87 years prior to the speech our forefathers formed a new nation. But in 1776 13 british colonies individually seceded from Great Britain. The secession succeeding, 13 separate documents of surrender was issued to 13  new,sovereign states or nations, not one document of surrender to a unitary nation-state.

This dedication to the proposition that "all men are created equal," once again begs the question.

Where is this official dedication? It seems it exists only in Lincoln's mind.

If we look at the Declaration we see it is not about equality. Rather, it is about the right of peoples to govern themselves. In other words, the equality of the colonists to the British had its quintessential expression in the form of the right of self-determination-- the right of the ability to rule themselves.

True as that is, in the Law of the Land, the Constitution, there is not only no "dedication" to equality, you can't even find the word equality.

Then, finally, there is the intimation that the union soldiers were fighting for that same right of self-determination the colonist patriots were.

This is totally Orwellian.

It was the union soldiers who were fighting to subjugate the southern Republics, and reduce them to little more than conquered provinces--which they did. It was the Confederate soldiers who were fighting for the right of their people to rule themselves. In this sense, they were on the side of the colonists. It was the union soldiers who were fighting in the spirit of the British soldiers trying to prevent the secession of the colonists.

Then, there is the claim the union soldiers were fighting for the actual existence of the nation. This is another linconian absurdity.

The states remaining in the union compact were in no danger of being overrun whatsoever.  Nor was the home of their general government, Washington DC. The Southern Republics were not staging a revolutionary take over. They just wanted to get the heck out of Dodge--they didn't want to be a part of what they had understood was a VOLUNTARY union.  In other words, they wanted to be free from Washington as their forefathers wanted to be free of George III.

Again, this is nothing but Jacobin-style, Orwellian propaganda on Lincoln's behalf. One could even argue this "nation" he invents exists only in his twisted, totalitarian fantasies. The Founders referred to the Constitutional Compact as "the union," not "a new nation." Union was the most common word for the alliance of nation states. When South Carolina seceded in 1860 the newspaper headlines read "Union Dissolved."

The National Government was never regarded as a unitary sovereign. The National Government lacked sovereignty altogether. It possessed only delegated, limited powers. It was, and Constitutionally remains, a mere Agent of the Sovereign States. The fact that the central government has usurped almost all the sovereignty of the states and the people does not change the reality of its legal status as a mere agent.

Thus, we see just some of the nonsense exposed in Lincoln's famous address, and the lawless fiction upon which "the American Nation"--I refer to it as "Linconia"--- is presently constructed, a lawless fiction in which the Central Government has usurped all power and reduced the sovereign states to mere administrative units.

What of the people's freedom? It is also a fiction. We have no recourse to our crumbling bill of rights. I write here, and people gather here, not as our God given right, but by the gracious negligence of the Central government. We only appear to have rights. And any more our alleged "liberties" and "rights" could be taken under any number of pretexts invented by our Overlords in Washington.

In truth, the logical working out of Lincoln's delusionary inventions and the acceptance of them as "normalcy" has resulted in the increasing LOSS of self-determination of our once sovereign Republics and peoples.

Any man not blinded by years of government school propaganda, buttressed by an ignorant and brain-dead press, could see this. Even a man like Lysander Spooner, a Massachusetts lawyer, staunch abolitionist, no friend of the south, and hater of Lincoln and his minions, could see it  as early as 1866. It was then he wrote something that should be much more famous than Mr. Lincoln's "coke is it" Gettysburg propaganda, but, alas, is not. I shall quote it here and dare any man to use the powers of reason and evidence to refute it.

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- BETWEEN POLITICAL AND CHATTEL SLAVERY. [political slavery is what we're now experiencing in increasing degrees, thanks to Lincoln's FORCED consolidation].The former[political slavery], no less than the latter [chattel slavery], denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure." – Lysander Spooner (Nineteenth-Century lawyer, abolitionist, entrepreneur)

In support of my statement above, I also present a portion of Andrew Johnson's State of the Union Speech, given December 1867. At that time Johnson was outraged at the behavior of the Radical Republicans and the military occupation of the Southern Republics. He fought back with this official executive statement, which, sadly, foreshadows the tyranny with which the American Republics and peoples will be visited by this Central Agent gone wild--an Agent that is now TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL:

"...candor compels me to declare that at this time there is no Union as our fathers understood the term, and as they meant it to be understood by us. The Union which they established can exist only where all the States are represented in both Houses of Congress; where one State is as free as another to regulate its internal concerns according to its own will, and where the laws of the central Government, strictly confined to matters of national jurisdiction, apply with equal force to all the people of every section. That such is not the present "state of the Union" is a melancholy fact, and we must all acknowledge that the restoration of the States to their proper legal relations with the Federal Government and with one another, according to the terms of the original compact, would be the greatest temporal blessing which God, in His kindest providence, could bestow upon this nation. It becomes our imperative duty to consider whether or not it is impossible to effect this most desirable consummation. The Union and the Constitution are inseparable. As long as one is obeyed by all parties, the other will be preserved; and if one is destroyed, both must perish together. The destruction of the Constitution will be followed by other and still greater calamities. It was ordained not only to form a more perfect union between the States, but to "establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Nothing but implicit obedience to its requirements in all parts of the country will accomplish these great ends. Without that obedience we can look forward only to continual outrages upon individual rights, incessant breaches of the public peace, national weakness, financial dishonor, the total loss of our prosperity, the general corruption of morals, and the final extinction of popular freedom. To save our country from evils so appalling as these, we should renew our efforts again and again."
Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, State of the Union address, 1867

And as a fictional southron, Forest Gump was fond of saying, "That's all I've got to say about that."

Saturday, November 2, 2013

LIAR!

I have been listening to defenders of President Petulant Prevaricator on TV until I could scream. I don't know who's the more dishonest, them or him. Now, it's my turn.

Say what they might, it's perfectly clear, what we have here is a lying, loud mouthed, know-nothing crook and confidence man, a low-life who will say any and every thing to expropriate the thing he most desires from you. 

Parse his words how ever you may choose. Parse them and parse them again, and continue parsing them until they are so parched and desiccated from parsing as to be incoherent and meaningless (which I assume is the desired end for the now "CYA" party). 

No matter how you parse them, it is perfectly clear to any clear headed person whose brains are not washed of its powers of reason by blind ideology, that the president's words were meant to mislead and deceive the American people into supporting a thing they would never have support had the WHOLE truth been told them. 

Failure to tell the whole truth is breach of contract and prosecutable by law. Failure to tell the WHOLE truth under oath is prosecutable under our perjury laws. 

Riddle me this: How is it the president is held to a lower standard when he makes promises to the American people than tens of thousands of average Americans are each day in courts and contract signings? Is it okay for POTUS to look straight at the American people and lie, just because everyone has come to think our politicians being crooks and liars is now acceptable SOP? This is an outrage!

Now, when you consider Clinton and his parsing of the verb "is" (I thought I knew what it meant until he opened his corrupt mouth) and now Obama, we're left with only one choice, it seems, a choice the Corruptocrats will just love, since it involves one of their favorite go-tos for campaign $$$: the ABA. 

Specifically, it seems whenever we hear a Democrat politician speak from now on we're going to need our own personal lawyer to explain what their words could possibly mean and their possible political and practical ramifications.

Maybe you're a fool. But my mother didn't raise a fool.(I tried. Lord knows, I tried. But she wouldn't let me.) Once someone has lied to me, and then, when confronted with the lie, that person adds insult to injury by lying to me again in the form of some absurd, far fetched equivocation that he or she stupidly thinks will convince me that the first lie wasn't a lie--I'm done with them! 

But, as many of y'all know, the old armadillo was done with that loud mouthed flim flaming confidence man a LOOOOOONG time ago. 

And as Forest Gump was fond of saying, "That's all I have to say about that.....FOR NOW!"

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Remarks on a Lewrockwell.com article


Remarks about the article posted below: 

For many Americans who consider themselves patriots the contents of this article will most likely be offensive. They will find it hard to hear on most every level--impossible, even.

For those of us of the south, who know what the Yankee government did to us on their way to centralizing power and engineering an Imperial America, it is clear that this article's contents is hardly hyperbole.

Indeed, if you will eat your own to achieve by force what you cannot achieve by a free appeal, it is hard to imagine how far you will go when you oppose those who are not your own? 

But, as fate would have it we don't have to rely on our imaginations. We have the historical record. It tells us Post-Civil War American aggression is a vivid landscape of death, torture, and destruction that numbs the mind as it confounds the imagination.

But vivid as it is, this bewildering landscape remains hidden to great masses of Americans. The cloud of statist propaganda over the American mind seems impenetrable. In the moment it probably is. But what will people whose minds are so blinded when it all falls apart?

A good friend of mine, whose father escaped Germany at the end of World War II, told me that when Germany was defeated and it was announced that Hitler had committed suicide, tens of thousands of Germans also committed suicide.

It is not hard to imagine an analogous thing happening here when Reality its self rises up to disabuse the multitudes of their government driven delusions.


One might reasonable ask why American propaganda has been so powerful and effective at deceiving so many of good will and good character. While there is no room here to investigate this question in depth, one thing can and should be said: to live in a land ruled by Hamiltonian statist who can always turn to Jeffersonian platitudes and principles as pretexts for their actions and policies is nothing less than a propagandist's dream.

It's absolutely true, as the article states, you cannot give people a democratic form of government. You can only assist them after they have made it clear they want it by strenuous effort--just as France aided the American Colonists. To do otherwise, to force democracy upon a people is to use this noble goal as mere pretext. And that, indeed, is the reality of the American government now; an evil force, dreaded and feared; shrouded in a cloud of pretexts and a tsunami of pretenses, all dressed up in empty, patriotic sounding rhetoric.

This cannot--CANNOT end well, and when it does end countless innocents will suffer here, just as our government has made innocents suffer in countless other places.

Personally, in thinking about this article, I would be remiss if I didn't note that the litany of victim nations of American brutality listed at the end of the article did not include the Philippines.

Filipinos did not want to be under US rule. They had suffered under Spanish domination for centuries and longed for independence. The defeat of Spain by US troops seem to them as if their moment of liberation had come. It had not. The account of the egregious acts of cruelty and brutality committed by US troops in suppressing the rebellion against US imperialism is beyond description and beyond imagination. In many ways it presages the tortures of the Nazi death camps.

I just heard a TV commercial a few hours ago that mentioned a family that had a proud history of military service. The last family member mentioned joined the military during the Spanish American War--a war ginned up by the lies of US Yellow journalism for the purpose of US imperialist adventurism and nothing more. When I heard the announcer mention the Spanish American War my mind reflexively turned to the Philippines. Then, in almost the same breath, I heard him state the presumed reason for this family's proud lineage of patriotic service: "...Because freedom is worth fighting for."
I almost lost my supper.

As a final observation: how sad it is when we must hear the truth from a reporter from Pravda. Even so, he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/10/sergei-vasilenkov/terrorism-dressed-in-noble-clothes/

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Is Obama a Socialist? Not hardly.

An Arizona lawmaker recently offended Washington by calling Obama "De Fuhrer" on a Facebook communique. 

This is most certainly highly offensive. I, the Armadillo, personally find it offensive for two reasons.

1. First, I'm offended at such bad German. Obama is not "De Fuhrer." The proper term for Obama is "Der Führer." Oder, als Leute sagen Sie, unser Führer. But even with the proper German this lawmaker is way off base. Which leads me to reason no. 2. 

2. The proper term for Obama is not "Der Führer.  The proper term, as things stand, is "Il Duce." 
Permit me, your humble armadillo, to explain.

We must disabuse ourselves of the notion that Obama is a socialist.This is just stuff and nonsense. 

Obama is a collectivist by any and all means. The means he finds here that was ready and waiting for him in America like a tailor-made glove: cronyism. I make this claim supported by the following understandings:

This is the heritage of full-blown cronyism was the brain child of the Lincoln administration and the Radical Republicans who supported and elected him. Subsequently, it allowed the politicians to establish the Federal Reserve and institute and the so-called "progressive amendments" in early 20th century. Without the Great Consolidator, Lincoln, there never could have been a Teddy Roosevelt or a Woody WoodWilson.

The historical record is clear for all to see: cronyism was rife, taxation exploded, government increased on all levels, and corruption abounded in the decade after Lincoln's impromptu execution--all due to the crony system he and the radical Republicans (Jacobin Whigs) were able to easily set up without any resistance, because those who represented the rights of the people and the states (the southern statesmen) were no longer present. With Jeffersonians gone, Hamiltonians were like blind dogs in a meat house.

The crony system we now have, where businesses are privately owned but politicians and bureaucratic policy makers call the shots, is nothing new. It has existed in countless eras and in sundry forms throughout history. It did no originate with Lincoln. He received it from his idol, Henry Clay, and Clay from Hamilton. Most recently in history,it existed in the form of 18th century British mercantilism.

Henry Clay, Story, Marshall and, preeminently, Hamilton were advocates of this crony, top-down, centralized command and control system. Clay, being a bit inventive, termed it "The American System." There is nothing American about it. This may be the first example of the "new speak" spawned by America's Jacobin revolutionaries--the first example of what we now call "politically correct speech" today.

Clay was the system's prophet, but Lincoln was its full incarnation. In the first two years of his administration the radical Jacobin Republicans passed every bill and policy intended to usher in this crony system that had been resisted and rejected for the previous 70 years. The battle for decentralization was over, save for the shouting.

The past 150 years have just been the inevitable working out of what was enshrined in law in 1861-62. With White vs Texas in 1869, the last nail was driven into the casket of state sovereignty and individual liberty.

Later, in the 20th century this same fundamental arrangement of cronyism came to be known by the term "fascism." You may have heard of it.

That is a system we commonly say is "on the right." Der Führer was a socialist--on the left every bit as far as Stalin. Left/right, Schmeft/right--it makes no difference.
The working idea with both is centralized, top-down, command and control government.

It matters not whether the government owns everything, or allows citizens to retain the appearance of private ownership, while the politicians and bureaucratic policy makers actually call the shots.

The truth, therefore, is this: the one who owns something is the one who has the power and right to call the shots; to run, operate or dispose of it as he or she sees fit!

Therefore, in a crony-fascist system like we have, where the politicians call the shots, they, by virtue of calling the shots become, ipso facto, the actual owners, and We the People, we are their slaves and serfs. Wecome to the Plantation, fellow inmates. Obama is the present plantation owner. What you have you do not own. You only possess it and use it by the owner's discretion and grace. Abuse it in his eyes and you will find it taken from you. Government has enshrined in law a plethora of means by which your disenfranchisement may be effected, and government is watching. 


Have a nice day.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

A New Name for an Old Slouching Beast?

From a post about creating a litany of "liberal stupidities" on a social site:

"Now, C____, et al, some of you already know, and to others it will come as no surprise, that I consider the War Fare State Neocons as just the flip side on the single coin of progressivism. Stamped on both sides is the image of the early 20th century's two headed American dragon, Roosevelt (TR) and Wilson. 

These two different outlooks are, in reality, one idea working in and being applied to two different, albeit related, venues. That idea is simple: to grow an all-powerful, centralized, command and control, unitary and imperial state. Yes, when it comes to the nuances there is some quibbling between the two factions, but the effects are indistinguishable in the main. 
Obama, who has instituted an agenda more akin to Fascism than socialism domestically, has proven himself multi-talented. It seems he's an equal opportunity abuser, and has also gone in lock step with Neocon foreign policy. Of course, Bush was no piker when it came to domestic waste and overreach, so there's not all that much difference. But BHO takes the cake, as it is said. 

Now, I'm getting to my point, which some of you, no doubt, will find rancorous. ....Sorry.

These two forms, operating out of the pretexts of a false compassion and a false patriotism, have drained us of massive treasure, much blood and one liberty after another, to the point that virtually nothing is now left. (For instance, most of you reading and participating in this thread perhaps think we're here participating in this discussion of sorts protected by the first amendment. Let me disabuse you of such nonsense. We meet here because an all powerful centralized state has not yet seen fit to shut us down--a thing it could easily do by a variety of means. If they so decided there would be next to nothing we could do about it--nothing,at least, in the short run.) 

So....here's the liberal stupidity keeping the BOTH sides of "the one coin of liberalism or progressivism" in mind: 

How is it that, year after year, we send our best young men abroad to fight ostensibly for the purpose of winning liberty for others, while we're losing it by the day at home?--and it's all, ALL brought to us by two things that are actually one thing, which I will now give one term: ProgressiCons. Statists would do, but ProgressiCons is more descriptive. 

This to me is the liberal stupidity among the tsunami of stupidities in the ProgressiCon lexicon.

Riddle me this. 

Now, I said it, and I'm glad!

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

A post on tomwoods.com regarding Mark Levin


Mark Levin is a statist Neocon posing as a conservative. His Lincoln worship forces him to defend the very things he says he hates. He repeatedly rants on his radio show, calling Lincoln in exalted, sermonic tones, "A great man! A great man!!!" (Thanks be to God, the medium of radio spares us from having to behold the image of him frothing at the mouth while delivering such a proclamation.)
Levin is a man talking out of both sides of his mouth at once, as is his partner in crime, Sean Hannity.
This bit of brainwashing regarding Lincoln apparently happened to him in his youth, as he sat on his father's knee. It blinds him from seeing the truth about Lincoln and the consequences of Lincoln's policies and presidency. Therefore, he feels compelled to attack libertarians like Dr. Woods and Tom DiLorenzo, those TRUE advocates of liberty, who cut through the Lincoln myth and expose him for the tyrant he was.
Despite Levin's Lincoln worship it is clear he is deeply disturbed by what he sees going on today. Sincere though he may be, in Levin's desire to place checks on Federal power and defend state sovereignty, he cannot turn to common sense means, such as those found in Madison and Jefferson's famous Resolves, for that would be an attack on Lincoln.
Therefore, Levin's Lincoln worship and defense of Lincoln's war force him into a "work around."The fruit of said "work around" is, "The Liberty Amendments," Levin's new book that outlines a complex, convoluted, multi-generational, protracted and impossible process that no sane man could see as feasible--a process that cannot succeed, whether in whole or in part.
Lincoln worship clearly creates a condition of schizophrenia in Levin's thought.
I've written about this myself, providing a commentary on The Liberty Amendments. If anyone cares to see it I've posted it here:
Levin's Lincoln worship is the source of the cognitive dissonance and incoherence of Levin's thought and his daily radio messaging. Lincoln destroyed the voluntary nature of the Union, and he is apparently well on his way to destroying Mark Levin's sanity.

Hypothetical Historical Query


The Constitutional convention is closing, but before sending out the representatives to their various states to debate and ratify the newly proposed Constitution George Washington rises and says the following:

"Gentlemen, we've done the work of yeomen by creating a new Constitution. I think we all hope for its adoption by the Sovereign States, and that it will become the legal and procedural basis of a new central or general government, allowing our states to better cooperate for their mutual benefit and that of the citizenry of the sundry states.

I now send you to your various sovereign states to debate the issues and consider ratification of a new VOLUNTARY union, a union that will replace the Articles of Confederation.

Though you have all been sworn to secrecy regarding the actual content of the debates and ultimate sense of the meaning of this document, we must be candid with the citizenry.

Therefore, gentlemen, I implore you to make sure you tell all the delegates of the various ratification committees that once a state signs on to the new Constitutional Compact, if and when, at any future date, that state decides to leave this VOLUNTARY compact FOR ANY REASON--no matter how egregious--the General government will be compelled to mount a massive army, the size, scope and force of which have never before been seen on the earth, invade that state (or those states), slaughter tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of its citizens, destroy not only its military properties and emplacements, but also ravage the private homes, loot and destroy the properties of individuals, over throw the sovereign state government, subjugate the people, reduce their once free Republic to the condition of a conquered province, establish military occupation, disenfranchise the children of the sons of the Revolution of 1776 in that state, suspend elections and overrun that land with foreigners who will be placed, by Federal fiat, into positions of power and authority, to do as they please with impunity.

What's more, after the subjugation of that state, and after it is forced back into the union, it shall be forever mocked and hated, and those who died in defense of that state's independence and sovereignty shall be vilified, and the children of that state shall be forced into schools where they, generation after generation, will be taught to hang their heads and be forever ashamed that their forbearers had the temerity to want to be free of the Union and this glorious VOLUNTARY compact we now have the opportunity to join.

MAKE SURE, MAKE SURE you tell the delegates what will happen if their states ever decide to be independent of the Union once they accept it. Also, spread this message far and wide among the citizenry so they may appeal to the delegates, letting their will be known!!!

Go forth now with my blessing, and may the spirit of the Revolution of 1776 be with you all!"

Q: How many states would have signed on to the Constitution had the delegates brought that message along with the newly proposed Constitution?

Your answer will count 100% for your final grade in American history.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

US hires out military as international hit Squad

In an attempt to bring you the most pertinent of news, the Armadillo posts the following news flash!


US hires military out as international 
hit squad to Saudis! 

White House reveals new business card, in an attempt to use the military for profit and pay off national debt.

John Kerry, speaking for the Obama administration said today, "The Saudis are the first to contract us to do their international dirty work, but they certainly won't be the last. If every thing goes as planned we'll have that national debt paid off in no time! That was my plan. Did Bush ever think that creatively? No! No he didn't!! You should have elected me. I kept telling you I had a plan. But you wouldn't listen....!!! Not even Teresa would listen. Why did I ever marry her?! Oh, yes. The money...always with the money!!"

A few moments after Kerry lost control he was taken off in a White House padded walled wagon for more therapy.

Despite the disturbance the new business card was displayed and, SHOCKER!, it was 

a big hit with the press. Who would have thought it?


Tuesday, August 20, 2013


American Conservatism's Schizophrenic Messenger

"The consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of the ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it."
~ Robert E. Lee


Radio talk show host, Mark Levin, is, by all appearances, schizophrenic. While he often sounds like a libertarian when he speaks of governmental domestic policy, he viciously and relentlessly attacks true constitutional libertarians like Dr. Ron Paul. Why? Because, in reality, Levin embraces the very thing he says he hates. When it comes to American militarism and foreign policy Mark Levin is a statist. 

As much as he says he admires the Founders and Framers of the Constitution, unlike Dr. Paul, his views on foreign policy are out of line and contrary to that of the Founders. Their view, like Dr. Paul's, is that of defense of America's borders. Levin's view, similar to the Neocons, is one of aggression and jingoistic support of militarism.

If you listen to Levin's radio programs over the years you can only conclude he, like his friend Sean Hannity, never saw an american war he didn't like, or an act of American aggression and intervention he wouldn't applaud and seek to justify — especially if that act came from a Republican administration chock full of Neocons. He seems oblivious to Randolph Bourne's well-known and often repeated apothegm, “War is the health of the state.”

Evidently, Levin and his Neocon compatriots at FOX, the Claremont Institute and elsewhere see American interest and the necessity of American intervention virtually every where they look across the globe. In Levin's mind the American Empire owns and rules the world, acting in ways no other country is allowed to act, treating other nations in ways we would find highly offensive, were the shoe to be on the other foot.

From whence comes Mr. Levin's alleged schizophrenia?

As one might expect, there are two conflicting sources. The first is an understandable admiration of the Framers of the Constitution and the American Republic they subsequently founded. So far, so good. The second, however, is an irrational devotion to a tyrant who was the enemy and destroyer of the American Republic, the sovereignty of the States and American liberty.

Many times on his radio program Mr. Levin has fondly recalled that, as a child, he heard Lincoln ceaselessly praised by his father. Each such reflection is usually followed by one of his famous vocal crescendos, which ends in Mr. Levin shouting at the top of his voice, "Abraham Lincoln! A great man! A great man!!!" To think of Lincoln any other way would be, for Mr. Levin, unthinkable.

These two unharmonious fealties seem to have combined to create a condition of cognitive dissonance in Mr. Levin's thought, compelling him to advocate an array of logically contradictory and internally incoherent policies. Stated another way, you cannot fully embrace both Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and end up with coherent, consistent thinking and an internally coherent philosophy of government. Only someone intellectually blinded could fail to see that, had these men been contemporaries, they would have been at greater odds with one another than Jefferson was with Hamilton. Their ideals are logically irreconcilable.

Brainwashing is a terrible thing and the earlier the brainwashing takes place, the more trusted the source, the more effective it is, and the more difficult it is to uproot.

Being both unable and unwilling to do so, Mr. Levin constantly insists the American detritus began only one hundred years ago, in 1913. That was the year what we now called “the progressive amendments" were added to the Constitution.

Indeed, 1913 was a watershed year for progressivism (re; socialism/statism). But none of that could have happened without Mr. Lincoln's great war of consolidation. Mr. Lincoln's unnecessary war destroyed states' rights, transforming the VOLUNTARY Constitutional Compact of SOVEREIGN REPUBLICS into one held together by force, brutality, coercion, extortion, violence, corruption, and bribery. 

With all that as background, in this article I would like to share my perspective on Mr. Levin's latest book about how to restore Constitutional government in America. He suggests the best way to do so is to involve the states in a process for the purpose of adding eleven“liberty amendments” to the Constitution to reverse the past century's alarming growth of centralism and socialism in America, growth that has resulted in America being the largest debtor nation in world history, growth that has created an out-of-control, Leviathan scaled, post-constitutional government in Washington. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I have not read Levin's book and don't plan to. What I have done is watch a full hour program on the book, moderated by Levin and Sean Hannity, with comments from an elite cadre of so-called “conservative thinkers.” I have also listened to him speak extensively about it on his daily radio programs.

What I saw and heard on television looked and sounded desperate, like grasping at straws. The process which Mr. Levin outlines in his book seems similar to a process described in philosopher Mortimer Adler's book, "Ten Philosophical Mistakes." In it Adler outlines how, in the past several centuries, philosophical errors have been compounded, one upon another, with the result being the chaotic state of philosophy today.

For example, Adler shows that rather than correcting Descartes' fundamental errors, philosophers who followed him tried to make adjustments to mitigate some of their more repugnant consequences.

In other words, rather than gore Descartes' ox, his ox remained, and oxen upon oxen were subsequently added, with philosopher after philosopher building upon one another's errors. (Sounds like the growth of government bureaucracy, doesn't it?)

What does that have to do with Mr. Levin's book? It's very simple. As stated above, Levin has offered eleven amendments with the intention of restoring constitutional government. But the last thing needed is to increase the number of laws and amendments. That is nothing but an invitation to a process fated from the outset to end in total chaos. Besides, even if the process were successful, eleven new amendments added to a Constitution the ruling elites largely ignore would do little to nothing to improve things. (More on that later).

Instead, Mr. Levin ought to have the courage and honesty to do the thing his youthful brainwashing precludes. Rather that pile error upon error, confusion upon confusion, and complexity upon complexity, he should gore Lincoln, Story, Clay and Hamilton's Statist Ox! But he simply cannot. He is in too deep. He has, in fact, made their ox his own, and is compelled to constantly justify and rationalize the horrific means by which the Imperialistic, Centralized, Command and Control government they envisioned was brutally imposed upon the once free American Republics, and the voluntary nature of the union ruthlessly destroyed by the arm of raw military might. Long ago, on his father's knee, Levin trustingly joined himself at the hip with America's first out of the closet, barefaced, crony capitalist and imperialist president, Abraham Lincoln, and he can neither admit nor recant his error. 

Therefore, he has made of himself a form of modern day Oedipus. He has blinded himself to the whole truth. Consequently,Mr. Levin speaks as if the progressives sprang full blown from the mind of Zeus.  NONSENSE! What Lincoln and his cronies did to consolidate power and create a centralized Federal government provided the perfect political milieu for the progressives of the early 20th century. It was as if Lincoln loaded the gun and the Radical Republicans who followed him cocked the trigger. When the Progressives came along the weapon of despotic, centralized government was locked, loaded and ready to fire. And fire they have!

Let me cut to the chase and state categorically that we do not need eleven new amendments to further confuse and torture the Constitution. Only one ox would have to be gored, not eleven, for the return of both sanity and harmony to the American union. Only one right restored to the proper Sovereigns is needed to reestablish republican, constitutional government in these United States. It is a right the SOVEREIGN STATES had from the beginning—it is the right all parties have in a free and VOLUNTARY compact: It is the right of secession and self-determination.

The right of self-determination and its' protectoress hand maiden, secession, are the quintessential American principles, and, if Mr. Jefferson's celebrated Declaration has anything to say about it, they are natural rights given by God. The state cannot bestow them, the state can only unjustly prevent their exercise through the unlawful used of force.

Even Lincoln himself stated as much in 1848, saying,

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.” (underlines are my emphasis).

A bit later, in a speech in 1852 in support of Hungarian freedom, Lincoln said, "Be it resolved, that it is the RIGHT of ANY PEOPLE, sufficiently numerous for national independence, TO THROW OFF, to REVOLUTIONIZE, their existing form of government, and to establish such other in its stead AS THEY MAY CHOOSE."

Apparently Lincoln, for reasons that yet remain unclear, thought Americans in 1861 ought not have the same rights as Hungarians in 1852. 

It is not hard to see that Lincoln's deeds seldom matched his words.

Secession was a right understood by all, even, and perhaps especially by the Framers of the Constitution—even Lincoln understood and promoted it as “a most sacred right,” until he rose to the high throne of the American presidency.

Without secession understood as a fundamental right in the early Republic, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolves, penned by Jefferson and Madison respectively, look superfluous, feckless—even absurd, for they would have no means of ultimate leverage in the face of Federal resistance. Without the right of secession the states could not leave the gaming table and cash out. Rather, their protestations notwithstanding, they would be forced stay and play the game, even if the game the federal croupier was running was crooked—and it almost always was.

The New England states understood secession to be a right. They convened a convention and threatened secession in the war of 1812. They even sent representatives to Washington with a declaration of secession. The only thing that prevented them from delivering it was the sudden end of the war and the restoration of trade with England. Even after the war of 1812 we find the right to secede stated in the law books Lee, Grant, Jackson, Sheridan and Sherman studied at West Point in the 1830s. 

Even Salmon P. Chase, Lincoln's personally appointed supreme court justice, ranted that Jefferson Davis should not have been captured, that Lincoln never intended for him to be captured, and that he must not be tried. Why? Because, said Chase, everyone knew secession was legal, that no law had been broken, and that by seceding the Southern Sovereign Republics had done that which was their SOVEREIGN, CONSTITUTIONAL right. Here is Chase's direct quote ca. 1865:

"If you bring these leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution, secession is not rebellion...His [Jefferson Davis'] capture was a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of treason."

The north and Lincoln should have been condemned by all freedom loving Americans for the horrors they committed against the south in the name of "saving the union." New Yorkers were so furious at Lincoln for the war and the slaughter of New Yorkers by Federal troops in the Battle of Manhattan, the best trial lawyer in New York offered to defend Jefferson Davis, pro bono. 

But the Yankee cowards let Jefferson Davis go free, denying him his day in court. All the while, Davis called for a trial that he was sure would vindicate him and the south.

Even the celebrated Massachusetts Lawyer, entrepreneur, and abolitionist, Lysander Spooner, was disgusted by the war and the actions of the Federal government under Lincoln's leadership. Soon after the war he penned these damning words [my underlines]:

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals. No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle --- but only in degree --- between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure."

The South was right, both morally and legally. The South had upheld the quintessential American principle of self-determination and had acted upon it by seceding in the face of federal abuses and plunder. In contrast, the North and Lincoln joined George III on history's long and lugubrious list of tyrants, depots and enemies of Liberty.


In a perfect world one could depend upon the honor of elected leaders to restrain their actions and policies, and exercise only the few, limited, and enumerated powers delegated (not surrendered) by the Sovereign State to the Federal Agent. But we do not live in a perfect world of impeccable people. Quite the contrary. Therefore, in order to keep leaders in check more is needed than simply relying on their good will and honor. A means of ultimate leverage is needed. That ultimate means is the act of secession.

One could protest and say secession is not permitted by the Constitution. But constitutional permission is not required. The rights of the Sovereign States, unlike those of the Federal Agent, are many, unenumerated, and unlimited. Therefore, in order to prevent a state from exercising a particular right, such as secession, the Constitution would have to specifically and explicitly forbid it, not specifically allow it. No such explicit prohibition is found in the Constitution, and had it been the states would never have ratified it, for doing so would have been nothing short of a sovereignty death pact for the states—the very thing Patrick Henry warned against in his anti-federalist speeches.


Secession, therefore, was the right of the states then, and it ought to be the right of the states today. In fact, a much better case can be made for the right of secession as an effective means for restoring Constitutional government, than engaging in a process of adding eleven more amendments to a Constitution that is already too big, a Constitution which, in any case, goes largely ignored by the statists in Washington. Why?

The Constitution is ignored and passed over because there is no ultimate reason for politicians to practice political restraint. Unlike Dionysus, Federal politicians and judges can do as they please with impunity, for they have no Sword of Damocles hanging by a single horse hair over their heads should they overstep the bounds set by the Constitution.  

The political weapon of the states and the people that protected their rights and liberties, their sword of Damocles, so to speak, was officially taken from them in 1869 by an act of raw judicial power with the bogus Supreme Court ruling in the case of White vs Texas. 

To repeat, the Constitution is ignored and its law's arrogantly broken by those in power because the Sovereign states and their peoples have no ultimate means of leverage against Federal abuses, criminality and even treason. That ultimate and necessary leverage is what the right of secession provided in the early days of the Republic, and that is exactly what it would provide today were the right restored, as it should be.

Until American's come to understand that and demand the right of secession by public acclamation, the Federal government will continue to beat the states and abuse the people like a cruel husband batters his wife--a wife who has no recourse to or respite from such brutal battering.

This ONE RIGHT, this one power, secession, restored to the rightful sovereigns, would very quickly rein in the Federal government, severely limit Federal abuses, and restore, not only the rights of the states, but the rights and liberties of the citizens of the states as well.

While statists howell and wail at such a thought, paradoxically, it may be that restoration of the right of secession is the only thing that will ultimately save the union. It is not altogether irrational to think that the right of secession restored would have felicitous and even unifying effects upon the people of the Sovereign States. The right of secession restored is nothing less than the restoration of American liberty.

But Levin, as smart and schooled as he is, seems blinded by his brainwashing. He cannot allow himself to see Lincoln for the tyrant he was.  He cannot bear to consider the truth that the consolidation Lincoln began is, in fact, the cause of most all of the horrific things over which he bemoans and opines on his daily radio programs: the growth of the leviathan state in America, the massive American debt, and the increasing loss of liberty. Without Lincoln's brutal and horrific consolidation none of these things could have come to pass so quickly and easily.

No eleven amendments are needed to restore Constitutional government. Such a thing will never and should never happen. The sole benefit Mr. Levin's book will have is upon his and his publisher's bank accounts.

Only one thing is needed: gore Lincoln's statist ox, and restore the right of secession to its rightful institutions: the Sovereign States and the peoples therein. 

Two things are sacred since Lincoln's consolidation: equality and union.These two oxen, run amok, have become the most badly behaving bulls in the China shop of American liberty, and the most costly, in terms of dollars, blood and liberty. These bad actors, above all, must be gored if liberty is to be restored. These two concepts, which have been allowed to grow unchecked since 1865, are fast bringing about the death of what remains of American Liberty and the Constitutional Republic, both of which, by all evidence, are presently in their death throes.

In time, when the evidence becomes so overwhelming, maybe even Mark Levin will be able to see the truth about America's history. If that happens, it will become clear to him that no solution can effectively bring about the restoration of constitutional government unless it is preceded by the restoration of the voluntary nature of the Constitutional Compact. He will also come to know what we of the South have known for over a century and a half. As Donnie Kennedy is fond of saying, “If you can't leave, you're not free.”

It is possible that Mr. Levin and his Neocon statist friends could come to their senses and see that our constitutional rights and freedoms can only be preserved if they rest upon the foundation of the Freedom of Association, the unencumbered exercise of which necessarily includes the right of free peoples to secede. After all, As Mr. Lincoln said, such a right is "a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world." They could conceivably come to see that at some point in the future, but don't hold your breath.

"If you can't leave, you're not free."