Ron Paul 2012!!! Your thoughts on who we should pick for our "Cause"?

[trichrider]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3SOlXxUBLk&feature=pyv

 

[toketronix]

America have been threatening Iran for decades, way before they started any nuclear program, the excuses change but the behaviour remains the same, it's always been about oil if you can't see that you must be blind ..we may not be starving them directly but that is ultimately what sanctions cause ...ring fencing their banking system ..freezing their trade/exports ..obviously the people at the bottom will suffer the most ..not to mention the u.s. had a hand in installing the current regime ..de ja vu much?

a big deal was made at saddam's trial on him using chemical weapons on his own people ...but they left out the part where the u.s. supplied saddam with those chemicals in the first place..to use on Iran

some people seem to struggle with basic ideas regarding autonomy and sovereignty, if a country has a problem it is up to the people of that country to do something about it ..not for America or their poodles ...who have a big enough stench coming from their own ass without interfering or judging other people's ...who is America or anyone to say Iran can't have nuclear power when they themselves have the biggest collection of nukes on the planet..only country on record to use nukes on a civilian population( twice ) ..& who have murdered millions over the years implementing their one sided foreign policy ...putting the u.s. in charge of world peace is like putting ted bundy in charge of psychiatric services ...wake up! it's about oil, resources and control

Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom.

Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America and to support terror. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade. This is a regime that has already used poison gas to murder thousands of its own citizens, leaving the bodies of mothers huddled over their dead children. This is a regime that agreed to international inspections then kicked out the inspectors. This is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world.

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We will work closely with our coalition to deny terrorists and their state sponsors the materials, technology and expertise to make and deliver weapons of mass destruction.

We will develop and deploy effective missile defenses to protect America and our allies from sudden attack.

And all nations should know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security.

We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events while dangers gather. I will not stand by as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons.

Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch, yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch.

We can't stop short. If we stopped now, leaving terror camps intact and terror states unchecked, our sense of security would be false and temporary. History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom's fight.

Our first priority must always be the security of our nation, and that will be reflected in the budget I send to Congress. My budget supports three great goals for America: We will win this war, we will protect our homeland, and we will revive our economy.

September 11 brought out the best in America and the best in this Congress, and I join the American people in applauding your unity and resolve. Now Americans deserve to have this same spirit directed toward addressing problems here at home.

I am a proud member of my party. Yet as we act to win the war, protect our people and create jobs in America, we must act first and foremost not as Republicans, not as Democrats, but as Americans.

It costs a lot to fight this war. We have spent more than a billion dollars a month -- over $30 million a day -- and we must be prepared for future operations. Afghanistan proved that expensive precision weapons defeat the enemy and spare innocent lives, and we need more of them. We need to replace aging aircraft and make our military more agile to put our troops anywhere in the world quickly and safely.

January 2002
G W Bush State of the Union address aka 'axis of evil speech'

 

[itisme]

It's one thing to anticipate but you're actually convincing yourselves, based on shit from people who don't know shit.

Read the papers.

On the first subject, we aren't listening to you.

Secondly, We do....You just refuse to be awake. Nobody in here thinks you're even trying to add anytying to the thread. We know a troll when we see it, take a look at the above quote for evidence!

 

[SpasticGramps]

Read the papers. The only people beating drums are the Israelis.

Did you watch any of the GOP debates? What about His Honorable War Monger Senator McCain calling for a no fly zone in Syria? Yeah that wouldn't agitate the situation.

I like how you paint the south as the only war mongering states that the war mongers have to pander to.

 

[itisme]

RON PAUL wants to shrink the FDA. WHY?

FDA is shill for CORPORATIONS

http://news.bestmeal.info/food/health/

 

[SacredBreh]

Spastic I just wrote several paragraphs in response to that but went ahead and deleted them.

It is clear Disco's plumbing is backed up and is spewing out of his mouth again! He doesn't watch the debates.He is far to evolved for that.

The Congress discussing making it an impeachable offense to go to war again with out a lawful declaration by Congress is just a group hallucination.

Go find a bridge Troll!

 

[SacredBreh]

bombadil.360

We will probably not agree on some of this stuff but want you to know, I find it very enlightening and helpful to get your input from a different view point. Thanks for posting and discussing.... I only think I know what I know at the time.... and each new thing I learn has an impact on all the others. Hang with us and give us your views too.

Peace

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Did you watch any of the GOP debates?

... As far as the Romney, Santorum and Gingrich rhetoric - that was in South Carolina and Texas, for crying out loud.

In 2008, Ron Paul was booed in SC from saying we should listen to terrorists for the reasons they knocked down the trade centers.

What about His Honorable War Monger Senator McCain calling for a no fly zone in Syria? Yeah that wouldn't agitate the situation.

You guys know the differences in armed conflict and you know that establishing no-fly zones aren't declaring war (which happens to be what you're alluding to.)

Last time I checked, McCain can't declare war in his backyard pool.

Not the south... SC and TX. I like how you paint the south as the only war mongering states that the war mongers have to pander to.

I like how you rehash what's got you convinced we're going to war. And as far as "painting", name another state where Republicans show their teeth every primary. Not just the candidates, the audiences cheered and booed at particularly surprising statements, questions and follow up.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

On the first subject, we aren't listening to you.

Fine. Keep pretending that loading this thread with war, bankruptcy, gloom, doom and international conspiracy has anything to do with promoting your candidate or that you're doing anything more constructive than placing anonymous rep on posts you don't likey.

Remember the 1950s? Marketers couldn't get housewives to watch their laundry detergent commercials so they teamed up with the networks and invented "soap operas". Soap operas were always more dramatic than reality or you wouldn't watch the soap commercials.

 

[SpasticGramps]

You guys know the differences in armed conflict and you know that establishing no-fly zones aren't declaring war (which happens to be what you're alluding to.)

A no fly zone is an act of war. You can pretend it isn't to rationalize pseudo-pacifisim, but in a strict military sense it is an act of war on a sovereign nation.

I like how you rehash what's got you convinced we're going to war.

Like Secretary Clinton telling the Russians to pass this ultimatum onto Iran?

Russia Discloses The Iran Ultimatum: Cooperate Or Be Invaded By Year End

In what can only be seen as raising the rhetoric bar on the timing, scale, and seriousness of the Iran 'situation', Kommersant is reporting that "Tehran has one last chance" as US Secretary of State Clinton asks her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to relay the message to Iranian leaders. If this 'last chance' is wasted an attack will happen in months as diplomats noted that the probability of an Israel/US attack on Iran is now a specific 'when' instead of an indefinite 'if'. The sentiment is best summarized by a quote from inside the meeting "The invasion will happen before year’s end. The Israelis are de facto blackmailing Obama. They’ve put him in this interesting position – either he supports the war or loses the support of the Jewish lobby". Russian diplomats, as Russia Today points out, criticized the 'last chance' rhetoric as unprofessional suggesting "those tempted to use military force should restrain themselves - a war will not solve any problems, but create a million new ones.

 

[greenmatter]

a guy i am very close to got to spend some time on/in the "no fly zone" in iraq after desert storm ended. kinda sad to watch iraqi helicopters absolutely hammer the the shit out of the kurds and not be able to do a fucking thing about it BECAUSE THE POLITICIANS SAY SO ....... no blood for oil right? remember that one?

no fly zones are an act of war, an act of control, and an act of treason against people who sided with us at one time (but did not control any oil fields) ............ or at least thats how we were running it IMHO.

the U.S. does not lose wars or friends on the battle field, we have that done to us in washington. if a war has to be fought then it should be all out .......PERIOD!!!!! you don't put some poor private in harms way and then sit in washington while his ass is swinging in the breeze and debate about what the next logical step is.

the military option should be taken away from these chickenhawk whiney bitches until they don't have any other options ......... and at that point they should hand it to the military and get the hell out of the way

 

[bentom187]

Nassim was touting Ron Paul and when they asked him what he thinks about RP's chances, he said (paraphrasing) I dont care what his chances are, it is my duty to support him because he is the only one with the solutions to fix this country. "The govt needs a root canal, not just more novocaine" ...

[YOUTUBEIF]_N4Tql8YHn0[/YOUTUBEIF]

 

[whodare]

Fine. Keep pretending that loading this thread with war, bankruptcy, gloom, doom and international conspiracy has anything to do with promoting your candidate or that you're doing anything more constructive than placing anonymous rep on posts you don't likey.

what are you even doing in this thread if its all daisies to you?

personally im not promoting a candidate, (i did defend his record, and clarified his positions on a few subjects), im promoting the platform of, liberty, personal freedom/responsibility, non-interventionism, fiscal responsibility, and a small government ruled by law....


and stop crying about neg rep ya baby....

when you post inflammatory comments or more establishment rhetoric/propaganda your going to get neg rep...

Remember the 1950s? Marketers couldn't get housewives to watch their laundry detergent commercials so they teamed up with the networks and invented "soap operas". Soap operas were always more dramatic than reality or you wouldn't watch the soap commercials.

way to compare the message "our government is too big and will fail because of it" with 50's soap operas...

we get it you'd rather continue your life with your head up your ass but some of us like the light....

 

[bentom187]

here baraks attempt to buy your vote,with your tax money.
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h112-4170

full text: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr4170ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr4170ih.pdf

 

[whodare]

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29673

A new bill, HR 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011, also known as the “Trespassing Bill,” is soon to be signed into law by President Obama. This bill effectively criminalizes protest and will hurt protest groups and movements such as Occupy quite hard.
The bill as states that anyone who knowingly “enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so” with the “intent to impede or disrupt the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions, engages in disorderly or disruptive conduct in or [in] proximity to, any restricted building or grounds” or “impedes or disrupts the orderly conduct of Government business or official functions” will be punished with a fine or “or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both.” (emphasis added)
There are already many problems with the bill as it does not attempt to define what “imped[ing] or disrupt[ing] the orderly conduct of government business or official functions” is, nor does it specify what “government business” is or what an “official function” is. This vagueness will allow for the US government to effectively stifle protest and free speech, thus criminalizing such actions like the upcoming Occupy Chicago anti-NATO/G-8 protests. In addition to this, such a law will make it impossible for Americans to exercise their First Amendment rights when “government business” is being attended to or “official functions” are occurring.

Unsurprisingly, only three people voted against the measure: Paul Broun (R-GA-10), Justin Amash (R-MI-3) and Ron Paul (R-TX-14). This law would allow federal law enforcement “to bring these charges against Americans engaged in political protests anywhere in the country, and violators will face criminal penalties that include imprisonment for up to 10 years.” HR 347 will is ripe for abuse, as the NYPD has, as of recent, assumed the notion that taking photos and videotaping is a form of disorderly conduct.
The fact that only three people in the House, all Republicans oppose the bill and absolutely no Democrats (see the voting list here), only shows just how both parties are just two sides of the same coin.
This law comes at the heels of the US government having debated over whether or not to indefinitely detain US citizens and Attorney General Eric Holder- the Obama administration’s version of John Yoo, arguing that the President can assassinate US citizens without providing any evidence whatsoever to anyone.
Free speech may very well soon be nothing but a distant relic of the past.

http://mises.org/daily/5868/The-Untouchables-Mystique

As an adolescent, I read and reread a well-worn copy of Eliot Ness's The Untouchables, always captivated by the story of the incorruptible government agent. Ness and his 12 Prohibition agents took on Al Capone, the most recognizable gangster and bootlegger of the age, risking life and limb to protect the city streets of Chicago. Whether facing down Al Capone's tommy-gun-toting henchman or prosecuting police corruption, Ness always appeared to be the last bastion of moral probity in an era of open violence and licentiousness.

In my boyhood imagination, Ness and his 12-man crew were the Untouchables — the perfect federal regulators. They protected the populace from social disorder and chaos in the streets.

Looking back on this fairytale version of Ness's exploits with a little more wisdom and experience, one can easily see that nothing could be further from the truth.

What Crony Capitalists Can Learn from Organized Crime

Ness and his crew were termed "untouchable" because they would neither accept a bribe nor compromise their loyalty to the government. Therefore, the "Untouchables" moniker is something of a misnomer. Ness and his crew were infinitely corruptible; that is, they were corrupt enough to uphold an incredibly unjust federal law that pleased only teetotalers, puritans, Mafiosi, and social reformers, and that drove millions of people out of peaceful work at the behest of a government monopoly over the individual conscience. The moral bankruptcy of the Untouchables is not in the least lessened by the fact that they intended to suppress the crime that their own actions had stimulated by criminalizing a popular American "vice."

The criminalization of the alcohol industry in 1919 put an end to the traditional federal tax on alcohol by transitioning into complete market suppression. Prohibition only ended the under-the-table extortion through which government agents of the Treasury were once paid with federal sanction. Prohibition agents were notoriously corruptible (and also agents of the Treasury), and they often took bribes from the bootleggers and gangsters who co-opted the industry after the government shut down the nation's peaceful stills and breweries. When Prohibition agents and municipal police began negotiating the terms of their extortions with the bootleggers directly, the federal government mistakenly saw in this municipal and federal corruption something different than its own erstwhile extortions in the form of the alcohol excise. The only difference between the two graft systems lay in the fact that under 18th Amendment the State couldn't leverage those municipal bribes against the national debt quite so easily when the legal plunder was "criminalized" by federal statute and shifted entirely to the enforcement of alcohol bans.

As breweries shut their doors, they sold their criminalized capital to the highest bidders in order to save themselves from complete financial ruin. In Chicago, the loan shark Johnny Torrio bought up unused stills and nurtured a "protected" underground market for alcohol consumption and distribution. In order to fend off the Prohibition agents who threatened the peaceful breweries, Torrio simply brought guns and graft into the equation, applying his loan-sharking business model to the alcohol market. After Torrio was gunned down in 1925, his enterprising protégé Al Capone took the reins of the bootlegging empire. During the Prohibition era, once-peaceful consumers and distributors of alcohol were caught between the split personalities of reciprocal states — the puritanical saints and the scar-faced devils.

Prohibition caused the price of alcohol to jump, because bootleggers had to offset the opportunity costs of running a criminal enterprise. Prohibition not only stifled domestic production, but also shut down the legal exportation and importation of alcohol. Many smugglers did manage to circumvent the laws and the customs houses, and they did not always deal their goods through Mafia networks or the customary state syndicate. For the most part, smugglers and bootleggers merely bribed local lawmen or delivered their goods under the radar, and did so peacefully. Alcohol distribution went on much as it had before Prohibition, just through more inventive (and cost-ineffective) means. Some smugglers took to the rails and stocked coal cars with hidden liquor; others combined trades and floated their booze downriver from Canada into the states, the barrels tucked safely into timber supplies. The Vancouver and San Juan islands applied their smuggling expertise, since what various states deemed "illegal trafficking" they had always seen as "good business." While some of the volume buyers that the smugglers found on the mainland were Mafiosi who engaged in the new "protection" racket, there were plenty of buyers in the West who had no connection with any criminal racket whatsoever.

What we see in Mafia violence is not an organized market resistance to state tyranny, as many apologists for Mafia racketeering have argued. By 1926, Capone was making something on the order of $100 million per year, but he was spending more than a quarter of his profits on his municipal and federal graft. He was purchasing the cooperation of the rival government syndicate in order to stave off full federal intervention with the alcohol market's Mafia-led "protection." By purchasing the cooperation of the state, he propped up the unproductive state monopoly of law enforcement, leaving the market at the mercy of two violent monopolies. He also leveraged aggressive bribes against his competitors in order to use the state as his greatest ally. By snitching on rivals, Capone hoped to shut out competition by force.

What the state should have seen forming in the Mafia-controlled black market was a clear reflection of itself as a regulator of the alcohol industry, albeit with a couple of more scars and bruises.

In the November 2011 issue of The Harvard Business Review, counterterrorist law enforcer Marc Goodman argues that crime syndicates are "especially adept at expropriating legitimate business tactics to create highly efficient global teams and set new best practices in adaptive strategy, supply chain management, the use of incentives, global collaboration, and other disciplines."[1] One can only hope that the article's title (a blatant non sequitur), "What Businesses Can Learn from Organized Crime," was intended only to catch the reader's eye during a cursory perusal of HBR headlines. For someone seems to have missed the point if he thinks that legitimate businesses can learn "legitimate business tactics" from what violent extortionists had first expropriated from the marketplace's legitimate business tactics. Why relearn from criminals what one originally taught to the political interlocutors, and then call the product innovation?

The monopoly of goons with guns was never required.

The only thing legitimate competitors in the market can learn from the Mafia is how a state can supply the same services with a smile and an aura of "untouchability." The mafia is a fascist corporation that intimidates its customers through a monopoly on force, supported by graft, and rivaled only by the State. As long as a market of protection services is suppressed so that the State's own public safety squadrons remain the only legal racket, citizens have no recourse to private defense if the State's racket turns sour and breeds violent doppelgangers. If the mafia is more violent than the State, then it is only because the mafia is outgunned by the federal armory and does not have a reciprocal monopoly of mafia-controlled prisons for captured State goons.

Fecit Qui Profuit

Murray N. Rothbard assures us that, other things being equal, a corrupt government is still better than an incorruptible government, although neither is actually justifiable in principle. An active government that takes bribes is still better than one that is staffed with untouchable inquisitors, but it would be better yet to have no state apparatus at all. "A 'defensive bribe,'" Rothbard writes, "is a perfectly legitimate response to an unfortunate situation."[2] Thus, if a producer of a prohibited good (e.g., marijuana, salvia divinorum, moonshine) bribes local law officials to allow him to produce his goods, then no harm is committed by the briber according to libertarian standards, even though the law officials are clearly engaged in Mafia-style "protection." The relatively peaceful history of smuggling and bootlegging in the West bears testimony to this fact, even during the Prohibition era.

An aggressive bribe, on the other hand, does much harm by initiating force. During Prohibition, the Anti-Saloon League, for instance, influenced public "servants" to initiate governmental aggression against the alcohol market in order to rid city blocks of saloons, pool halls, and cigar shops, thus attacking the quintessential American vices. Al Capone paid both aggressive and defensive bribes, winning corrupt police to his side in order to shut down rival bootleggers. Ness and his Untouchables, too, were part of the aggressive-bribe racket, because they were merely the business end of the Anti-Saloon League's political maneuverings.

Defenders of Prohibition paid little heed to libertarian attacks on central planning. As bootleggers defied the Treasury's corrupt agents and Mafiosi spread violence through urban streets, teetotalers scoffed when libertarians griped about the long-run effects of arbitrary state violence. One motor-engine-company CEO was flabbergasted in 1922 that anyone could even entertain the possibility that the repeal of the 18th Amendment would solve the problem of Mafia violence. He targeted what he saw as libertines in libertarian guise — the "loud advocate of personal liberty who persistantly [sic] talks about something having been unfairly put over on the country and who point to violations as evidence that Prohibition is and must be a failure."[3] He saw opposition to Prohibition as the advocacy of chaos and crime resulting from the 18th Amendment:

The poison of their arguments is reflected in the lawless spirit seen so wide spread. To my mind, these men are dangerous breeders of lawlessness and the brood is the bootleggers rightly despised by all good people.
Although black-market violence is often the whipping boy of libertarian protests against state prohibitions, we should not assume that prohibition always and everywhere breeds chaos and mafia violence throughout the United States. The prohibition of marijuana has not led to uniform outbreaks of violence and chaos either, because many teenagers get their pot through local growers who do not conduct business at the barrel-end of an AK-47. Much moonshining and bootlegging was accomplished under the radar without violence during the Prohibition era. The level of violence one sees in an industry is directly correlated to the threats of state violence leveraged against it. Where enforcement of prohibitions is slack or corrupt, retaliatory violence tends to be low.

"Where enforcement of prohibitions is slack or corrupt, retaliatory violence tends to be low."
A popular argument of the early 1900s asserted that if Prohibition were passed into law, workers would become more efficient and could transfer their services to more profitable outlets than drinking and gaming — say, toward shipbuilding.[4] The sound economic argument concerning the benefits of increased worker productivity were perverted into normative judgments against alcohol's social utility. "Hence," concluded one fascist defense of social productivity to the exclusion of individual satisfaction, "let's put the saloon out of business, and increase the general prosperity of the working-man, the boss and the public."[5]

The slave-driving state saw drinking as a dead-end outlet for the worker's paycheck when that paycheck could serve "socially" beneficial ends. Herbert Hoover, the "do-nothing" head of the Food Administration under Woodrow Wilson, found this to be a rather winning argument, and he used it to pressure the administration into passing Prohibition in the first place. This facile argument of course ignored that every efficient saloon owner, brewer, cooper, and distiller would also have to transfer his services to another outlet — say, shipbuilding.

As preparations for World War I were underway, logical fallacies (i.e., "correlation equals causation") were also on the rise, and they seemed to accrue around the subject of, well, shipbuilding:

When one realizes that previous to the war it required from a year to eighteen months to build the kind of a vessel the Skinner & Eddy Company has just turned over to the Government in one hundred and nine days, and the company's contract with the Government did not call for delivery of the ship until the fourth of next July, one must believe that Prohibition does have something to do with speeding up war work. Let us have the benefits of it for all shipyards and for all war industries.[6]
According to this questionable logic, Americans might have been spared the monumental casualties of World War I (and thus World War II) if they had simply stayed at home and had a drink — and kept away from the naval shipyards, of course.

Lucrative federal contracts and the revolving door in Washington are, of course, more believable causal agents of shipbuilding booms during World War I than the putative benefits of Prohibition. If the state raises taxes and then channels money to dead-end arms races, then of course there will be a boom in production. By 1921, the Skinner & Eddy shipyard had closed its doors due to a postwar depression in shipbuilding. In Austrian economics, we point to such events as evidence of malinvestment. Skinner & Eddy shipyards would never have experienced such cataclysmic booms and busts without artificial stimulation caused by state intervention for destructive ends. According to the Prohibitionist's logic, however, we would have to assume that the demise of Skinner & Eddy was linked to a spike in drunkenness (or "animal spirits") amongst those rascally shipbuilders.

In the Carolinas, the forerunners to Prohibition had set up a system of alcohol dispensaries in order to shift the demand from saloons to socialist warehousing units. These state-run monopoly cartels succeeded in establishing a complete government takeover between the 1890s and the early 1900s, using the proceeds of monopoly to fund public works at the discretion of state caretakers. Individuals could purchase their alcohol from the dispensaries, but they were not allowed to drink on the premises. Naturally, the state monopoly favored local brewers over larger distilleries when stocking the dispensaries, thereby cutting out price negotiations with those who provided cheaper alternatives through interstate trade. In other words, the Carolinian dispensaries set up a fascist "protection" racket — a socialist union monopoly — that reaped massive rewards for brewers who supported the cause for that very purpose, as well as for the state authorities. Citizens who were alarmed by the widespread corruption that resulted — and the immense profits to be had by the monopolists — advocated for the dismissal of the dispensary system. Prohibition merely nationalized the problem.

The Volstead Act (1919), which was the enabling agent of the 18th Amendment, ensured that ample supplies of liquor would be set aside for alternative fuel research, as well as religious ceremonies. In a move typical of puritans, that which was denied the public was granted the holy clique of social reformers and researchers for approved purposes. As long as teetotalers imbibed wine under the pretense of transubstantiation, whether literal or symbolic, and as long as the end of such endeavors was not drunkenness but instead the mystical communion between man and God, then the act was deemed harmless. When anti-Prohibition groups like the Molly Pitchers Club advocated for the repeal of the 18th Amendment and a return to state regulation during the 1924 Democratic Convention, the liberal reformers and social conservatives treated the club's watered-down market agenda as reactionary treason and its members as ideological "nullificationists."[7] Insofar as this charge might have been true, history proves that the nullification of interventionist constitutional revisions is a boon to the economy, as well as to public safety.

The "Blessings" of Prohibition

Prohibition in the early 20th century was not so much a ban on alcohol as a kind of monopoly restructuring — shifting the excise to municipal graft, fostering the conditions for a new armed banditti to take up the "protection" racket, and stepping up enforcement of bans — and it was not always unpopular with businessmen. Instances of workers "calling out" for "sickness" were on the decline. Prohibition laws made liquor and alcohol more expensive on the black market, in some cases driving the price up from $5 to $10 per quart. Many employers looked beyond the widespread costs to the costs that they, as employers, cut by obtaining a sober workforce.[8]

When the cost of policing the labor force was passed onto the state under Prohibition, businessmen rejoiced much as they always do when passing administrative costs onto taxpayers. One treasurer of the Alexander Manufacturing Co. even went so far as to declare the suppression of alcohol as an achievement on par with the advent of the motor vehicle and the spread of electric power: "I consider Prohibition one of the greatest blessings to the human race that has come about within a generation."[9] If the workers were more inclined to be sober, some businesses would see increases in production and fewer lost-time accidents without having to step up pay incentives.




The "Untouchables" mystique is a rather perplexing phenomenon to explain, since "untouchable" federal regulators remain the ideal paladins of democratic interventionists. While children who read Ness's book might be thrilled by car chases, police raids, assassination conspiracies, and gunfights in the streets, it is difficult to see why Ness and his crew should have ever earned respect. Ness refused to take a bribe from anyone except the federal government, and even then from its most disreputable department — the Treasury. His employment was part of a corrupt state regime that increased crime, put thousands out of work, penned thousands more in prison, and consigned unlucky souls to the grave for exercising a natural market right — the pursuit of happiness. He was a part of the war on peaceful commerce — not "'a politico-criminal alliance formed between a civil administration and a gun-covered underworld for the exploitation of the citizenry'" — and he considered it one of the failures of his efforts against Capone that the gangster was finally sentenced to prison for income tax evasion rather than Prohibition offenses.[10] In reality, however, there was no difference between the two charges.

Capone's income was the target all along. While "untouchable" federal employees often brag about the fact that they do not personally benefit from their labors on the public's behalf, Capone flaunted the fact that he was profiting from his labors as the premiere regulator of the alcohol market. Of the two American treasurers who achieved their means by force rather than compromise, Capone was perhaps only guilty of being more honest about his intentions.

 

[bentom187]

pledge to write in paul on the november ballot(if you want).
this started last night so not to many signatures so far.
http://www.writeinronpaul2012.org/

 

[dagnabit]

Telling a nation you will kill anyone who disobeys your new rule is not an act of war....
Its just harsh parenting silly. :bonk:

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

A no fly zone is an act of war. You can pretend it isn't to rationalize pseudo-pacifisim, but in a strict military sense it is an act of war on a sovereign nation.

We don't impose no-flys unilaterally and nobody's comparing no-flys to a tupperware party.

Like Secretary Clinton telling the Russians to pass this ultimatum onto Iran?

Russia Discloses The Iran Ultimatum: Cooperate Or Be Invaded By Year End

That's weird. While most of the free world is saying that war with Iran would be nothing like Iraq and that invasion would destabilize the entire region, our Secretary of State is literally telegraphing invasion plans.

When it comes to weighing all the relevant information, I get the impression that zero hedge guy has a heavy hand on the edit function.

 

[bentom187]

GOP complaining about "paulbots" being politicly active and for the old guys not knowing the rules that have been in place for 100+ years.




"Up until yesterday, I really hadn’t taken the Ron Paul campaign very seriously. Most non-Paul voters probably felt like I did, and laughed him off as that “kooky Uncle” who didn’t have a chance in hell to win the Republican nomination for President.

Well, I’ve changed my mind. Big time.

Yesterday I attended the Republican organizational convention for my Senate district here in Minnesota, and what I witnessed was an organized take-over of our nomination process by Ron Paul cultists. They came to this convention with the sole intent to take over as many of the delegate seats as they could, and sadly, they succeeded.

When I arrived at the convention and took my place with my fellow precinct delegates, I quickly noticed that something was awry. As soon as the man leading the convention(the Convention Chair) began to ask if there were any motions to bring to the floor, several Paulbots lept to their feet to make motions asking to “suspend” the rules so that people who were in attendance could add their names to the delegate nominations. Before the convention, delegates had been contacted to see if we were interested in running for the State Delegate positions, and we were given plenty of time to put our names in the hat to run for these positions.

The Paulbots, who did NOT submit their names prior to the convention, were now demanding that they should added to the list of nominees that very day. This is normally outside of the rules, but the Paulbots(there were at least 50 of them spread throughout the auditorium) through a suspension of the rules, demanded that they be added to the list of nominees. It was difficult to override their votes, as they had descended en masse to this event, and the unsuspecting non-Paul delegates were confused as to what was going on!

After some manipulative moves on the floor, and by using Roberts Rules of order AGAINST the Convention Chair, they were able to add all of their names to the delegate nominations.

I’ve never seen such unmitigated rudeness at a convention before. The Paulbots would leap to their feet screaming “Point of order!” every time they thought that the chair was being dismissive of them.

The entire process was chaotic and psychotic, and the non-Paul delegates were stunned. They didn’t understand what was happening, and I tried to explain to an elderly woman from my precinct that this entire coup was PLANNED, and that the Paulbots had every intention of flooding the State delegates with Paul supporters.

In an effort to combat this craziness, I threw my own name into the ring for State Delegate, using the same rules that the Paulbots had gotten “suspended”. The way I figured it, if I could get on the State delegate list, I would take away at least ONE Paulbot.

I don’t think our convention was an isolated incident. If you read this article from the The Daily Caller you’ll see that this is happening Nationwide.

Luap Nor has got a plan, folks. If the Republican nomination goes to a brokered convention, the Ron Paul cultists plan to flood the nominating floor with Paul delegates. This is their only way to win the Presidential nomination, and they are dead serious in their intent to steal the Presidency, whether you like it or not.

I even asked one of the Paul supporters( a neighbor of mine that I happen to like a lot) who he would vote for (as a delegate) if the nomination went to someone like Romney. He told me straight up that he would NOT vote for the nominee, no matter who it was. He also told me that if they(the Paulbots) didn’t win enough delegates to win, then Ron Paul would run as third party.

So the next time you hear Ron Paul tell the media that he has no intention of running third party, you need to be aware that he is lying.

This convention dragged on for 8 hours yesterday, because the Paulbots slowed down the procedure with motions, amendments and screams of “point of order!” They have every intention of voting as many Ron Paul supporters into delegate positions as they can, and I’m guessing that they are doing this across the country. These people are very well organized, and we should no longer ignore them as the crazy cultists they appear to be, because the fact is, they mean business.

Luap Nor will do anything to win the Presidency, even if it means strong-arming conventions to do so. He’s not some “kooky Uncle” that I once joked about.

In my opinion, he’s dangerous.

Have you witnessed this kind of behavior at your convention?

What do you think we can do to combat these strong arm tactics?"


Read more http://hillbuzz.org/ron-pauls-devious-plan-to-steal-the-presidency-63749

 

[bentom187]

Seems the FED is on a PR campeign.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/fed-t...h-k-8-12-students-about-constitutionality-fed

https://twitter.com/#!/federalreserve