Libertarian X-Men

I went to see the latest edition of the Marvel Super Hero Comic movie X-Men Days of Future Past. One thing that hit me harder than the action and drama is something I don't think a lot of people picked up on. Many in the libertarian circles have heard of the tenacious debate on Humanitarian versus Brutalist Libertarians, and I know I have written on it before, but this movie brought up some good ideas in my head.

While the X-Men led by Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto are searching for a way to bring a close to a long battle between humans and mutants, their means for doing so are entirely different. Much like the struggle to get others to see our way of thinking or even just another way of thinking and in our efforts to bring more people to support the cause of freedom and liberty. In this effort, it seems Libertarians, Anarchists and Volunatryists are what is seen as the mutants and the rest of the population as the the non mutant humans. The division between the means of change seems the same as Xavier and Magneto. And though the ends are the same it is the means which can have the most positive or negative impact on the outcome.

Charles Xavier is what we can call the Humanitarian, wanting to find a peaceful way to end the hate for mutants. Using education and awareness he and his school hope to form a partnership with non humans so that all can live in the same world unhindered by the biases and hate towards one another. This is the peaceful way to change hearts and minds, to gain new supporters and to gain a level of respect for the cause. his fight is not against the humans so much as it is against the biases and fear inside them, he is combating years of indoctrination and programming. Much like what we see here in the real world, it is the perception and the manipulation of that perception that makes the biggest imprint on the non mutants minds and their attitudes. If they see good coming from the mutant they can see that the fear and hate embedded in them is meaningless and false.

Magneto on the other hand is what we can call the Brutalist. He has experienced the pain of human hate and has endured what most would not even dare to imagine. His roots and life have revolved around that pain, that mistrust and the retribution he sees as his duty to repay. Magneto's ways are seen as the aggressor in most instances, and as his only defense. It is safe to say that Magneto would not be the most popular guy at the end of the battle, but his means lead to the same goal. In this last movie Magneto uses force to combat a threat against his own self and others, this can be seen as justifiable use of force as a defense.

The common goal between the two ends of this fictional movie spectrum is much the same as it is for the Humanitarian and Brutalist Libertarians. The argument for the brutalists is that their way shows one end of freedom. The freedom to decide what to say, who to associate with and the very act of discrimination, which of course in this day and age is seen as a negative. Though years ago to call someone discriminating was a compliment. It was seen as a positive that a man could distinguish between his tastes and his wants to make choices based on his own self interests, modern redefinition has turn this word to have a negative connotation. Now to say a man is discriminating is an insult and seen as a negative insight into his behavior or being. Those that use the brutalist way may not get more people to join in with them but they do serve as a reminder of what freedom is and how we must deal with the differing views of others.

Humanitarians are determined to show the utmost positive aspects of freedom while the brutalists show us that there are those that will still have discriminatory tastes and behaviors This again is to their own benefit or demise and should not be restricted from them. Much as Magneto and Professor X battle the line of how to progress the ideology, it will in the end be to the perception of those looking in.


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The Ability to kill American Citizens

The ability to condemn a citizen to death without trial is one that will find very little resistance  in the wake of the ever-long battle in the Middle East and the persecution anyone the Government *thinks* is a threat. There does not need to be any proof, there doesn't have to be any trial, it is just this ability to kill and justify it through the rules of engagement or to completely write it off as security measures. This action will not be met with much resistance from the public, as the years of fear programming, hate education and misinformation makes its way to the public eyes through media and a preposterous White House Press Secretary.

The recent release of documents relating to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) openly admits that the government of the United States of America considers itself able to kill its citizens without trial or conviction. These powers they have delegated to themselves stems from the apparent belief that the US Government is above the moral and acceptable practice of allowing a person to defend themselves legally and to submit to the courts a defense of accusations against them.

This request was entered in an attempt to gain information on the drone strikes that killed Anwar Al-Aulaqi; his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi; and Samir Khan in Yemen September 2011. These strikes were carried out by CIA and other Federal departments along with the military and its drone pilots and crews. The claim that any of these three citizens posed a risk or imminent threat, to the US or any of its interests has never before be substantiated by evidence, just the reports and words of officials within the government and its military. Drone strikes being a preferred method of killing in the Middle East by the American government, many foreign people have lost their lives to these machines, the issue America has at the moment is the way to justify killing an American Citizen in contrast to the United States Constitution that has provisions outlined for the rightful trial by jury and knowledge of charges.

"It is a dangerous notion when your government can make you believe its enemies are yours"

This is not the first time the United States government has killed citizens without trial. Two other cases, The Ruby Ridge Shootout and the Attack on the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco Texas stand as the predecessors, along with many other instances, to justifying murder of citizens. These two incidents are all but forgotten to most and the events leading up to both are the same as the drone strikes that killed these 3 American Citizens.

Each of these cases has the same question. Why is a Government allowed to kill citizens and justify it one way or another. If the Constitution stands as the great tool Conservatives say it is, why then has the Government not answered for its trespass of Amendments securing rights of trial?

The Attack on Branch Davidians, more commonly known as the Waco Siege, took place on April 19, 1993 after 51 days of negotiations. Koresh was accused of practicing polygamy and abusing children, but that wasn’t what the Government was concerned with. The ATF had been tipped off by a UPS driver that had made earlier deliveries that some of the packages contained what looked like hand grenade casings. While owning inert grenade casings is not a crime in of itself, the ATF procured a warrant to search the Church and compound for “illegal” weapons.  When the Davidians refused entranced into their compound the ATF and Local Police used a military type vehicle to punch holes into the sides of building and inserted CS gas. Later in the day, after heavy exchanges of gunfire by both sides a fire erupted killing 75 of the remaining women, men and children.

This attack has been debated heavily over the ensuing years and has never satisfied the questions. Does a government have a right to search an individual’s personal property, whether with a warrant or not? Does a government have the right to initiate an attack on a religious compound? Why does this government have a right to kill citizens without trial? Could this event have been avoided?

Similar to The Waco Siege and not too long before another attack on citizens took place; this time ending the lives of a mother and a son, along with a Federal Law Enforcement Officer.  The Ruby Ridge Raid was again perpetrated on the belief in illegality of weapons and the sale of those weapons. So many events leading up to the siege made this a contentious affair.

All of this leads back to the question. Does Government, any Government have the authority and justification to kill its own citizens without trial or conviction? Since the value of life and the difference in opinion on the legal and philosophical view of this matter varies so drastically it cannot be answered by one person, but rather should be self reflected on. Ask yourself the questions: When did it become permitted that any enemy of a government should have the right to stand trial stripped from them? When did it become permissible to kill a man without his knowledge he is even considered a threat? When did our government stop relying on its own form of inter control and instead subject themselves as a higher moral ruler than the natural rights of man? How long will it be before those that I associate with, or even myself, are considered a threat to the government and are snuffed out without standing to our accused?

With this said and with these questions put out to your own reflection I will offer this last statement . I vehemently oppose any form of government the ability or justification to kill a man, anywhere in the world, from any foreign or domestic place, of any creed or color, of any religion or preference without the ability to defend himself in a court of resolutions. I see this as a violation of natural rights and a gross violation of a moral and civil society. 

The Enemy Within by Gore Vidal

     On 24 August, 1814, things looked very dark for freedom's land. That was the day the British captured Washington DC and set fire to the Capitol and the White House. President Madison took refuge in the nearby Virginia woods where he waited patiently for the notoriously short attention span of the Brits to kick in, which it did. They moved on and what might have been a Day of Utter Darkness turned out to be something of a bonanza for the DC building trades and up-market realtors. 

     One year after 9/11, we still don't know by whom we were struck that infamous Tuesday, or for what true purpose. But it is fairly plain to many civil-libertarians that 9/11 put paid not only to much of our fragile Bill of Rights but also to our once-envied system of government which had taken a mortal blow the previous year when the Supreme Court did a little dance in 5/4 time and replaced a popularly elected president with the oil and gas Cheney/Bush junta. 

     Meanwhile, our more and more unaccountable government is pursuing all sorts of games around the world that we the spear carriers (formerly the people) will never learn of. Even so, we have been getting some answers to the question: why weren't we warned in advance of 9/11? Apparently, we were, repeatedly; for the better part of a year, we were told there would be unfriendly visitors to our skies some time in September 2001, but the government neither informed nor protected us despite Mayday warnings from Presidents Putin and Mubarak, from Mossad and even from elements of our own FBI. A joint panel of congressional intelligence committees reported (19 September 2002, New York Times) that as early as 1996, Pakistani terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad confessed to federal agents that he was 'learning to fly in order to crash a plane into CIA HQ'. 

     Only CIA director George Tenet seemed to take the various threats seriously. In December 1998, he wrote to his deputies that 'we are at war' with Osama bin Laden. So impressed was the FBI by his warnings that by 20 September 2001, 'the FBI still had only one analyst assigned full time to al-Qaeda'. 

     From a briefing prepared for Bush at the beginning of July 2001: 'We believe that OBL [Osama bin Laden] will launch a significant terrorist attack against US and/or Israeli interests in the coming weeks. The attack will be spectacular and designed to inflict mass casualties against US facilities or interests. Attack preparations have been made. Attack will occur with little or no warning.' And so it came to pass; yet Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, says she never suspected that this meant anything more than the kidnapping of planes. 

     Happily, somewhere over the Beltway, there is Europe — recently declared anti-Semitic by the US media because most of Europe wants no war with Iraq and the junta does, for reasons we may now begin to understand thanks to European and Asian investigators with their relatively free media. 

     On the subject 'How and Why America was Attacked on 11 September, 2001', the best, most balanced report, thus far, is by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed ... Yes, yes, I know he is one of Them. But they often know things that we don't — particularly about what we are up to. A political scientist, Ahmed is executive director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development 'a think-tank dedicated to the promotion of human rights, justice and peace' in Brighton. His book, 'The War on Freedom', has just been published in the US by a small but reputable publisher. 

     Ashmed provides a background for our ongoing war against Afghanistan, a view that in no way coincides with what the administration has told us. He has drawn on many sources, most tellingly on American whistleblowers who are beginning to come forth and hear witness — like those FBI agents who warned their supervisors that al-Qaeda was planning a kamikaze strike against New York and Washington only to be told that if they went public with these warnings they would suffer under the National Security Act. Several of these agents have engaged David P. Schippers, chief investigative counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee, to represent them in court. The majestic Schippers managed the successful impeachment of President Clinton in the House of Representatives. He may, if the Iraqi war should go wrong, be obliged to perform the same high service for Bush, who allowed the American people to go unwarned about an imminent attack upon two of our cities as pre-emption of a planned military strike by the US against the Taliban. 

     The Guardian (26 September 2001) reported that in July 2001, a group of interested parties met in a Berlin hotel to listen to a former State Department official, Lee Coldren, as he passed on a message from the Bush administration that 'the United States was so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be considering some military action ... the chilling quality of this private warning was that it came — according to one of those present, the Pakistani diplomat Niaz Naik — accompanied by specific details of how Bush would succeed ...' Four days earlier, the Guardian had reported that 'Osama bin Laden and the Taliban received threats of possible American military action against them two months before the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington ... [which] raises the possibility that bin Laden was launching a pre-emptive strike in response to what he saw as US threats.' A replay of the 'day of infamy' in the Pacific 62 years earlier?

Why the US needed a Eurasian adventure

     On 9 September 2001, Bush was presented with a draft of a national security presidential directive outlining a global campaign of military, diplomatic and intelligence action targeting al-Qaeda, buttressed by the threat of war. According to NBC News: 'President Bush was expected to sign detailed plans for a worldwide war against al-Qaeda ... but did not have the chance before the terrorist attacks ... The directive, as described to NBC News, was essentially the same war plan as the one put into action after 11 September. The administration most likely was able to respond so quickly ... because it simply had to pull the plans "off the shelf".' 

     Finally, BBC News, 18 September 2001: 'Niak Naik, a former Pakistan foreign secretary, was told by senior American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October. It was Naik's view that Washington would not drop its war for Afghanistan even if bin Laden were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban.' 

     Was Afghanistan then turned to rubble in order to avenge the 3,000 Americans slaughtered by Osama? Hardly. The administration is convinced that Americans are so simple-minded that they can deal with no scenario more complex than the venerable lone, crazed killer (this time with zombie helpers) who does evil just for the fun of it 'cause he hates us, 'cause we're rich 'n free 'n he's not. Osama was chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the most frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan, planning for which had been 'contingency' some years before 9/11 and, again, from 20 December, 2000, when Clinton's out-going team devised a plan to strike at al-Qaeda in retaliation for the assault on the warship Cole. Clinton's National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, personally briefed his successor on the plan but Rice, still very much in her role as director of Chevron-Texaco, with special duties regarding Pakistan and Uzbekistan, now denies any such briefing. A year and a half later (12 August, 2002), fearless Time magazine reported this odd memory lapse. 

     Osama, if it was he and not a nation, simply provided the necessary shock to put in train a war of conquest. But conquest of what? What is there in dismal dry sandy Afghanistan worth conquering? Zbigniew Brzezinski tells us exactly what in a 1997 Council on Foreign Relations study called 'The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives'. 

     The Polish-born Brzezinski was the hawkish National Security Advisor to President Carter. In 'The Grand Chessboard', Brzezinski gives a little history lesson. 'Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some 500 years ago, Eurasia has been the centre of world power.' Eurasia is all the territory east of Germany. This means Russia, the Middle East, China and parts of India. Brzezinski acknowledges that Russia and China, bordering oil-rich central Asia, are the two main powers threatening US hegemony in that area. 

     He takes it for granted that the US must exert control over the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, known to those who love them as 'the Stans': Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Kyrgyzstan all 'of importance from the standpoint of security and historical ambitions to at least three of their most immediate and most powerful neighbours — Russia, Turkey and Iran, with China signaling'. Brzezinski notes how the world's energy consumption keeps increasing; hence, who controls Caspian oil/gas will control the world economy. Brzezinski then, reflexively, goes into the standard American rationalization for empire;. We want nothing, ever, for ourselves, only to keep bad people from getting good things with which to hurt good people. 'It follows that America's primary interest is to help ensure that no single [other] power comes to control the geopolitical space and that the global community has unhindered financial and economic access to it.' 

     Brzezinski is quite aware that American leaders are wonderfully ignorant of history and geography so he really lays it on, stopping just short of invoking politically incorrect 'manifest destiny'. He reminds the Council just how big Eurasia is. Seventy-five percent of the world's population is Eurasian. If I have done the sums right, that means that we've only got control, to date, of a mere 25 percent of the world's folks. More! 'Eurasia accounts for 60-per cent of the world's GNP and three-fourths of the world's known energy resources.' 

     Brzezinski's master plan for 'our' globe has obviously been accepted by the Cheney-Bush junta. Corporate America, long over-excited by Eurasian mineral wealth, has been aboard from the beginning. 

     Ahmed sums up: 'Brzezinski clearly envisaged that the establishment, consolidation and expansion of US military hegemony over Eurasia through Central Asia would require the unprecedented, open-ended militarisation of foreign policy, coupled with an unprecedented manufacture of domestic support and consensus on this militarisation campaign.' 

     Afghanistan is the gateway to all these riches. Will we fight to seize them? It should never be forgotten that the American people did not want to fight in either of the twentieth century's world wars, but President Wilson maneuvered us into the First while President Roosevelt maneuvered the Japanese into striking the first blow at Pearl Harbor, causing us to enter the Second as the result of a massive external attack. Brzezinski understands all this and, in 1997, he is thinking ahead — as well as backward. 'Moreover, as America becomes an increasingly multicultural society, it may find it more difficult to fashion a consensus on foreign policy issues, except in the circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat.' Thus was the symbolic gun produced that belched black smoke over Manhattan and the Pentagon. 

     Since the Iran-Iraq wars, Islam has been demonized as a Satanic terrorist cult that encourages suicide attacks — contrary, it should be noted, to the Islamic religion. Osama has been portrayed, accurately, it would seem, as an Islamic zealot. In order to bring this evil-doer to justice ('dead or alive'), Afghanistan, the object of the exercise was made safe not only for democracy but for Union Oil of California whose proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Indian Ocean port of Karachi, had been abandoned under the Taliban's chaotic regime. Currently, the pipeline is a go-project thanks to the junta's installation of a Unocal employee (John J Maresca) as US envoy to the newly born democracy whose president, Hamid Karzai, is also, according to Le Monde, a former employee of a Unocal subsidiary. Conspiracy? Coincidence! 

     Once Afghanistan looked to be within the fold, the junta, which had managed to pull off a complex diplomatic-military caper, abruptly replaced Osama, the personification of evil, with Saddam. This has been hard to explain since there is nothing to connect Iraq with 9/11. Happily, 'evidence' is now being invented. But it is uphill work, not helped by stories in the press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must — for the sake of the free world — be reassigned to US and European consortiums. 

     As Brzezinski foretold, 'a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat' made it possible for the President to dance a war dance before Congress. 'A long war!' he shouted with glee. Then he named an incoherent Axis of Evil to be fought. Although Congress did not give him the FDR Special — a declaration of war — he did get permission to go after Osama who may now be skulking in Iraq.

Bush and the dog that did not bark

     Post-9/11, the American media were filled with pre-emptory denunciations of unpatriotic 'conspiracy theorists', who not only are always with us but are usually easy for the media to discredit since it is an article of faith that there are no conspiracies in American life. Yet, a year or so ago, who would have thought that most of corporate America had been conspiring with accountants to cook their books since — well, at least the bright days of Reagan and deregulation. Ironically, less than a year after the massive danger from without, we were confronted with an even greater enemy from within: Golden Calf capitalism. Transparency? One fears that greater transparency will only reveal armies of maggots at work beneath the skin of a culture that needs a bit of a lie-down in order to collect itself before taking its next giant step which is to conquer Eurasia, a potentially fatal adventure not only for our frazzled institutions but for us the presently living. 

     Complicity. The behavior of President George W. Bush on 11 September certainly gives rise to all sorts of not unnatural suspicions. I can think of no other modern chief of state who would continue to pose for 'warm' pictures of himself listening to a young girl telling stories about her pet goat while hijacked planes were into three buildings. 

     Constitutionally, Bush is not only chief of state, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Normally, a commander in such a crisis would go straight to headquarters and direct operations while receiving the latest intelligence. 

     This is what Bush actually did — or did not do — according to Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran who has taught military science and doctrine at West Point. Goff writes, in 'The So-called Evidence is a Farce': 'I have no idea why people aren't asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on the day of the attacks. Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plan, all the while on FAA radar.' 

     Goff, incidentally, like the other astonished military experts, cannot fathom why the government's automatic 'standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking' was not followed. Once a plane has deviated from its flight-plan, fighter planes are sent up to find out why. That is law and does not require presidential approval, which only needs to be given if there is a decision to shoot down a plane. Goff spells it out: 'The planes were hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10am. Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read. 

     'By around 8:15am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handling teachers. By 8:45am, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower, Bush is settling in with children for his photo op. Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously and one has just dived into the twin towers, and still no one notifies the nominal Commander-in-Chief.
     'No one has apparently scrambled [sent aloft] Air Force interceptors either. At 9:03, Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower. At 9:05 Andrew Card, the Chief of Staff whispers to Bush [who] "briefly turns somber" according to reporters. Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second-graders ... and continues the banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington DC.
     'Has he instructed Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they have already figured out — that there's been an attack on the World Trade Centre. There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No.
     'At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 [degrees] over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC. Now the real kicker: a pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of the building at 460 knots.
     'When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on the freeway at rush hour by buying her a video driving game ... There is a story being constructed about these events.'
     There is indeed, and the more it is added to the darker it becomes. The nonchalance of General Richard B. Myers, acting Joint Chief of Staff, is as puzzling as the President's campaigning-as-usual act. Myers was at the Capitol chatting with Senator Max Cleland. A sergeant, writing later in the AFPS (American Forces Press Service) describes Myers at the Capitol. 'While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television report that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre. "They thought it was a small plane or something like that," Myers said. So the two men went ahead with the office call.'
     Whatever Myers and Cleland had to say to each other (more funds for the military?) must have been riveting because, during their chat, the AFPS reports, 'the second tower was hit by another jet. "Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. "But when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit."' Finally, somebody 'thrust a cellphone in Myers' hand' and, as if by magic, the commanding general of Norad — our Airspace Command — was on the line just as the hijackers mission had been successfully completed except for the failed one in Pennsylvania. In later testimony to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, Myers said he thinks that, as of his cellphone talk with Norad, 'the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft'. It was 9:40am. One hour and 20 minutes after air controllers knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked; 50 minutes after the North Tower was struck.
     This statement would have been quite enough in our old serious army/air force to launch a number of courts martial with an impeachment or two thrown in. First, Myers claims to be uninformed until the third strike. But the Pentagon had been overseeing the hijacked planes from at least the moment of the strike at the first tower: yet not until the third strike, at the Pentagon, was the decision made to get the fighter planes up. Finally, this one is the dog that did not bark. By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted or shot down. I don't think that Goff is being unduly picky when he wonders who and what kept the Air Force from following its normal procedure instead of waiting an hour and 20 minutes until the damage was done and only then launching the fighters. Obviously, somebody had ordered the Air Force to make no move to intercept those hijackings until ... what?
     On 21 January 2002, the Canadian media analyst Barry Zwicker summed up on CBC-TV: 'That morning no interceptors responded in a timely fashion to the highest alert situation. This includes the Andrews squadrons which ... are 12 miles from the White House ... Whatever the explanation for the huge failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of reprimands. This further weakens the "Incompetence Theory". Incompetence usually earns reprimands. This causes me to ask whether there were "stand down" orders.'?? On 29 August 2002, the BBC reports that on 9/11 there were 'only four fighters on ready status in the north-eastern US'. Conspiracy? Coincidence? Error?
     It is interesting how often in our history, when disaster strikes, incompetence is considered a better alibi than ... well, yes, there are worse things. After Pearl Harbor, Congress moved to find out why Hawaii's two military commanders, General Short and Admiral Kimmel, had not anticipated the Japanese attack. But President Roosevelt pre-empted that investigation with one of his own. Short and Kimmel were broken for incompetence. The 'truth' is still obscure to this day.

The media's weapons of mass distraction

     But Pearl Harbor has been much studied. 11 September, it is plain, is never going to be investigated if Bush has anything to say about it. In January 2002, CNN reported that 'Bush personally asked Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle to limit the Congressional investigation into the events of 11 September ... The request was made at a private meeting with Congressional leaders ... Sources said Bush initiated the conversation ... He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry .. Tuesday's discussion followed a rare call from Vice President Dick Cheney last Friday to make the same request ...'
     The excuse given, according to Daschle, was that 'resources and personnel would be taken' away from the war on terrorism in the event of a wider inquiry. So for reasons that we must never know, those 'breakdowns' are to be the goat. That they were more likely to be not break — but 'stand-downs' is not for us to pry. Certainly the one-hour 20 minute failure to put fighter planes in the air could not have been due to a breakdown throughout the entire Air Force along the East Coast. Mandatory standard operational procedure had been told to cease and desist.
     Meanwhile, the media were assigned their familiar task of inciting public opinion against bin Laden, still not the proven mastermind. These media blitzes often resemble the magicians classic gesture of distraction: as you watch the rippling bright colours of his silk handkerchief in one hand, he is planting the rabbit in your pocket with the other. We were quickly assured that Osama's enormous family with its enormous wealth had broken with him, as had the royal family of his native Saudi Arabia. The CIA swore, hand on heart, that Osama had not worked for them in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Finally, the rumour that Bush family had in any way profited by its long involvement with the bin Laden family was — what else? — simply partisan bad taste.
     But Bush Jr's involvement goes back at least to 1979 when his first failed attempt to become a player in the big Texas oil league brought him together with one James Bath of Houston, a family friend, who gave Bush Jr. $50,000 for a 5 per cent stake in Bush's firm Arbusto Energy. At this time, according to Wayne Madsen ('In These Times', Institute for Public Affairs No. 25), Bath was 'the sole US business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden... In a statement issued shortly after the 11 September attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto. In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests ... after several reincarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation.'
     Behind the Junior Bush is the senior Bush, gainfully employed by the Carlyle Group which has ownership in at least 164 companies worldwide, inspiring admiration in that staunch friend to the wealthy, theWall Street Journal, which noted, as early as 27 September 2001, 'If the US boosts defence spending in its quest to stop Osama bin Laden's alleged terrorist activities, there may be one unexpected beneficiary: bin Laden's family ... is an investor in a fund established by Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specialising in buyouts of defence and aerospace companies ... Osama is one of more than 50 children of Mohammed bin Laden, who built the family's $5 billion business.'
     But Bush pere et fils, in pursuit of wealth and office, are beyond shame or, one cannot help but think, good sense. There is a suggestion that they are blocking investigation of the bin Laden connection with terrorism. Agent France Press reported on 4 November 2001: 'FBI agents probing relatives of Saudi-born terror suspect Osama ... were told to back off soon after George W. Bush became president ...' According to BBC TV's Newsnight (6 Nov 2001), '... just days after the hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked 11 members of Osama's family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House, whose official line is that the bin Ladens are above suspicion.' 'Above the Law' (Green Press, 14 February 2002) sums up: 'We had what looked like the biggest failure of the intelligence community since Pearl Harbor but what we are learning now is it wasn't a failure, it was a directive.' True? False? Bush Jr will be under oath during the impeachment interrogation. Will we hear 'What is a directive? What is is?'
     Although the US had, for some years, fingered Osama as a mastermind terrorist, no serious attempt had been made pre-9/11 to 'bring him to justice dead or alive, innocent or guilty', as Texan law of the jungle requires. Clinton's plan to act was given to Condeleezza Rice by Sandy Berger, you will recall, but she says she does not.
     As far back as March 1996 when Osama was in Sudan, Major General Elfatih Erwa, Sudanese Minister for Defence, offered to extradite him. According to the Washington Post (3 October 2001), 'Erwa said he would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over ... [US officials] said, "just ask him to leave the country. Just don't let him go to Somalia", where he had once been given credit for the successful al-Qaeda attack on American forces that in '93 that killed 18 Rangers.' Erwa said in an interview, 'We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials] said, "Let him."'
     In 1996 Sudan expelled Osama and 3,000 of his associates. Two years later the Clinton administration, in the great American tradition of never having to say thank you for Sudan's offer to hand over Osama, proceeded to missile-attack Sudan's al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory on the grounds that Sudan was harboring bin Laden terrorists who were making chemical and biological weapons when the factory was simply making vaccines for the UN.
     Four years later, John O'Neill, a much admired FBI agent, complained in the Irish Times a month before the attacks, 'The US State Department — and behind it the oil lobby who make up President Bush's entourage — blocked attempts to prove bin Laden's guilt. The US ambassador to Yemen forbade O'Neill (and his FBI team) ... from entering Yemen in August 2001. O'Neill resigned in frustration and took on a new job as head of security at the World Trade Centre. He died in the 11 September attack.' Obviously, Osama has enjoyed bipartisan American support since his enlistment in the CIA's war to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. But by 9/11 there was no Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, indeed there was no Soviet Union.

A world made safe for peace and pipelines

     I watched Bush and Cheney on CNN when the Axis of Evil speech was given and the 'long war' proclaimed. Iraq, Iran and North Korea were fingered as enemies to be clobbered because they might or might not be harbouring terrorists who might or might not destroy us in the night. So we must strike first whenever it pleases us. Thus, we declared 'war on terrorism' — an abstract noun which cannot be a war at all as you need a country for that. Of course, there was innocent Afghanistan, which was levelled from a great height, but then what's collateral damage — like an entire country — when you're targeting the personification of all evil according to Time and the NY Times and the networks?
     As it proved, the conquest of Afghanistan had nothing to do with Osama. He was simply a pretext for replacing the Taliban with a relatively stable government that would allow Union Oil of California to lay its pipeline for the profit of, among others, the Cheney-Bush junta.
     Background? All right. The headquarters of Unocal are, as might be expected, in Texas. In December 1997, Taliban representatives were invited to Sugarland, Texas. At that time, Unocal had already begun training Afghan men in pipeline construction, with US government approval. BBC News, (4 December 1997): 'A spokesman for the company Unocal said the Taliban were expected to spend several days at the company's [Texas] headquarters ... a BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy resources of the Caspian Sea.' The Inter Press Service (IPS) reported: 'some Western businesses are warming up to the Taliban despite the movement's institutionalisation of terror, massacres, abductions and impoverishment.' CNN (6 October 1996): 'The United States wants good ties [with the Taliban] but can't openly seek them while women are being oppressed.'
     The Taliban, rather better organised than rumoured, hired for PR one Leila Helms, a niece of Richard Helms, former director of the CIA. In October 1996, the Frankfurter Rundschau reported that Unocal 'has been given the go-ahead from the new holders of power in Kabul to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan ..' This was a real coup for Unocal as well as other candidates for pipelines, including Condoleezza's old employer Chevron. Although the Taliban was already notorious for its imaginative crimes against the human race, the Wall Street Journal, scenting big bucks, fearlessly announced: 'Like them or not, the Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history.' The NY Times (26 May 1997) leapt aboard the pipeline juggernaut. 'The Clinton administration has taken the view that a Taliban victory would act as counterweight to Iran ... and would offer the possibility of new trade routes that could weaken Russian and Iranian influence in the region.'
     But by 1999, it was clear that the Taliban could not provide the security we would need to protect our fragile pipelines. The arrival of Osama as warrior for Allah on the scene refocused, as it were, the bidding. New alliances were now being made. The Bush administration soon buys the idea of an invasion of Afghanistan, Frederick Starr, head of the Central Asia Institute at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in the Washington Post (19 December 2000): 'The US has quietly begun to align itself with those in the Russian government calling for military action against Afghanistan and has toyed with the idea of a new raid to wipe out bin Laden.'
     Although with much fanfare we went forth to wreak our vengeance on the crazed sadistic religious zealot who slaughtered 3,000 American citizens, once that 'war' was under way, Osama was dropped as irrelevant and so we are back to the Unocal pipeline, now a go-project. In the light of what we know today, it is unlikely that the junta was ever going to capture Osama alive: he has tales to tell. One of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's best numbers now is: 'Where is he? Somewhere? Here? There? Somewhere? Who knows?' And we get his best twinkle. He must also be delighted — and amazed — that the media have bought the absurd story that Osama, if alive, would still be in Afghanistan, underground, waiting to be flushed out instead of in a comfortable mansion in Osama-loving Jakarta, 2,000 miles to the East and easily accessible by Flying Carpet One.
     Many commentators of a certain age have noted how Hitlerian our junta sounds as it threatens first one country for harbouring terrorists and then another. It is true that Hitler liked to pretend to be the injured — or threatened — party before he struck. But he had many great predecessors not least Imperial Rome. Stephen Gowan's War in Afghanistan: A $28 Billion Racket quotes Joseph Schumpeter who, 'in 1919, described ancient Rome in a way that sounds eerily like the United States in 2001: "There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome's allies; and if Rome had no allies, the allies would be invented ... The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbours."' We have only outdone the Romans in turning metaphors such as the war on terrorism, or poverty, or Aids into actual wars on targets we appear, often, to pick at random in order to maintain turbulence in foreign lands.
     As of 1 August 2002, trial balloons were going up all over Washington DC to get world opinion used to the idea that 'Bush of Afghanistan' had gained a title as mighty as his father's 'Bush of the Persian Gulf' and Junior was now eager to add Iraq-Babylon to his diadem. These various balloons fell upon Europe and the Arab world like so many lead weights. But something new has been added since the classic Roman Hitlerian mantra, 'they are threatening us, we must attack first'. Now everything is more of less out in the open. The International Herald Tribune wrote in August 2002: 'The leaks began in earnest on 5 July, when the New York Times described a tentative Pentagon plan that it said called for an invasion by a US force of up to 250,000 that would attack Iraq from the north, south and west. On 10 July, the Times said that Jordan might be used as a base for the invasion. The Washington Post reported, 28 July, that "many senior US military officers contend that Saddam Hussein poses no immediate threat ..."' And the status quo should be maintained. Incidentally, this is the sort of debate that the founding fathers intended the Congress, not military bureaucrats, to conduct in the name of we the people. But that sort of debate has, for a long time, been denied us.
     One refreshing note is now being struck in a fashion unthinkable in imperial Rome: the cheerful admission that we habitually resort to provocation. The Tribune continues: 'Donald Rumsfeld has threatened to jail anyone found to have been behind the leaks. But a retired army general, Fred Woerner, tends to see a method behind the leaks. "We may already be executing a plan," he said recently. "Are we involved in a preliminary psychological dimension of causing Iraq to do something to justify a US attack or make concessions?" Somebody knows.' That is plain.
     Elsewhere in this interesting edition of the Herald Tribune wise William Pfaff writes: 'A second Washington debate is whether to make an unprovoked attack on Iran to destroy a nuclear power reactor being built with Russian assistance, under inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, within the terms of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty of which Iran is a signatory ... No other government would support such an action, other than Israel's (which) would do so not because it expected to be attacked by Iran but because it, not unjustifiably, opposes any nuclear capacity in the hands of any Islamic government.'

Suspect states and the tom-toms of revenge

     'Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it compromises and develops the germ of every other. As the parent of armies, war encourages debts and taxes, the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the executive is extended ... and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people ...' Thus, James Madison warned us at the dawn of our republic.
     Post 9/11, thanks to the 'domination of the few', Congress and the media are silent while the executive, through propaganda and skewed polls, seduces the public mind as hitherto unthinkable centers of power like Homeland Defence (a new Cabinet post to be placed on top of the Defence Department) are being constructed and 4 per cent of the country has recently been invited to join Tips, a civilian spy system to report on anyone who looks suspicious or ... who objects to what the executive is doing at home or abroad?
     Although every nation knows how — if it has the means and the will — to protect itself from thugs of the sort that brought us 9/11, war is not an option. Wars are for nations not root-less gangs. You put a price on their heads and hunt them down. In recent years, Italy has been doing that with the Sicilian Mafia; and no one has yet suggested bombing Palermo.
     But the Cheney-Bush junta wants a war in order to dominate Afghanistan, build a pipeline, gain control of the oil of Eurasia's Stans for their business associates as well as to do as much damage to Iraq and Iran on the grounds that one day those evil countries may carpet our fields of amber grain with anthrax or something.
     The media, never much good at analysis, are more and more breathless and incoherent. On CNN, even the stolid Jim Clancy started to hyperventilate when an Indian academic tried to explain how Iraq was once our ally and 'friend' in its war against our Satanic enemy Iran. 'None of that conspiracy stuff,' snuffed Clancy. Apparently, 'conspiracy stuff' is now shorthand for unspeakable truth.
     As of August, at least among economists, a consensus was growing that, considering our vast national debt (we borrow $2 billion a day to keep the government going) and a tax base seriously reduced by the junta in order to benefit the 1 per cent who own most of the national wealth, there is no way that we could ever find the billions needed to destroy Iraq in 'a long war' or even a short one, with most of Europe lined up against us. Germany and Japan paid for the Gulf War, reluctantly — with Japan, at the last moment, irritably quarrelling over the exchange rate at the time of the contract. Now Germany's Schroder has said no. Japan is mute.
     But the tom-toms keep beating revenge; and the fact that most of the world is opposed to our war seems only to bring hectic roses to the cheeks of the Bush administration (Bush Snr of the Carlyle Group, Bush Jnr formerly of Harken, Cheney, formerly of Halliburton, Rice, formerly of Chevron, Rumsfeld, formerly of Occidental). If ever an administration should recuse itself in matters dealing with energy, it is the current junta. But this is unlike any administration in our history. Their hearts are plainly elsewhere, making money, far from our mock Roman temples, while we, alas, are left only with their heads, dreaming of war, preferably against weak peripheral states.
     Mohammed Heikal is a brilliant Egyptian journalist-observer, and sometime Foreign Minister. On 10 October 2001, he said to the Guardian: 'Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaeda as if it were Nazi Germany or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaeda has been penetrated by US intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication.
     The former president of Germany's domestic intelligence service, Eckhardt Werthebach (American Free Press, 4 December 2001) spells it out. The 9/11 attacks required 'years of planning' while their scale indicates that they were a product of 'state-organised actions'. There it is. Perhaps, after all, Bush Jnr was right to call it a war. But which state attacked us?
     Will the suspects please line up. Saudi Arabia? 'No, no. Why we are paying you $50 million a year for training the royal bodyguard on our own holy if arid soil. True the kingdom contains many wealthy well-educated enemies but ...' Bush Snr and Jnr exchange a knowing look. Egypt? No way. Dead broke despite US baksheesh. Syria? No funds. Iran? Too proud to bother with a parvenu state like the US. Israel? Sharon is capable of anything. But he lacks the guts and the grace of the true Kamikaze. Anyway, Sharon was not in charge when this operation began with the planting of 'sleepers' around the US flight schools 5 or 6 years ago. The United States? Elements of corporate America would undeniably prosper from a 'massive external attack' that would make it possible for us to go to war whenever the President sees fit while suspending civil liberties. (The 342 pages of the USA Patriot Act were plainly prepared before 9/11.) Bush Snr and Jnr are giggling now. Why? Because Clinton was president back then. As the former president leaves the line of suspects, he says, more in anger than in sorrow: 'When we left the White House we had a plan for an all-out war on al-Qaeda. We turned it over to this administration and they did nothing. Why?' Biting his lip, he goes. The Bushes no longer giggle. Pakistan breaks down: 'I did it! I confess! I couldn't help myself. Save me. I am an evil-doer!'
     Apparently, Pakistan did do it — or some of it. We must now go back to 1997 when 'the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA' was launched in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Central Asia specialist Ahmed Rashid wrote (Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999): 'With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) who wanted to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war, waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some 35,000 Muslim radicals, from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and '92 ... more than 100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghanistan jihad.' The CIA covertly trained and sponsored these warriors.
     In March 1985, President Reagan issued National Security Decision Directive 166, increasing military aid while CIA specialists met with the ISI counterparts near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Jane's Defence Weekly (14 September 2001) gives the best overview: 'The trainers were mainly from Pakistan's ISI agency who learnt their craft from American Green Beret commandos and Navy Seals in various US training establishments.' This explains the reluctance of the administration to explain why so many unqualified persons, over so long a time, got visas to visit our hospitable shores. While in Pakistan, 'mass training of Afghan [zealots] was subsequently conducted by the Pakistan army under the supervision of the elite Special Services ... In 1988, with US knowledge, bin Laden created al-Qaeda (The Base); a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across 26 or so countries. Washington turned a blind eye to al-Qaeda.'
 When Mohamed Atta's plane struck the World Trade Centre's North Tower, George W. Bush and the child at the Florida elementary school were discussing her goat. By coincidence, our word 'tragedy' comes from the Greek: for 'goat' tragos plus oide for 'song'. 'Goat-song'. It is highly suitable that this lament, sung in ancient satyr plays, should have been heard again at the exact moment when we were struck by fire from heaven, and a tragedy whose end is nowhere in sight began for us.

© 2002 Gore Vidal
Source: The Observer, Sunday 27th October 2002, Review Section, Pages 1-4

On Taxes

Taxes are not something most people joyfully or gleefully pay. They are not something that most people claim to benefit from. But people defend taxation for various reasons; they are voluntary or compulsory. Taxes are what some describe as the cost of living in a certain area or to enjoy certain services that this money is supposedly collected for. And then some say all taxation is theft.  Apologists will denounce anyone who dares to "cheat" the system and keep some of their own money. They are a guilty pleasure and an unseen control mechanism to a lot of people.

Tax Time is here and not too many smiles will be found, unless you work for the Government that is...

Individuals and companies, from the last day of January to the 15th of April every year, sit down to try and figure out how much of their money has been taken by the Federal Government and if they can expect some of it back or if they will be forced to "give" some more. The Federal Income Tax has been enforced since 1913 and ever since that time people living in this country have been required to pay part of their wages to support government programs and fund Federal Institutions. Trillions of dollars are taken from the paychecks of citizens before they ever see it.

Why are you defending theft?

There is a saying "Taxation is Theft". Some believe this is an error and that the statement is false in all degrees. But is it? Is taxation theft? The legal definition of theft is the generic term for all crimes in which a person intentionally and fraudulently takes personal property of another without permission or consent and with the intent to convert it to the taker's use (including potential sale). With that said, one can question if the pay of a man for his labor is his property of that of the government for which he lives under. Questions can arise if the man has voluntarily submitted himself and his wages to the seizure of his property or if under the definition of theft has been the victim of a crime. Since those persons outside of government employment are in the private sector and those persons have not submitted the wages of their labor voluntarily, but by threat of violence or imprisonment the definition of theft can be applied to the act of taxation of income.

"If, then, taxation is compulsory, and is therefore indistinguishable from theft, it follows that the State, which subsists on taxation, is a vast criminal organization far more formidable and successful than any “private” Mafia in history". -Murray Rothbard-

Those that are in Employment of the government, in whatever capacity and at whatever level, (federal, state or local) are the beneficiaries of these extorted monies as their paycheck.

It has been said that these government workers "pay their own wages because they are taxed also". This is a fallacy. As a person is taxed at a percentage of their income, a person cannot pay into their entire paycheck. If they paid the entirety of their own wages it would be known as volunteering or slavery.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., American Jurist and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932 is quoted as saying, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." This is a popular thought of those who I would say taxation is a guilty pleasure or who feels that their wants should be funded by public means extorted from individuals instead of private and voluntary contributions. The very nature of this statement brings to mind a incredibly different question altogether for me. "Do we have a civilized society?"  That is a question left for another time.

A society based on the theft of wealth cannot be a moral and civil society. The very action of theft is against civility. But in this thought, we can ask ourselves these questions.

Does the act of paying into a general fund benefit the individual outright as much as it would if he would have funded whatever it is by voluntary means?

Can the value of these institutions to the general public be in contest to the value by the individual?

If a man be forced to fund policies and departments that they find immoral, unneeded, or in conflict with their religious or philosophical beliefs.

Murray Rothbard writes in his work "The Ethics of Liberty" that the size of government can be directly affected by the coercive nature of taxation. If the State were to suddenly abolish all taxation and thereby fund their departments and programs through completely voluntary means the size and scope of government would dramatically shrink.

This should be and is touted as the goal of the Neo-Conservatives and Republican Party,but is in complete contrast to their actions and policies. The same can apply to Democrats and Neo-Liberals, as their policies and actions tend to be based more on helping people, excessive taxation steals the money from people they are attempting to help.  It robs businesses of capital and forces higher prices, unemployment and subsequent poverty.

Where does all of this money go?

The mainstream belief is that these monies go to pay for services and programs inside and outside the United States. That would be nice, IF IT WERE TRUE. What is not taught to most Americans is that all the money that is taken in the form of the Federal Income Tax is used to pay off a loan for the previous fiscal year’s budgets. Who is this loan from?  The Federal Reserve loans the US government money at an interest rate. They then sell this debt (or securities) to foreign and domestic banks and individuals. The US Government pays these notes of security to the holders upon payment to the Federal Reserve of its loan. Of course the Federal Reserve does not pay the interest earned to the holders of the securities and instead makes a profit from the transactions. Interesting that a private bank that holds an enforced monopoly on the issuance of money is turning large profits off of the debt of a nation.

You might be wondering why the US debt has skyrocketed in the past and why it is so astronomical now; that is the nature of the Federal Reserve System. Since all money the government, and by mandate of the rest of the country, uses is owed back to the Fed with added interest; and the only way to pay it back is to take out a loan the next year, it is inevitable that this debt is unpayable. For a better explanation, I would recommend the book The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin.

Is it cheating to keep your own money?

There are Tax Apologists out there that will become irate when an individual or company is found out to have offshore or international banking accounts in order to skirt paying taxes. The idea that someone who finds a way to keep his or her own property from seizure is seen as a criminal or seen as the bad guy has never really made sense. It is the same as someone who sets an alarm on their car or home: they are protecting their property and assets. The keeping of their own wages or property is the essential goal of Tax abolitionists which is to free everyone of the burden of theft of wages. It’s baffling to think that anyone is against this, but I think the emotional and illogical thought people have is, " If I have to pay then so does everyone else." i.e. the fair tax. To be certain there is nothing fair about the Fair Tax, it is still funneling money away from commerce and savings and it still only applies to certain groups and individuals.

The Fair Tax advocates will debate all day long that their system is better than what we have now, and I will not disagree, however I will say this: it is far from an ideal way to handle things. The entire idea of collecting money to fund programs and departments that the original "victim" may not have voluntarily given to is still present. The idea that money is still being diverted away from private enterprise and given to a bloated, inefficient and expanding government hasn’t changed. The same idea that Rothbard stated is still there: if the department or program cannot be funded by voluntary means it should not be fit to survive on public funding. Much like private business, if customers do not value the product or service, the company will fail and cease to exist. In the opposite of public departments and government offices, there is no measuring stick or ruler to determine if the service is viable beyond the edicts of bureaucrats and politicians wants.

To name a few things that tax monies are used for that would most likely not be funded by voluntary means.

The NSA and its wiretapping programs- Seen as a violation of privacy by a majority, this office and its "service" most likely would fall.

Animal Shelters that euthanize animals- This is a partial subsidy most often and the shelter may or may not survive with voluntary contributions.

The Militarization of America's Police forces and the brutality that they commit on a daily basis-If these police departments were reliant on the surrounding communities support and contributions there would be less of a chance they would commit the heinous acts that they do. Killing family pets and even people are becoming everyday occurrences in America. Changing the way they are funded could force them to rely on community service and protection services without the God Complexes a lot of them have.

Calling on more taxation.

There is a growing movement in America, an added Tax movement. The Robin Hood Tax or The Wall Street Tax is the next big thing for gluttons for monetary punishment. This new tax would add tax onto Wall Street transactions. If any sane individual thinks that this would not have a detrimental effect on the Stock Market, they are gullible and economically ignorant. Any addition to transactions coming from Wall Street would hamper the degree and volume of daily transactions. This would have a negative impact on the formation and expansion of companies and corporations as they will stifle new markets and products. These new taxes, like all others, will be passed to the end consumers, YOU AND I. When a new tax or regulation is added to a transaction of a corporation, the owners of that company will want to reduce any interference in their ability to turn profits (after all everyone is after a profit). That is the reason most of us have jobs; to profit off of our skills and labor. The owners will pass their cost of compliance to regulation or the collection of new taxes down the line until it hits the product on the shelf where the end user, the consumer, picks up the higher price.

As an Anarcho-Capitalist, I understand that this is hard for some to understand and takes much more than a simple blog post by a relative unknown person for many to grasp the concepts I have laid out here. That is why I encourage further reading into the failure and immorality of taxation.  The works of Ludwig von Mises, Murray N Rothbard, Lew Rockwell and so many more are easily found online. Take the time and educate yourself. Learn and apply, it really is that easy.


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On Constitutional Rights

Of the many different arguments on where rights come from I find the Constitutional Case the most far-fetched. It is a long held and deeply rooted belief that the United States Constitution is where the country’s citizens obtain their rights. The argument of Constitutional Rights is fallacious and easily the most wide spread and enduring myth among Americans. This argument supposes that a document signed by and ordained by people long since dead have somehow bestowed upon the subsequent generations certain acts or protections under a system of governance. The myth of Constitutional Rights is a touchy subject for most, but I will try to explain the case against the Constitutional Rights Theory. 

A piece of paper has no inherent rights. It is a product of labor mixed with resources, by humans. Lacking any inherent rights it also has no rights to bestow upon others. It does not offer any protection, as it has no means of protection, except by outside forces, notably human beings. And since men cannot endow rights to others it stands that it has no means to give those rights away. It has no voice, and is subjective to the capabilities and thoughts of those who read it. It, being paper can be destroyed by many different means and can be reproduced with almost no limit. It carries no means to hold precedence over man, and cannot be asked to define its power or even source of power.

As a document it was a contract between those that agreed to partake in its formation, contracting themselves to its supposed limits by signature. There is no reference to it being forced upon following generations, there is no clause that leads us to be ruled by others opinions and writings of a time we did not live or respect and follow a document, a contract we did not sign. This is the error in the Social Contract Theory, the basis of which is that as I did not sign into any contract I do not have to subject myself to that contract. The Social Contract Theory is dependent on the thought that one must be obligated to endure the social rules in a place he was placed at birth or else leave. This theory is particularly used when a person is found to dissent to the idea of the social rules in that area of birth. The “if you don’t like it here  you can leave” attitude in other words.

Of the many errors of those that hold a belief in Constitutionally Granted Rights is the interference in the logic of American History.

 “The members of the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Constitutional Convention convened in response to dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation and the need for a strong centralized government. After four months of secret debate and many compromises, the proposed Constitution was submitted to the states for approval. Although the vote was close in some states, the Constitution was eventually ratified and the new Federal government came into existence in 1789. The Constitution established the U.S. government as it exists today.” Excerpt from the Library of Congress Website

The first thing to look at in this excerpt is the phrase, “secret debate and many compromises”. If this were to be the founding form of contract for every generation hereafter its signing why then would these debates and meeting need to be held in secret?  Why would this sort of thing be kept from those that it intended to subject? 

The next point to be taken is the phrase, “dissatisfaction with the Articles of Confederation and the need for a strong centralized government”. The dissatisfaction of the current form of governance grew from the inability to control the free and sovereign states and its lack of control over industry, trade and the funding of federal exploitation of other nations. The Articles of Confederation were partially successful in their ability to maximize personal freedom while offering some semblance of protection of the natural rights of the people. They were not successful in retaining power as the march of men and their power hungry ways consumed it and disregarded it.

The last point in this small quote is the last line. “The Constitution established the U.S. government as it exists today.” This is exactly the problem with the idea of limited government touted by the Republican Party, Constitutionalists, and the various tea party groups. The limit that is imposed is not by the citizenry but by the same government that gives it power. Small government is likely to grow out of this relative smallness and into the beast it is today.

The very Idea that this contract gives any person rights is easy to prove otherwise. Since the beginning of non-native conquest and inhabitation in the Americas began well before the drafting and ratification of the Constitution the question is posed; where did these Pre-Constitution people derive their rights from?  Were they privy to the Magna Carta? Hard to be since the Magna Carta did not grant rights to people but rather limited power of King John of England and stood to protect their natural rights in the year 1215. Did they derive their rights from the Articles of Confederation? The articles were an agreement among the 13 founding states that established the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and served as its first constitution. Again these articles did not propose to grant rights to people and would in effect limit the freedom of people inside the confines of territory of what would become the United States.

One could argue that the very basic precept of time in relation to rights clearly defines that the rights of individuals predates even the earliest form of community or government. One could also argue that if one believes in the endowment of rights by written words than the act of destroying this document would insure the decimation of all semblances of rights. If any Constitution would be destroyed today the ability and right to speak as one wishes remains; the act of defense remains the same, the right of being secure in the privacy of your own property and the right to own said property would all still be there.

Secondary questions.

Did people before any written documents not have inherent rights? Were these people somehow less inclined to the abilities of themselves and of freedom from tyranny? How would their lives be defined if not for the rights they had? Were those Native Americans here long before Europeans invaded and settled not in possession of any rights in their lives and property? Do people outside of all Constitutions or documents forming any sort of Government not have rights? Could the destruction of these documents ensure no person would have any rights to themselves or property?

Simply stated, the origin of rights is inherent on a person being alive. They are natural, they are inalienable, they are non- transferable, they are not for sale or rent, they begin the moment of life and cease with death. The idea of any right bestowed from outside forces begets the ability to restrict those rights from outside forces. The Natural ability to do as one sees fit as long as those actions do not interfere with the rights or freedoms of others is not reliant on any form of documentation, any decree, from any person or institution.  

Tahmooressi and the Border Issue

The latest battle between political parties and their followers and pundits is the issue of Borders, Securing those borders, Immigration and Amnesty. It has in the past few months become the most visible topic by candidates, commentators and political junkies alike. The story of ex-US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi has reignited this issue and has left myself with more than enough questions to the idea of borders and the sincerity of either political party and their adherents to the motives of their stances. The idea of borders, definable lines arbitrarily drawn on maps and fought over, has consumed the airwaves.

As always, the issue is made to be seen as only two options. Pro Immigration and Anti Immigration or Pro-Amnesty and Anti-Amnesty. The first option is to allow amnesty to persons already in the country "illegally" and the second is to continue deportation and criminal charges against those living in the United States borders without having gone through the immigration process, the "legal" way as they call it. The line these two beliefs draws is apparent and approachable by yet other paths. The history of immigration into the United States is riddled with laws, regulation, restrictions, hate, fear, death and hypocrisy. Beginning the Idea of America on the act of Immigration, Genocide and Conquest doesn't lend well to the history of immigration into this country and the resulting years and decades since the first Illegal Alien stepped foot on American soil. If we were to respect borders of any countries our military armaments would rust and its soldiers be taken back to private employment. If one reduces this issue down to its base it is a belief that one person may have say over the movement of another, this is to say that one person holds rule over another, or that any government have the right to restrict travel in any way.

We have seen wars fought over land, deaths in foreign countries in the name of this land and a new breed of bigots and hypocrites arise from the simple act of movement and travel around the globe. The mainstream accepted idea on immigration is to subject other human beings to tests and health restrictions, to perform up to certain levels, to curtail freedom and to allow themselves to be robbed of wealth in the process. Every year hundreds of people die in an effort to reach "The Most Free and Most Prosperous Country in the World". They die in their attempt to reach a land that promises freedom and prosperity, they die for a lack of freedom to enjoy a better life, they die for a lack of freedom to move about the earth unhindered and uninhibited. The act of Legalized Immigration is an act of barbarity and exclusivity.


To say you believe in the closing of borders, demarcations of land used in exclusion by one government entity, You have not only barred any entering of outside persons but have also confined oneself to the same rule. You have created your own prison.

The economic theory behind the want of closed borders is this. As more and more immigrants come into this country they will, without fail, turn and send these American dollars outside of our borders. In a proper understanding of Economics this isn't seen as a negative as any country that bars it's currency from foreign circulation fails to have that currency to buy products from the foreign markets. If this theory were to hold water, countries would have difficulty acquiring goods from foreign markets for lack of foreign funds. Now one might say to convert these currencies would be the answer and to reduce trade to currency exchanges and money manipulation. There is also the prohibition of allowing workers into trades within a country. Lower skilled workers who enter into a foreign marker make much lower wages, while this is seen on its surface as a negative, is actually a positive. Lower wages equal out to lower costs and in effect lead to lower prices. "Let's look at the problem of immigration from another angle. There exists a market demand for low-skilled cheap labor. Part of this demand is being met by outsourcing of jobs overseas. The rest is met by vast numbers of immigrants coming to this country. Illegal immigration is the market supplying a demand. A demand is being met and satisfied. When viewed this way, how is this a problem? This triumph of the market is not in itself a problem." says Wade A. Mitchell

Now to the Hypocrisy Part.

Ex-US Marine Sgt. Andrew Tahmooressi sits in a jail cell in Mexico for this very act, and the hypocrites on every side of the political aisle are in fervor for his release and an escape from the very laws they seek to impose on their own borders. The Marine, who had been visiting friends had supposedly come upon a border crossing station and checkpoint run by the Mexican Federal Government. Tahmooressi alledges to have informed the guards that he had registered weapons in the vehicle and had just made a wrong turn. Enforcing their own laws the border agents arrested Tahmooressi and the ensuing battle over his release has brought a new wave of nationalistic border builders and wall wishers. Whether Tahmooressi had or had not meant to cross into Mexico and whether or not he informed them of his weaponry, the Mexican Border Agents did the job of upholding their national law. This law may not be agreeable to me but it is to those that wish to "secure" the US's borders in the same fashion. It is hypocritical to say that a man from America should be released from custody yet scream and push for the same actions from your own border agents and administration.  This is the real gap in reasoning I see in the issue.

The gap in this is the face of the issue, subjective value and nationalism. Nationalism, to believe that the nation of your residence is befitting a higher status and therefore more rule over any other. The Subjective Value to reduce a mans worth and the worth of all others to the geographical location of their birth. The happenstance of birth in any place of the world  does not predispose one to a higher place in the world or a higher rule over others. It should not be seen as a benefit or hindrance where one is placed on the earth and it should not be restricted or inhibited in any way to any place he wishes to travel.

The issue of borders can best be seen from afar. Space. In the pictures of earth from above there are no borders, there is only earth, all of us together, all of us combined in this experience.

Tesla Motors is going Open Source.

Tesla Motor's CEO  Elon Musk put out a short statement on the car makers website June 12th 2014. This statement was to address the decision to completely release all of the patents currently held by Tesla Motors. This is a great step forward in the effort to bring the zero emission and alternate fuel based vehicles into a better field of collaboration and competition. In the economics study of the Austrian field competition is seen as a great motivator to reduced prices and better services. I hope with this in mind more companies seek to not try and hold onto patents but allow open sourcing to make great strides in not only the competition area but also in the technological advancements area. Below is the letter written by Mr. Musk explaining his decision in a bit more detail and reasons why this move was made. 

"Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.
Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.
When I started out with my first company, Zip2, I thought patents were a good thing and worked hard to obtain them. And maybe they were good long ago, but too often these days they serve merely to stifle progress, entrench the positions of giant corporations and enrich those in the legal profession, rather than the actual inventors. After Zip2, when I realized that receiving a patent really just meant that you bought a lottery ticket to a lawsuit, I avoided them whenever possible.
At Tesla, however, we felt compelled to create patents out of concern that the big car companies would copy our technology and then use their massive manufacturing, sales and marketing power to overwhelm Tesla. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The unfortunate reality is the opposite: electric car programs (or programs for any vehicle that doesn’t burn hydrocarbons) at the major manufacturers are small to non-existent, constituting an average of far less than 1% of their total vehicle sales.
At best, the large automakers are producing electric cars with limited range in limited volume. Some produce no zero emission cars at all.
Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately 2 billion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis. By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.
We believe that Tesla, other companies making electric cars, and the world would all benefit from a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform.
Technology leadership is not defined by patents, which history has repeatedly shown to be small protection indeed against a determined competitor, but rather by the ability of a company to attract and motivate the world’s most talented engineers. We believe that applying the open source philosophy to our patents will strengthen rather than diminish Tesla’s position in this regard."

Doing this Tesla Motors has opened the doors for innovators and engineers to review and modify the original plans and designs of the motor company's model lines. In the hopes that these "outside eyes" see what can be done to make the cars better, safer, or all around redesign the looks.

 Tesla Motors is leading the way in the new era of innovation and collaboration for car makers, and I for one am ecstatic about the future of this concept. Imagine if every patent were released for open source. Imagine the college engineering students getting together with the Medical students to design and build a better prosthetic organ. Imagine the advancements we could see when the ideas and processes are open for peer review and  public review. Adding your ideas into a larger concept that can literally change the world and history as we know it.

But many people are against the idea of open sourcing and not patenting works and ideas. While many hold a belief in patents and copyrights being a foundational  need in society, there are those that dispel this myth and make the case for open dispersion of ideas.

Stephen Kinsella, a Patent Attorney who has rethought his stance on the use and viability of patents after consideration as to what the actual patent or copyright does has much to say on this topic.His books and articles explain these issues better. Patents said to be a protection of the original creator of any ideas, but they also have the effect as to limit and restrict any others from ever reproducing this thing later on even with their own property. It is a violation of the rights of use of another mans property.

This point can be seen clearly by those who reject the act of restricting rights of men for any reason and therefor is not a universal thought. The act of restricting what any other person can do with their property because a man has had a state give him a numbered file in a bureaucrats office.

Tesla Motors, for me, is moving the game to a whole new level and I am excited to see what the world makes of these cars with their new ability to redesign and innovate using the car as their base.