Our rights do not originate with government, but they are to be "secured" by government.

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

US Government Silences Political Speech

US Government Silences Political Speech
By Tom Rhodes, 9/23/2014

A U.S. Circuit Court has ruled that political speech is not protected. If those who don't approve of your speech threaten violence, the government has a right to silence you. The 9th U.S. Circuit court of Appeals now says preventing possible violence against you outweighs your right to free speech.

What the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled was that the government, in this case school officials of Live Oak High School, can prohibit students from wearing to school clothing featuring the American flag, because of threats made against those students, not because of any threats those students made.

Peacefully wearing a shirt with an American Flag to school because it might piss off criminal alien students can be punished by the government. That is sick. What the Court ruled is that the hecklers veto is legal, and not submitting to the threat of violence is illegal.

During the 2009 Cinco de Mayo celebration at Live Oak, school officials ordered the students to turn their shirts inside out or go home, apparently because Latino students at the school couldn't be blamed if they became incensed at the flag shirts and resorted to violence to express their outrage. A year later, during the 2010 Cinco de Mayo celebration, Mexican students confronted three American students wearing American flag shirts again. "Why are you wearing that? Do you not like Mexicans?" one asked. The Mexican students threatened violence. Rather than go after the criminal bullies threatening violence, the government officials took the easy and cowardly path of punishing the peaceful patriots? Instead of disciplinary action against the wrongdoers, they persecuted those who exercised free speech.

What this does is rewarded their thuggish behavior and incentivized further acts of violence. The court, by approving this horrendous decision, has now set a precedent. If you want to shut down people's speech, the best way to do it is to threaten or commit violent acts against the speaker. As Libertarians we are screwed. The NAP dooms us to lose.

That's right the Non-Aggression Principle, dooms us. The court has ruled that all any group needs to do to silence libertarian speech is to threaten to do us violence. To protect us and stop violence the Court has ruled that we can be silenced.

Nobody could argue that the students wearing American Flag clothing isn't political speech, especially on Cinco de Mayo, in a place with a large Latino population. The First Amendment doesn’t exist to protect politically popular and generally accepted speech, that speech needs no protection. The strongest protections of the First Amendment supposedly apply to political speech. Obviously the First Amendment is dead. If liberals were intellectually honest, they would join us in voicing disgust at this court ruling and petition the SCOTUS to overturn this horrible decision.

Next thing you know, the US will be like Canada and tell Christians they cannot share scripture if those passages might offend others to the point of provoking them to violence. Imagine in the USA the government making reading or preaching on Leviticus 18:22 illegal, because it may cause others to become violent. Substantively that situation only differs in content from what telling students they can’t where American Flag themed clothing.

We do have a choice, it’s a sick choice, but now a legal choice, we can credibly threaten statists promoting statism with violence, then use this court case as a precedent to silence leftist ideas. All we have to do is abandon the NAP.

Not going to Happen!!! As the Party of Principle, the Libertarian Party cannot and will not abandon the one thing we expect of Libertarians - acceptance of the Non-Aggression Principle. So soon expect the government to silence libertarian ideas using the excuse that such ideas publically expressed may upset a statist to the point they do violence, and preventing possible violence outweighs the right to free speech. It’s a sick end to the First Amendment and Liberty.

Friday, September 19, 2014

Our Culture Hides Rape

By Tom Rhodes, 9/19/2014

The latest finding from the CDC indicate that women rape men as often as men rape women. The so called “rape culture” is not a one way street. Feminism has dramatically skewed the rhetoric and is trivializing the heinous crime of rape.

I would never have thought this reasonable and rational article would have come from Time Magazine but it did. In an article titled CDC Rape Numbers are Misleading, Time notes the following:
For many feminists, questioning claims of rampant sexual violence in our society amounts to misogynist "rape denial." However, if the CDC figures are to be taken at face value, then we must also conclude that, far from being a product of patriarchal violence against women, "rape culture" is a two-way street, with plenty of female perpetrators and male victims.

How could that be? After all, very few men in the CDC study were classified as victims of rape: 1.7 percent in their lifetime, and too few for a reliable estimate in the past year. But these numbers refer only to men who have been forced into anal sex or made to perform oral sex on another male. Nearly 7 percent of men, however, reported that at some point in their lives, they were "made to penetrate" another person - usually in reference to vaginal intercourse, receiving oral sex, or performing oral sex on a woman. This was not classified as rape, but as "other sexual violence."

And now the real surprise: when asked about experiences in the last 12 months, men reported being "made to penetrate" - either by physical force or due to intoxication - at virtually the same rates as women reported rape (both 1.1 percent in

2010
, and 1.7 and 1.6 respectively in 2011).

In other words, if being made to penetrate someone was counted as rape - and why shouldn't it be? - then the headlines could have focused on a truly sensational CDC finding: that women rape men as often as men rape women.

Today’s feminist culture is trying to tell us that a girl getting drunk clubbing and regretting waking up, with a hangover, at a strange guy’s place, tired, naked and sore from a wild drunken tryst is just as much a rape as being drug off the street into a van, held down and forcibly penetrated and abused. The idea is that women are not responsible if they do something stupid while drunk or on drugs. Rather taking responsibility for their sobriety and actions, feminism dictates that the mere fact that a woman regrets the outcome of her actions is a valid reason for labeling the idiocy men and women do when drunk or high as some criminal crime against women. The female imperative of our feminized culture, concludes that that men being "made to penetrate" - either by physical force or due to intoxication, is not the same thing. If women want equality, they why do they not note and condemn the fact that women are just as guilty of raping men instead of trying to claim our society is misogynistic? Or note that when it comes to rape, by the definition they impose, society is equal?

The Libertarian Party of Florida’s Platform simple states: We support Equality Under the Law, and condemn any law that either rewards or punishes any individual based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or any other group identification. Clearly feminism today is not compatible with the being a Libertarian. Why do Feminists have a problem with Equality Under the Law? Their influence has pushed our government to abandon equality under the law. Why do they, and our government want laws to apply differently to men than women? Why do they and our government count crimes differently if committed by a woman than a man? Why do they and our government want the burden of proof to be different based on the sex of the accuser and/or victim?

The Time article ends in a refreshing use of rational logic and reason, rightly concluding “studies of sexual violence should use accurate and clear definitions of rape and sexual assault, rather than lump these criminal acts together with a wide range of unsavory but non-criminal scenarios of men - and women - behaving badly.”

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Why Not Pay Them A Lot More?

By Tom Rhodes, 9/10/12

Thomas Sowell proposes an interesting idea. Most if not all the problems we see with elected officials is them using their power to acquire a high paying job later, or inside info to make money in the market, etc. Lobbyists find it relatively easy and cheap to purchase what they want out of government.

The Libertarian Position is to make government officials so powerless it won’t matter if they are bought off. Great idea in theory, but isn’t going to happen in reality. Dr Sowell proposes that we make it harder to buy off a government official, and make the job more attractive to people with real expertise who would never consider an office because of the pay cut.

Sowell notes, “We could pay every member of Congress a million dollars a year -- for a whole century -- for less than it costs to run the Department of Agriculture for one year.

The least we can do is make it harder to bribe them. Trying to bribe a millionaire would at least be harder than bribing some government official with a modest salary and a couple of kids going to expensive colleges.”

At less than $600 Million, compared to the current waste in government, it might be a wise investment.

Like he says the current crop doesn’t deserve the money, but we won’t get better people at the current pay. Paying the people who control TRILLIONS of dollars a million a year is not outlandish. Look at CEO pay vs the gross revenue of companies they head. Maybe paying every member of the house $1 Million a year, the Senate and VP $1.5 million, and the President $2 Million a year, would both attract better people to the job and insulate them better from the influence of corporate money. And we wouldn’t have to deal with them voting themselves a raise every year. Something to think about. Not only if they made a lot more money, it would be a lot harder to influence them with a promise of a great job and a tip on what stock to buy, it would attract a better class of crook candidate. It would probably be a lot cheaper in the long run.

Definately an idea with debate.

Unintended Consequences of the PC War

By Tom Rhodes, 9/10/2014

The News, Blogs, and even MSM are full of the unintended consequences of the PC War. The PC War is the Politically Correct War protecting Multiculturalism by silencing the truth if it doesn’t support the progressive utopian vision of how the world “ought to be”.

The NY Times last week reported , in just one relatively small English city, Rotherham, population 275,000, that at least 1,400 girls were raped by gangs of men over the past decade. A British government inquiry summarized it as follows: "It is hard to describe the appalling nature of the abuse that child victims suffered. They were raped by multiple perpetrators, trafficked to other towns and cities in the north of England, abducted, beaten, and intimidated. There were examples of children who had been doused in petrol and threatened with being set alight, threatened with guns, made to witness brutally violent rapes and threatened they would be next if they told anyone. Girls as young as 11 were raped by large numbers of male perpetrators."

As even the NY times noted the primary reason nothing done for 16 years is Political Correctness. Virtually all perpetrators were of "Pakistani heritage" and virtually all the girls were white. Everyone, including the politicians and media agree that PC is the reason. What they won’t acknowledge nor will the American press, is the fact that they are the very ones who created the moral monsters known as political correctness, multiculturalism and diversity.

These doctrines, forbid judging non-whites, Muslims and others by the same moral standards as whites and Christians. As I noted in my previous article, even noting that wage stagnation in the USA coincides with massive amounts of third world immigrants is views as “insensitive” and not to be discussed.

Other news this week shows NBA team owner, Bruce Levenson, is selling the Atlanta Hawks, because his “racially insensitive views” in a private email sent to the team’s general manager and others in the ownership group, were made public. His email contained the following:
when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can't get 35-55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders. then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

— it's 70 pct black

— the cheerleaders are black

— the music is hip hop

— at the bars it's 90 pct black

— there are few fathers and sons at the games

— we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then I start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba's urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base.

Levenson appears to be taking a hard honest look at the Hawks and their fan base. He also notes stark reality writing, “I think Southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority.” In the “offensive email” some of his suggestions were to hire “some white cheerleaders” and play “music familiar to a 40-year-old white guy.”

What is missing is the reason he thinks that. The reason is very un-PC. If your read the extremely well documented “ White Girl Bleed A Lot': The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It”, you’ll see that the USA is not without violence that the PC War allowed to be perpetrated in Britain. In America, right now, roving gangs of black youth routinely commit massive acts of violence, vandalism, and mayhem, targeted at whites. It is not politically correct to note that this is a clear demographically predictable behavior. Google the “knock out game” and research it yourself, the news stories are edited because of the PC War, but the youtube videos make it pretty clear.

Black Economist and editorialist, Thomas Sowell had this to say about the book. “More dangerous than these highly publicized episodes over the years are innumerable organized and unprovoked physical attacks on whites by young black gangs in shopping malls, on beaches and in other public places all across the country today.

While some of these attacks make it into the media as isolated incidents, the nationwide pattern of organized black on white attacks by thugs remains invisible in the mainstream media.”


Sowell notes that “Even when these attacks are accompanied by shouts of anti-white rhetoric and exultant laughter at the carnage, the racial makeup of the attackers and their victims is usually ignored by the media, and public officials often deny that race has anything to do with what happened.”

Levenson thinks that “Southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority,” because he’s not blind and the reality is, in urban areas with majority black populations, white people from the suburbs are not safe so don’t generally go to events where they are in the minority.

The facts are clear, despite making the playoff in seven consecutive seasons, the Hawks struggle at the gate. Last season they were ranked 28th in home attendance, ahead of only the 76ers and the Bucks. The hawks franchise is valued at less than $500 Million according to Forbes. I suspect the email and it being made public may be a gambit to try and take advantage of the PC War to artificially increase the sale price of what is clearly a less profitable franchise, so that probable buyers are forced to ignore the demographics of the Hawks fan base as a rationally to keep the price realistic. It worked for the Clippers.

Other news reported by WMC Action News 5 show video of Kroger employee attacked and beaten into unconsciousness by a horde of vibrant youth while working. The PC War keeps Action News from reporting the race of the violent horde but the video is clear. “A witness says he was standing there watching the fight as it happened. He declined to go on camera but told WMC he thought the hitting and kicking started after a Kroger employee exchanged words with a young man in the parking lot, over a shopping basket. “

If you look at demographics and history it is clear, multiculturalism doesn’t work. Those societies that function well are generally ethnically homogenous. What history and observation make objectively clear is that at less than 95% homogeneity the mutual benefits of inter-ethnic relations, deteriorate dramatically, but it also appears to be dependent upon the behavior of the minority. Immigrants that came to America with the idea and purpose to become American, learning the language, and adopting the customs did well and did not disrupt society. Think Irish and Italian immigrants at the turn of the last century.

There is a reason Zimbabwe is now almost entirely black and Iraq has purged itself of Jews and Christians. World history is replete with almost constant ethnic or religious cleansing of some kind almost always taking place somewhere.

It’s not politically correct but there is only “strength in diversity” when diversity is limited. America was made great by uniform shared beliefs. Embracing political correctness, multiculturalism and diversity, has resulted in England tolerating rapists, and America tolerating roving bands of violent thugs, because it is not PC to recognize that the value of some cultures are less than civilized.

Michael Savage may be right if we don’t protect our “borders, language, and culture” our society will falter. It happened to Rome, it is happening to England and much of Europe.

It may not be PC but in Britain they are starting to listen to the words of Enoch Powell.

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Honest Talk About Immigration

By Tom Rhodes, 9/9/2014

Racist Racist Racist – soon as anybody tries to have a serious talk about immigration and its effects on societies if the ideas even discussed don’t support the progressive utopian vision for how the world ought to be, instead of how the world is, and the real observable facts concerning immigration, they are labeled a racist. The label of racist no longer carries any weight, so let’s take an honest look at immigration and the current employment statistics in the USA.

The number of foreign-born individuals holding jobs in the United States hit a recorded high of 24,639,000 in August, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS has been tracking the number of foreign-born workers annually since 2005 and monthly since 2007. The BLS does not distinguish between foreign-born individuals who are in the United States legally and those who are here illegally.

The BLS also reports that there are 9.6 million unemployed Americans. Maybe just maybe if we didn’t allow such a huge number of foreigners into the country we might not have massive unemployment. Even if there isn’t an exact match between the skills employers are seeking and the skills possessed by the 10 million unemployed Americans, it is painfully clear that when you consider that for every unemployed American, there are 2.6 foreign-born workers, mass migration has significantly depressed American wages by artificially increasing the supply of workers, and is a primary factor in keeping the country from full employment.

The lie that immigration is good for our economy, fails in the face of observed reality, that despite the largest mass immigration in our history, our overall economy is at best stagnant, and has been since the beginning of the millennium. Other Western economies have and are experiencing the exact same phenomena.

Since 1965 when we drastically changed our immigration policy, we’ve absorbed about 50 million people, about a quarter of our population, from mostly third world countries. That corresponds to the time where middle class wages started to stagnate, and where the wages for low skill jobs depressed. Massive numbers of people from the third world have changed the face of employment in the USA. Pointing out this fact is not racist, it is simply observable truth.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Can There Be Too Much Government?

“There's a debate about whether mother's milk is good or bad for infants -- a preposterous debate, considering the historical success of nursing manifested by a world population of 7 billion. If government authorities, such as the Food and Drug Administration, conclude that mother's milk is hazardous, I'm wondering where they're going to put the warning label.” ~ Dr. Walter Williams, Sept. 2014

Question to ask your statist (Democrat or Republican) friend:

When has the government gone too far? What can/do we do about it?