Sunday, April 21, 2013

Just not THIS one THIS time.

Illegality of War Acknowledged in Congress
A Congressman just stood up and acknowledged a long forgotten law that makes all war illegal. Here's what Congressman Keith Ellison said in the Congressional Record:
http://warisacrime.org/content/illegality-war-acknowledged-congressional-record
He said this because his constituents have created a movement to honor their local son who created this law and won a Nobel Peace Prize for doing so.
And they have done this because a book revived this forgotten history, this bigg est news story of 1928, long buried and willfully unremembered.
Ralph Nader puts this same book on a list of 11 books you should read.
The book is called When the World Outlawed War:
http://davidswanson.org/outlawry

Enter the Essay Contest described by the Congressman or introduce it to your schools.

This is a masterful account of how people in the United States and around the world worked to abolish war as a legitimate act of state policy and won in 1928, outlawing war with a treaty that is still on the books. Swanson's account of the successful work of those who came before us to insist that war be outlawed points us toward new ways of thinking about both war and political activism.

Buy the paperback at Better World Books, 100Fires, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Powells, other sellers, or your local independent bookstore, which can order it through Ingram. (The list price is $15.)
(If you order from Amazon it will ship right away even if Amazon says it won't ship for weeks; it is print-on-demand.)
Or you can get 10 copies for $60, or 50 copies for $200, or more (all with free shipping) here.
Donate free books to nonprofit educational groups here.
Buy the iPad/iPhone version at the iBookstore.
Get any of these versions for $2 right here:
Kindle: http://davidswanson.org/outlawry
Epub: http://davidswanson.org/outlawry
PDF: http://davidswanson.org/outlawry
Audio book (mp3), read by the author: http://davidswanson.org/outlawry
When the World Outlawed War on November 11, 2011, became the first winner in the "Going For A Global Truce" Peace Contest.

"David Swanson is a truth-teller and witness-bearer whose voice and action warrant our attention." — Cornel West.
“David Swanson has written a fascinating account of how peace once became the law of the land, through the Kellogg-Briand Pact. It is particularly pertinent in the era of the Endless War, by giving encouragement and suggestions of a path forward to those who want to give peace a chance.” — Liz Holtzman, former member of the U.S. Congress.
"David Swanson has done it again with this new book – unearthing history they don’t tell you about in mainstream media." — Jeff Cohen, founder of FAIR and author of Cable News Confidential.
"David Swanson brings his laser focus, brilliant writing, and incredible intelligence to bear in this book, where he makes the case that the Kellogg-Briand Pact was a major step -- as yet unrec ognized -- on the path towards eliminating war. He tells a wonderful story, shines light on the unknown peace activists who refused to be deterred by what was considered possible or reasonable, and makes a compelling analogy with slavery -- like war, a worldwide activity deemed unstoppable -- and like war, an immoral crime that must be ended. I have been active in the antiwar movement from Vietnam through Iraq. I have done political work for some of the most antiwar candidates of the modern era -- McGovern, Jackson, Nader, Kucinich. I have marched and petitioned, organized and strategized, and played a part in peace demonstrations from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to London and New York. And I am a history buff. But until I read David Swanson's book, I had never heard this story before -- and certainly never understood why it was important." — Steve Cobble, former political director of the National Rainbow Coalition, advisor to Jackson, Nader, and Kucinich presidential campaigns
“Swanson has done it again. This is a masterful account of how Americans and people around the world worked to abolish war as a legitimate act of state policy and won. Swanson’s account of the successful work of those who came before us to insist that war be outlawed compels us today to rethink the cost and morality of cynical or weary inaction in the face of our repeated resort to military threats and warfare to achieve policy goals.” — Jeff Clements, Author of Corporations Are Not People.
"David Swanson's fascinating new history of the development of the much neglected campaign in the 1920s to outlaw war has many lessons for anti-war activists today. An essential read." — Andrew Burgin, Stop the War Coalition.
"David Swanson predicates his belief that nonviolence can change the world on careful research and historical analysis. This compelling and wond erfully readable narrative examines pacifist developments in the U.S., dating back to the 1920s. Swanson then examines contemporary anti-war efforts. He writes from a particularly advantageous perspective because he is firmly rooted in plans and actions designed to put an end to war. Drawing from historical examples of success and failure, he help readers imagine achieving the U.N.’s eloquent mandate: 'to eliminate the scourge of war.'" — Kathy Kelly, Voices for Creative Nonviolence.
“From Daybreak to War Is A Lie to When the World Outlawed War to a prodigious number of essays (and that’s just since the ’08 election) David Swanson combines the timeliest scholarship and logical elegance in a call to action: ‘to learn how to enjoy working for the moral good for its own sake.’” — John Heuer, Veterans for Peace.
“One of the best ways to radicalize someone’s thinking is to force the person to lo ok at a cherished ideal in a fundamentally new way. David Swanson does that with War, an ideal cherished by too many Americans. Can the United States ever be weaned from its love affair with war — Endless War? This book provides the background for dealing with that question.” — William Blum, author of Killing Hope, and of Freeing the World to Death.
“How many Americans know that an American peace movement in the 1920s mobilized millions of people, and eventually the U.S. government, to get the world’s major powers to formally renounce war? Or that the Kellogg-Briand Pact is still on the books making our current leaders guilty of the same crime that we hung people for at Nuremberg? It’s time for a little education! David Swanson has written a wonderfully well-documented history of a time when Americans discovered their own power to organize and impact their government on the most vital issue facing the world, then and now: the abolition of w ar.” — Nicolas Davies, author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.
“Polls show a large majority of U.S. citizens oppose current U.S. wars, but many Americans’ reluctance to engage in antiwar activism is in part due to their sense of impotence at having any impact on their own government. This book tells the story of how the highly energized Peace Movement in the 1920s, supported by an overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens from every level of society, was able to push politicians into something quite remarkable — the Kellogg-Briand Pact and the renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. The 1920s War Outlawry movement was so popular that most politicians could not afford to oppose it. If any one piece of American history can re-energize the American people to again push their politicians, then this book can do it.” — Bruce E. Levine, author of Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Popu lists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite.
“‘Ahhh, peace, that would be so nice,’ an Afghan grandmother whispered after recounting how 30 years of war had devastated her family. The world community has failed her miserably, as it has failed so many millions from the Congo to Iraq to Sri Lanka. But David Swanson’s book gives us a glimpse of another possible reality, a world that says no to war. By recounting the heroic efforts of a generation in the 1920s that actually did pass a treaty banning war, Swanson invites us to dream, to scheme and most important, to take action.” — Medea Benjamin, cofounder of CODEPINK.
“David Swanson is on a mission to end war. In his latest book he brings to life an important story about a time when a national peace movement raged across our nation. The media covered this movement, and members of Congress were active participants. Through this movement a treaty was signed tha t outlawed war. Sadly today few know about this significant moment in our history, but Swanson’s book will help change that.” — Bruce K. Gagnon, Coordinator, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.
“In an era of what sometimes seems like Orwellian permanent war, David Swanson’s Outlawing War reminds us of those in earlier periods who attempted the unthinkable for many of outlawing war. It is a timely reminder that nothing is inevitable in the way things are, that extraordinary things can be done, and that movements are not inexorably doomed to fail." — Ben Davis.
Print ISBN 978-0-9830830-9-2
eBook ISBN 9781456605735

Saturday, April 20, 2013

From Hero Will Grigg

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Nationalizing Children

Commissar for Children: Anton S. Makarenko, depicted in a Soviet Postcard

We must remove the children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over and, to speak frankly, nationalize them. –

Instructions given at a congress of Soviet educators in 1918 (cited in Separating School & State: How to Liberate America’s Families, by Sheldon Richman, pg. xv).

[The Soviet family] is an organic part of Soviet society. Parents are not without authority … but this authority is only a reflection of social authority…. In our country he alone is a man of worth whose needs and desires are the needs and desires of a collectivist…. Our family offers rich soil for the cultivation of such collectivism. –

Soviet family theorist Anton S. Makarenko, The Collective Family, A Handbook for Russian Parents, pgs xi-xii, 42.

If we want to talk about equality of opportunity for children, then the fact that children are raised in families means there’s no equality…. In order to raise children with equality, we must take them away from families and communally raise them. –

Dr. Mary Jo Bane, Assistant Secretary of Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services, 1993-1996; currently Thornton Bradshaw Professor of Public Police and Management, Harvard Kennedy School; quoted in “The Family: It’s Surviving and Healthy” by Dolores Barclay, Tulsa World, August 21, 1977.

Whenever a progressive refers to “investments,” he or she is referring to confiscation of private wealth.

Whenever a progressive invokes the “community,” that term refers to a state-engineered collective in which the individual has no rights.

Whenever a collectivist refers to “public education,” that phrase is shorthand for the process of destroying a child’s developing sense of self-ownership and indoctrinating them in the notion that they are the property of the “community.” This process is also known as “socialization,” which is the indefinable value-added element that supposedly makes “public education” superior to homeschooling.

Whenever an advocate of “public education” refers to “our children,” conscientious parents should take a quick inventory of their arsenals.
Melissa Harris-Perry, a slogan-spewing news reader for the Stalinist media outlet called MSNBC, ran the table of these collectivist nostrums in a recent installment in the network’s “Lean Forward” ad campaign. The “Lean Forward” spots feature various MSNBC luminaries holding forth like Communist Party functionary exhorting the cadres at a “struggle session” in the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Harris-Perry is a collectivist of such passionate conviction that she regards opposition to Obama's radical centralization of power to be a species of sedition. She considers private firearms to be a pestilence, but embraces a vision of social engineering that would require a great amount of gun-related violence by state functionaries.

Although – or perhaps because -- Harris-Perry is a credentialed academic, she has the odd and annoying habit, so common among adolescents, of ending every statement with a vocal inflection that suggests a question. In her "Lean Forward" ad, she uncorked this specimen of unfiltered collectivist cant:

“We have never invested as much in public education, because we’ve always had a sort of private notion of children – your kid is yours, and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of, `These are our children.’ So part of it is that we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents, or kids belong to families, and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility, and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.”

Harris-Perry’s disdain for parental authority is wedded to a denial of the idea that the individual child has a right to self-ownership. During an MSNBC discussion about a North Dakota law that would ban abortion after six weeks, she used the expression “this thing” to refer to the developing fetus and warned that “if this turns into a person, there are economic consequences.”

It’s important to understand that Harris-Perry’s commitment to legalized abortion doesn’t grow out of a misapplied commitment to individual liberty, but rather her devotion to the collective management of the human population. It’s akin to the view expressed in the early 1970s by then-Rutgers professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg that the Roe v. Wade ruling was a product of “concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations we don’t want too many of.”

Belief that the unborn human child has a right to be protected against lethal aggression, according to Harris-Perry, is a “faith claim … not associated with science.” However one views that moral proposition, the humanity of the developing individual is an incontestable scientific fact. The existence of the invisible, intangible abstraction called the “state” is based entirely on faith claims that Harris-Perry is willing to impose through coercion.

Nationalize children: Dr. Bane.

In an essay she wrote for The Nation magazine three years ago – then, as now, she wore her surname fashionably parted in the middle, but in a slightly different style – Harris-Perry described how she catechizes her unfortunate students in the gospel of the Almighty State:

"I often begin my political science courses with a brief introduction to the idea of `the state.' The state is the entity that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, force, and coercion. If an individual travels to another country and kills its citizens, we call it terrorism. If the state does it, we call it war. If a man kills his neighbor it is murder; if the state does it it is the death penalty. If an individual takes his neighbor's money, it is theft; if the state does it, it is taxation."

In addition to instructing other people’s children in the fear and admonition of the Divine State, Harris-Perry is eager to see its heretical enemies put to the torch.

"The Tea Party is a challenge to the legitimacy of the U.S. state," Harris-Perry insisted. "When Tea Party participants charge the current administration with various forms of totalitarianism, they are arguing that the government has no right to levy taxes or make policy. Many GOP elected officials offered nearly secessionist rhetoric from the floor of the Congress [during the debate over nationalizing health care]. They joined as co-conspirators with the Tea Party protesters by arguing that this government has no monopoly on legitimacy."

The overt act that made that impious “conspiracy” a prosecutable crime, according to Harris-Perry, was an anti-Obamacare protest in which Tea Party activists heckled Georgia Rep. John Lewis. As an elected official, Lewis is not merely a human being, according to Harris-Perry, but an “embodiment of the state” – or, to use appropriate creedal language, al living image of the invisible deity.

"When protesters spit on and scream at duly elected representatives of the United States government it is more than an act of racism," snarled Harris-Perry, making a de rigueur – and entirely gratuitous -- reference to Lewis's ethnic background. "It is an act of sedition."

String up the barbed wire, sharpen the guillotine, ready the basement cells of the Lubyanka: There are "seditionists" to be dealt with!

Like many others of her ideological persuasion, Harris-Perry is a stranger to concision. In describing the totalitarian state’s proprietary claim on children, someone who represented a slightly different strain of collectivism – albeit not as different as Harris-Perry would insist – stated the matter much more tidily almost exactly eighty years ago:

“When an opponent declares, `I will not come over to your side,’ I calmly say: `Your child belongs to us already…. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in this new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.”

Those words were spoken on November 6, 1933 by the community-organizing, civilian-disarming, socialized medicine-promoting, government stimulus-peddling, unitary executive who presided over Germany’s National Socialist government. When Harris-Perry and her comrades demand that we "Lean Forward," that's the direction they have in mind.

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4 Lew Rockwells in one day

Pointing out the horrendous, ruinous and unlawful power of legislators. How incredibly stupidly they behave in their quest for Importance:

Remember When the Internet Was a Tax-Free Paradise?

by Glenn Jacobs
by Glenn Jacobs
Previously by Glenn Jacobs: The Fraudulent Marketplace Fairness Act

Despite the dreadful consequences that taxing the Internet will cause, something that I covered in a previous piece on this website, Congress seems dead set on bringing sales taxes to the Internet. Unfortunately, this effort gained a powerful and respected ally this past week.
In his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Tax Internet Sales, Stimulate Growth, Art Laffer argues in favor of allowing states to force Internet retailers outside their borders to collect sales taxes on their behalf. I must respectfully disagree with Professor Laffer on this issue.
Professor Laffer, one of the fathers of Supply-Side economics, made one of the great contributions to the study of political economics with his introduction of the Laffer Curve. The Laffer Curve recognizes a basic fact about human behavior: individuals are not automatons absent of free will; we respond to incentives and change our behavior accordingly. Thus, while it is obvious that a zero percent tax rate will result in no tax revenue for the government, a one hundred percent tax rate will also produce no tax revenue. After all, who is going to work when he is prohibited from keeping any of the fruits of his labor?
The application of the Laffer Curve in public policy reveals a fundamental difference between Supply-Side economists and Austrian economists. While Supply-Siders argue for lower taxes, they do so in order to maximize tax revenue. In other words, they believe that the optimal tax rate is the one which produces the most revenue for the government. On the other hand, the Austrian argument for lower taxes has nothing to do with the amount of revenue a tax produces. Austrians recognize that every tax, whether an income tax, a property tax, a sales tax, or what have you, causes its own unique distortions in the market. Leaving aside the moral and private property arguments against taxation, Austrians believe that all taxes must be opposed because taxation is an impediment to optimal market performance.
Despite arguments to the contrary, an Internet sales tax is, de facto, a new tax. Yes, residents who buy goods from out of state Internet retailers currently are required, by law, to report these transactions and pay sales taxes on them. But almost no one does so, and these laws are rarely, if ever, enforced. Hence, while this tax may exist in the law codes of various states, it has yet to significantly appear in the real world. Not only will consumers, especially the middle class, feel the weight of a new tax, we cannot say for certain what its economic impact will be. For instance, the tax boon which studies claim an Internet sales tax will produce has proved grossly inflated in reality. As the Laffer Curve illustrates, individuals respond to incentives. Raise taxes on Internet sales and you are going to reduce the amount of Internet sales.
Professor Laffer claims that if states are allowed to collect sales tax on Internet transactions, they will be able to lower their income tax rates and experience increased economic growth:

"Therefore – as with any pro-growth tax reform – the sales tax base in the states should be broadened by treating Internet retailers similarly to in-state retailers, and the marginal income-tax rate should be reduced such that the total static revenue collected by the state government is held constant."

While the income tax is the most egregious of all taxes and its reduction would be welcome, the problem with this argument is that the more likely outcome is that state governments will gladly stuff this additional revenue into their coffers without lowering any other taxes. As Professor Laffer himself points out, "the absence of these [Internet sales tax] revenues has not served to put a lid on state-government spending." Experience has taught us that nothing puts a lid on government spending. Providing the states with an additional revenue source will not put them on more sound fiscal footing. It will only serve to make their governments that much bigger and more intrusive.
It is true that the current system unfairly punishes brick-and-mortar retailers. However, the solution is not to also punish Internet retailers (and consumers) with an additional tax. Instead, we should work toward reducing or eliminating the taxes to which brick-and-mortar retailers are subject. Isn’t it also unfair that some states impose a higher sales tax rate than other states? Should we then advocate that low-tax states raise their sales tax rates in the name of fairness? Of course not. We all recognize that tax competition between the states is a good thing because it limits the ability of the states to impose exorbitant taxes. Doesn’t the Internet, which is virtually tax-free, represent the ultimate in competition?
There is also a political component to this issue. Despite the arguments of Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), allowing a state to force a retailer in another state to collect taxes on its behalf does not strengthen states’ rights. In fact, the opposite is true. This is an assault on the sovereignty of the states. After all, retailers in California would be forced into the role of tax collectors for Massachusetts and visa-versa. Alexander peppers his argument with references to the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment, but this is the sort of stuff that the Constitution was supposed to prevent, not encourage!
By the way, remember the days when conservatives actually opposed taxation instead of, in the words of Alexander, being added to an "honor roll" when they propose more taxes?
Finally, an Internet sales tax policy is not pro-growth. Yes, imposing sales taxes on Internet retailers may benefit some brick-and-mortar retailers (especially the big box stores), but it will hurt the Internet retailers and all the businesses connected with them. Will the net result be economic growth? Who knows, but what is certain is that some businesses will benefit while others are harmed. We ignore Bastiat’s Broken Window at our own peril.
The best way to encourage economic growth is to eliminate as many taxes as possible and to lower the rates of those that remain. Allowing the states to impose sales taxes on the Internet is a step in the wrong direction.

April 20, 2013

Glenn Jacobs [send him mail] is the actor and wrestler Kane. Visit his blog.

The Best of Glenn Jacobs

In Lew Rockwell 4/20/13

Japan Steps Into the Void

by Peter Schiff

Recently by Peter Schiff: Gold in the Crosshairs

In the years following the global financial crisis, economists and investors have gotten very comfortable with very high, and seemingly persistent, government debt. The nonchalance may be underpinned by the assumption that globally significant countries that can print their own currencies can't get trapped in a sovereign debt crisis. However, it now appears that Japan is preparing to put this confidence to the ultimate stress test.

For the better part of 20 years, successive Japanese governments and central bankers have been trying, unsuccessfully, to use quantitative easing strategies to pump up a deflated asset bubble. The economy has by and large not responded. The sustained and impressive growth that Japan delivered during the 45 years following the Second World War (which had made the country one of the most successful economic stories in world history), has never returned. For the last 20 years Japan has offered a "zombie" economy characterized by low growth, stagnation, and exploding government debt. The Japanese government now owes approximately $12 trillion, a figure representing more than 200% of GDP. The IMF expects that this figure will reach 245% by the end of this year. This gives Japan the unenviable title of having the world's highest government debt-to-GDP ratio. But Shinzo Abe, the newly elected Prime Minister of Japan, and Haruhiko Kuroda, his newly-appointed Governor of the Bank of Japan, feel much, much more debt needs to be issued to turn the economy around.

The hope that Abe would be a new kind of prime minister with a bold economic formula helped revive the long dead Japanese stock market. Between May and November of 2012, the Nikkei traded within a range of 8200-9400. As Abe's victory began to be expected, the Nikkei started moving up, reaching 10,000 by the time he was sworn in on December 26 of last year. The euphoria continued throughout the spring and by April 2 the Nikkei stood at 12,003 points. Then on April 4, BOJ Governor Kuroda made good on Abe's dovish rhetoric and announced a plan to end years of mildly declining prices by doing whatever necessary to create 2% inflation (in reality these price declines have been one of the few consolations to Japanese consumers). To achieve its goals, the government is prepared to double the amount of Yen in circulation. Stocks immediately rallied, and in less than a week the Nikkei had breached 13,000 points, taking the index to a 4 1/2-year high. It is rare that any major stock market can achieve a 50% rally in less than a year. But the rally will be costly.

The Japanese government already spends 25% of tax revenue to service outstanding debt (compared to 6% in the US). These costs become even more astonishing when one considers the extremely low rates Japan pays. Ten-year Japanese government bonds now pay less than 0.6%, and five-year yields are now a little more than 0.20%. How much will debt service costs increase if Abe succeeds in pushing inflation to 2.0%? Two percent rates would triple long term borrowing costs. Given the size of its debts, increases of such magnitude could hit Japan with the force of 10 Godzillas.

Japan has an aging demographic and as more time goes by, the pool of potential bond buyers continues to shrink. Unlike the United States, where individual savers are mostly irrelevant in the sovereign debt market, Japanese investors have largely set the market in their own country. There is evidence to suggest that Japanese savers are increasingly considering overseas sources of yield for protection from the inflation that Abe is so determined to create.

As the Nikkei has moved upward, the Japanese Yen has taken the opposite trajectory, falling more than 20% against the U.S. Dollar since the beginning of 2012, and nearly 12% since the beginning of this year (the decline has been even greater in terms of several other currencies). This steep drop, which has taken a huge bite out of the nominal gains in Japanese stocks is unusual in the foreign exchange markets, and has threatened to destabilize an already weak global financial system.

Earlier this year the falling yen issue sparked a full-fledged headline war. On February 16th, participating members of the G20 issued a statement, clearly aimed at Japan, warning against competitive devaluations and currency wars. A day later, Japan's Finance Minister stated flatly that Japan was not attempting to manipulate its currency. After some hesitation, the G20 seemed to accept this statement. For now it seems the international powers have fallen in behind Japan. Both IMF Chief Christine Lagarde and Ben Bernanke have praised Abe's policies. The prevailing opinion seems to be that weakening a currency should not be considered manipulation as long as it's done to revive a domestic economy, not specifically to harm competitors. Such an opinion qualifies as a great moment in rhetorical shamelessness.

In addition to his plans for inflationary monetary policy, Abe is also attempting to wage war from the fiscal side as well. His Liberal Democratic Party has called for over $2.4 trillion USD worth of public works stimulus over the next 10 years. This spending represents approximately 40% of Japan's current GDP and, adjusted for population, would be the equivalent of nearly $600 billion USD annually in the United States.

It should be obvious to anyone with even half a brain that Japan's prior experiments with ever larger doses of quantitative easing have failed. Leaders in both Japan and the United States, however, are following this path with reckless abandon. According to Abe, the entirety of Japan's economic problems can be blamed on the fact that consumer prices have been declining by one tenth of one percent per year. If only Japanese consumers were forced to pay two percent more per year for the things they need or desire, all would be well.

Abe's wish may already be coming true. McDonald's announced this morning that, for the first time in 5 years, the price of hamburgers and cheeseburgers in Japan will be rising by 20% and 25% respectively. No doubt the Japanese will be so excited by this development that they'll rush to the stores to consume all the burgers they were planning on eating in 2014 before prices go up again. Of course there is no official concern that low-income Japanese will now have to pay more for low cost food.

The idea that informs Abe's plan, that rising prices entice consumers to buy before the prices go up, is clearly suspect as economic law dictates that demand increases when prices fall. Any store owner will tell you that cutting prices is the best way to move merchandise. Apart from this problem, how does Abe expect consumers to buy more when their currency is losing purchasing power and more of their incomes will be needed to pay interest on the national debt?

The boldness of Abe's plans should provide the rest of the world with a crash course in the ability of debt accumulation to jumpstart an economy. The good news is that the effects should not take too long to be seen. I believe that we will be treated with a stark lesson on the limitations of inflation as an economic panacea.

Hopefully, failure of this latest Japanese experiment will help convince leaders in the U.S. and Japan that the only true path to prosperity is free market capitalism. Rather than trying to reflate busted bubbles and micro-manage Keynesian style recoveries, politicians and central bankers should recognize their respective roles in creating the problems and get out of the way.

April 20, 2013

In Lew Rockwell 4/20/13

Freedom in Name Only: Statists Want To Control Our Children’s Names

by Lucie Strachonova Wisco

In the year 2002, a baby girl was born into this world and her parents intended to name her Lucía. A classic Latin name meaning ‘light’, the parents decided on the name to honor the mother's deceased grandmother. A beautiful name and a respectable homage to tradition.
Much to the couple's surprise though, the name was refused by government authorities. The response from the state was that "Lucía" was "legally unrecordable" and therefore not acceptable as a name. The parents were given the recommendation to name the girl Lucia, without the accented í, in order to be deemed acceptable by the government gatekeepers. Unfortunately, that would have altered the pronunciation significantly. Taking the absolute freedom of naming a child for granted, one would think this story took place in China, Russia, or another country run by a totalitarian regime and infamous for government impositions on people’s liberties. Maybe one of the European Union countries would come to mind, where government routinely curbs people’s freedom in order to provide ‘general welfare’, or so they say. In either case, my fellow Americans, the guess would be wrong. The story originates in the United States of America – the cradle of freedom and independence, where the majority of population mistakenly believes that their constitutional liberties are still intact (or at least when it comes to raising their own children).
Governments all around the world believe that they have the right to interfere in people’s private decisions. Usually though, these encroachments on personal liberty can be attributed to the self-preserving interests of state power and influence. Although I vehemently disagree with gun censorship, I understand why that serves the interest of power-hungry officials seeking to inflict their will amongst free people. States love to protect their interests and gain wealth at the expense of their people's rights. But why a baby's name? I wouldn't have assumed this personal decision had great appeal to a statist bureaucrat. On what constitutional grounds does government have the right to regulate the parents’ freedom to name their child at all? The Founding Fathers didn’t claim it, why would it be a requisite now? The reality is that these restrictions are practically universal around the world. It's not just the case of countries such as China, where one would not expect even the most basic human rights to be respected, so the reality of having to choose from 13,000 Chinese characters, approved by the Chinese government, as opposed to 70,000 existing characters, is really just the final nail in the coffin. Most of the government restrictions on baby naming come from countries that are otherwise considered democratic.
In Germany for example, the gender must be evident from the name, and using names of objects and products is prohibited. Similarly in Portugal, the sex of the child must be recognizable beyond doubt (sorry Ashley and Pat). In Denmark, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand, a child cannot be named anything that might result "offensive or causing discomfort to the child", which, of course, is on the official authorities to determine. In France and Spain, the name cannot be "inappropriate or out of the ordinary"; the vagueness of these adjectives is more than obvious. According to a former Norwegian law, a surname was not allowed to be used as a given name and foreign religious names such as Jesus were prohibited. Argentina doesn't even allow names that could be considered "politically tendentious" (how convenient for the powers that be).
This leads us back to the introduction of this article and the problem of Lucía. According to the California Office of Vital Records, a parent can only choose from the 26 alphabetical characters of the English language and diacritical marks are not permissible, with the exception of hyphens, dashes and apostrophes. Not only is this a severe violation of the fundamental right of parents to name their child but it is also utterly nonsensical. The State of California officially uses diacritical marks already, as can be seen in the examples of El Capitán State Beach Park or La Purísima Mission State Historic Park, both of which the official names of California State Parks stated by the California Department of Parks and Recreation on their official parks.ca.gov website. The fact that the state officials can use the diacritics as they please but they would disallow the law-abiding citizens to use them in their names or surnames is another example of government's priviledged hypocrisy. Just as theft is appropriately punishable between citizens , while the government has carte blanche to steal with impunity in the form of taxes. Similar logic applies to the current gun control debate. Statists demand law-abiding citizens can't own assault rifles, but the enforcing employees of the state certainly can.
What's worse is that these countries offer little in the way of discourse for parents to petition these laws. The process usually follows the same pattern: there is a list of given names, published by the government or accessible on the Internet. Should you choose one of these names, there will be no further obstructions in the naming process (considering that the gender recognition is maintained, etc.). If on the other hand you do wish to name your child differently, it can be, and commonly is, denied by the official authorities, in which case you do have the right to appeal to court. As long as you pay all the fees, naturally, along with hiring an attorney, requesting time off work, etc. Ultimately, the courts have their own ‘naming experts’ who cast the final judgment. No jury of peers, just the determination of one employee of the State. And if it’s not in your favor, there is de facto nothing to be done about it as the verdict is irrevocable.
Returning to the key questions above, what constitutional authority does government have to regulate baby names at all?
According to Carlton F.W. Larson and his research paper from January 2011 Naming Baby: The Constitutional Dimensions of Parental Naming Rights parents have a fundamental constitutional right to name their children by virtue of the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. And because these rights are fundamental, restrictions on these rights have to pass strict scrutiny, i.e. they must be justified by a compelling governmental interest, they must be narrowly tailored and they must be the least restrictive means to achieve governmental interest. The conclusions of Larson’s analysis suggest that some of the laws and restrictions currently employed are unconstitutional and the state has no right to invoke them.
The birth certificates were first introduced in the late 19^th century and naming restrictions followed soon after. The state of Massachusetts was the first to require birth registration and government control over parental naming permeated immensely thereafter. As it stands today, consider the following a very brief summary of existing naming laws applied, to various extents, throughout the US (by no means exhaustive from state to state):

Certain surname restrictions
Requirement of at least two names
Prohibition of numbers
Prohibition of pictograms and ideograms
Prohibition of diacritic
Restrictions of length
Prohibition of obscenity and vulgarisms

The current state of parental naming laws could be summarized as a sphere of absolute chaos. In the tangles of inconsistent state laws, regulations and public notices, it is difficult not only to find a specific rule, but also identify the corresponding authority.
Naming one’s child is one of the most personal intimate decisions most people make in their lives. And let’s face it, some of the names might be considered ‘stupid’ or ‘absurd’ by majority of outsiders. Despite this notion, though, there is no ground for the government to get involved. The role of the authorities is not to judge people’s intelligence or sense of reality, despite what they might think. They’re not the saviors of individual integrity and protectors of all the well-being, but they certainly are acting that way. In the ocean of Recoveries, Reliefs, Creations and Affordable Acts, it is easy to neglect minor topics as naming rights might seem. But if you think you can still take absolute American freedom for granted, think again next time you want to do something as seemingly routine as to name your baby with an accent.

April 20, 2013

Lucie Strachonova Wisco [send her mail] was born and raised in the small town of Slavkov within the eastern region of the Czech Republic. She holds Masters Degrees in Education and Psychology, & English Language and Literature from Masaryk University, and is currently the Editor of the etymology website BabyNames.net. She immigrated to U.S. in 2008 where she lives happily with her husband, and pursues her writing passions.

Part 4: America Focused on Boston Bombing While They Strip Us of Rights and Prepare for War by Daisy Luther

4.) And finally, don’t forget CISPA, the vote on which was scheduled to be held today but has been postponed until tomorrow. Perhaps to muffle the cries of outrage from internet users across the country, a bomber will be duly produced. Since Washington has been unable to pass SOPA or PIPA, their desire to troll the internet and rummage through your email is back with CISPA. ”CISPA will allow private sector firms to search personal and sensitive user data of ordinary U.S. residents to identify this so-called “threat information”, and to then share that information with each other and the US government – without the need for a court-ordered warrant.” (source) Today, amendments to CISPA that would have protected the privacy of internet users were defeated, and the bill, in all it’s nosy, Big Brother glory, will go before the House for a vote tomorrow.
So, as they said in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.”
Don’t be distracted by the theatrics. Don’t be manipulated by fear. Don’t let the media tell you how to think or who is scary. If your attention is directed to one place, be sure to pay attention to everything else. Watch carefully how this proceeds, because this is a blueprint used by manipulative governments around the world – and you can learn from it. After you see the truth you will never watch the mainstream news the same way again.
Reprinted with permission from The Organic Prepper.

April 20, 2013

Daisy Luther [send her mail] is a freelance writer and editor. Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter.

Part 3: Washington Perfects The Art of Illusion: Keep Part 3: America Focused on Boston Bombing While They Strip Us of Rights and Prepare for War by Daisy Luther

3.) Add to this a crucial vote on the “Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013“, an innocuous sounding bill that was narrowly defeated in Congress today by a mere 6 votes. This was “a bill to ensure that all individuals who should be prohibited from buying a firearm are listed in the national instant criminal background check system and require a background check for every firearm sale, and for other purposes.”
An irate Obama made a statement amidst tearful families of the Sandy Hook shooting, calling this a “shameful day for Washington.”

“Do we really think that thousands of families whose lives have been shattered by gun violence don’t have a right to weigh in on this issue? Do we think their – their emotions, their loss is not relevant to this debate?” Obama asked.
The president vowed “this effort is not over” and urged Americans to voice their opposition to inaction.
“I see this as just round one,” he said. “I believe we’re going to be able to get this one. Sooner or later we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it, and so do the American people.” (source)