Remembering Waco

The message that Americans are sending the government today is “You know best. We trust you. Do whatever you deem necessary.” Remember the argument in the lead-up to the Iraq War? “We must trust the administration; it knows more facts than we do.” As it turns out, all these assumptions were wrong. Too many Americans treat the government as if it were populated with Homo superiorus, people endowed with superior wisdom and benevolence. Military Commissions Act? No problem. NSA domestic spying? They’re only listening to the bad guys. Destroy habeas corpus? That only applies to terrorists. Eliminate posse comitatus? They’d never use the military against us. Yet if everybody in government is so wonderful and trustworthy, how do we explain Waco?

The lesson that we should have learned from Waco is that we have a right, indeed a duty, to be suspicious and distrustful of our government. For generations, this suspicion was a uniquely American quality. However, during World War II and then the Cold War, Americans began to trust their government. As with totalitarian regimes, American politicians recognized the benefits of having foreign enemies, even imaginary ones. People band behind their government, seeking protection from the enemy. We now live with that legacy.

Just March Out

The argument for staying – to prevent civil war and bring stability to the region – logically falls on deaf ears.

If the justifications for war were wrong;

If the war is going badly;

If we can’t afford the costs, both human and economic;

If civil war and chaos have resulted from our occupation;

If the reasons for staying are no more credible than the reasons for going;

THEN…..

Why the dilemma? The American people have spoken, and continue to speak out, against this war. So why not end it? How do we end it? Why not exactly the way we went in? We just marched in, and we can just march out.

Ron Paul for President

If you intend to vote for our next president, please watch this video.

Honor

by Fred Reed

Honor is important to militaries, which need to regard themselves as distinguishable from hit men for the Mafia. They aren’t, of course. Both kill people they don’t know on orders from people they don’t know in order to make a living. Is this not literally true?

Note that the notion of honor has nothing to do with right and wrong or human decency, and seems to be incompatible with them.

Usually people concerned with honor wear clothes with feathers on them, or with shiny things stuck to them. In the past, aristocrats wore gaudy attire, often with gold buckles or medals from some king or other, and clanked around with swords. Sometimes they wore codpieces so as to look as if they had large genitals, a doubt about which is an essential element of honor.

1-2 Punch

The greatest threat facing America today is not terrorism, or foreign economic competition, or illegal immigration. The greatest threat facing America today is the disastrous fiscal policies of our own government, marked by shameless deficit spending and Federal Reserve currency devaluation. It is this one-two punch – Congress spending more than it can tax or borrow, and the Fed printing money to make up the difference – that threatens to impoverish us by further destroying the value of our dollars. - Dr. Ron Paul