Saturday, December 31, 2011

Ron Paul: Iran Would be Justified in Closing Strategic Waterway in Response to Sanctions | CNSnews.com

Kudos to the author for not branding Ron an "isolationist":
As Iran ratcheted up its rhetoric Thursday about closing the Strait of Hormuz, Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul revisited his earlier criticisms of Western policy towards Tehran, adding that Iran would be justified in cutting off the strategic waterway in response to sanctions.

Paul’s views on Iran and other foreign policy issues – essentially a noninterventionist, anti-war approach – have sparked clashes on several occasions during the GOP presidential primary season, and are attracting growing scrutiny as the Iowa caucus looms.
Ron Paul: Iran Would be Justified in Closing Strategic Waterway in Response to Sanctions | CNSnews.com

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The most humble Ron Paul quote ever

"This country is in a revolution. They're sick and tired of what they're getting, and I happen to be lucky enough to be part of it."
Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas), quoted in Bill Moyers Journal

Our Fear of Iran-Iraq Shiite Government Partnership Makes Perfect Sense

So let me get this straight:

(1) We invaded Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, who suppressed the Shiite minority over the years.
(2) We are now scared that the Shiite-led government will collaborate with the Shiite Government of Iran.

That makes perfect sense.

According to the Daily Telegraph:
Lt Gen Firouzabadi added that Iran was now "ready to expand its military and security ties with Iraq."
It continues:
US analysts have expressed concern that Iran could exploit the vacuum left by the US withdrawal to bolster links with Iraq's Shiite-led government.
New readers, please note the irony.

Nicholas Kramer on what goes into raising a child

When you think about the volume of love, sweat, and tears that go into raising a child, it is almost unfathomable to think that any life can just be snuffed out. Even more astonishing is the fact that each human life is quite literally the product of the entire history of the human race. When any person is killed, a direct line going back to the very first human that walked the earth is erased from our future. We will never know the artists, poets, and peacemakers who have never lived because their parents were killed in senseless wars.
Nicholas Kramer, Are We Gods?

Is Hamas Going Non-Violent? « Antiwar.com Blog

Jane’s, an internationally respected British security and defense risk-analysis firm, has recently reported that Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, is on “the brink of renouncing armed resistance and moving to a policy of nonviolent resistance to Israel.”
Is Hamas Going Non-Violent? « Antiwar.com Blog

Monday, December 26, 2011

Video: Cenk Ugyur Has It Right « Antiwar.com Blog


Cenk Ugyur Has It Right « Antiwar.com Blog

Walter Williams on the Racist Origins of the Davis-Bacon Act

In the context of the 2012 presidential campaign, Ron Paul should explain the racist origins of American minimum wage legislation and add a repeal of minimum wage laws to his platform since in an earlier debate he said he advocates the repeal of minimum wage laws.
The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 is a law with racist origins and broad congressional support. During the 1931 legislative debate over the Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates super-minimum (mostly union) wages on federally financed or assisted construction projects, racist intents were obvious. Rep. John Cochran, D-Mo., supported the bill, saying he had "received numerous complaints … about Southern contractors employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South." Rep. Clayton Allgood, D-Ala., complained: "Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. … That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country." Rep. William Upshaw, D-Ga., spoke of the "superabundance or large aggregation of Negro labor." American Federation of Labor President William Green said, "Colored labor is being sought to demoralize wage rates." The Davis-Bacon Act remains law. Modern rhetoric in support of it has changed, but its effects haven't. It continues to discriminate against nonunion construction labor. Most black construction workers are in the nonunion sector.
Walter Williams, Economic Fairness

Consumers Paid More for Food in 2011, CPI Data Show | CNSnews.com

This trend will favor Ron Paul in 2012.
The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) show that despite some decreases in the price of certain types of food, U.S. consumers paid more to eat overall in 2011.
Consumers Paid More for Food in 2011, CPI Data Show | CNSnews.com

Friday, December 23, 2011

Leo Tolstoi: If Christianity is true, then patriotism must 'by every means' be rooted out

If patriotism be good, then Christianity, as giving peace, is an idle dream, and the sooner we root it out, the better. But if Christianity really gives peace, and if we really want peace, then patriotism is a survival of barbarism, and it is not only wrong to excite and develop it, as we do now, but it ought to be rooted out by every means, by preaching, persuasion, contempt, ridicule. If Christianity be truth, and we wish to live in peace, then we must more than cease to take pleasure in the power of our country; we must rejoice in the weakening of that power, and help thereto.
Leo Tolstoi, Patriotism, or Peace?

Gibbs & Gibbs give a cautionary note on the Constitution

"As great as the Constitution is, and as much as it was influenced by the Bible and by the Godly men who wrote it, we must never put that document on the same level as the Bible. The Bible should be the only source upon which Christians base their duties and responsibilities toward both God and government. The Bible alone is to be the exclusive source of a Christian's belief about the role of government--nothing else. A Christian should not base his beliefs upon a source that is less than absolute. Anything other than the Bible is a flawed source."
Gibbs & Gibbs, Understanding the Constitution: Ten Things Every Christian Should Know About the Supreme Law of the Land

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Ron Paul's Inaugural Address, Written by His First (and Only) Speechwriter | Godfather Politics

In June of 1976, I was Ron Paul’s speechwriter. Shortly after I joined his staff as his newsletter writer and economic analyst, I recommended that he do what I had been doing for a year: buy a Code-A-Phone telephone answering machine and make a weekly 3-minute recording for people in his districts to call.
Ron Paul's Inaugural Address, Written by His First (and Only) Speechwriter | Godfather Politics

Sunday, December 18, 2011

A preview of the Paul-Obama debate



Ron Paul had Barack Obama's number in 2008 -- and he still does.

Quote from the 2008 clip above:
"Change" means nothing. It's just a word. And it's a cliche. And just to repeat it has no meaning. You have to say "what are you going to change?"

And I would argue: "You offer no change." You have the same foreign policy. You want more troops in Afghanistan. You're not talking about only going to war with a declaration. You don't want to deal with the monetary financial crisis in this country. You want to keep, you know, the system together for the benefit of banks and the big corporations and the politicians--you know, that argument.

And what kind of change do you have on social policy? Do you care about sick people using marijuana? I mean have you come out for that?

And I would just hit him hard on that he doesn't want change. He wants the status quo.

Christopher Hitchens on the Essence of Tyranny

“The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.”
Christopher Hitchens, quoted in Vanity Fair

Friday, December 16, 2011

Jacques Ellul on not being conformed to this world

"Nevertheless, over against involved Christians, we have to avoid falling into the trap of the dominant ideology of the day. As I have noted already, the church was monarchist under the kings, imperialist under Napoleon, and republican under the Republic, and now the church (the Protestant Church at least) is becoming socialist in France. This runs contrary to the orientation of Paul, namely, that we are not to be conformed to the ideas of the present world. Here is a first area in which anarchism can form a happy counterweight to the conformist flexibility of Christians."
Jacques Ellul, Anarchy and Christianity

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Dem lawmaker blasts ‘Professor Obama’ as arrogant, alienating - The Hill's Congress Blog

After observing President Obama for the last three years, it has become obvious to me that the president might prefer to be a university professor rather than do the job he holds today. While he might not realize that he feels this way, the evidence is very clear to those who work with or watch him closely.
Dem lawmaker blasts ‘Professor Obama’ as arrogant, alienating - The Hill's Congress Blog

Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin - The Hill's Pundits Blog

“[T]he state of Israel, with the GNP of a modern country, can easily do without aid that amounts to just one and one-half percent of its budget — aid for which Israel essentially surrenders its independence. Why do Israelis insist on developing a sense of imaginary dependence on the U.S. and Europe, specifically at the point that Israel is both economically and militarily vigorous? The answer to that question is not at all connected to Israel's military or economic capabilities. It is on a totally different plane.”
Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin - The Hill's Pundits Blog

Doctors Remember What Newt Gingrich (and GOP) did in 1996

Writes Jane M. Orient, M.D.:
Newt Gingrich and other Republicans promise to repeal ObamaCare, but doctors remember what they did in 1996. Just after they “defeated” ClintonCare, they changed its name and enacted the very worst parts of it.
She continues:
Republicans evidently don’t read the bills either. They appeared to be shocked when I called this addendum to their attention, and its remarkable similarity to parts of the Clinton plan. In fact, parts were practically a verbatim “cut and paste.”
And again:
Gingrich is a long-time advocate of “health information technology” (HIT). American medicine makes use of computerization in many ways, but Gingrich thinks it lags far behind Wal-Mart, and that a massive electronic changeover would greatly reduce costs and improve quality. Many physicians urge caution, as HIT has serious potential hazards for patient safety as well as privacy. Gingrich and many others appear to want to impose rapid implementation of government-dictated technology from the top down, without waiting for the free market to pick the winners and losers.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

"I don’t believe in this right-wing humanism"

In response to an article I wrote on Iranian nuclear capabilities (or the lack thereof), a commenter attempted to take me to task, so I wrote the following (much more is in the link):
"I don’t believe in this right-wing humanism."
Read the rest of the comment here

N.T. Wright on why the Jubilee Project is not a 'top-down' panacea

"But this project can never be a way of Christians imposing a solution on the world from a great height. It will be a matter of Christians who are involved with finance and economics, with banking and business, with foreign policy and government wrestling with the issues, often in a Gethsemane-like anguish in which the pain of the world and the healing love of God are brought together in prayer--in articulate prayer.

How easier, metaphorically, to escape to Qumran and say you're just a private Christian paying your taxes, not wanting to get involved in international finance--or to compromise with the present system and hope things will work out somehow; or to embrace a shrill and shallow agenda which doesn't take seriously the depth of the problem.

Some of you here are called to live in that Gethsemane so that the healing love of God may reshape our world through you at a crucial and critical time."
N.T. Wright, Jesus as the World's True Light

William Lane Craig on Atheistic Anti-Humanism

"On atheism there isn't any reason to think that humanism is true. Humanism is a faith commitment to the value of human beings in an atheistic universe.

And here my sympathies are entirely with the atheistic anti-humanists; namely, given atheism, I just don't see any basis to affirm that humanism is true.

Humanism historically is rooted in Christianity. It is because we are made in the image of God that human beings have intrinsic moral worth and God-given human rights. But once you remove God from the picture then all you're left with is the blind evolutionary process with all its contingencies and variabilities and instabilities and no basis for affirming humanism is right after all."
William Lane Craig, Atheistic Anti-Humanism podcast

The podcast was a response to this article: The atheistic critique of humanism has been all but forgotten

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Ron Paul “Hardly” agrees with Herman Cain on Federal Reserve


Watch video here

Washington (GoinsReport.com) – When asked whether he agreed with GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain on his suggestion that Federal Reserve should go back to a single mandate focusing on price stability, GOP Presidential Candidate Ron Paul said that he “hardly” agrees.

Price stability refers to the concept that prices levels are constant enough that people won’t take into account price inflation when making decisions as a consumer – not that the value of the dollar will remain the same.

On numerous occasions this year, including at the CNN-Tea Party Republican debate in September and during a press conference with reporters at TeaCon 2011, Herman Cain said that he did not want to end the FED but return it to a single mandate where the central bank allegedly only focused on price stability.

During the CNN Tea Party debate in September, Cain said “For many, many decades the FED did its job when it was singularly focused on sound money.”

At TeaCon 2011 he said, “it [the FED] really needs to just focus on monetary price stability the way it did from 1913 all the way up to the year 2000. It got off track when the federal national debt hit 14 trillion dollars and when foreign countries cooled off on buying our debt.”

After reading the quotes from Herman Cain, GoinsReport.com asked Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) “Do you agree with that analysis and do you agree with his history?”

Paul said: “Well, hardly. He’s part of the Federal Reserve System and I want to get rid of it. So he’s trying to patch it up. No, I wouldn’t agree with it.”

The Texas congressman made his remarks Wednesday morning (Nov. 16) after the 29th Annual Monetary Policy conference in Washington, DC.

In his speech Paul was skeptical of the idea moving the FED’s dual mandate of using monetary policy to maximize employment and achieving price stability to a single mandate focusing on price stability alone.

“Since I don’t like the Fed, I’m not interested in worrying about what the mandate should be because they’re not going to do it anyway,” Paul said.

“They’re mandate is that they’re supposed to have full employment. They’re failing there. They’re supposed to have stable prices. They’re failing there. So why do we have any trust whatsoever in what they do,” he continued.

He added that “deep down in their hearts” their real goal is to accomplish the liquidation of debt with inflation.

“That’s not too hard to understand that if they can get 50 percent inflation rate in a year or two that takes our $15 trillion debt and cuts it in half,” Paul said.

In his speech, Paul said that he would not end the Federal Reserve in one day because it will “eventually shut itself down” when it destroys the currency. Rather he will work to break the FED’s monopoly on issuing currency by legalizing sound money including gold and silver and repealing legal tender laws.

“My idea is sort of a copy of what Hayek’s had talked about,” he said. “Why don’t we denationalize money, legalize competition, allow free markets to work, allow free market banking to work?”

He added that we should repeal taxes on gold and silver and even allow private mints to issue gold.

GoinsReport.com also asked Mark Calabria, a Cato Institute policy scholar in attendance, to give his opinion about Herman Cain’s statements about the Federal Reserve.

Calabria answered in two parts.

On Herman Cain’s timing of when the Federal Reserve abandoned a policy of price stability he said, “I would disagree somewhat in that particularly during the 60s and 70s we where seeing double-digit inflation. We certainly weren’t seeing a very good track record from the Federal Reserve.”

He added that because of the FED’s involvement in the Great Depression, which is still debated by economists today, “it would probably be generous to say that the FED has been a success even half the time it’s been around.”

In support of that, he highlighted the FED’s role in contributing to the real estate bubble and stock market bubble in the 1920s. He also said that problems the FED got into in 60s and 70s were a result of abandoning price stability as their primary goal.

Additionally, he said that he agreed with Cain’s comments that if the FED focused on price stability alone then they would do a better job.

Calabria said the FED got off track “long before” the U.S. national debt hit $14 trillion, a point it hit in late 2010, and when foreign countries slowed their purchases of U.S. debt. He added that when the debt started to skyrocket “they got even more off track.”

For him, the Phillips curve framework where “they believe that a little more inflation gets them a little less unemployment” took the FED off track. As an example, he cited the Federal Reserve cutting interests rates after the dot-com bubble and again after Sept.11 out of concern for reducing unemployment.

Calabria recently testified in October before the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy and Technology Committee on Financial Services which Paul serves as chairman.

At the TeaCon 2011 press conference, Cain also said that the Federal Reserve System is not unconstitutional – a point in which Congressman Paul would sharply disagree with as well.

Rick Santorum has also said that he would, like Herman Cain, focus on bringing the Federal Reserve to a single mandate.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

NB Interview: Peter Schiff on Media and the Economy, OWS | NewsBusters.org

From the NewsBusters blog:
For conservatives, one of the bright spots of the Occupy Wall Street protests was when millionaire investor Peter Schiff went down to Zuccotti Park with video camera and a sign reading "I Am The 1% - Let's Talk."

On Tuesday, I had the pleasure of speaking with Schiff by telephone in a sweeping interview about his experience at OWS, how the financial media are doing, and ending with his rather frightening view of the economy and the future of our nation (video follows with transcript)
NB Interview: Peter Schiff on Media and the Economy, OWS | NewsBusters.org

Video: Cenk Uygur on Ron Paul: 'Ron Paul is Coming'

Video: Ron Paul Ad - Newt Gingrich Serial Hypocrisy 60 second

Monday, December 5, 2011

Ron Paul: 'I didn't know Trump had the ability to anoint people'

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul took a bit of a swipe at Donald Trump Sunday, saying he didn't quite understand the reality star's power status in the 2012 election.

"I don't understand the marching to his office. I didn't know he had the ability to lay on hands and anoint people," said Paul on CNN's "State of the Union."
Ron Paul Jabs Donald Trump: 'I Didn't Know He Had The Ability To Anoint People' | Huffington Post

Farmers Worry New Labor Rules Will End Teen Jobs | CNSnews.com

"Most kids my age don't even have jobs," said Taylor, who assists her father at one southwest Oklahoma farm and her grandparents at another. "We already know what hard work is."

Many other young kids won't be allowed to do those kinds of chores if the U.S. Labor Department approves new rules on children working in agriculture. While the Mullers would likely be exempt because it's a family business, the proposed rules would prohibit most children under age 16 from driving tractors, using power equipment, working with livestock in certain circumstances and doing work at heights over 6 feet.
Farmers Worry New Labor Rules Will End Teen Jobs | CNSnews.com

The Campaign for Liberty Article Archive


The Original Campaign for Liberty Article Archive

WCF Chapter One "Of Holy Scripture" Sunday School (Sept.-Oct. 2021)

Our text for Sunday School (also "The Confession of Faith and Catechisms") Biblical Theology Bites What is "Biblical Theology...