What I am suggesting is that the Constitution, if the letter of its law was obeyed, would be preferable to the government we have now. But we can't go back. If the Constitution itself was so good, it would have been obeyed from the very beginning. But near the very beginning, it was violated, and has been violated ever since. Whether from a self-perceived higher ethical law, or expediency, the Constitution will always be violated. It has not been, is not now, nor ever will be, a check on despotism. Yes, Americans will still think of themselves as free and therefore morally superior to other nations. But many public school students in the Soviet Union also used to think of themselves as free. Illusion is not reality, not even the grand illusion of our Constitution.Excerpt 2: Why Isn't the Constitution followed?
But it is not followed. Why is this so? It is because the ethical/religious views of the people and their rulers take precedence.Excerpt 3: Who is the New God? What Created Separation of Church and State?
North places great importance on the Oath, alleging that this, not the First Amendment, created the Separation of Church and State. No federal officer would have any "religious test," that is, will not be bound by an oath before the Trinitarian, Christian God. This was an about-face from the practice of all twelve of the states that sent delegates to the Convention (and, ironically, consistent with the principles of the one state that was a no-show: Roger Williams' Rhode Island.) The leading Founders were not orthodox, Trinitarian Christians, and their new Constitution was a break with the Trinitarian, Christian God and a new Covenant with a new God, the "People."Excerpt 4: The Challenge for Christians
Dr. North's approach may be incomprehensible to the unreligious. But his challenge to American Christians is remarkable. Western Christians, even if they try to resist the spirits of the age such as Marxism and Darwinism, must still confront their own Newtonian Modernism, and their innate belief that humans can somehow figure out the universe and play at least some role in saving themselves and society, instead of relying wholly on the infinite grace of the Triune God.Why the Constitution Isn't the Bible || James Leroy Wilson
Social conservatives need to decide: head-banging or the Constitution.A Constitutional Agenda for Social Conservatives by Gary North || LewRockwell.com
Social liberals want to free up head-banging in these five areas, so as to have more money to spend on head-banging in the areas of federal regulation of the economy.
The correct agenda for social conservatives is simple: vote for Congressmen and Senators who follow these rules: (1) Constitutional authorization of all laws; (2) reduced taxation; (3) budget in surplus; (3) debt reduction; (4) de-funding of the executive. In one phrase: Shrink the federal government. There is only one social conservative who favors this agenda.
It isn't Newt Gingrich.
Rothbard was a lucid writer. Few scholars have ever combined the paraphernalia of academia — footnotes galore — with the ability to write clearly. Rothbard added effective rhetoric; his writing was lively, which has never been common among economists. I once wrote that if the Nobel Prize in economics were awarded for clarity — as John Wayne aptly put it, "that'll be the day" — Rothbard should win it.Gary North, Murray Rothbard's Typewriter
"What all the enemies of the gold standard spurn as its main vice is precisely the same thing that in the eyes of the advocates of the gold standard is its main virtue, namely, its incompatibility with a policy of credit expansion. The nucleus of all the effusions of the anti-gold authors and politicians is the expansionist fallacy."Gary North, Mises on Money
Despite the understandable human tendency to help others, government spending cannot be a net creator of jobs. Indeed many efforts currently under consideration by the Administration and Congress will actively destroy jobs. These initiatives must stop. While it is easy to see how a deficit-financed government program can lead to the creation of a specific job, it is much harder to see how other jobs are destroyed by the diversion of capital and resources. It is also difficult to see how the bigger budget deficits sap the economy of vitality, destroying jobs in the process.How the Government Can Create Jobs by Peter Schiff
Just about everything that people think they know about labor unions and wage rates is wrong.Forgotten Facts of American Labor History by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
The standard tale that practically every student hears over the course of his education is that before the emergence of labor unions, American workers were terribly exploited and their wages were consistently falling. The improvement in labor's condition was due entirely or at least in large part to labor unionism and favorable federal legislation. In the absence of these, it is widely assumed, people would still be working 80-hour weeks and children would still be working in mines.
This oft-heard tale is, however, almost entirely false, and those parts of it that are true (the low standard of living that people enjoyed in the nineteenth century, for example) are true for reasons other than those alleged by pro-union historians, who see in them only confirmation of their prejudices against the market economy.
A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S. "He repeatedly asserted that the only way to drive the U.S. from the Muslim world and defeat its satraps was by drawing Americans into a series of small but expensive wars that would ultimately bankrupt them," Eric Margolis writes. "'Bleeding the U.S.,' in his words." The United States, first under George W. Bush and then Barack Obama, rushed right into bin Laden's trap... Grotesquely overblown military outlays and debt addiction... may be the most pernicious legacy of the man who thought he could defeat the United States" – particularly when the debt is being cynically exploited by the far right, with the collusion of the Democrat establishment, to undermine what remains of social programs, public education, unions, and, in general, remaining barriers to corporate tyranny.The Imperial Mentality and 9/11 by Tom Engelhardt and Noam Chomsky
That Washington was bent on fulfilling bin Laden's fervent wishes was evident at once. As discussed in my book 9-11, written shortly after those attacks occurred, anyone with knowledge of the region could recognize "that a massive assault on a Muslim population would be the answer to the prayers of bin Laden and his associates, and would lead the U.S. and its allies into a 'diabolical trap,' as the French foreign minister put it."
Japanese- and Chinese-Americans faced gross discrimination in our country, but when's the last time you heard them worrying about how many mayors and congressmen they have? Are they in a tizzy over the tea party's call for constitutional government, reduced spending and a balanced budget? By the way, Japanese- and Chinese-Americans have median family incomes higher than white Americans despite having no political power, even in areas where they are most numerousBlacks and Politics by Walter E. Williams
It is true that freedom is not certain to bloom in the post-protest world. Sometimes freedom comes in stages. Sometimes a worse regime can replace a bad one. But it is always an occasion to celebrate when the tyrant is overthrown. It is always a blow for liberty – no matter that the brutal State in question is officially supported by the US government.Lew Rockwell, For the Love of Liberty
I do not like this Uncle Sam, I do not like his health care scam.Lew Rockwell's Facebook
I do not like these dirty crooks, or how they lie and cook the books.
I do not like when Congress steals, I do not like their secret deals.
I do not like ex-speaker Nan, I do not like this 'YES WE CAN.'
I do not like this spending spree, I'm smart, I know that nothing's free.
I do not like their smug replies, when I complain about their lies.
I do not like this kind of hope. I do not like it. nope, nope, nope."
- Dr Seuss 2011
As I’ve shown in Rollback, the poverty rate in the United States fell from 95 percent in 1900 to around 12-14 percent in the late 1960s – a period in which government antipoverty measures were fairly trivial. By the late 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty programs began receiving substantial funding, the poverty rate stagnated. By 1994 it was about the same as it had been in the late 1960s, even though the federal government was by that time spending four times as much per capita as it had under LBJ.My Anti-Capitalist Twitter Critic by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Some politicians pooh-pooh calls for drilling, saying it would take five or 10 years to recover the oil and won't solve today's problems. Nonsense! I guarantee you that if permits were granted to all of our oil sources, we would see a reduction in today's prices.Let's Blame Speculators by Walter E. Williams
Why? Put yourself in the place of an OPEC member knowing there's going to be a greater supply of U.S. oil in five or 10 years, which might drive oil prices to a permanent $20 or $30 per barrel. What will you want to do now while oil is $120 per barrel? You would want to sell.
No wonder Obama got the Nobel peace prize from the Norwegian politicians. He has abolished war! From now on the US will only kill boatloads of people and spend vast amounts of your money on “kinetic military actions.”
So, all that being said, my short answer to the question of whether libertarianism is compatible with is religion yes. But since it would not be enough just to say "I am religious, I am libertarian, so the answer to the question has to be yes, thank you and good day," my long answer is what follows.
So, why do I think that religion – in this case the Christian religion – is compatible with libertarianism? Let me give you two verses of Scripture, one from the Old Testament and one from the New, since Christians accept the authority of both:
Proverbs 3:30 – "Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm."
1 Peter 4:15 – "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters."
These verses, my friends, embody the essence of libertarianism. Don’t kill anyone, don’t take what’s not yours, don’t do anyone wrong, don’t stick your nose in someone else’s business, and don’t bother anyone if he hasn’t bothered you.
Bernanke can get away with QE2 today only because commercial banks are not lending. If they start lending, M1 will rise, the M1 money multiplier will rise, and price inflation will return.
He has bought time with QE2, but he has not bought a way out of the credit bubble that Greenspan created and he created.
He can play hide and go seek with Ron Paul, refusing to show up at the hearings of the Monetary Policy Subcommittee. Congress cooperates. But he cannot play hide and go seek with the business cycle. Greenspan did, but he got out in 2006. He passed on the Old Maid to Bernanke.
Our text for Sunday School (also "The Confession of Faith and Catechisms") Biblical Theology Bites What is "Biblical Theology...
