Thursday, August 21, 2014

Weekend Reading

Over three weeks of selected articles on topics of collapse, foreign policy, death, decline and Libertarianism.  Basically all the worst parts of the bible.


Bret Stevens:

All of Obama's failures on the world stage are linked to his ideology.
And these are just the predictable consequences of the path we’ve been taking under Obama. What happens if there’s more bad news in store? If Vladimir Putin were to invade one, or all, of the Baltic states tomorrow, there is little short of nuclear war that NATO could do to stop him, and the alliance would stand exposed as the shell it has already become. Or...
David Horowitz:

Did you know over 500,000 people have been killed since Obama's re-election?
When Obama was re-elected in 2012, the very first thought I had was this: A lot of people are going to be dead because of this election. How disastrously right I was. Since their assault on George Bush and their sabotage of the war in Iraq, Obama and the Democrats have...
Mary Wisniewski:

A liberal media type tries to explain Libertarianism and the Tea Party.  Another fail, this time by mixing religious and conservative value types with Libertarians.  This is 'pro-Libertarian' in the sense the author wants to blur positions and encourage Libertarians into spoiling elections for Republicans.
...nearly 60 percent of libertarians oppose making it more difficult for a woman to get an abortion, while 58 percent of Republicans and those affiliated with the Tea Party favor such restrictions...
Christopher Caldwell:

A review of Wilson, a Scott Berg biography.  Obama wasn't the first totalitarian elected to the Presidency.  Quoting author Robert Nisbet:
I believe it no exaggeration to say that the West's first real experience with totalitarianism—political absolutism extended into every possible area of culture and society, education, religion, industry, the arts, local community and family included, with a kind of terror always waiting in the wings—came with the American war state under Woodrow Wilson.

The Justice Department worked with a network of 250,000 informers...
Jon Gabriel:

A response to Obama's weak effort at saving lives in Iraq.
The Obama Doctrine is to ignore problems until they metastasize into vast international crises, then react with an ineffective spasm of concern. In this, the President has been consistent, be it Libya, Egypt, Boko Haram or Ukraine. The truly serious situations get...
David Harsanyi:

David responds to a NY Time Magazine article about the  Libertarian movement.  His analysis is thorough, but would be called anti-Libertarian by... Libertarians.
Beating back people who stand in the way of gay marriage to make room for people who stand in the way of religious freedom and free association doesn’t exactly feel like a victory on the liberty front.
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So maybe the more apt political question should be: how do libertarians and social conservatives coexist? That hasn’t happened yet. Until it does...
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Millennials aren’t libertarians. They’re socialists who want to buy legal pot.
 David Stockman:


An interview with the former Reagan Director of OMB posted at ZeroHedge.  You may know one of my pet peeves is the gratuitous use of adjectives and metaphors by the sky-is-falling crowd.  But, I do appreciate concrete numbers as David offers here:
...when you take the balance sheet of the Fed from $900 billion to $4.5 trillion in less than 70 months, and when that pattern is replicated around the world, that is a train wreck in slow motion.  The only issue is, when does it hit the wall?  The answer to that question...
Ol' Remus:

Despite my pet peeve (see item above), I am a big fan of Ol' Remus.  He spins a good yarn.  I've come to believe what he says about the next bubble burst will come true.  My reasoning: we've over-extended ourselves (debt, QE, zero interest rates, etc.) during this time of peace that we will not have any tool left to grab. 
But still it goes up. One day it won't. The crash will be 2008 on afterburner because no one trusts anybody, no one honors anything, no one believes anything. The flash-crash will look stately by comparison. It'll be like being pushed out of a tree in the dark—pain and terror every inch of the way.
AESOP:

A fresh and welcome perspective on the oft-predicted coming "collapse."  Mutant Zombie Bikers:
If you dropped Topeka or Spokane into any of those places, there would be a militia, posses, a big wave of hangings, and shortly afterwards a thriving city-state, probably inclined to start conquering the savages nearby and exerting their influence in ever-widening ripples, because that's how we roll, going back to…
Sara Noble:

Sara posts the cartoon version of Hayek's The Road to Serfdom made by Mises.  Good article.  Good imagery.
Obama has another name for government over-regulation and over-taxation. He calls it economic patriotism.

It’s merely socialism in disguise.

Fred On Everything:

I'm a big fan of Fred.  When I find I disagree with him, I also find it difficult to argue against his conclusions.  A great writer with great articles and great books.  One of the best perspectives out there.
In all the things that once marked civilization, the United States has become a desert, a waste of self-satisfied, pampered, arrogantly ignorant sidewalk peasants. This is curious...
Ol' Remus:

Another one from the Woodpile Report.  Ol' Remus makes a good argument for not voting.  (We share his frustrations, but his advice is something we strongly recommend against!)
People don't form governments to be threatened, defrauded, lied to, defamed, robbed and abused. This stuff will stop only with a repeat of the transformation that rocked the world in 1789, on the first day of Constitutional government. Voting hasn't worked for a very long time and it doesn't work now. Unless the serial treachery of the past is undone, it isn't going to work in the future. Stop collaborating. Resist. Not voting is an act of resistance and resistance works. Collaborating with your abusers doesn't work...
PJ O'Rourke:

Let's finish on a fun note.  Whether you're pro or anti Libertarian, you'll appreciate this self-identified Libertarian's reaction to a recent Libertarian conference. 
Making fun of each other’s views is a libertarian sport, but not a blood sport. I remember from my leftist days a lot of screaming and yelling and indignant gettings-up and walkings-out at our meetings…

At the core of libertarian belief is the free market. But now everybody believes in that too, including Communist dictators in China…

What would be a good yard sign for a libertarian politician?

Vote for _______


He Can Give You Less

If we marched we’d go in all different directions.

We could host teach-ins. But what we’d teach is Econ. 101 and I doubt attendance would be large.

We could hold sit-ins...

Have a great weekend!

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