Tom Mullen's Blog | Critics on the left have quite correctly pointed out that Tea Party activists who oppose President Obama’s “socialism” are hypocritical in that they do not oppose Social Security for themselves. The most common rebuttal to this criticism is usually something along the lines of Social Security being fundamentally different because the recipients pay into it. However, this argument is no different than arguing for a right to steal your younger neighbor’s car because an older neighbor has stolen yours. Allow me to explain.
AngryHateMusic | You are downstairs and hear a loud crash and mumbled yelling! What thoughts would go through your head? For Todd Blair he was allowed no more than a few seconds to become aware of his situation.
GeorgeDonnelly | Good men are in chains. Ridicule is heaped upon them. It’s easy to get discouraged. But this is the lot of truth-tellers. This is the inevitable result of living the truth. Giving up now would only compound the crime. Don’t submit to disappointment and despair. Don’t abandon these good men, Pete Eyre and Adam Mueller. The mindless brutes may cage our bodies but they will never cage our minds. Only we have the power to permit that.
GonzoTimes | People believe that authority comes from ‘the consent of the governed.’ This is not true in the case of a state. What I am using is something that I learned from discussing and studying sexual abuse and rape. Consent is not the absence of a no, but the presence of a clear and freely given yes. The system works off of the idea that consent is the absence of a no. When a no is present the state defies the definition of consent in the later part. It is not freely given but given under duress. It works off of the idea that the absence of a no is consent and when a no is given there can be no freely given yes because that yes is not freely given but given out of fear of some retaliation. This is the nature of not only tyranny, but any other nice word we have invented for a governing body that currently exists.
CopBlock | In May of 2010, 18-year-old Jeremy Marks was charged with interfering with an officer, making criminal threats to an officer, and “attempted lynching” (i.e., attempt to start a riot). He was a bystander taking a cell phone video of Officer Erin Robles, a particularly aggressive officer, who bashed a 15-year-old boy’s head into a window because he was smoking a cigarette. Several other bystanders also recorded the encounter with their phones. The videos, including the one taken by Mr. Marks himself, do not indicate Mr. Marks even approached Officer Robles, much less made criminal threats, attempted riot, or otherwise interfered (see our original post here).
The Kolyma region (pronounced kah-ly-MAH) is located in the far north-eastern area of Siberia. The people of the Soviet Union feared Kolyma more than any other region of the Gulag Empire. "Kolyma znaczit smert" was the common phrase whispered at the time, and translates, without loss, to "Kolyma means death."
LostLibertyCafe | One of the most difficult – and essential – challenges faced by libertarians is the constant need to point out “the gun in the room.” In political debates, it can be very hard to cut through the endless windy abstractions that are used to cover up the basic fact that the government uses guns to force people to do what they do not want to do, or prevent them from doing what they do want to do. Listening to non-libertarians, I often wish I had a “euphemism umbrella” to ward off the continual oily drizzle of words and phrases designed to obscure the simple reality of state violence. We hear nonstop nonsense about the “social good,” the “redistribution of income,” the “education of children” and so on – endless attempts to bury the naked barrel of the state in a mountain of syrupy metaphors.
The United States is one big reservation, and we are all in it. So says Russell Means, legendary actor, political activist and leader for the American Indian Movement. Means led the 1972 seizure of the Bureau of Indian Affairs headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in 1973 led a standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, a response to the massacre of at least 150 Lakotah men, women, and children by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry at a camp near Wounded Knee Creek.
CopBlock | The court experience started off like normal with the emptying of your pockets and spreading them for the bailiff to ‘wand you’ which is always a good feeling. Then a few of us proceeded down the hall and into the court room. That’s when another bailiff called out to Pete to remove his hat and I turned on my camera.
LarkenRose | If you think politicians are there to serve you, watch this.
