Are libertarians Being Co-Opted Like the Tea Party Was?

In light of last night's announcement from Pres. Obama proclaiming that they had struck a deal with Iran to curb their nuclear enrichment program, supposedly in the interest of preventing Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon despite their repeated claims that they don't want one, I've seen some surprising reactions from those who run in libertarian circles.

Libertarians are supposed to be non-interventionists. Libertarians are supposed to believe in the Constitutionally granted power of a strong national defense, which they have traditionally interpreted to mean maintaining a strong defense at home by securing our borders but also by rejecting the notion of nation-building and entangling interventions abroad. I commonly use a quote by America's 6th president, John Quincy Adams,

"America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."

Libertarians rallied around Ron Paul's message of non-intervention and his criticism of the United States' counterproductive foreign policy in the 2008 and 2012 elections. I was immediately drawn to this message myself. As I admitted in my last blog, I was fooled by the empty promises of Obama when he was campaigning. I believed his anti-war rhetoric and thought we would reverse the damage done during the Bush years. When I realized fairly quickly that Obama had no intention of reversing course and, in fact, doubled down on many of Bush's policies, I went searching for new answers and found Ron Paul.

In his debates during the 2012 primary, Ron Paul was asked many times how he would handle a nuclear Iran. In characteristic departure from the heavy intervention and tactics favored by the rest of the field, Dr. Paul had this to say,

"To declare war on 1.2 billion Muslims and say all Muslims are the same, this is dangerous talk. Yeah, there are some radicals. But they don't come here to kill us because we're free and prosperous. Do they go to Switzerland and Sweden? I mean, that's absurd. If you think that is the reason, we have no chance of winning this. They come here and they explicitly explain it to us. The CIA has explained it to us. They said they come here and want to do us harm because we're bombing them."

When pressed about it further on some of the talk show circuits, Paul expounded on his philosophy of non-intervention and said we might try a different approach with Iran, perhaps offering friendship and diplomacy instead of sanctions and war. "Didn't we talk to the Soviets? Didn't we talk to the Chinese? They had thousands of these weapons." He also warned that all this war talk with Iran sounded an awful like the same propaganda used in the lead up to the disastrous war with Iraq.

That's why I'm surprised to see so many bellicose comments towards Iran and Obama's handling of the situation coming from joiners in some libertarian circles. Prominent liberty movement figure Libertarian Girl posted the Politico release about the new deal with Iran. The comments that ensued were eye-opening to say the least.

  
The above comments are comments that I would expect to see on someone following Sean Hannity's feed or Lindsey Graham's. But these were taken from Libertarian Girl's own feed. I don't believe these were trolls, either. I believe these were people who either consider themselves libertarian or who believe they have enough common cause with libertarians and with what Libertarian Girl has to say to follow her page.

This phenomenon wasn't just unique to Libertarian Girl, either. Another prominent libertarian advocate is Julie Borowski. She often tries to engage dialogue on her page by asking questions to encourage thoughtful commentary and civil discussions amongst libertarians and curious bystanders. In response to the news of the Iran deal, she asked her followers if they would be willing to send their own children off to fight in a war with Iran. Here are some of the responses she got:

Hmmm, this is a far cry from the calls for friendship and diplomacy that Ron Paul was advocating for during the Republican primaries. What's happened? Have so-called libertarians found a special exception to the Non-Aggression Principle in its treatment of Iran? We managed to see through the war propaganda that was thrown at us with Iraq, Libya, and Syria, but now all of a sudden our leaders are trustworthy when it comes to Iran? Why wouldn't we be applauding diplomacy measures with Iran?

Granted, there are certain details in this recent agreement that give me pause, like the fact that we have to bribe them with $4.2 billion dollars for their adherence to this agreement. Some have tried to portray this move as a nefarious play by our Muslim-loving Muslim president to undermine American interests by actually paying Iran with our own money to finish building a bomb.

While I certainly have no love for Obama, nor do I trust him or his administration, I don't see this deal as some backdoor green-light for Iran to build a nuclear bomb during this time frame financed by America's own money. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory and Israel is not, countries are allowed to pursue peaceful uses of nuclear energy under the vigilance of the IAEA and have promised to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament. The deal struck between the P5+1 would partially lift sanctions and allow Iran to continue enriching uranium at levels deemed allowable in pursuance of the NPT.

But this post isn't meant to be a piece-by-piece analysis of what the new deal does and doesn't do and what it all means. I was inspired to write this piece based on the aggressive reactions I've seen from those who either claim to be libertarians or who run in libertarian circles. Reactions that, to me, would be more typical of a neoconservative, Allen West-worshipping Republican than proteges of a movement inspired by Ron Paul.

In the Twitterverse where things are much more anonymous than they are on Facebook, people tend to group themselves based on interests. Given that I am on Twitter as my blog and not as myself (although really there wouldn't be much difference), my Twitter list is dominated by libertarians, libertarian groups, and various other news agencies, journalists, and political figures.

Every Friday on Twitter is #FollowFriday where people recommend other Twitter users that one should "follow" based on their interests. In the libertarian circles, John Yowan has a long-standing #FollowTrain that he tweets out every Friday encouraging fellow libertarians to band together, retweet, and follow other fellow libertarians. Many of my followers and those who I'm following have come from those follow trains.
 
 

This is a libertarian follow train. If you're a #libertarian retweet this and follow the other libertarians that retweet this. Lets network!
— John Yowan (@Yowan) November 22, 2013

While I've known that there are certain people who participate in the libertarian follow train who aren't purely libertarians (I've seen some identify themselves as "conservatarians"), I didn't realize the extent to which it's been co-opted until news of this Iranian nuclear deal was announced. All of a sudden, my Twitter feed is blowing up with Tweets like this:

Netanyahu Slams Obama Push For Second Jewish Holocaust: More Iran Sanctions, Not Fewer http://t.co/lDpIMRZ4Bq via @patdollard
— Jan Pleasants (@Jantxnc) November 24, 2013

And this: 

Yes, yes #Iran will follow rules, because we all know they have done that before...NOT!
— Karen Austin (@CowgirlKarenTX) November 24, 2013

Does this mean libertarian ranks are being infiltrated? I'm not sure. A more probable explanation is that conservatives who have identified common cause with many libertarian views have felt comfortable running in the same circles so long as the focus is held on the ineptitude of Obama and his administration. Rather than embracing the ideology of libertarianism, which is rooted in its advocacy and adherence to the Non-Aggression Principle, some conservatives are just joining ranks with other anti-Obama like-minded people.

While coalition building is generally positive, libertarians must beware of what happened to the Tea Party when mainstream Republicans took it over. Originally founded as a result of the government bailouts after the housing crisis, the Tea Party was founded on the basis of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets. However, it didn't take long for the original intent of the Tea Party, due to its initial popularity, to be overrun by stock-standard, run-of-the-mill Republicans who wanted to jump aboard the popular movement without truly understanding the principles behind it. Soon after, Tea Partiers were showing up at rallies with "Donald Trump 2012" rally signs, hardly the icon of Constitutional governance or fiscal responsibility!

The problem with libertarian ranks being co-opted by the Tea Partiers who, in turn, were co-opted by mainstream Republicans, is that our message gets diluted and lumped together with all the other right wing talking points that the leftists want to bash. They then make no distinction between the corporatism that mainstream Republicans favor and the free-market that libertarians embrace. They think the libertarian cry to end unconstitutional federal programs is to enrich corporations, not because of our objections to the moral issues of force and violence used to steal money to fund these programs.

We also need to continue being the voices of reason on the foreign policy front and not get taken in by the fear-mongering by the same voices who led us to war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and almost Syria. If we opposed going to war in Syria because we didn't consider them an imminent threat, then we have no business getting involved in Iran just because they want to pursue nuclear energy possibilities for their country as allowed by the NPT. If we are clamoring to bring troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan because we're bankrupt and can't afford it, then we can no more afford to start another prolonged engagement in Iran. 

It's important that our message of non-aggression and non-intervention into people's lives stays separate from mainstream conservatism (unless, of course, they want to embrace it for themselves). Because if there's any hope left for this nation, it's in providing an alternative to the broken 1-party system masquerading as a 2-party system. We can't do that if people can't tell the difference between the libertarian message and the Republican message anymore.

What do you think, are libertarians being co-opted? Is it a positive sign for the rising tide of libertarianism that other conservatives want to join in our ranks or do we need to be wary of such alliances? Let me know in the comments!

Confessions of a Former Liberal

Yep, that was me. If any of you have taken the time to read my ‘About This Blog’ tab over on the side, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. Growing up, politics was not on my radar whatsoever. I was a Dean’s list student and also a nationally competitive two-sport athlete. I had a part time job. I didn't grow up in a very political family. My mom wasn’t overtly political, although she was one of the original feminists from back in the 70s and would pass off some of those beliefs to me. But I wasn't always passionate about politics. It took two disastrous presidencies, a decade of continuous war, and the systemic erosion of our civil liberties right before my eyes before I finally "woke up" as they say. 

I remember as early as 8^th grade, I was sitting in my science class and that day was a special day because instead of class, we all had to take some sort of big long survey. The survey included questions about your behavior and beliefs at the time, things like “How often do you smoke?” “Do you do drugs?” “What kinds?” “How often?” “Have you ever had sex?” and so forth. These were completely anonymous to ensure honest answers. In my view, the anonymity gave me complete cover to lie through my teeth. I guess I was pretty cheeky even back then because I answered all the questions about as falsely as you could. Some statistician out there was probably horrified to learn that there was an 8^th grader out in the world who had sex every day in her mom’s bed after school but only after getting high and raiding the liquor cabinet. Not to mention the 3 cartons of cigarettes I smoked per week in between all of my Satan worship. 

I was having a giggle at my minor act of defiance, even tapping my lab bench partner to point and snicker at all my off color answers. She just looked at me partially horrified even though she knew I was kidding around. Finally I got to a question that stumped me. It asked something along the lines of “Politically, do you consider yourself a conservative or a liberal?” That one made me furrow my brow. I’d never thought about it. I was13, what did I know about politics? But the little sheet demanded an answer so I reasoned it out. Well, I’m pretty funny and generally outgoing. I’m captain of my soccer team. I ran for student council. Heck, according to these answers I’m a little misfit! And even if I really wasn’t, the mere act of filling it out as such must merit something. Given my 8^th grade knowledge of the definitions of ‘conservative’ and ‘liberal’, I surmised that I certainly wasn’t conservative, or shy, by any stretch of the imagination therefore I must be a liberal*! 

Fast forward all through high school where I had zero political knowledge or interest outside of a watching a few snippets of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal unfold and now I get to college. Being at the end of the alphabet lottery for that semester, I got my last choice for freshman year seminar, Violence of Everyday Life of Latin America. Boy was it an awakening. It was taught by probably the most liberal professor on campus (and that’s saying something for a college campus) and I learned all about the dirty little wars the US had been in and the role the US played in installing dictators and puppet governments all throughout Latin and Central America who then turned around and killed or disappeared thousands of their own citizens. Talk about something you never, ever learn about in your normal K-12 education!

I went to a good public high school and was in all of the Advanced Placement classes, yet had never acquired this depth of knowledge, nor were these type things discussed in my household. My professor would pepper our lessons about Latin America with other typical liberal hot button issues: garbage and climate change, evil corporations, poverty, and so forth. It was everything I thought college would be: an intellectual revolution. I was learning about concepts and events I'd never studied before and the veil that shrouded the world during my public school education had finally been lifted. Or so I thought. 

I wasn't so lucky.

See here's the thing. If you think back about your education, what is the one constant that you get whatever grade you're in? You get some form of social studies, government, or US history class, right? Every public holiday like President's Day or Columbus Day or Veteran's Day provides multiple excuses per year to remind every school child in America just how great America is, how great every president we've ever had was, why every war we were ever in was good and justified and how we made the world a better place by being involved in such wars. We honor State figures. We don't honor entrepreneurs and innovators like Steve Jobs, who has probably done more to better America and the world than almost any president, the same way we do statesmen.

This freshman seminar of mine was eye-opening. It was the first time I had heard in any phase of my education that maybe America wasn't all around great, grand, and wonderful in every aspect. I finally heard about the seedy side of American history, the stuff that the 80% of Americans who don't attend college were never taught in all their years of K-12 schooling. I learned big words like 'hegemony'. Which is cool, I mean, that's what college is for right? And I was so enamored and excited to finally be learning, as opposed to the usual school method of memorizing and regurgitating, that I soaked up whatever I was told. My professor would trot out other liberal talking points and by virtue of my almost never having studied them or learned about them all through public school, I soaked them in like I did all the info about America's dirty wars and pursuit of worldwide hegemony. And thus a liberal was born. 

Apparently it wasn't just me, however. What I find interesting is that, while I still don't think that my university would rank as one of the most liberal universities out there, nonetheless I'd say that out of the people I'm still acquaintances with from college I would say that fully 75% of them or more are liberals. Did they start off that way or did they become that way through the university process? I don't know. But I'll take a guess as to why this is in just a minute.

Several years later after enduring a terrible Bush presidency and excited for some Hope and Change, it took just a couple of years into Obama's first term when I started to realize that he didn't seem to be cashing in on any of his campaign promises. In fact, I recognized him as engaging in the same behaviors, or even exacerbating them, as his predecessor. In the interest of being intellectually honest, I realized that I couldn't support Obama for doing or saying the exact same things that I criticized George Bush for. So I found myself in political limbo. I was seeking answers. I was confused. I turned to my comfortable liberal haven, reading books by Ralph Nader and agreeing with what the problems were but feeling his solutions were lacking.

My husband suggested expanding my circle and reading something outside of the box, perhaps on the other side of the spectrum. I had a think and remembered a friend posting a few things about Ron Paul during the 2008 election. At that time, I looked at his webpage for about 2 minutes in an attempt to "inform" myself before deciding his ideas didn't make any sense and dismissing him. Other than that, I didn't know much about him. So I picked up his book, Revolution: A Manifesto, and much like my first course in college, my mind was blown. 

Dr. Paul was talking about things no other politician ever talked about, like the Federal Reserve and how it contributes to all of our economic instability. It made perfect sense in context of our recent housing bust. If I had heard anything about the Federal Reserve at all before (very seldom), it was usually talked about as just another integral part of the government like the Supreme Court or House of Representatives, not some insidious institution created in secret for the benefit of a few bankers and their well-connected friends. 

I appreciated Dr. Paul's policy of non-intervention in foreign affairs. Finally, someone who sounded like he practiced what he preached! I was pleased to find out that he thought the War on Drugs was a waste of time and money as well. Furthermore, he didn't pull any punches when talking about the debt, entitlements, or anything else and he didn't demagogue the issues like a standard politician usually does. 

Lastly, how many politicians can you say genuinely inspired you to learn more about economics? Economics was yet another hole in my education that a mere one semester as a high school senior hardly filled. No more! Hayek, Hazlitt, Mises and more now filled my reading list due to the interesting and common sense ideas of theirs that Dr. Paul touched upon in his book.

You see, here's the other thing about the typical American public education. As I mentioned before, we get educated about government and US history and important political figures almost every day for the entire duration of our primary and secondary education. Government did this, government created this program, this President was responsible for this, and so on. Yet in all your years of education, can you remember any significant schooling on free market principles? On entrepreneurship? Did you learn about how capitalism has improved the standard of living for people worldwide or were you taught that businessmen like Carnegie and Rockefeller were robber barons who exploited workers for personal gain? Were you ever taught about the Constitution? If so, was this put into any real world context i.e. well according to the 4th Amendment we have an expectation of privacy and the government can't seize our belongings or spy on us without a warrant but the Patriot Act violates that? Did you ever do a thought exercise encouraging you to brainstorm private sector or individual alternatives to government run institutions? Are you ever taught at any time and at any level that government just might be the cause of and not the solution to many of the problems we face today? I bet not.

Even in my senior year econ class, all I remember learning about is There Is No Such Thing As a Free Lunch and some general supply and demand curves. Econ was just something you had to take for a few weeks as almost a crash course in "here's how the world out there operates" before they shoved you out into the real world. As for the rest, well, I wrote a lot of papers in school. I did many presentations, both group and individual. I did some chemistry. I took lots of tests (oh Scantron, how I don't miss you). I read lots of Shakespeare (why is Shakespeare still considered required reading?). And yet something that I learned almost nothing about was running a business. You never learn anything about prices and wages, about how and why they rise and fall (hint: it's not by government decree). You don't learn about taxes and taxation or how to file a tax return. You don't hear anything about inflation. For all the time we spend on government for 12 years you never hear boo-diddly about the Federal Reserve (at least not back then, I don't know if things have changed more recently). No, it's not one of the official branches of government but for an institution that controls the monetary policy for the entire country and, by default, the world, it certainly does a good job of remaining in the shadows and out of the realm of public discussion (by design, I'm sure). 

Supposedly that's all considered "higher education". The basic functioning of an economy, how it grows and why it crashes, is way too complicated for the majority of the citizens to understand, or so we're made to believe. It's reserved for university study and only if it's in a field of interest for you. If it's not part of your field of study, then even with all your higher education you still have no knowledge of capitalism or a free market. You get 12+ years of government education at government schools and maybe about 4 total months of any sort of business or economics education in your life. Given all this, is it any wonder that the vast majority of people look to government for the answers to everything? Is it any wonder that there are so many economic illiterates out there who think that prosperity comes from the barrel of a gun pointed at you by the government? Who think that the way to enrich everyone is to just steal the wealth and property of anyone and everyone and hand it out to those specially protected government groups and businesses? Is it any wonder that generations of people who've systematically never been exposed to the ideas of liberty are reluctant to embrace them? Not really. But all that is slowly but surely changing.  

It only took me one reading of Ron Paul's book for the liberty light bulb to switch on in my head. Here were some ideas that had never been presented to me before and yet they immediately took hold. They filled in the gaps where I felt the liberal ideology fell short and what I saw as a flaw in government when I recognized Obama as pursuing many of the same misguided policies as Bush, despite his promises to the contrary. It only took me a few election cycles to realize that no matter who you put in office, nothing really changes, and libertarianism explained why. 

I felt that, like me, most people just had never been introduced to the ideas of liberty and once they were informed about them (I mean, as Americans we're supposed to cherish freedom and liberty, right?) that most people would see the light. Boy have I been proven wrong. One does not overcome a lifetime of government indoctrination as easily I did. But then again, I have a history of marching to the beat of my own drum. That doesn't mean I will stop trying. That's the purpose of this blog. It's not big, but it gets enough hits every time that I hope it will open some eyes along the way. Freedom is worth fighting for. Liberty is achievable. The free market is beautiful. I hope that I'm able to do my small part to help open some eyes and create a few "former liberals" or "former Republicans" along the way.

Are you a former something or other? What did you or didn't you learn in school that shaped (either rightly or wrongly) your views? Leave a comment and tell me about it!

*As an aside, I think the names used to describe political ideologies themselves i.e. "conservative" and "liberal" work against anyone who believes in limited government. The connotations are all wrong. Much like what my experience taught me, what normal teenage kid, whether they know a lick about politics or not, wants to think of themselves as "conservative"? Adolescence is nothing if not a series of events trying to prove how cool, avant garde, and rebellious one is. If a teenager were to organically drift over to the political realm and were curious to find out more, do you think they would be enticed to learn more about "liberals" and "progressives" or "conservatives"? The labels work against us. Perhaps the label of "libertarian" will garner a few more inquisitive minds but I think something liberals/progressives/Democrats do substantially better than the conservative/Republican side is branding and messaging. It's something limited government supporters need to figure out if they have any hope of growing their ranks.    




 

 

WWE's Kane, Tom Woods, and Taxation

I've been enjoying being back in the US again for the last couple of months for many reasons. Those who have bothered to read my bio, which is displayed next to every post of mine, might have noticed that my profession is as a yacht crew member. I live and work on a big boat and travel the world while catering to the whims of the world's rich and not-so famous. It's pretty cool--usually.

A couple of the things that I've enjoyed doing while being in between seasons in the US recently is getting my daily dose of liberty from two of my favorite truth-tellers and liberty lovers, Peter Schiff and Tom Woods. Peter Schiff has a daily radio show from 10am-noon every weekday and Tom Woods has just started his own radio show in the last month which airs directly after Peter's; best 150 minutes of my day! Normally when I'm abroad, either the internet connection is too slow, non-existant, or I'm too busy to listen in to the shows during the day, so I've really relished this opportunity these last 2 months to regularly get information on current events from people I trust.

The other day on the Tom Woods Show, he hosted WWE wrestler "Kane", real name Glenn Jacobs, who has recently become more and more vocal about his libertarian viewpoints, appearing on radio shows and writing op-eds in newspapers, most notably on the subject of the Internet Tax Mandate, known elsewhere by the Orwellian title of the Marketplace Fairness Act.

As most of Woods's interviews are, this was engaging and enlightening with well thought out questions which were answered intelligently by Jacobs. They covered much of the usual ground, including how Jacobs became a libertarian and what his colleagues in the locker room thought of him and his view points. About midway through, Jacobs touched upon an important point that resonated strongly with me and with Woods as well. He mentioned that as part of the WWE he is employed as a subcontractor and not as an employee of the company and as such is not subject to tax withholding. Tom mentioned that he is in a similar situation since he has no set income stream like wage workers and salaried employers have and therefore has to file quarterly taxes like many other self-employed workers have to.

I count myself in this group. My husband and I have our own S-corporation and are employed as subcontractors to our boss. We formed this business a little over two years ago once we got married since my husband is Australian. Previously, I was issued a 1099 by my employers and paid taxes that way. My husband was not required to pay US tax.

Jacobs mentioned in his interview that if he ever were elected to be President or, more appropriately, Dictator for a day, the first thing he would do would be to eliminate federal tax withholding. If you get a regular paycheck from a company or corporation, your paycheck is automatically deducted a certain amount for Social Security, Medicare, and various other taxes. If you're making $48k/year, you don't get $1000/week as a paycheck (for the sake of simplicity let's assume only 4 weeks in a month). You probably only get about $800 of that. But you don't even notice the amount that's taken away from you. Psychologically, it was never yours to begin with so you don't even miss it.  Maybe you never even see a paycheck, you just get a direct deposit.

Now imagine getting your entire $1000 paycheck every week like clockwork. Instead of $3200/month, that's an entire $4000/month, wow! That's almost an entire extra mortgage payment per month! You see your bank account accumulating quickly, you see those student loans getting paid down, you see a nice beach vacation in your future with the kids, you see trading in the car you've had since college for a newer model, you see being able to help your brother with a small loan, you see putting down an appropriate 20% down payment for a new home. Oh but wait, March comes around and June and September and December and greedy Uncle Sam needs his handout. But instead of just $200 dollars that you give each paycheck, you realize that those little $200 increments that you might not have noticed too much when it was getting taken out of your paycheck every week and was never "yours" to begin with have now added up to $2400, which you noticed very much as it sat in your bank account and were mentally imagining how you could spend it. But <poof!> just like that it's gone, never to be seen again! Beach vacation, gone! New car, gone! college loan payments, never-ending! New home, not in this decade!

I should know, this is what happens to me four times a year. I've joked to numerous friends and family how I could single-handedly support the economy if I were allowed to keep that money myself. We wouldn't have needed to bailout Detroit and the auto giants over there if I and everyone else like me had those several thousand dollars per quarter back in our bank accounts with which to spend how we see fit (possibly on new cars).

When Jacobs and Woods were both talking about mandatory withholding, I was standing there with my earbuds in my ears, hands in the air, shouting "Preach!" Can you imagine how pissed people would be if they saw that huge chunk of change leave their bank account four times a year? And yet nobody bats an eye when a small portion is taken every week or two weeks. Trust me, psychologically it makes a HUGE difference when you see how much you could have had, what you yourself could be doing with your own money, and then you have to give it away to anonymous bureaucracies for unknown purposes. If you'd never questioned the system before, it might seriously give you pause for a second to wonder if the government really knows better than you do how to spend your money. You might recognize and realize a) how much they're actually taking from you  and b) what you could have spent that money on yourself if the government hadn't decided it was more important for them to have it. Maybe, just maybe, if people were able to keep their whole paycheck they would have enough money to save for their own retirement and wouldn't be forced to pay for someone else's. Maybe, just maybe, if people were able to keep their whole paycheck we wouldn't have had to force banks to make subprime loans to questionable buyers who couldn't afford to put a down payment down on a house because those people might actually have had the money with which to put a down a reasonable down payment. But our government thinks we're all too stupid to be trusted with our own money.

Yes, safety nets, yes roads, blah blah blah. But what about all the useless bullshit that we have to pay for? Bridges to nowhere, corporate subsidies, illegal wars, bogus university "research" studies, 800,000

"non-essential" government employees, etc. Ah yes, but you see, overlord Nancy Pelosi would have us believe that "the cupboard is bare" and "there are no more cuts to make" in terms of our federal spending. So too bad to all the peons out there who thought that they'd worked hard for their money and deserved a new home or who worked hard for their money and wanted to take a vacation for the first time in years. No, you must keep working hard, citizen, but not for your own benefit. You must keep the piggies in Washington happy.

If it were up to me, I'd have a bubble sheet like they do with private sector fundraisers where you can direct where you want your money to be spent. I'm betting that most people would not elect to have their hard-earned money going towards the studies of duck genitalia or training Chinese prostitutes to drink more responsibly. But as soon as you start talking about cuts in government, you immediately get accused by both politicians and citizens alike of hating the poor, wanting to throw granny off the cliff, or wanting terrorists to attack America. We the People have been fooled into thinking that our federal government only has 5 programs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, food stamps, and defense, and that any proposed cuts in government will automatically leave any or all of those programs vulnerable. They've fooled us, with the help of our complicit media, into thinking that every dollar we send to the federal government is sacred and if we spend even .50 cents less than what we're spending now, the country will self-implode. In other words, no vacation for you, citizen! If you'd rather take your money and go on vacation than send it to the federal government, you're just a greedy, heartless SOB who hates poor and sick people. That's just a fact.

I'll tackle more on taxation in another article. In the meantime, do a little experiment yourself. If you actually get a paycheck, a physical paycheck where you can see what they're withholding from you, do the math yourself. Figure out how much money gets withheld per paycheck, then figure out how much money gets withheld over a 3 month time frame (quarterly). And then ask yourself if you think it would make any difference seeing this money in your bank account month after month and then having to write a check and send it all away. Or does it not make a difference to you one way or another? Let me know in the comments below!

In case you missed it above, here is the link where you can listen to the Tom Woods interview with WWE wrestler "Kane".

Living in an Orwellian World

Most people are at least tangentially familiar with the writings of George Orwell, whose most popular works had recurring themes of authoritarian or totalitarian societies. They were incisive in their observations of how these societies formed and in imagining what one might look like in the future. But while Orwell was providing what surely he thought was an outlandish futuristic dystopia, little did he know that many elements of his fictional universe have by and large come to fruition. 

In his book 1984, which was published in 1949, Orwell imagined a total surveillance society in which an enigmatic Big Brother was watching over everyone through a network of informants eager to rat out their neighbors and omnipresent electronic surveillance. This novel popularized the concept of doublespeak, in which words are deliberately disguised, distorted, or reversed to make the truth sound more palatable or to disguise the actual nature of the truth. The common uses of doublespeak in Orwell's 1984 were: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.
Doublespeak is alive and well today, arguably stronger than ever, and I'm going to highlight just a few of the myriad ways in which ours has become an Orwellian society.

WAR IS PEACE
There are more than enough examples of this in our American foreign policy to fill an encyclopedia sized book, but I'll just highlight a few of the most glaring examples. Often you'll hear politicians, mainly Republicans, define their foreign policy beliefs as "Peace Through Strength". What this really means is that we'll achieve peace as soon as the rest of the world falls in line with the American way and if not we'll drop bombs on you until you install a puppet government that will. Peace Through Strength.

Uber war hawk Lindsay Graham was recently fear-mongering in his home state of South Carolina in efforts to drum up support for war in Syria, issuing warnings that if we don't go drop some bombs on Iran immediately if not sooner then they'll send a nuclear bomb in the belly of a ship to Charleston within the next year. So you see, to ensure world peace, we must go fight them on their own turf before they bring the war to us. Nevermind that Iran has military expenditures less than Algeria's and a mere one-tenth of what the USA spends or that there is zero proof that Iran is even contemplating a nuclear bomb despite what the talking heads on the MIC funded news shows would have you believe. Lindsay Graham believes that to achieve world peace, we must go bomb Iran back to Baghdad. WAR IS PEACE.

Speaking of war in Syria, that was another Orwellian attempt to draw the U.S. into yet another unnecessary, unclear, and unwinnable foreign entanglement based on the dubious premise that Assad used chemical weapons on his own people. Even if this were true, which it remains unclear who actually released the gas, what would this predicted "limited" and "narrow" strike possibly have achieved? Just to teach Assad a lesson? That's like a parent disciplining her child for hitting their sibling by giving them a spanking. Violence is wrong! <spank, spank>. Or, to put it crudely, bombing for peace is like fucking for virginity.

 The scary thing is that millions of people believe this crap! Our government has got us so scared of jihadists under our bed that we'll consent to any military action, no matter how absurd or costly, in the name of fighting terrorism. The terrorists we trot out daily in the government media talking points are the equivalent of 1984's imagined enemy Emmanuel Goldstein, except instead of 2 minutes of hate we get 24/7 hate with our non-stop brainwash box. The war machine is strong in America and the Obama presidency should have woken everybody up that it's not just the Republicans that are capable of warmongering, the Democrats, too, are beholden to the military industrial complex. They just give war a more flowery, lovey dovey, humanitarian spin while their constituency temporarily forgets that the outcome is still the same. WAR IS PEACE.

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
The more our out of control government senses its hegemony being threatened by various factions, the more bellicose its words and actions become. Take, for example, the recent debt ceiling crisis. You had Tea Party Republicans, Constitutionalist conservatives, and libertarians all on one side versus the rest of the Establishment/RINOs of the Republican party and the Democrats on the other in a debate as to whether we should fully fund Obamacare and raise the debt ceiling. The disagreement resulted in the government's being "shutdown" for two weeks which was, for the most part, blamed on the Republican "Tea Tards" or "tea baggers". The left-wing media framed it as "holding America hostage" and "domestic terrorism".

Just recently, outspoken Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen from Tennessee called the Tea Party "domestic enemies" and said that these are the people he swore an oath to defend the country against. How Orwellian. Fellow bloggers at Liberty Blitzkrieg do a good job of breaking this statement down. In regards to Cohen's professed oath to defend the country against enemies foreign and domestic:

First of all this is incorrect. The oath of office for members of Congress is:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. [So help me God.]

Did you catch that? The oath quite intentionally states to defend the “Constitution” not the “country.” This phasing was no accident.  The difference is what separates a nation governed by the rule of law (the Constitution), as opposed to the rule of men (a nation state run by dictators). It is what separates a free and civilized nation from a barbaric fascist one. Rep. Cohen paraphrased the oath of office incorrectly for a reason. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he believes in the rule of men, not the rule of law. He thinks his “brand” should rule and those who share different beliefs are “domestic enemies.” That’s one small step away from calling them “terrorists,” and we all know the gigantic gulag grid that has been put in place to deal with “terrorists.” This man is very dangerous.

They are absolutely correct in their analysis. What Rep. Cohen and many of his cohorts on the left will have you believe, in true Orwellian fashion, is that those who dare uphold the Constitution (truly and not selectively) and invoke it as their justification for opposing clear government overreach are the real enemies of freedom here. Freedom means letting the government do whatever it wants in defiance of any heretofore prescribed laws or amendments. Freedom means allowing the government to place the shackles of debt on every man, woman, and child in this country. Freedom means allowing the government to conduct mass, warrantless spying on the entire country at any time and for any reason. To oppose that is nothing more than "domestic terrorism". FREEDOM IS SLAVERY.

In a similar fashion, one of the State worshippers over at Salon warned his readers not to join in on an upcoming anti-NSA rally being held in D.C. this weekend. Not because they aren't against government spying, but because they can't possibly share the stage and form a coalition with the "radical" "extreme" "anti-government" libertarians. We can't have any of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" nonsense. I could say a lot more about this but I'll get to the part that literally made me LOL. Deep down in the article, after he got through explaining all of the dangerous beliefs of libertarians using their own words from their own websites, we get to this gem:

 "Or libertarianism itself will rise, and our loss of liberty will be greater still. That’s because libertarianism is a form of authoritarianism disguised in a narrow slice of civil liberties."

Bwahahahahaha! The misinformation out there about libertarianism never ceases to amaze me. Libertarianism's guiding principle is the Non-Aggression Principle. This, simply stated, means that nobody has the right to initiate force against another being or entity or to delegate this initiation of force to another person or group (like the government). This does not preclude one from acting violently in self defense, however. But that's it. That's all libertarianism entails.

When asked to describe libertarianism in one word, prominent libertarian Ron Paul simply stated "non-intervention". There's even a joke amongst libertarian circles that cheekily jests, "Libertarians: Diligently plotting to take over the world and leave you alone". Libertarians don't believe in forcing their personal beliefs on anyone nor that anyone else should be able to through force of law. They believe that you should be free to do with your own person and property whatever you wish so long as you do not violate someone else's person or property. Libertarians believe in economic freedom through peaceful market cooperation and voluntary associations. No force or authority is needed but to protect those edicts as that is the only fair application of the law. But according to our Salon writer, libertarianism is nothing but a cloak for authoritarianism and we should be regarded as dangerous. The irony is rich coming from a left-liberal whose side believes that all good ideas should be implemented with government force and anyone who doesn't agree with them is either a racist or a domestic terrorist. Yes, according to today's keepers of opinion, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. 

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
 In Orwell's application of this phrase, it serves to mean that the people need not bother with their own learning and that they should just accept without question whatever the Party told them. This was achieved through State-sanctioned recreational activities, including encouraged promiscuity. The rationale in the book is the same rationale that is currently used, namely that if we can keep the masses entertained, they won't think to question or even notice the injustice and tyranny that surrounds them. Who cares if President Obama has drone murdered 10 x more children in the Middle East than were killed at Sandy Hook, we need to find out the sex of Kim Kardashian's baby! Who cares that President Obama signed into law the use of indefinite detention of American citizens on American soil in direct violation of the 5th and 6th Amendments of the Constitution, would you believe that Kansas City is the only remaining undefeated team in the NFL? Who cares that the NSA is indiscriminately collecting every single piece of digital communications of every single American, Miley is twerking again!

Nay, President Obama himself has issued various warnings against listening to those anti-government wackobirds. In a commencement speech to the graduates and family of Ohio State University, Obama warned:

"Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices."

Similarly, in Obama's post-debt ceiling debacle victory speech, Obama admonished, “All of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio, and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do." Yes, citizen, don't listen to those pesky bloggers or radio hosts. Click away from the page, my friend. Just listen to your government. "Trust us", seems to be the message here. Just go back to watching American Idol, citizen, and leave the tough decisions to us. All you need do is let us substitute our judgement for yours.

Indeed, the level of cognitive dissonance required to believe the gross lies and manipulations that come from the halls of our government on a daily basis is humongous. I've mentioned before that I'm fairly young but I've seen through the hypocrisy and distortion already; Obama's presidency made sure of that. But try convincing a liberal that Obama is George W. Bush on steroids and you'll hear nothing but excuses and justifications. If George W. Bush were drone murdering children, had a presidential kill list, was presiding over the dragnet spying of the NSA surveillance machine, signed into law indefinite detention, or appointed a Monsanto exec to oversee the FDA, liberals would be screaming bloody murder. But under a Democratic presidency, they seem to not notice or not care. He's on their side so they can breathe a sigh of relief and go back to reading People magazine. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

DEBT IS WEALTH
This one is my own creation and after another round of debt ceiling/government shutdown theater just behind us, it is only fitting that it be included. If you believe most of the government and media hype, we just averted near disaster by finally agreeing to raise our debt ceiling. You see, we can't pay our bills. We've not balanced a budget in Obama's whole presidency and his predecessor decided to go to war with 2 countries at the same time AND pass a completely unfunded Medicare Part D bill. Oh, and somewhere in between there our economy tanked, the housing bubble collapsed, and we spent over a trillion dollars bailing out the entities responsible for all of it. So we're $17 trillion dollars in debt right now.

But this is not a big deal, people. You see, we have what's called the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has what's called a printing press. This magical printing press can be used whenever the US government gets into trouble and can't pay its bills. You just hit the green button and it prints out whatever amount of money you need to cover your bills (ok, so it doesn't work exactly like that but humor me here, ok?). And if that little green button is broken, we can just call our friends Japan and China and they'll loan us the money we need till we get sorted out. "Yo, China! What's up dog?? Yeah, we're trying to go to war in Syria over here so Imma need about 500 million Benjamins up in here, ya know what I'm sayin'? Yeah, I know we haven't paid you back your last $3 trillion dollars yet but Imma get you, I swear!"

If you listen to the voices in our government and not, say, the voices warning you that tyranny is lurking around the corner, they'll tell you that when you're down and out in the middle of a recession, the only way to get out of the recession is to keep spending money. Just like with your own personal finances, if you come up on hard times and all your credit cards are maxed out, just keep spending. Preferably, open up another credit card account and you can use that to pay off your old credit card accounts. And if that doesn't quite cover it, just borrow obscene amounts from your mom and dad with the firm promise that you will pay them back in the undetermined future with money that is worth less than when you borrowed it. Also, as George W. Bush reminded us all in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, if you don't keep spending money at the Olive Garden and Ikea, the terrorists win.

In economic speak, what this all means is that during tough times like we've been having the cure all is government spending. The Keynesians out there believe that government spending is the engine of the economy and not private enterprise. Therefore, if we find ourselves in the doldrums we just need to roll out a litany of "make work" stimulus programs and increase our deficits. This deficit spending will all work out because even though we rack up huge amounts of debt in doing so, once our economy is stimulated we will magically grow our economy enough to eliminate the debt. So the more we spend, the wealthier we all become. DEBT IS WEALTH.

Oh, and if you believe this is an absurd premise and think that you address debt by eliminating the sources of it and not by spending or borrowing more money, then you're a domestic enemy and quite possibly a terrorist who deserves to be indefinitely detained because this is America, land of the free.

There you have it. WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH, and DEBT IS WEALTH. The sad reality is that this is just the tip of the Orwellian iceberg. We live in times of universal deceit as various powers and paradigms fight for dominance in an ever fracturing world. As such, all the entities fighting for power will continue to employ pages out the 1984 playbook to spin their message to the masses. Orwell is assuredly rolling in his grave right now.  

 

  

Government Saved Us!

For those of you who read my last blog, it will come as no surprise that the very scenario I predicted in the Grand Shutdown Opera has at last come true. The scenario being that the GOP would cave on pretty much everything, their grandstanding would all be for nothing, and Obama and the Dems would come out smelling like roses.

How did I know this was going to occur before it even actually happened? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS EVERY TIME. I can't remember the last time anybody in either party took a principled stand that had any measurable effect on policy. I'm fairly young so I'm sure it's happened but maybe I wasn't around or not paying attention at the time that it happened. But it's also about understanding the very nature of government. The ones who might actually give a crap about the American people are few and far between. Like I said, I'm fairly young but I've already figured out that government is a sham. There are the
power players at the top who are the ones who

really pull the strings. This includes the President, House and Senate leadership of both sides, the career politicians, and the ones behind the scenes who we don't even know about. The ones who give a crap aren't at the top. They're at the bottom; they have little to no clout, they're often lampooned or ridiculed by the government mouthpiece media or Establishment politicians, and their common sense bills usually run up against a brick wall. Knowing this, it was not hard to predict from a mile away that this whole shutdown charade was going to go nowhere.

It also doesn't help that our bought and paid for government controlled media dutifully reported all of the exaggerations, falsehoods, and flat out lies that were spoken by President Obama and his cronies in Congress without question or examination. Let's point out a few, shall we? On September 18, speaking to a group of CEOs at a Business Roundtable, Obama rattled off the following absurdity:

"Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved."

I'm sorry, WHAT?! How does this man get away with such blatant and outright LIES? How is it that our mainstream media does not trumpet the lies as BREAKING NEWS on the airwaves or as a front page headline?! Of course, the conservative media picks up on this immediately, but they're just preaching to the choir. So what's the rest of the media's excuse?

The sad thing is, is that I've heard and been engaged in many a Facebook debate recently where liberals will spout off this very line. I don't think Obama is stupid. I don't think he actually believes what he says in this instance. But he knows that if he says it, masses of our dumbed down, uninformed, unthinking, naive populace will buy it hook, line, and sinker. He also knows that none of the mainstream media will challenge him on this point. Oh they'll report on it, they'll repeat it, but they'll do it with a completely straight face and no mention of the fact that he's flat out WRONG.

How can anyone actually believe that raising the debt ceiling DOESN'T increase our debt? Why else would we need to keep raising the friggin thing if it didn't actually increase the debt? Duuuhh. What does he think we are, morons? Oh wait...

Obama and his cronies' other masterful use of doublespeak was their repeated insistence that if we do not raise the debt ceiling that it will result in default. This was parroted ad nauseam by virtually all of the MSM outlets.  
  

 

MORE: Senate passes bill to avoid default, reopen government; now heads to House and expected passage: http://t.co/IxDjt1kMTb -SS
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 17, 2013

Notice the headline, "Senate passes bill to avoid default...". Hundreds more versions of the exact same headline were printed everywhere across the country, concealing the reality that we were never going to default! The US government takes in ~$250 billion dollars per month in tax revenue. Our monthly interest payments on the debt are ~$20 billion dollars, 10 times less than our tax revenue. The only way we were going to default on the debt was if President Obama chose to default. Didn't mention that, MSM, did you? Of course not.

That's not to say that we wouldn't have had to make some painful decisions about government spending, because in order to avoid a default, we would have had to pay our bills. This point has completely been missed by all of the lemmings in the media. If we hadn't raised the debt ceiling, we would have had to start making cuts to our government because right now our tax revenue doesn't cover it. Raising the debt ceiling means we're able to borrow more money so that we don't have to pay our bills; we can keep papering over the fact that we are completely broke. Peter Schiff makes this point brilliantly in his most recent video blog, cutting through the spin and BS that the MSM serves us everyday.

Presently all across America, people are popping the champagne, the confetti streamers are falling, the balloons have floated to the ground, and we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief since President Obama and our saviors in Congress have averted near disaster. We can all sleep tighter tonight knowing that we will keep piling on the debt for another few months, that we have sold out the future of our children, and we have showcased for the world our complete and utter idiocy, instilling confidence in our creditors and investors worldwide. Oh, and did I mention that we still have Obamacare?

There's an old refrain that goes, "Government is good at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch and saying 'There, without government you couldn't walk.'" This government shutdown theater has demonstrated another such example of government loudly and publicly saving itself and the American people from a completely self-made crisis, patting itself on the back for doing so, and expecting the American people to congratulate them on it. We knew this day was going to come. We've known about it since we went through this dog and pony show the last time. Why did we only start talking about it again mere weeks before we were about to reach the debt limit? Why didn't they start holding rounds of discussions immediately after the last debt ceiling crisis to start addressing the whole underlying cause of the present debt ceiling crisis: the debt? Shouldn't that be considered failed leadership? That's what I consider failed leadership. In the twisted world of our government, however, the Democrats are congratulating their anointed leaders for their leadership in the continued herding of the American people down the path of debt slavery. Then we get to wait four months and the Dems and RINOs in Congress will again don their capes and fight this same fight again, courageously standing up for what is good and right in American by telling us that we don't have a spending problem and if we could just borrow more money from Japan and China, all will be right in the world.

Sad thing is, I don't know if those in Congress actually believe their own lies, but they sure do have most of America fooled that this won't have any consequences. They're living in the Keynesian fantasy land that we just need to keep spending trillions more dollars stimulating the economy and once that happens we'll magically be able to grow our economy enough to be able to pay back our debt, however many tens of trillions it might be at the time. Or if not, it doesn't matter because we'll also magically be able to keep interest rates at zero forever so we won't ever have to worry about rising interest rates wreaking havoc on average Americans and the government debt servicing payments. Or if not, it doesn't matter because our creditors don't ever actually want to get paid back because we all know that the dollar will be reserve currency forever so they're happy to hold onto our dollars indefinitely and lending us money even though we've had the printing presses going at full bore since the crisis began. If you believe all this, I have a bridge to sell you.

What happened today would have made George Orwell proud. It reveals the level of indoctrination and education we've been exposed to in this country for the past few decades when we cheer on an effort that impoverishes our nation. We now live in a country where Debt equals Wealth, Truth is Treason, War is Peace, and Freedom is Slavery. We're like a dog that follows the line of free treats not realizing that it leads straight to a cage. Yup, government saved us all right. Time to celebrate.

Shutdown Theater

Have you all been enjoying the show that's been going on for the past couple weeks? What a performance! The House Republicans have been pretending to take a bold stand against Obamacare while the Senate Democrats have collectively yawned, put their hands behind their heads, and shut their eyelids. "Wake me up when the 3rd act is over," they seem to be saying.

You see, these Senate Dems and the President know this is all theater. They know that the House Republicans weren't really going to hold the line on defunding Obamacare. They never do. The GOP lost its spine a long time ago. That's not to say there aren't a few stalwarts in there who would have gladly seen this through to the end, but we all knew, especially and including the Senate Dems and the President, that if they just let this go on long enough that Speaker Boehner would fold. They were never scared and that's why they never felt the need to negotiate.

Truth is, we don't really have a 2-party system in this country anymore. We don't have true checks and balances. While it was a good idea in theory, I'm sure the Founders didn't realize we would soon be electing a bunch of spineless, gutless, remorseless, idiotic psychopaths to run our country. A group of people who are so morally devoid, who lack individual thought, who grew up with and espouse no set of guiding principles, who can't even honor an oath to their spouses nonetheless to a piece of paper, and who have no moral character whatsoever so as to render checks and balances useless, nay, to render even a 2-party system useless. It's not Republicans vs. Democrats anymore, they're all in bed together now. It's the ruling class vs. the rest of us. I'm quite certain the Founders never saw that coming.

And so we get to be entertained by the great Shutdown Theater spectacle. It's like going to watch a play about the Titanic, we all know how it's going to end. The House Republicans, to mollify their base, have to put on a great show about taking a principled stand and not backing down and finally using the system to their advantage. That whips the base up into a frenzy, cheers and shouts and encouragement ensue. The Democrats do their part to add to the drama by engaging in nonstop hyperbole and finger pointing, which gets their base fired up too. President Obama sings the climatic aria by spitefully shutting down the most visible and beloved parts of government to show just how necessary and important Government really is, pissing people off on every side of the aisle. Oh man, this show is really getting good now. It's like the Real Houses of Congress DC. Next we just need to cut to a scene of Harry Reid flipping a table over in anger at a DC restaurant and our masterpiece will be complete. 

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Just like we knew the Titanic was going to sink, we knew that the House Republicans were going to fold, having pretty much nothing to show for this grand stand despite all the theatrics. But bravo, boys and girls, what a performance! You really had us going there for awhile.

There were many low points of the show, from trying to keep WWII vets out of their own friggin memorial, to kicking people out of their homes which happened to be on federal land, to locking people in a hotel on federal land, to shutting down open waterway systems. There was no deed too petty for uber-villain Obama not to order his minions to undertake.

The one that took the cake for me, though, was when a South Carolina man who voluntarily took it upon himself to groom some of the monuments and mow the lawn at the Lincoln Memorial was told to stop. I think this is just the perfect illustration of what's wrong with things today. The authoritarians in power can't let it be shown to the world that life goes on without government. They can't let it be shown that there might actually be answers to questions like "But without government, who would mow the lawns?" or "But without government, who would build the roads?" Nope, we must maintain the illusion at all times that every stinkin' part of our $16 trillion-dollar-in-debt-the-cupboard-is-bare-there-are-no-cuts-to-make (props to a cameo by Ms. Pelosi for another gem of a statement) government is absolutely essential, therefore no volunteerism allowed during a government shutdown.

The man said he didn't take any money for it or expect to be paid. This in itself provides the answer to many liberals' objections that if government didn't provide these services that capitalist, greedy pig bloodsuckers would take over and price gouge everyone for their monopoly on lawn mowing services. And yet people were approaching the man and offering him small bills for what he was doing, trying to pay this individual for his efforts. But wait, this here again blows up that capitalist, greedy pig myth liberals like to use. You mean to tell me that in the absence of a government service people will voluntarily provide that service and that instead of forcing society to pay for a service that they might not want or need via legalized theft (taxation), that other individuals who do value this service will voluntarily give money for this cause? No way! Waaay. This one man band, in one small but noble deed, just illustrated the system of voluntary exchanges beautifully. That's precisely why he was shut down. We can't show the people how irrelevant most government really is to our lives. It might not have been the grandest gesture or the most ballyhooed, but it spoke volumes to me.

Thus concludes shutdown theater. I think the whole brilliance of the act was not the star performances of John Boehner, who really had (some of) us believing for a moment he was serious about defunding Obamacare, nor Harry Reid or President Obama, who played their role as villains who were ruthlessly withholding benefits and spitefully shutting down open swaths of earth brilliantly. No, the true magic of this performance was leaving the theater feeling not that you'd been entertained, but that somehow the players themselves were winking at each other throughout the entire play giving you the sick feeling afterwards that somehow the joke was on you. I want my money back.