Letter of Liberty News Edition (9-27-2013)

Here is the Friday News Edition.

Art Carden on why the naughties weren't always bad

Steve Horwitz asks the question: Are libertarians individualists?

Sheldon Richman looks to guidance from the late Lysander Spooner on the national debt crisis.

Gary North on Jim Wallis and Pope Francis

Gary North on Abraham Lincoln and central banking

Jacob Hornberger gives us reasons on why we should dismantle international checkpoints.

Edmond S. Bradley on the unintended (yet expected) consequences of Obamacare

Scott Lazarowitz on SovietCare

Paul Craig Roberts on Washington's tyranny

Justin Raimondo: It's time to defund the Syrian rebels.

Tom Engelhardt on the Stalinist roots of American exceptionalism

Scott Lazarowitz tells the truth about Keynesianism.

Is Rand Paul America's #1 liberal? Jack Rall wants to know.

David Howden makes the case for free immigrants, free capital,  and free markets.

A Brazilian advises the NSA to "have a nice day."

It seems that the US intelligence chiefs are not happy about the anti-NSA sentiment.

Is al-Shabab really a threat to America?

Wes Messamore on the inherent liberalism of gun tech

Scott Lazarowitz on the First Amendment and the American government

Dom Armentano cautions against the maximum stupidity of minimum wage laws.

Ed Stetzer on some great trends in growing churches

Eric Peters on the madness of GM

Doug French on why Wall Street is not the heart of American capitalism

Peter Boettke on the mystery of the mundane

Jeff Tucker on the abolition of the playground

Jeff Tucker on the fun and fascinating Bitcoin

Congratulations to C. Jay Engel

This post is intended to congratulate C. Jay Engel for the new daughter that has been born into his family: Elizabeth Grace Engel.

Here is his excellent piece today: "God's Life and Creation: Reflections on a Daughter Born"

Paul Rosenberg on the Real Reason Why We're Not Living Amongst the Stars

Paul Rosenberg comments today on the real reason why humanity isn't making progress as to space travel.

Says Rosenberg:

It is tragic beyond measure that human exploration has been neutered since 1972. Sure, we’ve sent out a few probes and placed a good telescope in orbit, but we have done nothing brave, nothing bold, nothing daring. Productive humans have been delegated to mute observance as their hard-earned surplus is syphoned off to capital cities, where it is sanctimoniously poured down a sewer of cultured dependencies and endless wars.

We remain locked onto this planet, not because we lack the ability to leave, but because so few of us are able to do anything about it.

What we have lost can be measured only in the billions of unactivated lives. Fifty years ago humanity was shocked to realize that they could go to the stars. After untold millennia of looking to the heavens, of wondering, dreaming and mourning the impossibility, we saw that we could go to the stars. And for ten years we took our first brave steps, successfully!

But after our first major step away from our crib, we were thrown back and surrounded with double-height rails. Since then, we have stagnated, and human culture has undergone a widespread rot. We watch science fictions about going to space, living in space and even fighting in space, but we have given up all hope of going ourselves… even though we did it just one generation ago.

Humanity – having recently discovered the ability to expand without limit – wanders aimlessly, with no challenging goal, no elevated purpose, and no path of escape. Space travel has leapfrogged us: it was done by our fathers; we imagine that it will be done by our sons; but we dare not think that it is possible to us.

Read the rest here.

The Empire In Denial

Anthony Gregory writes on Obama's recent denial that America is an empire.

Says Gregory:

President Obama tries to have it both ways when talking of American foreign policy. He sold himself to the public in 2008 as a more prudential steward of U.S. power. He would avoid “dumb wars,” as he had called the Iraq fiasco in a speech years before. He would save money by bringing the troops home from that place, and direct the resources toward the domestic fiscal mess. He would abolish torture and end the Bush-era programs of indefinite detention and Patriot Act–style surveillance.

We all know that he’s disappointed many of his supporters in the realm of national security. The letters, “N S A,” tell us all we need to know. The truth, however, is that Obama has always embraced a very active role for U.S. militarism abroad, which puts serious limits on his ability to serve as a peace president, even if he wanted to. Indeed, in his speech to the UN, he denies the existence of American empire and cautions against too much restraint:

The notion of American empire may be useful propaganda, but it isn’t borne out by America’s current policy or public opinion. Indeed, as the recent debate within the United States over Syria clearly showed, the danger for the world is not an America that is eager to immerse itself in the affairs of other countries, or take on every problem in the region as its own. The danger for the world is that the United States, after a decade of war; rightly concerned about issues back home; and aware of the hostility that our engagement in the region has engendered throughout the Muslim World, may disengage, creating a vacuum of leadership that no other nation is ready to fill.

It is true that the American public has managed to restrain the U.S. government from waging another war, this time against Assad’s Syria. This is a new development, however. I can’t recall or think of any modern U.S. war, pushed by the president, and thwarted by public opinion. This has been a beautiful thing to see.

The Handshake That Never Happened - A Column by Justin Raimondo

"The Handshake That Never Happened"

by

Justin Raimondo

© 2013 AntiWar.com

The world waited with bated breath as the day approached: would President Obama’s speech to the UN General Assembly reflect positively on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s “charm offensive” (as the Israelis derisively dub it)? Would the two meet upat a luncheon arranged by Ban Ki-Moon and – gasp! – actually shake hands?

We now know the answers to these two questions: no, and certainly not.

It’s funny how subjective impressions can be. People often hear their hopes rather than what is actually being said: here’s Phil Weiss, over at the militantly anti-Zionist MondoWeiss web site, who sees in Obama’s speech evidence of a "bold opening to Iran," all but proclaiming the beginning of a new era in US-Iranian relations. On the other hand, here’s Max Fisher over at the Washington Post with a much more sober – and, I would say, more accurate – assessment.

Rouhani never showed up at the luncheon, and therefore the handshake that was supposed to have shaken the world never happened. Maybe he’d had a big breakfast and just wasn’t that hungry – or maybe he lost his appetite after listening to Obama’s speech. I’m betting on the latter.

I’ll pass over the obvious lies – obvious, at least, to those who follow these issues closely – such as the one about how "all our troops have left Iraq” (not so), and this realknee-slapper:

"We have limited the use of drones so they target only those who pose a continuing imminent threat to the United States where capture is not feasible and there’s a near certainty of no civilian casualties."

Oy. And here’s one that sticks out like a sore Snowden: according to Obama, we’re reviewing "the way that we gather intelligence so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share."

Suuure ya are!

But never mind the lies, let’s look at where he’s being truthful. We’ll have to leave out the part where he claims the only concern that prompted him to call for a military strike on Syria was the alleged use of chemical weapons by the regime of Bashar al-Assad – because we all know the US and its Saudi ally have been engaged in a regime change operation there for at least a year if not more. But there was a glint of truth amid the smoke and mirrors when Obama said:

"It’s an insult to human reason and to the legitimacy of this institution to suggest that anyone other than the regime carried out this attack."

Notice the careful wording: "this attack." The Ghouta incident is separate from three others – one in the village of Khan al-Asal, outside Aleppo, where the regime (and their Russian backers) contend the rebels used some kind of poison gas to take the town. (The location of the other two incidents were kept under wraps "for security reasons.") This was the reason the Assad government let the UN inspectors in to begin with: Damascus was hoping the UN team would verify their accusations, when it just so happened that the Ghouta incident occurred not four miles from where the inspectors were staying.

Oh, but never mind: that was then, and this is now. Citing the agreement with Putin to iron out the terms of dismantling Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, Obama takes a hard line:

"Now there must be a strong Security Council resolution to verify that the Assad regime is keeping its commitments. And there must be consequences if they fail to do so. If we cannot agree even on this, then it will show that the United Nations is incapable of enforcing the most basic of international laws."

Read the rest of the article

Some News On An Alleged Coming Power Grid Blackout

Dear friends and readers of Letter of Liberty:

I just found out recently that there is news of some upcoming power-grid blackout, so I decided to link to three articles on this issue.

Scott Lazarowitz gives his comments. 
Daisy Luther addresses this issue.
BenSwann.com comments.

Letter of Liberty News Edition (9-24-2013)

Here is Tuesday's News Edition.

Fred Reed takes an inside look at the defense industry.

A Russian analysis on what stops the American government from bombing Syria

Pat Buchanan asks whether Iran is the Fourth Reich. He says it is not.

"China on Trial": An Article by Justin Raimondo

David Gordon on why America's current economy is not a free market

Jonathan Goodwin on the isolationist American foreign policy

Jacob Hornberger on the murder of Frank Teruggi

Sheldon Richman on the roots of Kenyan massacre in America's Somalia policy

Steve Mariotti on saving the Ludwig von Mises Papers

Walter Williams on honesty and trust in the free market

James Altucher on the lies we tell ourselves

John Whitehead on the real purpose of Common Core

Ron Paul on how the Internet sales tax could crush small businesses

Jon Rappoport on how psychiatry targets college students for destruction

Michael Snyder gives us the truth about QE.

Marc Clair on America's most insidious export

John C. Goodman on the good, bad and ugly of the GOP's healthcare plan

Brian McWilliams shows us that the mouth of Brazilians has something to teach America about freedom.

Michael Lotfi on the top ten moments in conservative history

When the state floods the zone, reform is dead.

Ludwig von Mises has some words for Pope Francis.

Where are all the female libertarian economists?

Jeff Tucker on how corporate America is going off the grid

Libertarian philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe says that Bitcoin isn't money.

Jonathan Goodwin warns the Pope not to decry the wrong evil.

Robert Wenzel on the commie pinko about to be NYC mayor