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If you want to win a war you need to keep destroying the enemy until they surrender unconditionally. Just look at what happened to Japan and Germany.

You're not very well versed in either History of War or Theory of War, are you? You're taking two examples of 3rd generation warfare and uncritically thinking their example applies to 4th generation warfare, without even knowing there's a difference.

Here's a suggestion then: go read some Carl von Clausewitz and, for a more recent take, some William Lind, and come back once you understand war on the strategic rather than merely tactical level, okay?

... US citizens might like to read this: https://www.lewrockwell.com/20...

In the USA, the state can confiscate cash (or pretty well anything else) without even accusing you of a crime.

First point: In my original post above, I did not specify who the outsiders are. Unless the protests are being paid for by the actual protesters, then there must be an outside source of funds. That isn't conspiracy theory, that's economics 101, someone has to pay the bills. Whether is is George Soros or someone else, and whether the outsiders funded thousands of dollars or millions, the point stands that someone with money is funding the protests.

Second point: A Google search for "funding of black lives matter" shows numerous links to articles debating the truth and falsehood of particular persons and groups funding Black Lives Matter in particular, and other similar/related groups in general. Go read a few, and you'll find more than white supremacy to keep you occupied.

Here are a few interesting ones.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
http://www.thenewamerican.com/...
http://www.snopes.com/ford-mot...
http://www.politico.com/story/...

Third point: I also did not limit my statement to any specific protest group that has happened lately. So how about a Google search for "funding of protests"?

http://www.thegatewaypundit.co...
http://www.thegatewaypundit.co...
https://www.lewrockwell.com/20...

I'm sure you will use your cop-out line of "white supremacists" and "alt-right", and whatever hand-waving you have to do, to ignore reports that you don't like. There were certainly links to the sites you mentioned, and others you will also ignore. But it would take a strong will to ignore all of them.

Have a nice day.

even in cases of obvious market failure

There is simply no such thing, boys and girls...

Spend some time on Zero Hedge, Lew Rockwell's site, or PCR's site if you want to know that is going on economically. Most of us forecasted the upcoming crash four or five years ago. There has NEVER been any recovery from 2008 much less 2000. All the stats that you are forcefed are blatant LIES designed to keep the populace ignorant and therefore pacified so that they continue on thinking that everything is A-OK. When you remove the signals, the end result becomes much, MUCH worse.

On neofeudalism

On rate hikes

Looking realistically at investments

Short post on the Fed

What makes a country a first world country to you?

Mexico is hardly a developing country, it is a developed country.

http://www.westernjournalism.c...

Comparing the US to first world countries is the primary means the Left uses to mischaracterize the argument, when you compare the US to the rest of the Americas, which is more accurate due to cultural differences between Europe and America (continent)

https://www.lewrockwell.com/as...

In that graph, the US looks pretty tame, and all of those countries are considered "developed" countries.

Also, on a side note, yes, that graph says the US has 115% gun ownership, there are 115 guns for every 100 people apparently in the US.

Outside a city in the US you don't have water and sewer either. I guess we aren't a developed nation now. The definition of municipal is city, so I wouldn't expect the country to have municipal anything.

The drink ability of the water has to do with that they don't properly treat their water supply. You could plausibly claim that this is a sign of being an undeveloped country, but it is just as true in suburbs in the US, there are houses around mine that are well water and septic, and that is maybe 20 miles from multiple major cities. We don't have "Montezuma's revenge" in the US because we properly separate the sewer from the drinking water, not everywhere does that.

You can make all these arguments all you like, but please explain this table with any of the countries instead of Mexico, they are all widely considered developed by the UN.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/as...

The Union was taken, by (the) North ..., from a contractual institution that can either be cleaved to or scrapped, and turned into a divinized entity, which must be worshipped, and which must be permanent, unquestioned, all-powerful. There is no heresy greater, nor political theory more pernicious, than sacralizing the secular. But this monstrous process is precisely what happened when Abraham Lincoln and his northern colleagues made a god out of the Union. If the British forces fought for bad King George, the Union armies pillaged and murdered on behalf of this pagan idol, this âoeUnion,â this Moloch that demanded terrible human sacrifice to sustain its power and its glory.

For in this War Between the States, the South may have fought for its sacred honor, ... . We remember the care with which the civilized nations had developed classical international law. Above all, civilians must not be targeted; wars must be limited. But the North insisted on creating a conscript army, a nation in arms, and broke the 19th-century rules of war by specifically plundering and slaughtering civilians, by destroying civilian life and institutions so as to reduce the South to submission. Shermans infamous March through Georgia was one of the great war crimes, and crimes against humanity, of the past century-and-a-half. Because by targeting and butchering civilians, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman paved the way for all the genocidal honors of the monstrous 20th century. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about memory, about never forgetting about history as retroactive punishment for crimes of war and mass murder. As Lord Acton, the great libertarian historian, put it, the historian, in the last analysis, must be a moral judge. The muse of the historian, he wrote, is not Clio, but Rhadamanthus, the legendary avenger of innocent blood. In that spirit, we must always remember, we must never forget, we must put in the dock and hang higher than Haman, those who, in modern times, opened the Pandoras Box of genocide and the extermination of civilians: Sherman, Grant, and Lincoln.

Perhaps, someday, their statues, like Lenins in Russia, will be toppled and melted down; their insignias and battle flags will be desecrated, their war songs tossed into the fire. And then Davis and Lee and Jackson and Forrest, and all the heroes of the South, âoeDixieâ and the Stars and Bars, will once again be truly honored and remembered. The classic comment on that meretricious TV series The Civil War was made by that marvelous and feisty Southern writer Florence King. Asked her views on the series, she replied: I didnt have time to watch The Civil War. Iâ(TM)m too busy getting ready for the next one. In that spirit, I am sure that one day, aided and abetted by Northerners like myself in the glorious copperhead tradition, the South shall rise again.

I remember before the movies came out, that I wished more people could experience Lord of the Rings. It was just such an awesome book. I dreamed of the day the work would be known to everyone. Oh, don't get me wrong, lots of people knew LOTR back in the day, but it wasn't mainstream. I knew that if my dream were to come true, the real key would be overexposure. Hey, it's either that or stay a cult classic, right?

Of course, today, my dream has been fulfilled. The movies were great. Lots of haters, but you know what? The director kept most of the themes intact, and that's what counts.

The really ugly haters are on the literature side. The "literati" (LOL what a dumb name) are horrified by Tolkien because he shoves in their face the fact that they don't get to decide what literature is. The readers do. He reminds them that they are less and less relevant with each passing year, and they hate that.

Tolkien stands in stark contrast to the socialist-leaning, Modernist, elitist literati that hate him so much. As Mingardi and Stagnaro have demonstrated, Tolkien understood that socialism was unworkable and made little distinction between "left" and "right" socialism. Shippey notes that the literary coterie that "ruled and defined English literature at least for a time, between the wars and after World War II⦠were committed modernists, upper class, often Etonians, often professed Communists, often extremely rich, well-entrenched as editors and reviewers in the literary columns." (p. 316) In another article, Mingardi and Stagnaro show that far from being a statist as so many of the literati were throughout the 20th century, Tolkien identified himself as an anarchist (of the private property sort, not the socialist, bomb-throwing sort).

Furthermore, he commits a cultural/political crime that for our socialist literati is unforgivable. He likes the middle class and writes about them affectionately in the guise of the Hobbits. No sense of alienation! No sense of looking down on the middle class snootily from a lofty vantage point! Unforgivable!

-- Why They Hate Tolkien, by Lew Rockwell

I remember before the movies came out, that I wished more people could experience Lord of the Rings. It was just such an awesome book. I dreamed of the day the work would be known to everyone. Oh, don't get me wrong, lots of people knew LOTR back in the day, but it wasn't mainstream. I knew that if my dream were to come true, the real key would be overexposure. Hey, it's either that or stay a cult classic, right?

Of course, today, my dream has been fulfilled. The movies were great. Lots of haters, but you know what? The director kept most of the themes intact, and that's what counts.

The really ugly haters are on the literature side. The "literati" (LOL what a dumb name) are horrified by Tolkien because he shoves in their face the fact that they don't get to decide what literature is. The readers do. He reminds them that they are less and less relevant with each passing year, and they hate that.

Tolkien stands in stark contrast to the socialist-leaning, Modernist, elitist literati that hate him so much. As Mingardi and Stagnaro have demonstrated, Tolkien understood that socialism was unworkable and made little distinction between "left" and "right" socialism. Shippey notes that the literary coterie that "ruled and defined English literature at least for a time, between the wars and after World War II⦠were committed modernists, upper class, often Etonians, often professed Communists, often extremely rich, well-entrenched as editors and reviewers in the literary columns." (p. 316) In another article, Mingardi and Stagnaro show that far from being a statist as so many of the literati were throughout the 20th century, Tolkien identified himself as an anarchist (of the private property sort, not the socialist, bomb-throwing sort).

Furthermore, he commits a cultural/political crime that for our socialist literati is unforgivable. He likes the middle class and writes about them affectionately in the guise of the Hobbits. No sense of alienation! No sense of looking down on the middle class snootily from a lofty vantage point! Unforgivable!

-- Why They Hate Tolkien, by Lew Rockwell

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfro...
https://www.lewrockwell.com/20...
http://www.westernjournalism.c...
http://www.theblaze.com/storie...

Yes.

It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets. Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it — not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread. Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind-boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

It's plain old organized crime in every aspect. That is the cause of most of the world's poverty today.

Works as intended. WONTFIX.

Hey asshole progressive, the Democrats are the party of the KKK and rejected civil rights legislation. Who fukcing freed the slaves? REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT LINCOLN.

Hey asshole conservative, WHO is pushing NOW racist tripe like Southern Heritage, Confederate Flag...? And about Lincoln and some conservatives:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/200...

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/s...

http://www.splcenter.org/get-i...

...

Hateful industries include lawyers, politicians, washing machine repairmen, insurance companies, heating engineers, telemarketers, car salesmen...

A good top loading washing machine ought to be cheap enough that it is nearly in the category of either you fix it yourself easily or discard for a new one. I'm not discounting professional repair, only suggesting that you might prefer replacing a $400 washer if repairs exceed $100 or something.

Anyway, the reason we are not in this state of affairs is politics. The high-tech (motherboards conk out), side load (seals fail, get moldy, leak), high speed (more rpms, more trouble), have been a giant waste of resources.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/201...

My top loader may never be replaced because, well, it doesn't suck.

Yes by all means lets get rid of those conspiracy theorists.

http://archive.lewrockwell.com...

I have never met someone claiming to be a Ron Paul Libertarian (of whom I've seen many comments here on Slashdot from) express opinions that promote the military-industrial complex, the keeping of secrets of government action by force or the trampling of individual rights.

Ron Paul -- obviously the definitive "Ron Paul (so-called) Libertarian" -- is anti-choice, anti-religious freedom (believes "The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers."), pro-censorship (introduced a Constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning), anti-privacy, and supported the criminalization of homosexuality by state governments.

Paul is not libertarian in any meaningful sense of that word. He's anti-federalist, but fully authoritarian, happy to have government fsck you over if you step out of his vision of what a white Christian American should be...just so long as it's a state government. He's a terrible excuse for a human being and anyone supporting him should be deeply, deeply ashamed.

I have never met someone claiming to be a Ron Paul Libertarian (of whom I've seen many comments here on Slashdot from) express opinions that promote the military-industrial complex, the keeping of secrets of government action by force or the trampling of individual rights.

Ron Paul -- obviously the definitive "Ron Paul (so-called) Libertarian" -- is anti-choice, anti-religious freedom (believes "The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers."), pro-censorship (introduced a Constitutional amendment to prohibit flag burning), anti-privacy, and supported the criminalization of homosexuality by state governments.

Paul is not libertarian in any meaningful sense of that word. He's anti-federalist, but fully authoritarian, happy to have government fsck you over if you step out of his vision of what a white Christian American should be...just so long as it's a state government. He's a terrible excuse for a human being and anyone supporting him should be deeply, deeply ashamed.

Banks were not forced to lend to people who could not pay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act
Start your re-education there.

But that's just a start, and far from the most damning evidence. Like I said, the real truth can not be told, especially on the heavily liberal invested Wikipedia, because the revision army arrives immediately.

The federal government has stated that the CRA had nothing to do with the sub-prime mortgage collapse. That should be all the evidence you need to assure yourself that the CRA was the principal factor.

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo125.html

Individual priests are a varied lot. It's church leadership that has been obsessed, and rank-and-file catholics, led by right-wing media. Dolan and other extremists.

I live in Brazil. I sometimes browse the CNBB (Conferência Nacional dos Bispos do Brasil) website and it rarely deals with abortion, almost never with homosexuality, and never contraception.

I'll just bet that unadulterated Catholic teaching doesn't mean what you think it means.

I admit my Bible knowledge is poor, but at least I have read the first 8 books of the New Testament and some parts of other Bible books.

Jesus was a chastity radical. He said that if you even fantasize about another woman, you are guilty of adultery. He said you need to be pure to see God. He said there is no divorce.

I am not saying that this should be repeated every week. I am complaining that priests don't say this at all , or say it once in a lifetime.

Just look at what Pope Francis has been adding to Church teaching over the past month.

He has emphasized old Catholic teaching.

Even he sees the institutional obsession with gays, abortion and free markets

Institutional obsession? Some tiny minority of priests can be obsessed with those subjects, but not the institution. For example, the Pope emeritus was certainly not obsessed. He had a broad preoccupation with the world's problems. Besides, read Caritas in Veritate, which was written by the Pope emeritus and had significant progressive elements wich led George Weigel (an otherwise reliable Catholic commentator, but with a right-wing bias) to create a conspiracy theory saying that the Pope was forced to write the encyclical because of a leftist Vatican plot against him.

Don't be misled by the ridiculous political categorization which pervades the media. The Pope emeritus is not "conservative" and Pope Francis is not leftist.
If you have a couple of hours, I advise the following reading:

* http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig6/ratzinger2.html
* http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate_en.html

The right-wing reaction to the Pope emeritus:
* http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/227839/i-caritas-veritate-i-gold-and-red/george-weigel/page/0/1
And no, I am not a libertarian just because I linked to one page hosted in lewrockwell.com.

We look forward to you sharing your "evidence", thanks.

I tend to ignore people who can't be bothered to use google on their own, and instead ask for everything to be handed to them...

We're talking about half a century of gun control laws and increasing crime rates. There's no single link to ALL that information.

There's a few quick ones:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2012/02/21/disarming-the-myths-promoted-by-the-gun-control-lobby/2/

http://people.duke.edu/~gnsmith/articles/myths.htm (See #10)

http://www.liveandlocalenc.com/proof-gun-control-increases-crime/

http://archive.lewrockwell.com/orig7/lemieux1.html

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/22/do-strict-gun-laws-really-stop-gun-crime/

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp#right-to-carry

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/weekinreview/29liptak.html?pagewanted=all

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2013/02/04/gun-crimes-increase-massachusetts-despite-tough-gun-laws/XjlDQLZlUDvsf3KS8PqyGK/story.html

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2010/06/25/stossel-argues-gun-control-increases-crime-i-was-once-clueless-senator-schumer

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/02/17/the-nation-toughest-gun-control-law-made-massachusetts-less-safe/3845k7xHzkwTrBWy4KpkEM/story.html

how come undocumented ... immigrants can hold public meetings?

Mostly because the First Amendment right to assembly is not restricted to US citizens.

Andrew Napolitano explains very clearly why the FISA "court" is an unconstitutional institution, and not a court of law at all.

Even if the FISA court was a legal forum, no court in this country has the authority to override the 4th amendment.

-jcr

All this news is underlining is that the exchanges are having more of their crumbs stolen by independent parties... if you want reform, start with brining transparent to the stock marker exchanges and their skimming off the top practices. The cost to society is enormous.

We (US Citizens) should be claim sovreiegn immunity the next time the law comes knocking on our doors.

I have no idea where they get ideas like that. Oh maybe situations like this? http://www.abc4.com/content/news/top_stories/story/conceal-and-carry-stabbing-salt-lake-city-smiths/NDNrL1gxeE2rsRhrWCM9dQ.cspx or http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2012-08-28/story/customer-kills-gunman-during-jacksonville-robbery-attempt or http://archive.lewrockwell.com/spl4/heroic-armed-citizen.html or http://mountainview.patch.com/groups/police-and-fire/p/armed-attempted-robbery-thwarted-by-brave-victim-wtih-bb-gun#photo-4081472

Being investigated is not retaliation.

Tell that to the friends and family of Aaron Swartz.

Given the reality that the average American now commits multiple felonies every day, investigation is precisely retaliation. As Paul Craig Roberts explains:

The criminal justice (sic) system today consists of a process whereby a defendant is coerced into admitting to a crime in order to escape more severe punishment for maintaining his innocence. Many of the crimes for which people are imprisoned never occurred. They are made up crimes created by the process of negotiation to close a case. [...] Prosecutors have lost sight of innocence and guilt. What we have today is a conveyor belt that convicts almost everyone who is charged. [...] A defendant that incurs the prosecutor's ire is certain to be framed on far more serious charges than a negotiated plea.

Harvey Silverglate estimates that the average American commits three felonies per day:

Silverglate believes that we are in danger of becoming a society in which prosecutors alone become judges, juries and executioners because the threat of high sentences make it too costly for even innocent people to resist the prosecutorial pressure.

*Sigh* people really need to do research.

"If the accused were forced to produce evidence that they did not commit an act, innocent people would be forced to prove a negative. Proving a negative is usually far more difficult, if not impossible to do. Anyone without an alibi would be convicted. No one could afford to spend even one minute alone in that kind of world. The right to remain silent preserves a functioning system of justice and a functioning society."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig11/rounds4.1.1.html

That's the point.

Riiiiight, because no one ever counterfeits hard currency, never used it to buy off politicians, never laundered, never dumped, never hoarded, never used it to bribe people, never used it to pay soldiers to murder people, etc.

Just in case you don't get it: A _digital_ NOR a _physical_ currency is NOT immune to the many (government & private) abuses. That is, there are MANY issues with money ... namely its design and mis-implementation.

* http://mises.org/books/whathasgovernmentdone.pdf
* http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul124.html
* http://www.gmlets.u-net.com/explore/problems.html
* http://www.amazon.com/Problem-Money-Its-Not-About/dp/0984502009

When are you going to stop being delusional that some magical pseudo-authority figure is the answer to everyone's perceived problems?

--
"Necessity is the Mother of Invention, byt Curiosity is the Father." -- Michaelangel007

To quote Lew Rockwell:

Ron is not using the State to acquire RonPaul.com. He could have brought a lawsuit in US government courts, but he did not. He is seeking to have ICANN enforce its own rules against cybersquatting, including the rule against registering a famous person’s name and making money off it. Anyone registering a URL agrees to keep all the rules, just as he must pay a recurring fee. A URL is not private property in the normal sense. It is a license, and ICANN is a private, non-profit organization.

Ron is not calling on the UN. ICANN has four approved arbitration organizations. Because the RP.com guys registered Ron's name in Australia, the international arbitration option must be used. Yes, it is associated with the UN. Too bad, but one must play the cards one is dealt. The UN itself is not involved, though note—whatever else is wrong with it—the UN is not a State.

Why did Ron wait so long to bring this claim? He did not feel he could do so as a public official. Once he became a private citizen again, he was freed.

Bitcoin is not real money but merely a different way of employing existent fiat money, obviously it cannot replace it.
http://lewrockwell.com/shostak/shostak14.1.html

Of-course this is IRS, they are above the law, they don't have to comply with any laws, their entire operation is completely lawless, not based on any laws. They are used to violating your private property rights, that's what income taxes are - a violation of your private property rights. They are used to discriminating against people, that's what graduated ('progressive') income taxes are - discrimination against individuals, the laws are not applied equally. They are used to taking away your freedom of movement.

Saying that your email is not private is not something out of character for IRS.

Just because some third party hosts your emails it doesn't mean they are not your property, there is your NAME on it, the company gave you your space. Is your BANK ACCOUNT your property?

Furthermore, there's a growing body of evidence that hormesis is vital for health and so a low level of exposure to radiation (ionizing and non ionizing), toxins and harmful biological entities in the environment is a good thing that promotes health.

Some fun links because I'm too lazy to find proper citations on a Saturday morning..
http://blog.sethroberts.net/2012/04/01/moderate-alcohol-consumption-associated-with-less-cirrhosis/
http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller12.html
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/tiny-amounts-of-ethanol-dramatically-221986.aspx
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/20/low-dose-radiation/

Wow, way to construct a straw man.

Of course they weren't against the 40 hour week, but they didn't have anything meaningful to do with it, as evidenced by the much more heavily unionized European workers getting the 8 hour day long after American workers did. It was rising productivity made possible by the capitalists that enabled wages to rise to the point where workers had the option to accept more free time instead of higher wages. Workers were willing to accept slightly lower wages in exchange for an 8 hour day, so the capitalists did indeed freely oblige. Before that point, wages had not risen enough and people needed the extra income that working a 10 hour day brought them. Today I bet every single person would love to work a 20 hour week. The problem is that they couldn't life on the wages that a 20 hour week would bring them. Likewise in the early 19th century in regards to the 50 and 60 hour week.

Since you obviously don't read your history, what the labor unionists wanted was "8 hour day for 10 hour pay". THAT is why there was such "resistance" to the 8 hour day. Workers that wanted 8 hour day for 8 hour pay had no problem getting an 8 hour day.

Forgotten Facts of American Labor History
http://www.lewrockwell.com/woods/woods135.html

As Henry George wrote in the nineteenth century, "Those who tell you of trades unions bent on raising wages by moral suasion alone are like those who would tell you of tigers that live on oranges." The result of union activity, therefore, is to reduce the number of jobs in an industry and to raise the money wages of union labor, while at the same time relegating many workers, driven out of this line of work by the decreased quantity of labor demanded there, to other lines of work, whose money wages must decrease as a result of the greater supply of workers now forced to compete for them.

The net result is that the gains to certain workers are more than offset by the disabilities inflicted upon other workers. When union activity reduces the number of people who can be profitably employed in skilled trades, it correspondingly increases the number of skilled laborers who are forced to find work in fields that are well below their level of competence. The outcome of this displacement of skilled labor is no different from a situation in which laborers never possessed these skills in the first place. If union privilege prevents some workers from putting their skills to their proper use, the effect is the same as if they had never gone to the trouble to acquire them at all. Thus society produces below its potential, and wealth that would otherwise have been created never sees the light of day.

Unions do not help the workers, they help some workers get some wages by lowering the wages of all other workers. They rely on violence and coercion to prevent the employer from simply finding workers willing to work at the terms offered. You know a Union is being unreasonable in its demands when it has to resort to picketing and assaulting replacement workers. If the Unions demands were reasonable then the owner would not be able to find enough replacement workers willing to work for him and a picket would be unnecessary.

This idea, that workers without unions will inherently have a disadvantage in bargaining power relative to employers, is the basis for most individuals' support of unionism and is picked up again in the Wagner Act. But that disadvantage is a hoary myth. A worker's bargaining power depends on the worker's alternatives. If a worker either works for Employer A or does not work (i.e., if Employer A is a monopsonist), the worker has little bargaining power. If the worker has several employment alternatives, he has strong bargaining power. There may have been instances of monopsony or oligopsony in the 19th century, but they were short-lived. Monopsony has not been a significant factor in the American labor market since the introduction and widespread u

The CIA actually run a prediction market for a while until public outcry caused them to shut it down.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2011/04/20/cia-investors-aim-to-build-a-pseudo-gambling-market-for-data-security-predictions/

The CIA has long been intrigued by the intelligence potential of prediction markets. A 2006 paper the agency published cited examples like betting markets that predict election outcomes more accurately than polls, and orange juice future markets that predict weather better than meteorological organizations. It also pointed to the use of prediction markets within corporations like Google and Eli Lilly, which have sometimes skirted gambling laws by supplying their employees with âoeinvestment fundsâ and given them an opportunity to make wagers based on their knowledge.

The Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) even launched its own prediction market known as FutureMAP for intelligence purposes in 2001, though the program was canceled for political reasons in 2003. As the CIAâ(TM)s paper notes, Senators Byron Dorgan and Ron Wyden called such experiments âoeterrorism betting parlors,â and argued that âoespending millions of dollars on some kind of fantasy league terror game is absurd and, frankly, ought to make every American angry.â

What's interesting is that prediction markets seem to have advantages over opinion polls. E.g.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff88.html

In an article in support of rational markets, Mark Rubinstein relates this story:

"At 3:15 p.m. on May 27, 1968, the submarine USS Scorpion was officially declared missing with all 99 men aboard. She was somewhere within a 20-mile-wide circle in the Atlantic, far below implosion depth. Five months later, after extensive search efforts, her location within that circle was still undetermined. John Craven, the Navy's top deep-water scientist, had all but given up. As a last gasp, he asked a group of submarine and salvage experts to bet on the probabilities of different scenarios that could have occurred. Averaging their responses, he pinpointed the exact location (within 220 yards) where the missing sub was found."

James Surowiecki in his book The Wisdom of Crowds tells the story of the game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" in which a contestant could ask an expert for help with a question or ask the audience. The experts were right 65 percent of the time, and the audience was right 91 percent of the time.

Jude Wanniski related a story told to him by Jack Treynor, a finance guru. Treynor had his class guess the number of jelly beans in a jar holding 850 beans. The average guess was within 3 percent of the total. Wanniski, by the way, correctly realized that this supported the efficiency of financial markets. He also, in my opinion incorrectly, construed this as proof of the efficiency of political markets, an opinion he expanded upon in The Way the World Works.

Prediction markets in general perform exceedingly well compared to individual forecasts. In his article on prediction markets, Philip O'Connor writes: "In fact, studies of prediction markets have found that the market price does a better job of predicting future events than all but a tiny percentage of individual guesses. The analysis below of the Virtual Super 12 shows the average selection, an average or constructed market price, to be better than 99% of participants' selections."

He continues: "A short list of other evidence includes the following:

Markets that predict elections have been shown to outperform the predictions of opinion polls.

Prediction markets on movie box-office receipts and more obscure events have been shown to correspond closely with actual outcomes.

Srsly? If the US government is launching nuclear missiles at its own cities, it's already lost. If the military isn't against the state already, it will be when their friends and families are killed by WMDs launched by their employer. OTOH, even if the freedom fighters get hold of a nuke of any decent size, there's not much they can do with it without turning everyone against them, except perhaps use it as a deterrent to attack (which makes for an interesting plot; ask Kenneth W. Royce, although it was just conventional missiles in his book). There is a reason why Rothbard viewed nukes as a separate class of weapon - not merely a different degree, but of kind, due to the indiscriminate damage they do.

More info:

http://lewrockwell.com/goodwin/goodwin25.1.html

Private law would protect and defend property rights, read some Rothbard.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/rothbard133.html

What do you think of Lott's criticisms of the panel review (largely based on the dissenting panel member's criticisms). Do you think they are valid?

Link just in case you haven't read them.

fucking wrong

I worked as a prime contractor on the STS program both at the Cape and Marshall. I personally know an astronaut from the heyday. These are not the people you want on any project unless bankruptcy and failure are the goal. There is lterally nothing new in the space business except privatization. The technology is stuck right where Von Braun left it, chemical rockets are a dead end, nothing new unless we start using nuclear weapons as propulsion! Theodore Taylor had a superb design for this type of space craft but no one listened ebven though he designed virtually every fission weapon in the arsena (every engineer should read his biography it is superb). See: http://www.lewrockwell.com/giles/giles31.html

Unlike a high school diploma, the path to a bachelor's degree isn't exactly cheap.

It depends on how you go about it. There's an articulist at LewRockwell.com, Gary North, an anti-establishment Christian libertarian, who routinely writes about alternative paths one can use to obtain a bachelor's degree for VERY little, roughly $11k to $15k (total). It seems he sells an ebook about this for about $100, but if you Google him you'll find articles providing the gist of the method, which basically boils down to mixing "(1) night school, (2) dual-track (high school/college), (3) daytime community college, (4) quizzing out (CLEP, DSST), (5) distance learning, (6) portfolio courses (life experience), and (7) in-state resident tuition" (from http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north988.html).

Good thing here in Brazil we have some very good free universities with a single requirement of passing on a high enough position in an (admittedly hard due mainly to competition) entrance exam, but nothing more. I can't imagine myself spending $200k+ on a bachelor's degree. If I lived in the US I'd most certainly try every single approach in the above list, no second thoughts about it. $200k+ is, simply put, completely and utterly insane.

Why I Do Not Vote by Michael S. Rozeff

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff224.html

I'm voting for Johnson, and I live in a very close swing state, and I truly hope the balance hangs on less votes than the 3rd parties get, but I like Rozeff's article anyway.

Two choice quotes by Mr Rozeff:

"I don't believe in representative government under our Constitution. The Constitution has no legitimate authority over me. I have never signed off on it."

"I do not wish to endorse a system that has produced and continues to produce what I think are pragmatically bad results."

I particularly like the first quote. Kind of mind expanding. The D and R parties want to use the constitution as toilet paper, other than the R have been beating the drum for almost 5 years that Obama is a Kenyan, and that little clause about prez being native born is sacred, but the rest of the constitution and BoR is just used Charmin so don't worry about it. Yet in the long run, what do I care for or against the constitution, Like Rozeff writes, I never signed the damn thing anyway and if I wrote it, it would look a bit different. So as a thought experiment, say he came from Kenya, what do I care, the cleaning lady at work is an illegal el salvadorian and no one cares much and its not my rule, nor do I much care about that particular rule.

There's been a couple other good articles along these lines on zerohedge recently, but I didn't save the links. Oh well.

There is a curve where you raise rates, the sales decline and the projected income fails to materalize.

http://lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams92.1.html

Some are unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the past. Others are ignoring the past hoping for another outcome.

Employers are already hiring part time employees instead of full time because of the new health care requirements. The intent was to provide more health care. The reality is more have multiple part time jobs and NO health care. I won't provide a link to the health care story. It's easly found searching the news. Our great job recovery is low wage, low hours, low benifits work.

Raising taxes to maintain or increase social entitlements will result in job losses.

You can tax those with a full time job. What do you do when nobody has full time work and entitlements? Eventually we will max out the nation's credit card and become unable to even make interest payments. The hocky stick is not Global Warming, it is the fiscal cliff.
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2012/03/next-scary-hockey-stick-chart.html#.UJf5guJ2PgM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fiscal_cliff

If you're going to bring up the Laffer curve at least bring up the Laffer curve. Secondly, the issue is almost always in determining where we are on the curve.

Employers are hiring more part time workers not because of the NEW health care law.. but because they have been trying to avoid paying benefits for YEARS.

The reason that the recovery features a lot of part time low paying jobs is because you have been voting for years with your dollars in America. And the dollars have voted they want cheap crap from China sold at Wal-mart et al. rather than something with quality but a higher price where American labour can compete. (Similar to here and Canada I might add).

The playing field is not level for labour. The corporations are much more mobile than the labour so they just go where the wages are cheapest and we end up with a service economy that is unsustainable.

But hey, I guess all this started in the last four years, right?

There is a curve where you raise rates, the sales decline and the projected income fails to materalize.

http://lewrockwell.com/williams-w/w-williams92.1.html

Some are unwilling to repeat the mistakes of the past. Others are ignoring the past hoping for another outcome.

Employers are already hiring part time employees instead of full time because of the new health care requirements. The intent was to provide more health care. The reality is more have multiple part time jobs and NO health care. I won't provide a link to the health care story. It's easly found searching the news. Our great job recovery is low wage, low hours, low benifits work.

Raising taxes to maintain or increase social entitlements will result in job losses.

You can tax those with a full time job. What do you do when nobody has full time work and entitlements? Eventually we will max out the nation's credit card and become unable to even make interest payments. The hocky stick is not Global Warming, it is the fiscal cliff.
http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2012/03/next-scary-hockey-stick-chart.html#.UJf5guJ2PgM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_fiscal_cliff

How many pro-choice, pro-gay marriage, anti-religion in government, anti-war Republicans do you know?

A lot of Republicans are only motivated by fiscal issues, and merely "go with the flow" on all other issues to get elected. Democracy is a shitty system - you have to compromise your principles and appeal to a common denominator in order to get anything done. Rational votes who understand economics are less than 10% of the electorate - they already vote for Republicans (or a few for Libertarians, if they vote at all), but obviously that's not enough. If they want to win elections, the Republicans must appeal to the more functional of the remaining idiots - the people who might be religious nuts, but can keep their religious nuttery in their own families and not bother others too much. The dysfunctional idiots who vote for Dems and Greens, on the other hand, want much more massive amounts of violence and theft for their benefit.

Furthermore, not all libertarians are "pro-choice", one example being Ron Paul - abortion is a very complicated issue. From the pragmatic political point of view, however, it's great emotional bait for the aforementioned idiots that Republicans must appeal to. A prohibition is very unlikely to happen even under massive GOP domination, and if it does it would only be on state level, in only a handful of small states where it would be a possibility, so at worst women would have to cross the state lines for a while...

Libertarians most certainly shouldn't be "pro-gay marriage". The rational libertarian position is to get the government out of the business of licensing marriage altogether, turning it into a private contract between individuals - any number of adults of any possible gender. Individual institutions (medical service providers, insurance companies, neighborhood associations, schools, churches, etc) would then be free to choose their own policies, if any of their policies should touch upon the issue of marriage. Many would choose not to recognize "gay marriage", "plural marriage", etc - as is their Right to do so.

And rational gradualist libertarians (like myself) are not universally "anti-war", just anti- stupid overpriced poorly-managed wars like Iraq. (The right way to do it is to build up a Pinochet or a Syngman Rhee, and then help him grab power.) Ending the draft was a very libertarian idea, as is privatization (partial demonopolization) of the military, and future ideas regarding making specific interest groups bare the cost burden of war. Wars that overthrow commie dictators (nations on the very bottom of the Economic Freedom Index list) are morally justified, based on the self-defense Rights of people under those oppressive regimes - it's just a question of who's going to pay for it. One idea is that the multinational corporations dealing with potentially-tyrannical governments could get something like "nationalization insurance", which in case of a government power-grab would hire a private defense agency to defend the Property Rights of the insured, naturally with plenty of free diffusional ("trickle down") benefits for others involved.

Libertarians may be to the right of Republicans on fiscal issues, but they are to the left of Democrats on social issues. [...]

Those are not two sides of the same coin. Social issues are solvable through local or ideally purely contractual restrictions, while fiscal issues are not. People on all sides of a socially-contentious issue would get their way by voting Libertarian, and then voting with their f

Yes it is a nose dive.

You are parroting communist "ripe for a revolution" propaganda without the slightest comprehension of what you're saying. Here's the objective reality: all governments always use violence to gain and retain power, it's just a matter of degree. If you were to look at the big picture and graph the amount of violence, you'd see that it has been on a gradual decline.

USA has committed much violence in conquering land from the Natives (who were even more violent amongst themselves - violence in pre-capitalist cultures is unavoidable), crushing dozens of rebellions and secessionist movements you've probably never heard of (especially if you went to "public school"), and of course slavery and the Civil War (fought primarily not to end slavery but to resubjugate the South). The bloodiness of European history (including their other colonies) is orders of magnitude greater. But, as governments stabilize, their motivation for overt violence decreases, as does their ability to do things covertly - why kill when you can tax?

Years back there were rumours about rogue CIA idiots torturing people in Central America - some believed it, but most didn't, and those that did believe mostly didn't think it was standard operating proceedure.

Communists took over much of Eurasia and killed tens of millions of people through direct action, while billions of people's lives were diminished indirectly, resulting in less freedom, lower quality of life, lower life expectancy, and lower attainment. (My (grand)parents were among their victims, both directly and indirectly.) The commies want a World Revolution, and have done much to sponsor violent Communist uprisings in every part of the world, including Latin America.

USA was the only significant power that could stand in their way, propping up less tyrannical governments that offer much more respect for individual Rights. Just compare a country where anti-Communist interventionism was a success (ex. Chile - soon to be one of the world's wealthiest nations) to one where it was a total failure (ex. Cuba)... Yes, some Communists were killed in the process - revolutions aren't fought with water-guns you know. Killing an active Communist is a legitimate act of self-defense!

And, yes, there were a few innocent victims as well (perhaps 1/10,000th the number of innocent victims created by communists). If you don't want to become an "innocent victim" for either side, don't stand within a smartbomb blast radius of a commie!

Then Baby Bush made it very clear that torture was now fully accepted as a tool and not an atrocity for the first confirmed time in the USA since the American Revolution.

All governments torture when they have something to gain from it. Not all governments do it as infrequently and as by-the-book as USA does. Of course sometimes it doesn't go by the book, but still - you have to look at degrees. Base your arguments on numbers and logic, not feelings and polemic slogans. Iraq after Saddam's fall is a less torture-prone place than it was before, and in another decade the improvement will be even more significant.

That's just one thing, abducting other countries citizens for torture (extreme rendition) is another, so that's a reputation loss that far exceeds Reagan's "bombing starts in 15 minutes" moment or anything Nixon ever did.

It seems that in your version of history only recent Republican presidents engage in violence, the more recent the more evil. Many US presidents are responsible for violence on a massive scale, from Washington to Bloody Abe to Wilson to FDR and

Yes it is a nose dive.

You are parroting communist "ripe for a revolution" propaganda without the slightest comprehension of what you're saying. Here's the objective reality: all governments always use violence to gain and retain power, it's just a matter of degree. If you were to look at the big picture and graph the amount of violence, you'd see that it has been on a gradual decline.

USA has committed much violence in conquering land from the Natives (who were even more violent amongst themselves - violence in pre-capitalist cultures is unavoidable), crushing dozens of rebellions and secessionist movements you've probably never heard of (especially if you went to "public school"), and of course slavery and the Civil War (fought primarily not to end slavery but to resubjugate the South). The bloodiness of European history (including their other colonies) is orders of magnitude greater. But, as governments stabilize, their motivation for overt violence decreases, as does their ability to do things covertly - why kill when you can tax?

Years back there were rumours about rogue CIA idiots torturing people in Central America - some believed it, but most didn't, and those that did believe mostly didn't think it was standard operating proceedure.

Communists took over much of Eurasia and killed tens of millions of people through direct action, while billions of people's lives were diminished indirectly, resulting in less freedom, lower quality of life, lower life expectancy, and lower attainment. (My (grand)parents were among their victims, both directly and indirectly.) The commies want a World Revolution, and have done much to sponsor violent Communist uprisings in every part of the world, including Latin America.

USA was the only significant power that could stand in their way, propping up less tyrannical governments that offer much more respect for individual Rights. Just compare a country where anti-Communist interventionism was a success (ex. Chile - soon to be one of the world's wealthiest nations) to one where it was a total failure (ex. Cuba)... Yes, some Communists were killed in the process - revolutions aren't fought with water-guns you know. Killing an active Communist is a legitimate act of self-defense!

And, yes, there were a few innocent victims as well (perhaps 1/10,000th the number of innocent victims created by communists). If you don't want to become an "innocent victim" for either side, don't stand within a smartbomb blast radius of a commie!

Then Baby Bush made it very clear that torture was now fully accepted as a tool and not an atrocity for the first confirmed time in the USA since the American Revolution.

All governments torture when they have something to gain from it. Not all governments do it as infrequently and as by-the-book as USA does. Of course sometimes it doesn't go by the book, but still - you have to look at degrees. Base your arguments on numbers and logic, not feelings and polemic slogans. Iraq after Saddam's fall is a less torture-prone place than it was before, and in another decade the improvement will be even more significant.

That's just one thing, abducting other countries citizens for torture (extreme rendition) is another, so that's a reputation loss that far exceeds Reagan's "bombing starts in 15 minutes" moment or anything Nixon ever did.

It seems that in your version of history only recent Republican presidents engage in violence, the more recent the more evil. Many US presidents are responsible for violence on a massive scale, from Washington to Bloody Abe to Wilson to FDR and

Yes it is a nose dive.

You are parroting communist "ripe for a revolution" propaganda without the slightest comprehension of what you're saying. Here's the objective reality: all governments always use violence to gain and retain power, it's just a matter of degree. If you were to look at the big picture and graph the amount of violence, you'd see that it has been on a gradual decline.

USA has committed much violence in conquering land from the Natives (who were even more violent amongst themselves - violence in pre-capitalist cultures is unavoidable), crushing dozens of rebellions and secessionist movements you've probably never heard of (especially if you went to "public school"), and of course slavery and the Civil War (fought primarily not to end slavery but to resubjugate the South). The bloodiness of European history (including their other colonies) is orders of magnitude greater. But, as governments stabilize, their motivation for overt violence decreases, as does their ability to do things covertly - why kill when you can tax?

Years back there were rumours about rogue CIA idiots torturing people in Central America - some believed it, but most didn't, and those that did believe mostly didn't think it was standard operating proceedure.

Communists took over much of Eurasia and killed tens of millions of people through direct action, while billions of people's lives were diminished indirectly, resulting in less freedom, lower quality of life, lower life expectancy, and lower attainment. (My (grand)parents were among their victims, both directly and indirectly.) The commies want a World Revolution, and have done much to sponsor violent Communist uprisings in every part of the world, including Latin America.

USA was the only significant power that could stand in their way, propping up less tyrannical governments that offer much more respect for individual Rights. Just compare a country where anti-Communist interventionism was a success (ex. Chile - soon to be one of the world's wealthiest nations) to one where it was a total failure (ex. Cuba)... Yes, some Communists were killed in the process - revolutions aren't fought with water-guns you know. Killing an active Communist is a legitimate act of self-defense!

And, yes, there were a few innocent victims as well (perhaps 1/10,000th the number of innocent victims created by communists). If you don't want to become an "innocent victim" for either side, don't stand within a smartbomb blast radius of a commie!

Then Baby Bush made it very clear that torture was now fully accepted as a tool and not an atrocity for the first confirmed time in the USA since the American Revolution.

All governments torture when they have something to gain from it. Not all governments do it as infrequently and as by-the-book as USA does. Of course sometimes it doesn't go by the book, but still - you have to look at degrees. Base your arguments on numbers and logic, not feelings and polemic slogans. Iraq after Saddam's fall is a less torture-prone place than it was before, and in another decade the improvement will be even more significant.

That's just one thing, abducting other countries citizens for torture (extreme rendition) is another, so that's a reputation loss that far exceeds Reagan's "bombing starts in 15 minutes" moment or anything Nixon ever did.

It seems that in your version of history only recent Republican presidents engage in violence, the more recent the more evil. Many US presidents are responsible for violence on a massive scale, from Washington to Bloody Abe to Wilson to FDR and

The following may be of interest to you http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/felkins11.html