Currency Value Prediction

The value of the dollar, like all other unbacked (intrinsically worthless) currencies, will continue to fall relative to a basket of commodities and services because the supply of such currencies is dependent on the whims of central banks, whose governing boards being not wholly uninfluenced by their respective federal governments, have a preference for expanding the money supply to make the economy appear to be doing well and the deficit small by inducing spending. This is usually a gradual, but persistent process, which eventually results in the value of unbacked currencies reaching their intrinsic value, i.e., zero. This process is usually very gradual, but it can be very rapid, which is called hyperinflation. Hyperinflation typically happens when governments try to finance previous debt, wars, and generous social programs by printing bills (indirect taxation via inflation), rather than through direct taxation.

To acquire revenue, Republican administrations tend to favor indirect taxation; whereas, Democratic administrations tend to favor direct taxation. Historically, neither Republicans nor Democrats have ever actually produced a net cut in government spending because of the preference of those in power is to increase their power by increasing the size and scope of government. In general, government grows the least and the economy does best when there is gridlock in Washington, resulting from a mixture of Republicans/Democrats in the legislative and executive branches.

Since both US dollars and foreign currencies are inflationary relative to durable commodities, the question becomes which is more inflationary. This is mainly determined by the policies of the central banks of the respective countries, but is also influenced by the extent to which the governments and citizens of those countries are debtors. In other words, how much there is a demand for money. One can think of the banking system as a system that creates and destroys money on demand. They can adjust the demand for money by adjusting the interest rate for a loan. When a loan is taken out, say, to purchase a house, an enormous quantity of money is instantly injected into the economy. This is because only 10% of the money needs to be in the bank as reserves, the rest is simply printed up out of thin air by the federal reserves accounting scheme. As the loan is repaid the money is destroyed again. ->

lowered interest rate / lowered reserve requirement -> increasing demand for loans -> increasing demand for deposits -> higher deposit interest rate -> more bankable deposits -> increasing money supply -> monetary inflation (10x the money supply),
high interest rate -> low bank holdings -> monetary stability

To understand why, consider that Alan Greenspan encouraged a period of enormous inflation in order to avert a recession. He did this by lowering the prime lending rate. Monetary expansion does tend to delay recession, but it only makes the inevitable recession larger and more painful than it would have been had there been no monetary expansion in the first place. Interest rates reached a low of 4.0% in Jun, 2004. When interest rates are lowered this results in almost immediate inflation in the housing market as people rush to finance and re-finance; however, housing is not included in the federal reserve's inflation indices and since this inflation requires several years to trickle down into the rest of the economy, there is a lag in the time the fed responds to the inflation that they created by raising interest rates again. Currently, the rate is at 6.25% and Greenspan will probably continue to raise interest rates for several years.

As rates go up, people stop being able to afford houses and people with variable-rate or interest-only loans can no longer afford the monthly payments on their homes, forcing them to sell. Both the people who stop buying and those who are forced to sell contribute to a depression of housing prices, meaning that people can no longer tap the rising values of their homes to live beyond their means. The US starts to go into recession. Whereas consumers previously were spending beyond their means, they start to save. This backs up inventories and money must be reinvested. This liquidation and reinvestment is expensive, hurting the US economy.

The problem for the dollar is that when banks start collapsing, the federal reserve/government will try to bail them out (creating dollars), rather letting them fail (liquidating dollars). This demonstrates the inevitability of the inflation of intrinsically worthless currencies given the preferences of bureaucrats for delaying the pain of recovery.

That the value of the dollar continues to decline relative to a basket of foreign unpegged currencies is then more a function of how government chooses to finance its profligate spending and the rate of that spending. Below is a chart that gives general recommendations of whether to buy or sell dollars against a diversified basket of foreign unpegged currencies:

Legislative	Executive	Greenspan Thinks Economy Is	Sell Dollars?
Republican	Republican	Weak	STRONG SELL
Republican	Democratic	Weak	HOLD
Democratic	Republican	Weak	BUY
Democratic	Democratic	Weak	SELL
Republican	Republican	Strong	HOLD
Republican	Democratic	Strong	BUY
Democratic	Republican	Strong	STRONG BUY
Democratic	Democratic	Strong

Propaganda Preparations Are Underway Against Iran

Predictably, the neocrazies are running their propaganda machines overtime against the soverign democracy of Iran. Let us look at why an attack against Iraq would be immoral and a bad idea:

1. Like Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has never attacked the US, nor threatened to do so. Nor has Iran had a history of aggression since the Iran-Iraq war was initiated by Iraq. Attacking would violate every international convention in existence. The US would again be an illegal aggressor. Would the rest of the world continue to sit idly buy as we villify innocent nations to pillage their resources, set up puppet regimes, and torture their citizens?
2. After the US illegally attacked Iraq to steal its oil and place a puppet regime in place and canceled foreign contracts of governments that invested in Iraq, China got some sense and realized that the US neocons are the primary threat to world peace and increased trading with Iran. Iran, being flush with cash from the high prices of crude resulting from the US invasion of Iraq was quickly able to boost their defensive military capability.Such Chinese-Iranian trade has resulted in the development of a pipeline, an automotive factory, and upgraded missile systems. The Chinese, not wishing this petroleum resource to also be stolen by the mercantilist neocons, have also made statements suggesting that they would defend Iran if Iran were also attacked by the oil/empire-thirsty neocons.
3. Like Iraq, Iran could be conquered quickly at the cost of tens of thousands of Iranian civilian casualties, especially if the neocrazies choose to use nukes, but holding Iran would be even more difficult and expensive. This would require financial and troop resources the US simply could not muster.
4. The US military is already over-stretched and our economy in ruins (high inflation, sky-rocketing oil prices, increasing personal and national debt) and few are foolish enough to sign up now for Bush's glory. As in Vietnam, a military draft for this highly illegal power grab would result in very large rates of fragging, suicide, drug use, and dissertion.
5. The price of oil would sky rocket even more, since the military would consume more, Iran would destroy much of it, and extraction resources would be in disrepair, and frequently sabotaged.
6. Would the Chinese continue to finance our economy after the neocon empiricists screw them once again?
7. Terrorism would increase once again as it would become more clear that the "war on terror" is a cultural war against Islam, not a war on terror per se.
   

Clearly, if we were to "win" a war against Iran, we would lose once again: morally, financially, and in terms of personal security and liberty.

Iran is not a real democracy?

The neocons are going to try their same trick again with Iran:

1. Create sham evidence, hearsay, and biased defamation against a smaller nation via your thralls in the media: Fox, Clear Channel, ....
2. Give your thralls favors such as special access to stories and FCC protection.
   
3. Persist in the lies until the generally apathetic and incurious public starts to believe you.
4. Set up sham investigators (Chalabi) and reporters to villify your victim whom you agree to install into power as a puppet governor after a sham election.
5. Defame and question the motives of those who question your evidence or rush to war. (Don't forget to impl that they are homosexuals with secret sinister agendas.)
6. Retire to your ranch and enjoy a while you claim that you are struggling and praying to do the right thing.
7. Claim to be a man of peace, but announce with great feigned gravitas that you have no choice but to attack or the US will almost certainly be nuked into the ground (by the nonexistent weapons of mass destrucion), attacked by biological weapons, or sinister drones.
   
8. Bomb the hell out of the country's military and civilian infrastructure.
   
9. Do not apologize for civilian casualties.
10. Invade and declare victory.
11. Don't forget the photo ops with the few smiling imported dissidents who are happy to share power in the new government.
12. Declare victory.
13. Install your puppet dictator and declare martial law.
14. Distribute lucrative security and reconstruction contracts to those who funded your election campaign. (Haliburton,...)
    
15. Hold sham elections in which your candidate is the only one who can possibly win because the other known candidates have been detained.
16. Construct a large permanent military base and consulate.
    
17. Install various propaganda outlets in the newly-conquered country.
    
18. Call terrorists any who take up arms to oppose your blatant invasion and theft.
19. Leave when the puppet regime appears to be pliant and self-sufficient.
    

It is funny that the neocons cannot claim that Iran is not democracy, so they are saying it is not a real democracy, while failing to define how their form of democracy is any less vibrant than our own. What a bunch of hypocritical, belligerent, shameless, psychopaths the neocon lackeys are!
Iran is accused of trying to acquire nuclear weapons without any supporting evidence. The irony is that it would be crazy for Iran not to try to either acquire nuclear weapons or try to hide under the nuclear umbrella of another nation given that our regime has clearly demonstrated its willingness to attack any nation with a thin veil of sham evidence. Who is stupid enough to fall for the same scam thrice?

May the middle east have its nuclear empire to counter the evil US empire under which we are either subjects or lackeys.

CONTEXT - This Week in Arts and Ideas from The Moscow Times

Anyone as cynical and crooked as Jeb Bush has to have his eyes set on the presidency. Why not? His brother was an amateur who got every job he ever had through his family connections.

Furthermore, slavish Republicans would love to keep the dynasty going. (You weren't under the illusion that this was a democracy. Were you?)

RexCurry.net -The Lawyer, Libertarian, Historian & Journalist

RexCurry is an excellent libertarian website that shows the origins of the Pledge of Allegiance in the nazism (German National Socialism) via Edward Bellamy.

Nationalism is almost invariably evil. Nationalism is the most common cause of wars. Socialism is the next greatest evil, giving a centralized government the power to slaughter, regiment, and wage war with reckless disregard for its drones.

Notice in the photos that the boys are dressed as boy scouts and the girls as girl scouts. These are also national socialistic institutions.

We Are Very Good Drivers by Sheila Samples

The eternal war on terrorism is going so well that we have gotten one low-level terrorist and created several hundred more who are willing to blow themselves up to displace our puppet regime in Iraq.

Not to mention that our "shock and awe" bombing campaign of Iraq was clearly an intentional and massive act of terrorism.

America's Mortal Secret

Sept. 11, 2001, left the United States in the grip of an unarticulated need for payback. No one takes a blow like that without wanting to strike out. Stated justifications aside, that need fueled the subsequent American attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, which is why it meant so little when those justifications (bin Laden dead-or-alive, WMD, etc.) evaporated. And why it meant so little when the brutalities of American methods were made plain, from torture to hair-trigger checkpoints to ruined cities.

True, Joe American does enjoy revenge (as long as the suffering is not too graphic and the personal cost not too high); however, the desire of Joe American for revenge was manipulated by the neocon administration by repeatedly implying that Saddam Hussein had some sort of connection with Al Qaeda, which in turn had a connection with the 9/11 attacks. Unfortunately, democratic hack John Kerry was the candidate least prepared to call Bush on such obvious war propaganda, given his vote to authorize the war, his long-term Washington player status, and his implausible denial that he thought that Bush would actually use such authorization.

I suspect that Washington insiders knew that to leave sanctions in place was criminal (having resulted in the deaths of an estimated 500,000 civilians), but may have felt that they could not politically allow the sanctions to lapse and Iraq to recover with Saddam still in power, despite the fact that UN inspections would have continued, Iraq had disarmed and cooperated with inspectors, and Iraq had been duly chastened by the attack.

For those who doubt that Saddam would have reformed, consider the example of Moamer Kadhafi, who was once an ardent Arab nationalist, but has voiced mounting exasperation with Arab politics in recent years and has reoriented Libyan foreign policy toward Africa, where he maintains close ties with post-apartheid South Africa. He has also disarmed and apologized and given restitution for the Lockerbie bombing.
Militarily he has taken on a defensive posture and supported women's equality. He has also appealed to the kidnappers of US hostage Roy Hallums to spare his life. He has also argued for economic liberalization.

Unfortunately, not all is rosy, but he seems to be trying by releasing hundreds of political prisoners.

Keep the Borders Open (February 2002)

This is no doubt in my mind that closing borders to innocent human beings is one of the greatest evils of our time. Closed borders lead to people justifying cruelty to other humans whose only crime is that they seek to better themselves without harming others. People rhetorically say that they are illegal to justify their inhumanity. But if the government were to pass a law that all blonde people had to move to a desert camp, would one be justified in one's arrogant cruelty to those blondes who who ignored the ruling by saying that they were illegals. These illegals have not certainly not broken any libertarian law, but those who harass them are breaking the libertarian rule that one cannot infringe on the rights of others who do not violate your property rights.

The ridiculous argument that some pseudo-libertarians make, that crossing a border violates someone's property rights, ignores the reality that in any workable society there must be access routes from any available private property. This can either be an easement or a public route. Lack of access to one's property would be a gross violation of individual who wished to use that property. Of course, such public access routes exist at all of the borders, they are called highways. The border patrol's ridiculous assignment is to filter out individuals depending on nothing more than where they were born or to whom they were married.

Furthermore, it is silly to oppose a totalitarian state while being a proponent of totalitarian borders. If a nation becomes oppressive, should the citizens of that nation be condemned to die? How will the lies of the state be refuted if citizens are not free to travel and see the truth? How will one know who is a foreigner, if all citizens and legal residents are not required to carry identification? How will one have a limited state without the massive state apparatus necessary to block the traffic in individuals? How can citizens who misplace their papers avoid be deported by the state?

Proponents of closed borders have always wanted to oppress those who were less fortunate than themselves. They want an un-level playing field, a territorial monopoly, which is enforced by the government and they want you to pay for it twice: In higher prices because of the higher cost of their labor versus immigrant labor and because of the cost of enforcement, which is paid for by your tax dollars.

Who Killed Hariri?

Here are some theories as to who killed Hariri:

1. Islamist extremists who have not forgiven Syria its repression of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 80s;
2. Far-right Christians, anxious to rouse opinion against Syria and expel it from Lebanon and funded by the CIA, seeking to install an airbase;
3. Israel, whose ambition has long been to weaken Syria, sever its strategic alliance with Iran and destroy Hizbullah;
4. Syria as a severe miscalculation (This is the most ludicrous theory, espoused by neocons for self-serving empire building!).
   

Of these theories, the evidence seems to point to the first one:

1. A security camera shows a car bomb with round 660 to 770 pounds of explosives detonated as Hariri's entourage passed.
2. Ahmed Tayseer Abu Adas released a video claiming responsibility.
3. Lebanese authorities did DNA tests on the remains of a body found at the scene to establish they did indeed belonged to Abu Adas.

Further investigations will almost certainly confirm the killer, but do not expect the neocon adminstration to apologize to Syria or even recant their silly theory.

The Global US Empire

Approximately 350,000 U.S. troops (0.12% of the US Population) were stationed around the world in Feb, 2005. About 250,000 were deployed in combat, peacekeeping and counterterrorism operations, and an additional 100,000 in Germany, Japan, Italy and England were serving routine tours of duty. GlobalSecurity calculates that if civilians and dependents are added in, the number is 531,000 (0.18% of the US population and ~ 0.5% of US Population under 10-40 years old). Below is the number of troops stationed abroad by region:

• Iraq: 153,000
  
• Germany: 75,000
• Japan: 47,000
• South Korea: 37,000
• Italy: 13,000
• England: 12,000
• Afghanistan: 11,000
  
• Bosnia and Kosovo: 8,000 (Part of NATO's peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Kosovo.)
• Qatar: 1,600
  
• Djibouti: 1,600 (Support for counterterrorism activities in the Horn of Africa region and monitors the southern entry to the Red Sea.)
• Haiti: 1,600 U.S. Marines as part of a multinational peacekeeping force.
• Philippines: 1,000 (Working with the Philippine military to combat terrorism.)
• Georgia: 75 (Marines training four Georgian battalions in counterterrorism.)
• Yemen: U.S. special operations forces trained 200 Yemeni soldiers in counterterrorism tactics last year.
• Colombia: Clusters of special forces soldiers train Colombian troops to fight leftist guerrillas and police narcotics trafficking.

True Libertarians

As more individuals become disaffected from the major political parties, many have assumed the name libertarian without knowing what it means. Here is a minimum necessary to be considered a libertarian in my mind:

1. You oppose all forced service (slavery), including the draft. Forced service violates one's ownership of one's labor.
   
2. You oppose any regulations on how private-property, including flags, should be displayed or treated, except to limit the effects on other's property. This is a violation of free expression.
3. You oppose all wars that were engaged or initiated for any reason other than for self defense and to satisfy lawful defensive treaties, such as The War to Install a Puppet Regime in Iraq and Make It Friendly to Corporate Donors.
4. You oppose all restrictions on access to pharmaceuticals (drugs), as this never directly affects other individuals.
5. You realize that war is the health of the state and oppose all undeclared wars (police actions): Viet Nam, Cambodia, Korea, Panama, ...
6. You oppose any compromise of civil liberties, such as the Patriot Act.
   
7. As required for honoring our treaties, United Nations approval is a necessary condition for declaring war. The Iraq War II was not honorable because it violated UN resolutions that it claimed to be upholding.
8. You oppose restrictions of trade (unless it is proven that a particular country is employing slave labor).
9. You oppose restrictions on free entry and exit, without probable cause of criminal intent.
10. You oppose militarily-imposed puppet democracy building and allow national self determination.
11. You oppose forcibly disarming other free nations.
12. You support only proportionate retaliatory military responses, or de-escalations, not overwhelming punitive responses.
    
13. You oppose the centralization of the control of lethal force. There should exist a balance of power between competing authorities (branches of the military, coalitions of states, counties, etc) .
    
14. You oppose government sanctioned monopolies, such as:
    currency production
    banking
    medicare/medicaid
    social security
    unemployment insurance
    schooling
    airport security
    airline traffic control
    mail transportation
    sports stadiums
    airport construction
    
15. You oppose government regulation of the free market sector, except as to ensure that the rights of others are not violated.
    
16. You oppose both high government taxation and spending. (GW lowered taxes, but increased spending.)
17. You oppose government deficit spending, because it usurps congressional authority.
    
18. You oppose all government licensing. All licensing should be by private certification boards.
    
19. You oppose forcing individuals to make any statements, including the pledge of allegiance.
20. You oppose regulations on the use of private property.
21. You oppose centralized government licensing.
    
22. You oppose any restrictions on immigration that would not apply to citizens.
    
23. You support the equal right of individuals (not convicted of a felony) to acquire (limited) lethal force without licensing.
    

Competing Power Centers

Political power is wielded either by direct or indirect psychological motivation (carrot) or direct or indirect coercion (stick). Politicians typically apply all of these methods (except direct coercion) to accomplish their goals. Those who have obtained power positions are said to be authorities. In order to psychologically motivate individuals, you must occupy the legitimate position of an authority in a belief system.

In my life, I have encountered the following authorities: parents (who have authority from direct psychic motivation emanating from the care that is provided and direct coercion), Church leaders (who have authority primarily from direct psychic motivation and indirect psychic motivation of one's parents), government officals, police officers, guards, judges, supervisors/managers, etc.

The challenge for freedom loving individuals is to either not buy into the belief systems that confer authority upon authority figures (most effective with moral authority figures such as Church leaders), persuade others of the illegitimacy of the authority figures or the belief systems that establish their power positions, or play off one authoritarian system against another. It is correctly noted that atheist, non-religiously affiliated, or non-devout individuals are the only moral individuals because they make their own moral judgements. In societies with monolithic and intolerant religious organizations (such as the Catholics in Spain), the incumbent religious organization is quite corrupt and militant.

For the divide and conquer strategy to be effective no particular authority ought to have much more power than any other and there should be several competing authorities. The local judicial/police system should check the federal legislative/national guard system. Counties should be turned against states and police should balance the military and the national guard. The UN and states should check the power of the federal government. All attempts to coordinate/centralize these power centers should be fought. Given the current unwieldy power of the fed, individuals should push for state's rights.

What Are We to Make of the Trade Deficit?

This article convincingly argues that a trade deficit like a personal deficit is not necessarily bad. The deficit may in fact result from investors eager to lend to a rapidly developing economy. This is a good thing that helps the developing economy develop even faster than if there existed no trade deficit because a lot of this consumption is for modern tooling, which improves manufacturing efficiency. However, a trade deficit may also result from government consumption, which is seldom for investment and more often for financing aggressive wars (such as the War to Exploit Iraq).

In summary, one should not be overly concerned about a trade deficit per se, but rather, how that money is used. Government will typically squander the funds to finance its expanding empire; whereas, the private sector will tend to invest the funds in improving productivity. Government is like a financially mismanaged, inefficient, and thoroughly corrupt business that never fears bankruptcy because it makes the laws about how much it will steal from the productive economy.

Right to Life is Worthless Without the Right to Die

Here is my bill of euthanasia rights:

1. Every individual capable of articulating their desire has complete control of their property to the extent that the excercise of their right does not infringe upon the rights of others. An individual's physical body is one's most intrinsic possession; therefore, every individual may choose to destroy their body without exception.
2. The right to assist in suicide is not limited to the terminally ill or those in chronic pain. All individuals have this right at any time.
3. No individual can assist in a suicide, without explicit permission to do so from the individual or, when the individual is inarticulate, then it must defer to the wishes of the most immediate family provided that there is not evidence indicating that the immediate family does not have the best interests of the incapacitated individual in mind.
4. If an individual is incapable of expressing a desire, then one only needs to ask who is paying to keep the individual alive and to what contracts they are bound; except to the extent that society has a duty to decrease suffering of inarticulate individuals.
5. No individual, including medical practioners, can be forced against their will to provide any service; therefore, any efforts to actively support another's life cannot be mandated by the courts. No support is required if sufficient payment is not met.

The State as a Parasite

Statists (both establishment Democrats and Republicans) argue about how to maximize government revenue. Keynes taught them that the revenue maximizing level of taxation must be less than 100% (because their host would not survive), but must also be greater than 0% (at which there would be no revenue). This is natural greed. What is less comprehensible is the number of private-sector dupes who offer their suggestions on how the State can maximize the pillage from the productive (non-government) economy.

To the various levels of government, the American people (revenue source) are Holsteins from which the quantity of milk extracted is maximized, but this is not an issue with which a free people in pursuit of happiness should concern themselves. What should concern free people, is how that extraction effects their pursuit of happiness. JFK had it precisely backwards: "Do not ask what you can do for your country (translation: the Federal Government), ask what your government has done for you lately, and whether it is worth the expense. Nor should a free people concern themselves with maximizing the amount of territory over which the host can extract the revenue on which is thrives.

The American people should care about lower tax rates for themselves (for the obvious direct benefit), lower tax rates for corporations (because of the benefit to the economy (lower prices, and higher productive employment)), and lower total tax revenue because that may contribute to less government (The government can survive for long periods by deficit spending, which results in monetary inflation.), which is a parasite concerned only with its own survival and propagation. The State cares about it's host, "the people", only indirectly and in so much as the death of its host would mean the death of itself.

Yes, I realize that a society that is not in a semi-symbiotic relationship with a parasite (government) is more susceptible to infection by other parasites (invasion) because the existing parasite will jealously guard its host; however, the people should realize that such infection may be less detrimental to the host (the people) than the original infection, and the possibilty of reducing or eliminating all parasites (anarchy) should always be kept in mind as an ideal.

SCM | 03.10.05 - 7:50 pm | #

NRO Supports National Socialism

But if it was still okay to have prayer in school, the Pledge of Allegiance, expulsions, non-self-esteem boosting curricula and the rest, a conservative would say, 'Don't touch the public schools. They're working just fine. Let's give them everything they need.

In other words, "conservatives" (of the National Review variety) believe that theft by the state is dandy as long as it supports their personal agenda. If an atheist, Buddhist, or Moslem is forced to pray a Christian prayer in school, that's OK with them. If a pacificist is forced to pledge allegiance to a flag (a symbol of militant nationalism), then that's OK too as long as a nominal "conservative" is calling the shots. If a childless couple is forced to pay for schooling the children on others, neocons believe that is just fine and dandy as long as their children are still in the school and they approve of the curriculum. If the curriculum is harsh and punishments are meted out regularly, then that is great, pacificists be damned. In other words, neocons, unlike libertarians, have no ethics.

What conservatives do believe in is hubristic/chauvinistic nationalism (which they misleadingly call patriotism). Because they are convinced (by fantastic historical distortion) of our moral superiority, they can justify wars of aggression by us against others, while condemning agression by one unallied party against another. Neocons look approvingly as their military slaughters thousands of innocent civilians, but scream in horror when their children die in war. Neocons support unconditonally those who serve their interests as they seek to create a unique national identity, which allows us to criticize and devalue/dehumanize non-Americans. Neocons are reviled by immigrants seeking to reach their shores and contaminate their unique and holy character. Neocons have no particular love or respect for Christianity, which preaches peace and fairness, but they embrace it simply because it is the dominant religion in the United States and, therefore, can be used to create our identity, our national myth. Similarly, neocons have no special love for English grammar, but they push English-only laws simply because it is the predominant language.

True libertarians can be distinguished from conservatives by their humility and objectivity, as opposed to the destructive power of pride. Libertarians are for individual "liberty" or, more precisely, as much liberty as is possible that does not infringe on the property or use of/access to that property of/by others:

Don't like English's hundreds of grammatical rules?
Choose Esperanto.

Don't like Christianity?
Try Buddhism.

Does the Catholic church charge too much for a Baptism?
No problem, become an Evangelical.

You don't want to wave the flag or support our troops in genocide?
No problem, you can wave whatever flag you want.

Libertarians (or at least real libertarians who do not support aggressive posturing or closed borders) allow the freedom for true morality and prosperity to exist. Neo-conservatism is the prescription for endless war.

Hunger for Dictatorship

The invasion of Iraq has put the possibility of the end to American democracy on the table and has empowered groups on the Right that would acquiesce to and in some cases welcome the suppression of core American freedoms. That would be the titanic irony of course, the mother of them all—that a war initiated under the pretense of spreading democracy would lead to its destruction in one of its very birthplaces. But as historians know, history is full of ironies.

If only the paleocons were as eloquent in their promotion of individual freedon as their opposition to American empire.

Defending the Indefensible War in Iraq

Because the war in Iraq is indefensible from virtually any moral perspective, it is fascinating to see the bizarre fabrications and twisted rationalization of the defenders of one of the most indefensible wars.

Let us review the facts as I see them:

1. Iraq was admitedly a rogue nation (Iran-Iraq war, Kuwait, repressing Shiites, ...) ten years prior to the war.
2. At one point during the Iran-Iraq war, which Iraq started, the US was actually supporting Iraq with satellite imagery and the precursors for chemical weapons!
   
3. Iraq had been beaten badly by those two wars, a de facto Kurdish separation, a Shia revolt, and nearly a decade of sanctions, safe zones, and rigorous inspections.
4. The sanctions on Iraq resulted in a a decline in the social and economic infrastructure or Iraq, resulting in food, water and medicine shortages that killed more than 500,000 Iraqi children according to UNICEF studies.
   
5. Iraq was complying fantastically well with the sanctions, presumably because they wanted the crippling sanctions lifted, but the Baath were legitimately concerned about the US spying on them.
6. Bush was extremely eager to go to war. He paid for false testimony against Saddam, used discredited "facts", invented the threat, and marginalized those in his adminstration who argued against war.
   
7. At the time of the invasion, several independent inspectors had confirmed that Saddam was completely defenseless.
8. George Bush sought even before becoming president to depose Saddam. This was based on three reasons:
   He regretted that his father did not overthrow Saddam and promised himself that if given the opportunity he would not flinch from attacking Saddam.
   He wanted to place a military base in the Middle East to ensure the flow of oil (as if they would not have sold it to us.)
   He wanted to reward his corporate sponsors (Richard Cheney, etc.) with lucrative "reconstruction" contracts
   
9. The United Nations did not wish us to go to war with Iraq.
10. The US bribed many countries to support the war.
    
11. Despite foreign aid bribes, very few countries supported the war, by the end almost all coalition states left.
    
12. The US easily conquered Iraq because Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
13. If Iraq had WMDs, it would have used them when it was attacked.
    
14. The US faced guerrilla warfare from ex-Baathist Sunnis.
15. Bush begrudgingly allowed elections to occur when Shiite leaders started big demonstrations for such elections. (The Shiites knew that they had the most population and would successfully gain power.)
16. Iraqi life became even harder for most Iraqis after the occupation, including shortages of gas, electricity, water, and kerosene.
    
17. Iraqis were in constant fear of being sent of to Abu Gharib or caught in the crossfire between insurgents and US-backed troops.
    
18. The initial euphoria over "liberation" by some Iraqis dissolved into a desire to end the occupation and have a normal government.
19. Vice president Richard Cheney's Halliburton made billions of dollars off of no bid contracts in Iraq. This was a sharp increase over the percentage of contracts in previous wars.
    
20. There never was any connection between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
21. George Bush's neocons did not even intend to go after Al Qaeda, but wanted to leverage 9/11 to engage in "nation (re)building".
    
22. W attacked Afghanistan with reluctance, knowing that he could then place the attack on Iraq/Iran/Syria/North Korea (and whoever else the administration wanted to eliminate) in the context of an abstract "war on terrorism".
23. The "war on terrorism" degenerated even further into "making the world democratic".
24. Iraq now has considerably less religious freedom (except for Muslims) than it had under Saddam and may well adopt Sharia law.
25. The US has built one of the world's largest permanent military bases in Iraq.
    
26. Saudi Arabia has asked us to remove the military base located there.
    
27. Terrorism has increased dramatically due to the Iraq war.
    
28. The middle east has been greatly destabilized as a result of the war.
    

Given these facts, it was obvious that the war was unjustified. You cannot attack someone for what they did 10 years ago, especially when the country had been severly punished, as was the case with Iraq. Nor did we even purport to do so. We claimed to be attacking them because they were not complying with sanctions; however, this was patently and knowingly false. Fabricating a case against someone is wrong, especially when doing so to wage war. If one can reasonably predict that such a lie will result in the deaths of thousands of innocents, then action is a war crime. This is the same crime for which the Nazis were executed at Nereumberg. George W Bush, Richard Cheney, Condolezza Rich, Ahmed Chalabi, Rumsfeld and others should be tried for war crimes.

Convicting these individuals would make the world a much safer place. In addition, Rumsfeld is guilty of torture and holding prisoners of war illegally, which are both serious war crimes.

Such justice is necessary not only for the survival of our nation, but probably for the survival of humanity. Nuclear war with the Soviet Union/China/Europe is today much more likely due to the United State's heavy-handed imperialism.

Beating a Dead Parrot - Why Iraq and Vietnam have nothing whatsoever in common. By Christopher Hitchens

There it was again, across half a page of the New York Times last Saturday, just as Iraqis and Kurds were nerving themselves to vote. "Flashback to the 60's: A Sinking Sensation of Parallels Between Iraq and Vietnam." The basis for the story, which featured a number of experts as lugubrious as they were imprecise, was the suggestion that South Vietnam had held an election in September 1967, and that this propaganda event had not staved off ultimate disaster.

Whatever the monstrosities of Asian communism may have been, Ho Chi Minh based his declaration of Vietnamese independence on a direct emulation of the words of Thomas Jefferson and was able to attract many non-Marxist nationalists to his camp. He had, moreover, been an ally of the West in the war against Japan. Nothing under this heading can be said of the Iraqi Baathists or jihadists, who are descended from those who angrily took the other side in the war against the Axis, and who opposed elections on principle. If today's Iraqi "insurgents" have any analogue at all in Southeast Asia it would be the Khmer Rouge.

Ho Chi Minh was a communist. So what if he was an ally of the West. Do you think that makes him good?

Vietnam as a state had not invaded any neighbor (even if it did infringe the neutrality of Cambodia) and did not do so until after the withdrawal of the United States when, with at least some claim to self-defense, it overthrew the Khmer Rouge regime. Contrast this, even briefly, to the record of Saddam Hussein in relation to Iran and Kuwait.

So, how are 10 and 20 year old wars relevant? Especially, considering that Saddam did not wish to make war with the US, bent over backwards for UN inspectors who certified his compliance with all of our inane requirements, and finally, did not even have the capability of defending itself.

Vietnam had not languished under international sanctions for its brazen contempt for international law, nor for its building or acquisition, let alone its use of, weapons of mass destruction.

Yes, Iraq did use chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq conflict; however, it obtained these weapons with the complicity of the US government at the time. Furthermore, it is likely that Iran also used such weapons. Obviously, Vietnam was reasonably well armed or they would not have won. Besides, chemical weapons only recently reclassified as "weapons of mass destruction" by the Bush administration. Previously, only nuclear weapons were characterized as WMD. Never before has the mere possession of any such weapons been an pretext for war.

Vietnam had never attempted, in whole or in part, to commit genocide, as was the case with the documented "Anfal" campaign waged by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds.

Good for them, but Saddam's treatment of the Kurds was an internal affair. This was not the main pretext of the war, nor would anyone have bought that as sufficient pretext for an invasion.

In Vietnam the deep-rooted Communist Party was against the partition of the country and against the American intervention. It called for a boycott of any election that was not an all-Vietnam affair. In Iraq, the deep-rooted Communist Party is in favor of the regime change and has been an enthusiastic participant in the elections as well as an opponent of any attempt to divide the country on ethnic or confessional lines. (Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who is not even an Iraqi, hates the Kurds and considers the religion of most Iraqis to be a detestable heresy: not a mistake that even the most inexperienced Viet Cong commander would have been likely to make.)

This is semantic nonsense. The communists are irrelevant in Iraq. The Sunnis were the one's who stood to lose from elections and opposed on this basis. It is perfectly reasonable that they would oppose elections without sufficient protections of minorities. Furthermore, the Viet Cong did discriminate against Cambodians.

No car bomb or hijacking or suicide-bombing or comparable atrocity was ever committed by the Vietnamese, on American or any other foreign soil. Nor has any wanted international gangster or murderer ever been sheltered in Vietnam.

Different military tactics. Is dropping a 500 pound bomb on civilians somehow more morally justifiable than a more targeted car bombing??!

American generals and policymakers could never agree as to whether the guerrillas in Vietnam were self-supporting or were sustained from the outside (namely the northern half of their own country). However one may now view that debate, it was certainly true that Hanoi, and the southern rebels, were regularly resupplied not by minor regional potentates but by serious superpowers such as the Warsaw Pact and China, and were able to challenge American forces in battlefield order. The Iraqi "insurgents" are based among a minority of a minority, and are localized geographically, and have no steady source of external supply. Here the better comparison would be with the dogmatic Communists in Malaya in the 1940s, organized principally among the Chinese minority and eventually defeated even by an exhausted postwar British empire. But even the die-hard Malayan Stalinists had a concept of "people's war" and a brave record in fighting Japanese imperialism. The Iraqi "insurgents" are dismal riff-raff by comparison.

Most Iraqi support the insurgency and understandably hate the torture-happy Americans. Futhermore, support for the insurgency grows continually.

Where it is not augmented by depraved Bin Ladenist imports, the leadership and structure of the Iraqi "insurgency" is formed from the elements of an already fallen regime, extensively discredited and detested in its own country and universally condemned. This could not be said of Ho Chin Minh or of the leaders and cadres of the National Liberation Front.

So, you are saying that a known communist is nicer than the ruler of a regime that (at the time of the attack) posed no credible threat to any outside power???

The option of accepting a unified and Communist Vietnam, which would have evolved toward some form of market liberalism even faster than China has since done, always existed. It was not until President Kennedy decided to make a stand there, in revenge for the reverses he had suffered in Cuba and Berlin, that quagmire became inevitable. The option of leaving Iraq to whatever successor regime might arise or be imposed does not look half so appetizing. One cannot quite see a round-table negotiation in Paris with Bin Laden or Zarqawi or Moqtada Sadr, nor a gradually negotiated hand-over to such people after a decent interval.

Yes, Vietnam would probably have evolved into market Capitalism at about the rate of China; however, you are making a rediculous slur again: There has NEVER been any connection between Baathist Sunnis and fundamentalist Shiites such as Bin Laden. Perhaps, you could never envision such round table discussions with the likes of Arafat or Ariel Sharon, both heads of terrorist groups.

In Vietnam, the most appalling excesses were committed by U.S. forces. Not all of these can be blamed on the conduct of bored, resentful, frightened conscripts. The worst atrocities—free-fire zones, carpet-bombing, forced relocation, and chemical defoliation—were committed as a direct consequence of orders from above. In Iraq, the crimes of mass killing, aerial bombardment, ethnic deportation, and scorched earth had already been committed by the ruling Baath Party, everywhere from northern Kurdistan to the drained and burned-out wetlands of the southern marshes. Coalition forces in Iraq have done what they can to repair some of this state-sponsored vandalism.

In what bizarre fantasy world do you live?! Is that why Iraqis still do not have reliable electricity and can no longer afford gasoline or even kerosene. Obviously, they were much better off before the war despite enormously destructive sanctions.

In Vietnam, the United States relied too much on a pre-existing military caste that often changed the local administration by means of a few tanks around the presidential palace. In the instance of Iraq, the provisional government was criticized, perhaps more than for any other decision, for disbanding the armed forces of the ancien regime, and for declining to use a proxy army as the United States had previously done in Indonesia, Chile, El Salvador, and Greece. Unlike the South Vietnamese, the Iraqi forces are being recruited from scratch.

Who cares?? After we had completerly disbanded the military we had to reband it with many of the same ex-Baathists. A simple tactical error.

In Vietnam, the policy of the United States was—especially during the Kennedy years—a sectarian one that favored the Roman Catholic minority. In Iraq, it is obvious even to the coldest eye that the administration is if anything too anxious to compose religious differences without any reference to confessional bias.

Seems to be that the bias is strongly in favor of Shiites as any majoritarian rule must be.

I suppose it's obvious that I was not a supporter of the Vietnam War. Indeed, the principles of the antiwar movement of that epoch still mean a good deal to me. That's why I retch every time I hear these principles recycled, by narrow minds or in a shallow manner, in order to pass off third-rate excuses for Baathism or jihadism. But one must also be capable of being offended objectively. The Vietnam/Iraq babble is, from any point of view, a busted flush. It's no good. It's a stiff. It's passed on. It has ceased to be. It's joined the choir invisible. It's turned up its toes. It's gone. It's an ex-analogy.

Time will tell that your fantasy bears no relation to reality. Iraq will be your next Viet Nam, fool.

Socialism Versus Libertarianism

Socialism (advocacy of socialized costs) necessarily entails regulation and enforcement in order to control costs (necessarily low incentive for conserving socialized or subsidized assets). If one desires personal freedom (libertarianism) from social control, then one has to accept personal responsibility without a social safety net. This is also a very consistent system because costs are very controlled (natural incentive level for conservation) and they are borne by the individuals so the society cannot use that as an excuse for regulating the lives of the individuals.

The consequences of the two systems are as follows (trying to be as fair as possible):

Socialism:
neutral: low personal choice, high social choice

good: scientific, many public/subsidized services (parks, museums, monuments, sculpture, roads, libraries, fountains, light rails, sidewalks, beaches, ...), few decisions required, high amount of public information (potentially) available, decent pollution control

bad: requires a powerful centralized goverment, which leads to totalitarianism, over-reliance on the integrity of scientists, high social regulation, intrusive amounts of information collected, high control (fines, jail terms, licenses, ID cards, censuses,..), high taxation (to pay for the regulation and enforcement), high poverty (due to socialized incentives), and inflation

Libertarianism (Paleoconservatism): high personal choice, minimal social choice (only to the extent that one agresses another's property)

bad: lack of public places (parks, roads, fountains, monuments), lots of important decisions required, lots of personal regulation required, no social choice, lots of undirected marketing, lots of temptations (addictive drugs, pornography, ....), requires arming or contracting with a protection agency

good: distributed contracted power, lots of personal choice, no monopoly on regulations, a plethora of private services (security services, road services, private transportation vehicles, legal services, brokerage services, variety of religious services.), private roads, shopping malls, insurance companies, a choice of spiritual facilities, relatively inexpensive/attractive goods, coffee shops, clubs, gated communities with communal facilities, private research facilities, etc.

Distributed Democracy

A preferred form of government to democracy would be to have a type of anarchical/miniarchy in which "government" is replaced by multiple competing agencies, each with their own means of enforcement and own limiting documents (constitution). People can dissolve any one of the agencies as they see fit. None of the agencies should be allowed to alter their charter, that is up to the electorate. All the agencies will constantly seek power over others, but this will be limited by competing agencies. In no case will an agency be allowed to exercise authority beyond its charter. Nor will any agency be allowed to violate fundamental property rights. Enforcement will come from other competing agencies.

For example, right now we have one entrenched hierarchic power structure (government). Whether regulating pollution, crime, maintaining streets, parks, etc. There is a geographic monopoly on who provides the service. But why do the different monopolistic services have to be affiliated within the same power/control structure? Why can't people vote independently for every established entity, i.e., one votes for a park manager, a police chief, a fire chief, a street maintenance chief, an electrical service provider, etc. There is no reason that a single individual should choose all of these groups. They should be independently responsible to the people that they are supposed to serve! A headless organization! Furthermore, each organization would have its own budget or bill for its own services. People would just throw out the CEO/board/or entire corporate structure of a monopoly as necessary. Individuals could also decide on what should be privatized. Business would have to argue for the benefits to the consumer of monopolizing certain markets .

Vox Clara

The family unit is the cornerstone of our society...Yes, we must support families as they exist today, but to pretend that a single mother household is equally desirable to a traditional (husband and wife) household is lunacy.

Suppose that the father is a hardened wife abuser. Is it still preferrable?

Certainly, there are extreme cases where divorce is the best option, but they are in the small minority.

Who should decide what is best?

By supporting the traditional family unit, I am not suggesting that, as a society, we cling to some traditional family model that harkens back to a fantasy of how things used to be, but that we simply recognize a sociological fact: the common good is furthered by a strong family unit headed by a married male and female.

Really? The world's population does not seem to need any encouragement.What is the "common good"? This sounds very communistic.

Marriage is ontologically between a man and a woman, ordered toward the union of the two distinct sexes, always open to procreation, and forming the foundation of the family.

This is pedantic. The meanings of words can change. The whole gay marriage issue arose because conservatives want to give people in heterosexual relationships a tax break. If tax law did not discriminate against unmarried individuals, it is doubtful that anyone would care. Homosexuals would gladly acquire the name "civil union". They just want legal recognition of their fidelity to each other. Surely you can see that caring and fidelity are the more important aspects of "marriage" than sex and should be allowed tax benediction as civil unions. (That is if you believe that government should be promoting certain lifestyles.)

Married men and women ensure the succession of human generations and of human society in that they can create new human life in the act proper to them, the conjugal act. In this act, they literally become "one flesh,” with the husband giving himself to his wife, and she receiving him.

Again, does procreation need any encouragement. The survey says "no".

By so ensuring the survival of society, married men and women provide an indispensable service to the common good. The sex acts of homosexual couples simply cannot do this.

It may easily be argued that married couples hurt the common good in as much as they increase the population and deplete finite resources. Individuals should only be concerned about public policy to the extent that it impacts them. Seeing individuals who care for each other be together is clearly a "good" in my book.

Praise God for G.W. Bush!

Only fools are certain. Scientists and sages only ascribe probabilities to various potential realities based upon theory and evidence.

Obviously some Christians pray to a different god: What Christian sect teaches that God blesses liars (falsely claimed he had hard evidence that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and intended to use them, encouraged others to exaggerate the threat, was planning to attack far before 09-11), war mongers (100,000+ dead Iraqi civilians as a result of the war resulting from a lie), or big-spending thieves. There seems to be a strong correlation between naivete and biblical literalism, but it is a naivete that is definitely inspired by wishful thinking. These simpletons believe in a loving God (who they cannot define) because they want to believe in a loving, nurturing God, not because they have any statistically-significant evidence for his existence. (How many of these individuals actually even understand statistical significance?) They believe that their government is uniquely good and holy and that it has a duty to conquer and oppress other peoples, so as to enlighten them with their truth. Yes, Al Qaida and the religious right in this country have an enormous amount in common. They simply use different tactics in spreading their absolute truth. Of course, their religious truth is not really about Truth, it is about getting on board with their feel-good message.

Cow political economics.