[FEE.org] Nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices."
Over the years, Americans’ power to make their own decisions has been increasingly displaced by governments. That trend has been justified in part by the desire to control what government views as vice (including an increasing tendency to find vice in environmental effects). Unfortunately, that approach violates citizens’ inalienable self-ownership, unlike deterring crime, which better protects citizens’ self-ownership. It has made government a hyperactive nanny-state bully rather than a protector against bullying.
This externally-enforced "self-control" justifies reconsidering Lysander Spooner, whose birthday is January 19. Spooner laid out why our natural right of self-ownership, combined with the right to enter into voluntary arrangements with other self-owners, made government coercion of peaceful people illegitimate, a moral principle not to be overridden just because someone with political power considers others’ choices to be vices. Since we are now far from that ethical standard, we need to rediscover his vision, spelled out in his 1875 Vices Are Not Crimes; A Vindication of Moral Liberty:
Continued on Page 49
#1
The article omits that the most radical culmination of Mr. Spooner's verbose work of libertarian passion has been a 'broader understanding of 'consent' in certain circles.
Spooner also features in post-modern libertarian and anarchist literature. The moral acceptability of pedophilia, including allowing children to prostitute themselves for reward can be justified using this reasoning. Most pedophiles would have agreed with his lesson in divorcing the moral from the legal and some will probably have this as their creed.
Many shall argue that it's not the State's business to intervene in personal vices, but are silent on what happens when personal vices are translated into legislation by the vicious. This has always been the problem with democracy and liberals. They want to create an utopia in which everyone is free, which is impossible as long as there is good and evil.
I'm no fan of intrusive gummint, I guess I'm just saying many of the 'Vices' of the 1800s are now rightly called crimes. And Spooner isn't someone we should want to associate the Right with.
#3
#1 Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another
#7
We do indeed know the difference, and are justified in making laws criminalizing those who indulge in the vice, no matter their arguments that the children enjoy and seek it — or even that it is a method for them to earn their way out of poverty.
#8
Libertarians are whacked.
Open borders!
P3dophi!ia!
Drug legalization!
Drug dealers', rogue states' and crime syndicates' favorite black money, cryptocurrency
I don't particularly care about labels of 'right' and 'left,' but I know that libertarianism is where the political spectrum meets absurdity and self-destructive foolishness. These people need to spend some time in Somalia and get a glimpse of life without a strong, well-functioning State.
#9
I feel that post-modern legalese and even some current concepts in psychiatry evolved from the contrived efforts of a collective of perverts in academia, lawyers, writers... who all had a vision for society. Their utopia would allow every depravity without judging their kind, would in time come to not only accept them but totally deny their victims even the right to feel victimized.
Much the same as an Islamic state.
Why do I say that ? Because according to my belief there are only a few kinds of demons, spiritual entities. These may manifest in different societies and cultures through heathen and anti-christian practices in diverse forms. But the fruit of their efforts is alway comparable. They bring the same quality of despair to the children of men.
#11
Reminds moi of the "if it feels good, do it" crep from the 1960s and 1970s. Had to read some French author for a humanities class then who argued that good and evil basically did not exist.
As Prote (played by Kevin Spacey!) said in KPAX, "Every being in the universe knows the difference between right and wrong." The problem is that some people just don't care.
#13
True, USN. Fine line between the libbetrarians and the lefties. I sometimes think a libbetrarian is just a lefty who's struck it rich and read a bit of Ayn Rand's trash.
[KhaamaPress] Those who cross Shah Dushamshira Street (The street of downtown Kabul now called "Farkhonda") will never be able to not remember "Farkhonda" once. Farkhonda was a maiden of tender years killed in the most outrageous manner by a number of angry and religious people on March 1, 2009.
A group of unwise men, provoked by the Mullah of Shah Do Shamshira’s, (the shrine of Liath ibn Qais bin Abbas, an Arab religious figure in Afghanistan), rebelled against Farkhonda on the charge of burning the Koran and killed her under a fist and throwing the stones. They then drove the car on her dead body and finally burned her body near the Kabul River.
After the grievous murder incident, Farkhonda was found to have no guilt and even she was a religiously educated girl, she became a symbol of the victims of ruthlessly violent religious extremism. In the area where she was killed, a memorial minaret is built and is commemorated on March 5 each year. But the liquidation of Farkhonda once again heightened the chaos of the rise of extremism in the social layers. Many also warned of intensifying religious extremism in Afghanistan in those days.
Continued on Page 49
[Jpost] Libya is in the midst of a civil war that pits Khalifa Haftar ...Self-proclaimed Field Marshal, served in the Libyan army under Muammar Qadaffy, and took part in the coup that brought Qadaffy to power in 1969. He became a prisoner of war in Chad in 1987. While held prisoner, he and his fellow officers formed a group hoping to overthrow Qadaffy, so it's kind of hard to describe him as a Qadaffy holdover. He was released around 1990 in a deal with the United States government and spent nearly two decades in the United States, gaining US citizenship. In 1993, while living in the United States, he was convicted in absentia of crimes against the Jamahiriya and sentenced to death. Haftar held a senior position in the anti-Qadaffy forces in the 2011 Libyan Civil War. In 2014 he was commander of the Libyan Army when the General National Congress (GNC) refused to give up power in accordance with its term of office. Haftar launched a campaign against the GNC and its Islamic fundamentalist allies. His campaign allowed elections to take place to replace the GNC, but then developed into a civil war. Guess you can't win them all... , a general controlling most of the country, against a weak government.
"Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak." -Sun Tzu.
Not ironically...Zimbabwe has a grasp of the fundamentals. This challenge is brilliant given the timing. This whole US-Iran thing is de-escalating anyway. So, when we 'back away from Iran' as we were going to do anyway, they can play it up as a victory to intimidate illiterate tribal locals into not rebelling.
It's all for a good laugh, but you have to admire the evil mind that came up with this. Always something to be learned.
Pay attention to MEEEEEE! Usually Zimbabwe just threatens to expel our ambassador over something or other — the last time anyone noticed what they had to say was in November.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
01/20/2020 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11127 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
Looks like a hoax from a parody account. More 4Chan pranks?
Notice the underscore in @zbcnewsonline_ which is missing from the real @ZBCNewsonline .
#6
Too bad, #2 Skid - that would have provided endless laughs. :-D
Posted by: Barbara ||
01/20/2020 12:22 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Well, it is erb.
Anyone who has ever played Bee/NotBee can sympathize.
At the risk of touting my mad skillz as an open-source intel analyst (stop laughing, dammit!), the following were clues:
1) The #4chan hashtag on the Youtube page. Saucy pranksters they are. One of their greatest triumphs was to fool the mainstream media into thinking the common OK gesture is a symbol of white supremacy.
2) No mention of the story on the ZBC News website.
3) A bit of googling turned up the hoax story on a South African website.
As Johanness Gutenberg said, "You can't believe everything you read."
[Townhall] Donald Trump Jr. spoke to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures" about his father's ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate. The president's son said that he would like to see Republicans call upon Hunter Biden and Joe Biden as witnesses, saying the Republicans who are only interested in hearing from the Democrats' witnesses "don't deserve to be in office."
"We've seen this has been a one-sided sham since moment number one," Donald Trump Jr. told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday. The president's son pointed to a Washington Post article that argued for impeaching the president, saying it was written "about 20 minutes after the inauguration."
Bartiromo asked Don Jr. if he wanted to see new witnesses called forward during the Senate trial.
"I definitely want to hear from the other side," he said. "I would like to hear from Hunter Biden. I'd like to hear from Joe Biden because, frankly, these are the reasons we're even having this conversation right now."
Democrats keep asserting that President Trump unjustifiably called upon Ukraine to investigate possible corruption involving former vice president Joe Biden and his son. But it's already apparent that such an investigation is needed. Perhaps Joe and Hunter Biden can explain how their family got rich in Ukraine while his father controlled the purse strings over there. Those two witnesses could completely shred the media's false narrative that President Trump was merely attempting to take out a political opponent instead of following signs that pointed to corruption.
[Armstrong] While everyone is left scratching their head as to why Pelosi, who said impeachment was bad for the country, she suddenly changed and became of its greatest supporter in the Democrats. Then she held on to the articles of impeachment for about a month which she pretended was to force witnesses to be heard in the Senate, when she knew that her tactics were unconstitutional and even members of her own party were left trying to figure out just what the heck was she up to?
The 2016 election was stolen from Bernie which is why he went to complain to Obama after the votes were rigged and given to Hillary in California. Only after Bernie went to the White House and Obama told him to suck-it-up and take one for the team, did Bernie support Hillary.
This time, the Democrat power-brokers behind the curtain are looking to prevent Bernie once again from winning the nomination. But they also know that Joe Biden is damaged goods and they have no candidate who could possibly win against Trump.
Our computer has been projecting a Trump victory in 2020, but this is not something that will be by a wide margin. We are going to rerun the models and double-check the data to make sure there is no mistake for as it stands now, Trump would win in a landslide looking at a candidate of Biden or Bernie. There is something else brewing behind the curtain for our model that seems to be suggesting a tighter race.
The Clintons have long been regarded as the most corrupt policial couple perhaps in American history. The scheme is to drag out the Impeachment hearing, not to actually get rid of Trump, but to tie up all the senators running in the Democratic Party and force them off the campaign trail. Why? This is not just to give Biden a clear path. They also realize that Biden and his son could be called as witnesses and that will be contested in the Supreme Court.
[Reason] Slate has started a new series, "Trump Bench," in which Mark Joseph Stern profiles the records of prominent Trump judicial nominees. In his latest installment for this series, Stern examines the "appalling record" of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, and it's a mess. To be clear, the mess is not Barrett's record, but Stern's treatment of it. Stern's account is misleading and inaccurate, and not remotely fair-minded.
I was going to detail some of the many problems with Stern's piece, but Ed Whelan beat me to it. In two posts, here and here, Whelan catalogs the numerous instances in which Stern omits relevant context, mischaracterizes cases, and seeks to unjustly smear Barrett at every turn. Taken as a whole, the critique is fairly devastating.
If Stern responds to Whelan's critique, I'll post a link, but based upon my familiarity with several of the cases under discussion, and Barrett's record more broadly, I doubt there's much of a defense to make.
In the meantime, for those who want a fairer picture of Judge Barrett, I'd suggest going straight to the source, reading her opinions and law review articles, and perhaps watching this lecture that she gave at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law last year. More evidence, perhaps, that RBG won't be with us much longer. This and impeachment certainly have the odor of prepping the battlefield. Amy Coney Barrett is one of the top contenders to replace RBG.
[Arutz 7] - "From beginning to end, the conflict with Israel is all about Islam," writes world-renowned jihad watcher Robert Spencer in his latest superlative book, The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. He documents in detail how jihadists and their allies worldwide have skillfully weaponized an invented Palestinian Arab identity against the Zionist struggle for a Jewish state.
Spencer dissects a decades-old "propaganda success that Josef Goebbels and the editors of Pravda would have envied," namely the global myth that Palestinians are an "indigenous population." So declare institutions like the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), while Palestinian leaders fantasize about a "link between the ancient Canaanites or Jebusites and the modern-day Palestinians." In reality, Roman occupiers in 134 first derived the name Palestine after the "Israelites’ ancient enemies, the Philistines," in order to eradicate the identity of defeated Jewish rebels. The self-named "Palestinians" descend from the Arabs who invaded in the 7th century.
In subsequent centuries most Jews entered diaspora exile, leaving their ancestral homeland to decay under largely disinterested imperialists such as various Muslim powers following seventh-century Arab conquest. Mark Twain's 1869 travelogue The Innocents Abroad thus states that "Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes." Historian William B. Ziff wrote in 1938 that at the 20th century’s beginning Palestine's 40,000 Jews "and about 140,000 others of all complexions...had no other feeling for this pauperized, diseased-ridden country than a fervent desire to get away."
This wasteland transformed when Zionist Jews, beginning in the 1880s, sought to reestablish a Jewish state. Their regional development investment ironically increased the Arab population which came seeking employment. Particularly the League of Nations Palestine Mandate entrusted to Britain in 1922 as a "Jewish national home" on territory lost by the collapsing Ottoman Empire in World War I witnessed significant Arab immigration.
Egyptian, North African, Syria, and even Ethiopian names among Arabs evince immigration waves into what the British and Zionist institutions (e.g. the Palestine Post newspaper, now Israel’s Jerusalem Post) then called Palestine. "Most 'indigenous' people of Palestine, like Los Angelenos, seem to have come from somewhere else," Spencer writes. Contrastingly, during this "period, the Arabs of Palestine generally considered themselves to be Syrians, and Palestine to be Southern Syria" and rejected any foreign Palestine designation.
#2
Mark Twain traveled through the area prior to the Zionist movement and found it mostly empty. I believe the Jews came and the area prospered and Arabs followed.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/20/2020 12:41 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Dragging up truly ancient history does nobody any good. Just like talking about pre-1947 borders is stupid. They are completely and utterly irrelevant to the matter at hand. The question of if the Palestinians have any claim to any part of Israel is not relevant. They lost a war. They cannot enforce their claim. They must now accept that reality or accept that they will live and die in the miserable poverty of tiny settlements on the edge of the borders between Israel and its neighbors. End of story. If the Palestinians were able to accept their defeat and culturally move on, they would not be so badly off. It is because they focus on their own version of ancient events that they cannot move on.
[Zero] Congress just passed a near trillion dollar military budget at a time when the United States faces no evident state threats at home or abroad. Ike was right.
Illustrating Ike’s prescient warning, Brown University’s respected Watson Institute just released a major study which found that the so-called ’wars on terror’ in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Pakistan have cost US taxpayers $6.4 trillion since they began in 2001.
The extensive study found that over 800,000 people have died as a result of these military operations, a third of them civilians. An additional 21 million civilians have been displaced by US military operations. According to the Pentagon, these US wars have so far cost each American taxpayer $7,623 ‐ and that’s a very conservative estimate.
Most of this money has been quietly added to the US national debt of over $23 trillion. Wars on credit hide the true cost and pain from the public.
As General Eisenhower warned, military spending has engulfed the nation.
#4
What, are TEH ROOSHINS going to put landing craft ashore in Florida?
We're not World Police. We can't afford nice things for ourselves because we spend, spend, spend on killing people far from our shores. General Smedley Butler was right. Eisenhower was right. War is bullshit.
"I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
01/20/2020 9:34 Comments ||
Top||
#5
these US wars have so far cost each American taxpayer $7,623 ‐ and that’s a very conservative estimate.
Very conservative. It's quite a bit higher. The U.S. debt is $23 trillion. The U.S. debt clock has the debt at $70,125 per citizen or $187,391 per taxpayer. Debt in real time.
So, socialism and communism's your bag, Erb? Called you on that....
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2020 10:38 Comments ||
Top||
#7
I helped make Mexico safe for American...
In his convenient guilt-trip, I don't see anything wrong that he should beat himself up about it. Why, what wrong do you see in this ? He couldn't have been so full of himself to think America's ambitions would grind to a halt without him ? Would America have done anything different at the time if they knew the ramifications ? No.
Besides, Smedley Butler's perspective has ceased to be relevant in the 21st century because of the Jihad. The oily snake of sunni influence hadn't arisen until the late 50s, Butler was dead by '40. You may tote his plaque around like your colorful triangle, sir; but with all due respect to the late General he wouldn't know jack shit about now.
America made it's first critical long-term strategic error when they fucked around with a desert religion they knew was deadly, inhuman and savage. And the Israelis didn't stop them, which was error compounded. The weaponization of the sasquatch led to this entire snafu, mister. It was not war itself but the political ambitions of hegemony and the irrational fears of politicians that fueled this chaos.
Your 'military-industrial complex', which is something to be envied, evolved from constant challenges to your national interests. These interests were not the doing of the military or industry, but of politicians.
'America has the most powerful military in the world because we evolve militarily; but we have the worst foreign policy in the world because we devolve politically.' - some other dead guy, I forget his name.
#10
What, are TEH ROOSHINS going to put landing craft ashore in Florida?
No. But the Chinese are building up their military and working hard to gain control of the ocean in a way that certainly does threaten us. Then you have Iran, Pakistan, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala... Oh, you don't see them as threats? I say Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala because they are currently actively engaged in the invasion of our country. Just because Nancy Pelosi denies it and just because they come with women and children instead of tanks and warplanes doesn't mean it's not an invasion. Maybe you need to have your eyes checked.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/20/2020 12:18 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Oh, I forgot North Korea. Wouldn't wanna leave Pudgy out of this.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/20/2020 12:29 Comments ||
Top||
Start the week with Kurt
[Town Hall] - I had pretty much written off Martha McSally as a loser, a sure loss of the crucial Arizona Senate seat she got handed after flubbing a campaign to win the state’s other one, but it looks like I was wonderfully wrong. Somewhere along the line, McSally got woke, calling a liberal hack from CNN a "liberal hack" and inspiring a million Dem-loving media tears. It was glorious, and overdue. McSally laid out that simpering microphone jockey and showed that maybe she can take the fight to her gun-stealing, socialist-tolerating astronaut opponent and keep our seat.
Fredocon cruise director Bill "Ahoy" Kristol and the usual suspects wet themselves over her show of awesomeness ‐ as a conservative, that’s a mighty credibility boost right there. By the way she owned her play and milked it for earned media afterwards, it looks like she figured out that she’s got zero chance if she’s just another GOP weenie too frightened by the over-paid, under-successful consultant class suits surrounding her to toss a haymaker at some punk reporter. It’s about time.
She used to be an Air Force A-10 pilot, riding a 30mm cannon into battle. I know from a pal who was an underclassman that she was a beast to her charges at the Academy (he says she’s top notch, but he’s also Air Force so you gotta factor that in).
Yet, like most career military going into politics, she was pretty useless for a long time, just sort of stumbling through, losing a key election and generally being nice and polite and open-minded and across-the-aisle reaching.
Ugh. Never go full Romney.
McSally is a literal hero, in military terms ‐ an example to be emulated. But as a Republican senator, she just wasn’t getting it done. And she needed to hear that. She needed to unleash the Thunderbolt II pilot that was in there somewhere, buried under layers of consultant goo, just waiting for a chance to send a volley of figurative depleted uranium rounds at some Democrat lackey with a mic and a ’tude.
Target acquired; target destroyed.
She needed to show us that she was willing to win.
#1
She was seemingly rather RINOly, but stories about how that's working out for Pierre Delecto in neighbing Utah is probably making it to Arizona news outlets.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
01/20/2020 5:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Wonder how many in the GOP are rhinos because they underestimate conservative numbers and over-estimate the power of the media. Hopefully the Trump era is correcting perceptions.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/20/2020 11:49 Comments ||
Top||
#5
I dislike how necessary this has become, but necessary it is. The establishment media is truly disgusting in so many ways, the politicians on the Right need to stop playing ball with them.
#1
The most important thing to remember about the left (whether it's Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or CNN) is that these are little people. Size 13 ego in size 0.1 soul.
#5
/\ "Truth" is what helps the Party. It is 'Treason' to go against the Cause. Ergo, the Babylon Bee™ is treasonous to a Lefty and must be destroyed at all costs.
#7
#1 The most important thing to remember about the left (whether it's Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, ERB or CNN) is that these are little people. Size 13 ego in size 0.1 soul.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Jpost] Libya is in the midst of a civil war that pits 
[Townhall] Donald Trump Jr. spoke to Fox News' Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures" about his father's ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate. The president's son said that he would like to see Republicans call upon Hunter Biden and Joe Biden as witnesses, saying the Republicans who are only interested in hearing from the Democrats' witnesses "don't deserve to be in office." 
[Arutz 7] - "From beginning to end, the conflict with Israel is all about Islam," writes world-renowned jihad watcher Robert Spencer in his latest superlative book, The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. He documents in detail how jihadists and their allies worldwide have skillfully weaponized an invented Palestinian Arab identity against the Zionist struggle for a Jewish state. 
[Zero] Congress just passed a near trillion dollar military budget at a time when the United States faces no evident state threats at home or abroad. Ike was right.
