| pondering ron paul, conservatism and the constitution in police state america |
[Jul. 17th, 2007|11:27 am] |
a little over a decade ago, when i was going to grad school in boulder, i met a guy on dead tour who was very into the common law movement and individual sovereignty. he sparked my interest in learning about the foundations of constitutional law in the united states and, in his informally trained way, taught me a good deal and encouraged me to continue to investigate the law. the gist of a lot of what he said can be summed up as follows: there is constitutional law and there is contractual law. most constitutional law pertains to a single concept: we are born sovereign and the State shall make no law to abridge such rights. The Bill of Rights essentially lays out those things which the drafters of the constitution conceived as inalienable rights. the concept of inalienable rights is pretty straightforward but seldom really understood. these rights are recognized as having been granted by The Creator. they cannot be granted by any government nor taken by any government. every human born to planet earth has these same rights and governments around the world can either chose to recognize these inalienable rights or ignore them. the bill of rights created a charter whereby it directed the government that adopted its charter to recognize these inalienable rights.
lately i've been on a bit of a kick to figure out how the government that drafted the bill of rights became the same government that drafted the patriot act. the obvious answer is, of course, it is NOT the same government. time has passed and circumstances change. the constitution was said to be a living document and one that was thought to be malleable with the times. inalienable rights are, of course, not subject to the changing whims of the times, public opinion, fashion, etc.
for that reason, i've been watching the ron paul for president movement with a great deal of curiousity. ron paul, a congressman from texas, is running as a republican candidate for president who wants to get the united states out of iraq, balance the budget, repeal the patriot act and return the united states to a constitutional government.
he does very well in post-debate election polls and has a groundswell of support online, but is either exceedingly marginalized or completely ignored in most major media discussions of the republican primaries.
nevertheless, one of the things that ron paul's candidacy has seemed to do is define the conservative movement in the states as an entity separate from the neo-conservative movement in the united states.
i define the conservative movement in the united states as a movement that is motivated to restore a system of constitutional government in the united states. the conservative movement wants to reduce or abolish federal taxation for everything not designated in the constitution, remove provisions limiting individual freedoms, and abolish most forms of federal spending.
the conservative movement also wants to abolish the centralized bank known as the federal reserve bank and the internal revenue system that collects money to pay the interest on the money the fed loans (with interest) to the united states treasury.
sometimes that conservative movement comes across as a narrow minded movement of john birchers, militia members and confederate flag waving kkk shills who claim to be "true patriots" but more often than not, they are individuals and free thinkers who have examined the constitutional basis for most of the "laws" on the books in the united states and realized that the vast majority of them are the result of plans hatched by monied interests to subjugate the masses in order to create an obedient consumer work force.
the neo-conservative movement is, i believe, the product of very wealthy individuals manipulating carefully constructed think tank talking points to manipulate the less educated (or dogmatically blinded) conservatives into believing that their interests are being served by the neo-cons. it adopts much of the posturing of the conservative movement but delivers almost none of it. instead, what it delivers is a corporate / globalist police-state agenda intent on creating a permanent war-time economy that will put the united states taxpayers into spiraling levels of debt.
i haven't been on the planet long, but the current regime definitely strikes me as the worst and most harmful form of crony capitalism imaginable... an empire established by a global economic monarchy intent on subjecting individual nations to the grand designs of bankers, death merchants and death merchant bankers.
winston churchill once famously said, "If you're not a liberal when you're 25, you have no heart. If you're not a conservative by the time you're 35, you have no brain."
the concept was, of course, that conservatives would provide fiscal responsibility and a certain level of civic even-handedness, while liberals would allow a bloated and ever-expanding state to force individuals to pay ever increasing taxes.
to my thinking, the entire liberal-conservative debate is best understood as "managed conflict" not unlike the two warring factions in orwell's 1984. neither side is intended or expected to end the ideological war. instead, we are asked to pick sides in this quarrel and defend "our side" to the end, never really bothering to notice that the systems that perpetuate the conflict have every reason to prolong it indefinitely. |
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| starwood? |
[Jul. 17th, 2007|05:19 pm] |
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anyone ever been to starwood? i'm thinking of going out there instead of west for the horning's hideout shows. i've never been but i've read quite a few books by many of the major presenters who'll be there, so that seems compelling. |
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| scott baio for shah no more! |
[Jul. 17th, 2007|07:09 pm] |
friends of mine at antioch had a campaign where they were proclaiming scott baio for shah about fifteen or so years ago. well, with the recent news of antioch's impending bankruptcy, now not only has the alumni been revitalized with an interest in trying to bail out the underfunded college, they've also dredged up years of in-jokes and started circulating them via email... thus the following from a recent email:
a friend posted:
> This may be our problem. Scott Baio has been a lousy Shah, things have been down hill ever since he assumed the position.
> We need an ayatollah.
> Chachi is in charge no more, just another lonely single former child star.
i replied:
the natural candidate is, of course, paris for ayatollah.
my friends and i were speculating about the Paris Hilton-Scooter Libby in '08 presidential ticket... it seems a shoe-in for them. both have already had their presidential scandal behind them, so there'd be no need for the "liberal media" to try to dig up dirt on them... but, y'know, i think paris for ayatollah is even better. it's the republican party's last great chance to prove once and for all that they can do worse than they've done the past eight years. the cia can overthrow the government in iran to nip the massive looming economic threat of iran selling petroleum on the euro in the bud. then, just as they once installed the shah, they'd now install paris and scooter, with paris as the smiling, affable airhead dubya-like head of state and scooter as the machiavellian no-bullshit cheney-like tough guy creep who really pulls the puppet strings...
paris and scooter for ayatollah in '08! |
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