Election 2008? I’ll Just Stay at Home, Thank You.

Wow! It’s been over four months since my last blog post! My, how time flies when I’m thoroughly disgusted with politics! And that just about sums it up for me. I’m disgusted.

It was just over one year ago when I attended a rally for erstwhile Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul here in Pittsburgh. As the year passed I watched the “news” and the “debates,” and came to this conclusion: everything about the American political system as it is now construed is a farce.

Why do I say it’s a farce? Well, let’s just start with the blatant violation of the Constitution by nearly all politicians. Now, maybe I’m missing something here but, it is supposed to be the law of the land, is it not? It is supposed to protect us, the people, against the depredations of government, right? Well, unfortunately, most politicians simply regard it as “just a piece of paper.” And while there are numerous abuses of that document that could be noted, I’ll just mention  the one I consider to be the most egregious. It’s pretty simple, really. According to the Constitution  the power to declare war is given to Congress. However, since the Korean War, yes for longer than half a century,  the president, regardless of his party affiliation, regardless of any popular outcry against going to war from the American people, has been given the authority to bomb anyone, anywhere, at any time, WITHOUT a congressional declaration of war. Congress has shirked its Constitutional responsibility, and the president is now EXPECTED to be the final arbiter in all matters of war. And what do we hear from the mainstream media about this illegal  congressional transfer and presidential usurpation of power?

Zilch.

Call it the liberal media or the conservative media. The truth is that it is the Statist media.

Even more farcical is the fact that our central bank, the Federal Reserve, receives virtually no blame for the calamitous financial situation that exists in America today. Never mind the fact that the dollar has lost 96% of its value since the Fed was created in 1913. Never mind the fact that there exists virtually no oversight of the Fed. Never mind the fact that the housing bubble never would have been “inflated” had it not been for the Fed’s artificial lowering of interest rates to ridiculous levels. Never mind the fact that the United States would not have entered into so many preposterous wars over the last several decades had it not been for the Fed’s relentless dollar creation. Don’t pay attention to any of these facts. Just listen to the blabbering airheads on CNN and Fox News, and their State Department correspondents, Defense Department correspondents, and White House correspondents. Then sleep well knowing that you are receiving the “inside scoop” from all of these wonderful “journalists” who allow us to share in their privileged access to the inner workings of the American body politic. As if they’d even be granted their “privileged access” if they actually reported the truth.

And so here we are on the eve of another presidential election. On the left we have Barack “guns and butter” Obama. On the right we have John “bombs and…well, more bombs” McCain. You call this a choice?! I’d rather see the presidency completely vacated than have either of these two frauds occupying it.

Barack Obama is not about “change.” Sorry to disappoint people but, if he really intended to change anything about the American political system he would have never made it this far in the campaign. If he truly intended to “change” Washington, the media would have paid very little attention to him. Just think about that for a second. When has the mainstream media ever glorified a candidate who truly represented a dramatic change from mainstream American politics? The bottom line is that Obama is just another politician who is willing to say anything to get elected.

As for John McCain, well, I just get the feeling that the man is desperate to be president before he shuffles off this mortal coil. Forget all of this “maverick” nonsense. The man is clueless. Oh, and he never met a war he didn’t like, so I guess that’s a plus when you’re running for President of the American Empire.

As for me, well, I think I’m going to get one of those bumper stickers that reads: “Don’t blame me. I didn’t vote!”

Some Big Wins For Liberty

The duel between Hillary and Obama will continue. John McCain clinches the Republican nomination. Mike Huckabee drops out of the race. These are the stories that made headlines today. Amid these developments there are a few bits of political news that I find truly worth celebrating. The absolute best news for this humble blogger came from Texas Congressional District #14, where the incumbent and champion of the Constitution, Dr. Ron Paul soundly trounced his neocon opponent, Chris Peden. The good doctor and his message of individual liberty and freedom from government coercion received 70% of the vote! What’s even better is that Dr. Paul’s primary win is essentially a general election triumph since he will not face a Democratic challenger in November. The establishment in Washington D.C. can now look forward to (at least) two more years of aggravation. And that truly does bring a smile to my face. It also makes me wonder. Ron Paul won convincingly in his home district where people actually know him. Just imagine what might have transpired in the presidential race if the mainstream media had given his campaign the attention it deserved.

In other electoral good news, the heroically anti-war Democrat from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich, has prevailed in his Congressional primary . Even though I don’t share his economic views, Kucinich has proven himself to be a principled defender of civil liberties and an outspoken critic of State aggression. It’s too bad Kucinich won’t be the Democratic nominee for president. I would have voted for him in the general election against “Mad Bomber” McCain.

Finally, I turn to New England for this glad tiding. The people of two small towns in Vermont voted to authorize police to arrest George W. Bush and Dick Cheney if the war criminals should set foot in their towns. The terrible twosome are charged with crimes against the Constitution. Now we need more people in D.C. with the nerve to hold our corrupt leaders accountable for the atrocities they’ve committed against humanity.

So there you have it. The big headlines are pretty much negligible. No, we didn’t witness any miracles. And certainly there is a very long way to go. But, from some perspectives yesterday was a pretty decent day for the cause of liberty.

Help The Economy…Dismantle the Empire!

According to this poll conducted by the Associated Press, many Americans believe that the best way to fix the country’s economic problems is to simply get out of Iraq. Amen, brothers and sisters, on that one! Let’s face it. This war can do nothing more than kill scads of Americans and Iraqis, destabilize the Middle East even more, serve as the best recruitment tool Al Qaeda could have ever imagined, and absolutely bankrupt the United States. But why stop in Iraq? Let’s come home from everywhere! I don’t know about you, but I really don’t think it’s my responsibility to help fund the defense of Japan, Korea, Europe, or anywhere else outside the United States, for that matter.

So yes, it seems like Americans ARE getting rather restless with the Iraq debacle. BUT, they still want the welfare state AND a warfare state. Many respondents in this poll believe the money spent on the Iraq war would be better put to use by ensuring health care for everyone. Now as much as I oppose socialized medicine, I have to admit that it’s preferable to war. Of course, Hillary and Obama are championing universal health care. Surely most of the poll respondents who favor universal health care are supporters of one of these liberal senators. But where is the money going to come from? Neither one of these candidates seems to be in a major rush to pull troops out of Iraq. Furthermore, neither one of them has mentioned ANYTHING about dismantling our global empire. So where does that money for universal health care come from? Well, taxes could be raised directly, but that’s political suicide. So naturally the only other course of action is to go to our good old inflationary friends at the Fed and have them print more bills of credit out of thin air. Peoples’ wealth goes down, prices go up, INCLUDING the price of medicine, and hey presto, we’ve defeated our grand purpose of providing affordable health care for all. One would think that if the Democrats were so intent on pushing for “affordable” health care for the masses, they would advocate the elimination of the largest burden on the U.S. economy; our global empire and foreign policy of intervention. Alas, they don’t. As Gomer Pyle would say, “sur-prise, sur-prise, sur-prise!”

Also troubling to me is that over half of the respondents in this poll said they have confidence in the Fed to remedy the economic troubles we are now facing. At this point I have to resist the urge to beat my cranium off the wall. Am I actually reading this stuff correctly?!?! People are so conditioned to believe that our central bank is actually in the business of helping us, that they can’t smell the excrement under their collective noses! The Fed CREATES the troubles we are experiencing by printing more money, cutting interest rates to ridiculously low levels, and encouraging consumption when people SHOULD be told that the path to TRUE wealth is through SAVINGS, NOT SPENDING.

Okay, deep breaths now, I’ll calm down here in just a second… There we go… That’s better.

Well, at least the Iraq bit is a good sign.