The Humble Libertarian original

Our future does not look good. Schedule a day off next year for the Constitution’s funeral. The NSA’s Utah Data Center (UDC) is set to become fully operational in 2013. The facility is supposedly going to be capable of monitoring just about every aspect of your life, including transactions, phone calls and Internet activity. We are approaching the point of no return. Let’s face it, Ron Paul has only a remote chance of being our next President, and I simply don’t believe that he’d last long if he somehow won. What are the chances that at least 1 powerful person or group wouldn’t, well, change things as he began to disassemble the current elitist empire? So, it looks like the beginning of the final stages of what was once a free nation. What’s truly sad is that finally have a major candidate who could hold off or even begin to reverse this course and too many Americans have their heads stuck in the sand – or television – to get it. Read the rest here Freedom Bunker 

Thus far, federal subsidies for California's High Speed Rail project total $4.2 billion. The cost of the project continues to climb and was last estimated at $98.5 billion. Two CA utility companies are lobbying hard for the project which will result in huge profits. California’s high-speed rail initiative has its fair share of detractors, but the state’s two largest utility companies—Pacific Gas & Electric Co. (PG&E) and Southern California Edison—are not among them. Both companies stand to make millions, if not billions, providing electricity to the new high-speed rail lines if the controversial project is approved....According to a 2011 analysis prepared for the California High-Speed Rail Management Team, total electricity usage for the proposed rail system would be—“conservatively” speaking—about 8.32 million kilowatt-hours (KWh) per day. That works out to a little over 3 billion KWh per year. According to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), cust...

A tragic and grizzly reminder that America might very well be an Evil Empire. For hundreds of years Americans have been committing massacres of women and children, old men and sometimes even young men, mostly unarmed or armed only with primitive weapons. The early massacres were mostly of Indians who refused to leave their lands when Americans decided it was God's will that they steal those lands for nothing or for a few trinkets. In the Civil War Sherman and Grant routinely massacred Southern civilian populations with bombardments of cities, burning homes and Atlanta [though I do not know death figures], and so on. The introduction of automatic weapons led quickly to far more massive U.S. massacres, obviously in the Philippines where freedom fighters were using primitive weapons to try to gain freedom from the U.S. Empire. The U.S. gunned down tens of thousands of the Philippine sons of liberty and piled them in mass graves. In WWII the U.S. massacred vast numbers of Japan...

This is a tragic but legally fascinating case. Ravi violated the privacy of homosexual Clementi by secretly filming a Clementi gay sex encounter. Clementi was so distraught that he committed suicide. There are several issues going on here. Is Ravi in any way responsible for Clementi's suicide? If so, what's the crime? Ravi isn't being charged with killing Clementi but he is being charged with a hate crime that carries a sentence of up to ten years. We've always had mean and nasty people who do mean and nasty things but the Internet provides a venue to permanently blast embarrassing and private matters into cyberspace for all eternity (Anthony Weiner's weiner and Andrew Breitbart's role in making a photo of Weiner's junk go viral comes to mind). While the government violates our right to privacy all day long, the right to privacy is anything but legally clear. ... Ravi is on trial for what all of us feel from time to time: prejudice against those...

Social media can be challenging! The craziest folks of all are the hardcore Republican and Democrat party loyalists. Libertarians and independents are by far the sanest folks in cyberspace. People with liberal views are almost twice as likely as conservatives to unfriend someone on social media over political disagreements, according to a new Pew Research survey. In every category, people who identified as liberal were more likely to shun their connections over political disagreements. Twenty-eight percent of liberal users have unfriended or blocked someone, while 16 percent of conservatives and 14 percent of moderates admitted to doing the same. Read the rest here   Techdailydose.nationaljournal.com

Despite being broke and bankrupt, the federal government is still concocting hugely expensive socialist schemes and programs. Forget a defacto entitlement for contraception. The new hotness is universal internet access. Because we can’t just expect people do pay to download their own porn...U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the federal government “will do all we can” to support the use of technology in education because technology “can even the playing field” for low-income, minority and rural students who don’t have laptops and i-phones at home. “The future of American education undoubtedly includes a laptop on every desk and universal Internet access in every home. It definitely includes more on-line learning,” Duncan told a conference in Austin, Texas, last week. So, under the guise of improving education, the federal government is aiming at creating a universal entitlement for the internet. Because apparently our country isn’t broke enough without adding to the tax...

Ron Paul clobbered Romney on Super Tuesday among independent voters in Virginia and Ohio, two hugely significant general election swing states. In 10 of the 14 Republican primary or caucus states, one or more of Romney’s GOP rivals has beaten him among independent voters -- at times significantly. In Virginia on Super Tuesday, Ron Paul clobbered Romney, 64 percent to 36 percent, among the 32 percent of the electorate who described themselves as independents. In Ohio (37 percent to 31 percent) and Tennessee (38 percent to 25 percent) Romney lost the independent vote to Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich carried independent voters by healthy margins in South Carolina and Georgia. The problem is not just Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, most of whom will probably embrace Romney if he wins the nomination. A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that Romney has lost ground to President Obama among independent voters across the country as the caustic GOP campaign drags on....

The amount of land that the federal government owns and/or controls is obscene as well as an assault on private property. The situation is especially nasty in western states. Get the federal government off public lands that are of no national importance. Like much else in government, U.S. public land policy is a vestige of the past, established in 1910 when America's population was just 92.2 million and a Western state such as Nevada had only 81,000 residents....The federal government's holdings include about 58 million acres in Nevada, or 83% of the state's total land mass; 45 million acres in California (45% of the state); 34 million acres in Utah (65%); 33 million acres in Idaho (63%); and more than a fourth of all the land in Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming. Read the rest here Los Angeles Times

Questioning the murderous insanity of the Afghanistan invasion and occupation is music to my ears. First it was the Koran burnings by the US Military that inspired Afghan-wide violence and now it's this senseless and vile murder of at least 16 Afghans that has outraged the world. The US government is claiming it was the work of one 'soldier gone wild' but other reports are validating that multiple members of the US military were involved. The massacre of at least 16 Afghan civilians by a rogue U.S. soldier is doing more than fueling anti-American rage throughout Afghanistan. It is also raising doubts about the broader U.S. strategy for winding down the unpopular war. The Army’s Criminal Investigation Command has begun what is likely to be a weeks-long probe into the shootings in Panjwai, a remote town in the volatile Kandahar province....This weekend’s bloody attack represents the highest civilian death toll at the hands of an American soldier or Marine since t...

The Revolution continues! While overall voter turnout in the Republican primaries and caucuses thus far is 4% lower than in 2008, one candidate's base of support has more than doubled in these four years. A new analysis reveals that Ron Paul has improved on his 2008 performance, often dramatically, in every one of 19 states for which a direct comparison can be made between the two election seasons [1, 2]. In these states, Paul has received a total of 880,000 votes, an increase of 133% over the 377,000 votes he received in these states in 2008. Even in large primary states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Florida - largely overlooked by the campaign due to the expense of competing in these media markets - the Texas congressman received 60,000 more votes in each state than he received in 2008. In smaller states like Vermont, the growth is even more striking, with Paul receiving 15,200 votes in 2012 compared to the 2,600 he received in 2008, a nearly five-fold increase. Read the...

The marriage of big government and big business poses a clear and present danger to liberty and prosperity. Stockman shares details on how the courtship of politics and high finance have turned our economy into a private club that rewards the super-rich and corporations, leaving average Americans wondering how it could happen and who’s really in charge. Read the rest here   Vimeo

I can't stop laughing. You know that primary season is getting close to winding down when Santorum and Gingrich start questioning the mission in Afghanistan. Just wait, all the beating of the war drums will turn into love and peace chants for the general election. Following a shooting rampage by a United States Army sergeant who allegedly killed at least 16 civilians in southern Afghanistan, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are saying that the United States should reassess its role in the country. "I think that we’re risking the lives of young men and women in a mission that may frankly not be doable," said Gingrich on "Fox News Sunday." "I think it's very likely that we have lost, tragically lost, the lives and suffered injuries to a considerable number of young Americans on a mission that we’re going to discover is not doable." Santorum said the recent news was a call to at least reassess the situation. Read the rest here   The ...

I never understood why folks got so outraged over the decisions of others to buy or sell sex. This is an interesting John Stossel clip that I had never come across previously. John Stossel interviews the sex workers of the bunny ranch and asks them if they should have the freedom to have sex, like everyone else does, except they will get paid for it. While I personally view such a life as despicable, of course, all of the girls are doing this because it is their best alternative in the marketplace. Stossel also interviews an authoritarian, busybody ex-prosecutor who says, ”We don’t want to sell access to the intimate self,” and she refers to the voluntary selling of “access” as slavery. She even opines that is is criminal to “subject humans to market forces.” I have never been able to understand why anyone would care about what others are doing in their own private realm, yet there is a world of buttinskies who continue meddle in the lives and moral arrangements of others, and ...

Don't patronize the enemy. They mean business. They mean every word they say. They're killing us now. Their will is not broken, They mean it. ... If they're there, your job is to kill them all. I did not want to have them just retreat and have to fight them all over again. -Maj. Gen. James Mattis, USMC   A quote on Michael Scheuer's website. Michael Scheuer, former CIA analyst and Ron Paul supporter, is one of few sane foreign policy voices in America and nobody understands the Middle East like Michael Scheuer who spent decades studying the region. For almost a year Syria has been the scene of an increasingly intense civil war between Bashir al-Asaad’s regime and an assortment of its opponents — Islamists, foreign mujahedin, democrats, secularists, etc. Thousands on both sides have been killed, though the paragons of pro-interventionist “truth” like the BBC and CNN still report the war as if the opposition has only bare chests to present against the regime’s weapons...

Mr. Tough Guy Chuck Norris isn't so tough after all - he's not even tough enough to defend the US Constitution. He's robo-calling for the Angry Little Attack Muffin Gingrich. Chuck Norris, the martial artist-actor famous for playing "Walker, Texas Ranger" and more recently for being an Internet meme, has recorded a robocall for Newt Gingrich. The robocall is going out to voters in Alabama and Mississippi, which are holding their primaries on Tuesday. "As my wife Jean and I watched the GOP debate, we were trying to decide which of the candidates would be best to do head-to-head combat with President Obama," says Norris in the call. "Now, I didn't say hand-to-hand combat, even though I think they would win there too. Jean and I decided that Newt Gingrich would be the best man to beat President Obama." Norris endorsed Gingrich in January. Read the rest here   The Huffington Post

The Brits are learning that wind power is very expensive, highly subsidized, produces little power but is very profitable for recipients of corporate welfare. GENEROUS government subsidies are enabling Britain’s 10 worst-performing wind farms to earn a total of £1.3m a year, despite producing electricity worth only half that, according to new figures. Read the rest here   The Global Warming Policy Foundation

It's been a very bad year for the Greeks and now gas is over $9 a gallon in Greece. Just because being officially the first broke Eurozone country, having 50%+ youth unemployment, and a collapsing economy is not enough, adding absolutely insult to injury is the following chart from Reuters, which shows that compared to other European economies, Greece now has the highest gas price in the old continent. And indicatively while America complains over what is now the highest gas prices in 2012 per AAA, at $3.80 average for a gallon of regular...gas in Greece now sells for over $9.00/gallon....Oh yes, that Iran just happened to be one of the biggest suppliers to Greece - oh well. Read the rest here Zero Hedge

As rising gas prices continue to irritate the American people, the politicos have embarked on a blame game that would be hilarious were it not so pathetic. In any event, gas prices are not rising - the dollar is just losing value. Ron Paul is an exception and he caused a stir when he said we could have gas at 10 cents a gallon. Ron Paul gets it! “I can get you a gallon of gasoline for a dime. … You can buy a gallon of gasoline today for a silver dime. A silver dime is worth $3.50, it’s all about inflation and too many regulations.” – Ron Paul (Sept. 2011) Read the rest here Politico

The USS Enterprise, launched in 1960, is scheduled for the scrap heap. Many are very concerned that it's last mission is to Iran, possibly as a false flag attack for an expendable ship.  With a crew of 5,500 sailors in a fleet known as the USS Enterprise Carrier Strike Group, would the US government actually send 5,500 sailors to a watery graveyard as a pretext for war on Iran? I don't know but I have an uneasy feeling as my 'Lusitania' history kicks in. Today at noon Eastern, the storied aircraft carrier Enterprise, aka CVN-65, left its home port of Naval Station Norfolk one final time for its final voyage with a heading: Arabian Sea, aka Iran... Thousands of sailors will deploy today from Norfolk on the USS Enterprise for the last time on Sunday. Nearly 5,500 Sailors aboard the ships of the Enterprise Carrier Strike Group (ENT CSG) are scheduled to deploy from Naval Stations Norfolk and Mayport, Fla., March 9, 11 and 12, to support operations with the U.S. Navy...

Doug Bandow is one of the most astute foreign policy experts I've ever read. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family have turned his government into an essentially criminal enterprise. For more than a year Syrians have been attempting to overthrow the system. By some estimates 7,500 people have died....Syrian support for Hamas and Hezbollah is a problem for Israel and Lebanon, not America. Damascus is allied with Iran, but that relationship is inconvenient, not threatening, to the U.S. Assad's collapse would weaken Iran, but making Tehran feel more encircled would increase its incentive to pursue nuclear weapons. Read the rest here The American Spectator