US Government Begins Rollout Of Its 'Driver's License For The Internet'

by Tim Cushing

An idea the government has been kicking around since 2011 is finally making its debut. Calling this move ill-timed would be the most gracious way of putting it.

A few years back, the White House had a brilliant idea: Why not create a single, secure online ID that Americans could use to verify their identity across multiple websites, starting with local government services. The New York Times described it at the time as a "driver's license for the internet."

Sound convenient? It is. Sound scary? It is.

Next month, a pilot program of the "National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace" will begin in government agencies in two US states, to test out whether the pros of a federally verified cyber ID outweigh the cons.

The NSTIC program has been in (slow) motion for nearly three years, but now, at a time when the public's trust in government is at an all time low, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST -- itself still reeling a bit from NSA-related blowback) is testing the program in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The first tests appear to be exclusively aimed at accessing public programs, like government assistance. The government believes this ID system will help reduce fraud and overhead, by eliminating duplicated ID efforts across multiple agencies.

But the program isn't strictly limited to government use. The ultimate goal is a replacement of many logins and passwords people maintain to access content and participate in comment threads and forums. This "solution," while somewhat practical, also raises considerable privacy concerns.

[T]he Electronic Frontier Foundation immediately pointed out the red flags, arguing that the right to anonymous speech in the digital realm is protected under the First Amendment. It called the program "radical," "concerning," and pointed out that the plan "makes scant mention of the unprecedented threat such a scheme would pose to privacy and free speech online."

And the keepers of the identity credentials wouldn't be the government itself, but a third party organization. When the program was introduced in 2011, banks, technology companies or cellphone service providers were suggested for the role, so theoretically Google or Verizon could have access to a comprehensive profile of who you are that's shared with every site you visit, as mandated by the government.

Beyond the privacy issues (and the hints of government being unduly interested in your online activities), there are the security issues. This collected information would be housed centrally, possibly by corporate third parties. When hackers can find a wealth of information at one location, it presents a very enticing target. The government's track record on protecting confidential information is hardly encouraging.

The problem is, ultimately, that this is the government rolling this out. Unlike corporations, citizens won't be allowed the luxury of opting out. This "internet driver's license" may be the only option the public has to do things like renew actual driver's licenses or file taxes or complete paperwork that keeps them on the right side of federal law. Whether or not you believe the government's assurances that it will keep your data safe from hackers, keep it out of the hands of law enforcement (without a warrant), or simply not look at it just because it's there, matters very little. If the government decides the positives outweigh the negatives, you'll have no choice but to participate.

National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (PDF)

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I bet this was one of the TPP items and the reason they don't want to tell us about TPP. What's the saying in the U.S., You have to pass it to find out what's in it. In a police state this is to be expected, sadly.

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Pat Buchanan, Drugs, and Conservative Love for Big Government

Ryan McMaken

A few decades hence, when drug prohibition is, like alcohol prohibition, an amusing byword for destructive, overweening, and failed government policy, we?ll look back and see the War on Drugs as just another socialistic disaster of the twentieth century, which Ralph Raico calls ?the century of statism.?

The War on Drugs and drug prohibition is of course an artifact of the 20th century with all its totalitarianism, central planning, socialism, and wars, both metaphorical and literal. It was not until the twentieth century that anything resembling drug prohibition ever became a matter of national policy in this country. Marijuana, like opium and cocaine, was mostly unregulated during the nineteenth century, but this doesn?t stop supporters of drug prohibition from acting like the re-legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington is some kind of radical never-before-seen experiment in American history. Indeed, it is drug prohibition that is radical and contrary to the traditions of American law and society.

Alas, it was not surprising to see Pat Buchanan bemoaning the fact that nanny state has become just slightly less powerful in Colorado and Washington and that a ?deeply libertarian trend? is, in his view, taking hold in American society. For him, drug use, gay marriage, and prostitution, are all activities that absolutely require government regulation.

Buchanan plays the nostalgia card when he declares that the re-legalization of one drug, as well as the recent spread of gun ownership ?signals ?a decline of community and the rise of the idea of the autonomous and privileged self.?

Like so many conservatives, Buchanan appears to equate government power with community power. In other words, for him, communities and private organizations are incapable of perpetuating their own values, mores, traditions, and rules without the heavy hand of government. This has long been a trend among conservatives, many of whom think that it?s the government?s job to do everything from tell people what holidays to celebrate to managing what countries they should be allowed to trade with.

To support his claim, Buchanan invokes an imaginary version of the United States that never existed in the 19th century, when America was a bucolic and tranquil republic of well-behaved people who followed the rules. ?(I?m not drawing on just his comments here of course. Buchanan has a long history of invoking imagery of a ?united? and orderly America that never was.)

The fact of the matter is that drug use was rampant during the nineteenth century (but the number of drug addicts probably did not rival the millions addicted to alcohol during that time). To the extent that it was regulated, drug use was largely regulated by non-state actors such as families, and employers, and other private organizations. Drug prohibition did not become a matter for the government generally, and especially the national government, until the 20th century. And yet it was before this period of government overreach that some of the greatest advances in American standards of living, education, and declines in violent crime were made. Drug addiction still plagues us today, except today, we maintain a huge police state and prison complex, at taxpayer expense, to imprison, punish, and impoverish families already suffering from the ill-effects of drug use. Once upon a time, in an age past when the NSA wasn?t reading your email and the state didn?t regulate your every move, drug addicts were allowed to walk the streets! In that crazy America, the one that existed 100 years ago, no one was taxed to lock up other people for taking a dose of opium.

Moreover, into the 1920s, most everyone agreed that by law of the Constitution, the federal government could not regulate the purchase of substances like drugs and alcohol. This is why alcohol prohibition required a constitutional amendment. It was only during the 1930s and afterward, that the Constitution was thrown out the window and it was decided, without any regard for Article I of the Constitution, that Congress could suddenly regulate what people can injest or smoke.

As Mises observed, once a people concede that a government can regulate what one puts into one?s own body, a government essentially has carte blanche to regulate anything under the sun. Who can argue this has not happened just as Mises said it would?

Buchanan predicts ?more potheads? and more car accidents and a host of other social ills. I don?t know how often Buchanan gets outside of the Beltway where he was born, bred, and still lives, but he obviously is not speaking from experience if he truly believes that the miniscule number of new potheads created by legalization cause any social ills that the average person need worry about. The point about car accidents makes it clear that Buchanan has apparently read the pro-government talking points that went out to government-lovers nationwide before the legalization took effect earlier this month in Colorado. Similar talking points are employed in this article?that reads like parody with commentators asserting with a straight face that Colorado society will become a disaster-zone of crazed out-of-control potheads. Such references call to mind this spoof of the old public service announcement Reefer Madness which asserted that marijuana use would lead to murderous rages for boys and humiliating prostitution for girls. Does anyone under the age of 50 honestly believe such obvious nonsense?

In fact, pot has been quasi-legal here in Colorado for years, anyone who really wanted it could buy it, and the only change in January that took place was that retail shops opened in which anyone over 21 could buy some pot legally under state law. The disasters that the Drug War enthusiasts like Buchanan imagine are all hypothetical, but the fact that up until recently, the government of Colorado was locking people in cages for smoking joints is all too real.

Pundits like Buchanan and other friends of Huge Government should just come out and explicitly state, that yes, they do think that it?s better to lock people in government cages for smoking unapproved substances because, well, ruining the lives of small-time drug users is preferable to having a few car crashes or increases in sleep disorders. (We all know how alcohol doesn?t cause any of those problems.)

The fear of libertarianism that Buchanan expresses helps illustrate the fact that conservatives really do look to government to dictate to people the proper way to live: ?Speak English or else! Celebrate Christmas or else! Don?t rent your real estate to immigrants! Employ only government-approved workers! Don?t smoke that! Don?t trade with them! ?The left liberals are awful in their own way of course, but the conservatives, who so disingenuously claim to be the party of small government, are now left in the position of decrying even a tiny amount of government de-regulation in a few small areas of our lives.

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Contraceptives for Nuns? Government at Its Most Absurd

By John R. Graham

How absurd can a law be, to force nuns (who have taken vows of both poverty and celibacy) to explain to the state why they don't want to pay for contraception? That requirement was too much for Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who issued a temporary injunction against Obamacare's mandate that health plans must cover contraception.

I am not sure it is possible to describe all the absurdity of the contraceptive issue in a few hundred words. And I do mean "all," because some of the law's opponents are engaged in a disproportionate response to the contraceptive mandate.

But first, the law itself. As a religiously affiliated organization, the Little Sisters of the Poor is exempt from the mandate. However, the law requires the order to file paperwork to that effect with the third-party administrator (TPA) of their health plan. They cannot just pay for a health plan that does not cover contraceptives without a co-pay.

Perhaps this bureaucratic burden is a fraud-prevention technique. There may be groups of lascivious atheists who plan to dodge the contraceptive mandate by dressing in black habits, registering as non-profit religiously affiliated monastic orders, and praying most of their waking hours. But I very much doubt it.

The New York Times editorialized against Sotomayor's injunction, claiming that it was just another case of an employer imposing its religious values on its employees. I did not think monastic orders had "employees." Isn't quietly working under the Abbess' or Abbot's direction part of the deal?

But the Times has a point. This is why a Catholic university, like Georgetown, has to obey the mandate. Sandra Fluke, then a law student there, participated in a Democratic publicity stunt on Capitol Hill in 2012, arguing that Georgetown should be forced to pay for her free contraceptives.

Is there no other solution than to impose the state's power on people and institutions who oppose contraception? Well one would be for Georgetown, and other Catholic universities, to expel all non-Catholic students and fire all non-Catholic staff. Alternatively (and I honestly have not read this anywhere else, so it must be remarkably original), Sandra Fluke could have attended law school at any one of the dozens of non-Catholic law schools in the United States.

On the other hand, why are the anti-contraception forces so up in arms about the mandate? Before Obamacare, contraception was a "universally available benefit and is excluded only at a customer/employer's request," according to a reimbursement consultant's report.

Most Catholics work for secular private or government employers. I have never met one who turned down a job offer at the New York Police Department, or IBM, or Morgan Stanley, or Walmart because the health plan covered contraception. Granted, these are not "mandates," but the Catholic is paying for what he believes is an immoral service, nevertheless.

Beyond advocating against the mandate, Catholic leaders should be advocating for individually owned health insurance, so that every person is free to choose the health plan that suits his needs. A Catholic who does not want to invest retirement savings in companies producing immoral goods or services is free to invest his money in Ave Maria Mutual Funds. Why isn't he free to purchase a health plan that is certified by the Church as compliant with its values, wherever he works?

This brings me back to a previous post, about the emerging private exchanges as a way to migrate from employer-based health insurance to individually owned policies. In such exchanges, employees have a choice of plans from different insurers. Those that are certified Catholic (or Baptist, or Jewish, or....) could easily be identified in the exchange, facilitating exercise of conscience without coercion.

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- On Deschooling (1971)
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The country is goin down the toilet & people are debating the pros & cons of O'bombacare ! Priceless . Never mind the spying/policestate/constitution shredding/political corruption/illegal wars/drone strikes/TSAholes/IRS political targeting/CORE edudoctrination etc. etc. etc................
The people of Amerika just don't git it , arguing details & semantics , or libs blaming cons blaming whoever , the game is over for EVERYONE regardless of your political persuassion , all bets are off , TYRANNY is the (not-so)NEW game in town ! EITHER GET USED TO IT OR DO SOME FUCKING THING ABOUT IT !!!!
I'm hoping , for your sake & the sake of the rest of the world , it's the latter .

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There Already Is A Government Health Care System In America And It Is The Medical Version Of Hell

by Michael Snyder

What would happen if the entire health care system in the United States was run by the federal government?? Would such a system be better or worse than what we have today?? To get an answer to these questions, all we have to do is take a look at what is already happening.? The truth is that there already is a government health care system in America and it is the medical version of hell.? You are about to read about the horrifying state of health care being provided by the federal government at VA hospitals and on Indian reservations around the country.? Injured military veterans and those that live on Indian reservations are some of the most vulnerable members of our society, and the government is doing an absolutely nightmarish job of taking care of them.

Theoretically, the government should be able to provide at least a basic level of care for these people, but as you will see this is simply not happening.

Why?

The bottom line is that the federal government is completely and utterly incompetent.? This has been demonstrated once again in recent months by the launch of Obamacare.? What a train wreck that has been.

But we shouldn?t be surprised.? When it comes to health care, the U.S. government can?t seem to get anything right.

Most Americans don?t realize this, but government-run health care for our military veterans is a complete and total joke.? In some instances, it can take critically injured military veterans?more than a year to see a doctor?

CJ Jackson, a Purple Heart recipient and 101st Airborne medic, was severely wounded during a battle in Afghanistan when an enemy rocket-propelled grenade hit a wall a couple of feet from him, sending debris into his arm and leg. He said he waited over a year to see a doctor at the Jackson VA despite being considered critically injured.

And once a vet is finally able to see a doctor and have surgery scheduled, those surgeries are often conducted in facilities that are beyond disgusting.? The following is what one orthopedic surgeon recently told CNBC?

?Occasionally we?d find pieces of bone? on equipment, he told CNBC. ?What it really shows is that no one is really taking the time or care to clean the instruments.?

His story was backed up by Dr. Phyllis Hollenbeck, who still works at the hospital. She testified on Sept. 9 about problems at the Jackson center. ?Essentially everything that happens in primary care at the Jackson VA can be included under the umbrella of being unethical, illegal, heartbreaking, and life threatening for the veterans, and everything in the care of the veterans starts in primary care.?

Of course this is not the first investigation that discovered these kinds of conditions at VA hospitals.? A few years ago, ABC News also conducted an investigation of conditions at VA facilities across the United States.? What ABC News discovered was absolutely staggering.? The following are just a few of the things that they found during the course of their investigation...

*Bathrooms filthy with what appeared to be human excrement

*Dirty linens from some patients mixed in with clean supplies

*Examining tables that had dried blood and medications still on them

*Equipment used to sterilize surgical instruments that had broken down

*Some patients that were begging for food and water

*Vets neglected so badly that they had developed horrific bedsores and dangerous infections

Is this how the federal government should be treating the men and women that have shed blood fighting for our country?

Unfortunately, it appears that the mistreatment of our military veterans has gotten even worse since Barack Obama took power.? For much more on all of this, please see my previous article entitled ?25 Signs That Military Veterans Are Being Treated Like Absolute Trash Under The Obama Administration?.

The funny thing is that many of the people that run these VA facilities are greatly rewarded for their ?hard work?.? For example,?CNBC discovered that those running the VA facility in Jackson, Mississippi described above are receiving huge bonuses?

The director of the Jackson VA, Joe Battle, received a $6,500 bonus last year on top of his $165,000 salary, and Rica Lewis-Payton, the network director of the South Central Health Care Network, which includes Jackson, got almost $36,000 in bonuses last year, on top of her $180,000 salary.

Are you disgusted yet?

You should be.

And we see the exact same thing happening in government-run health care facilities on Indian reservations.

By treaty, the U.S. government is required to provide health care on Indian reservations.? But the level of health care being provided is of extremely low quality and the programs are very underfunded.

In fact, things are so bad that the following expression is very commonly heard on Indian reservations across America?

?Don't get sick after June?.

Why would they say that?

Well, because in the fall and winter the waits to see a doctor and the rationing of care get particularly bad.? If you get seriously ill, you might end up dying before you ever get the care that you need.

Posted below is a?video news report featuring Judge Andrew Napolitano about the horrific state of government-run health care on Indian reservations?

In light of all of this, should we have more government interference in the health care system or less?

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Do Taxpayers Want to Pay For Those Shut Down Government Services?

Ryan McMaken

There is a common assumption among politicians that voters want a lot of government services, but don't want to pay for them. It's certainly true that taxpayers don't like paying taxes, and this is demonstrated in the fact that the federal government runs a deficit virtually every single year. If the taxpayers didn't mind paying the full cost of government, the feds would be able to collect enough in revenue to pay the bills. As it is, the political realities of public opposition to taxation drive the feds to resort to deficit spending to cover their costs.

In addition to kicking the can down the deficit road year after year, the federal government employs a variety of other tools to mask the true cost of government as well. Tax withholding by employers often hides the true level of taxation from many taxpayers while some taxes are re-defined as non-taxes. The social security tax, for example, is often wrongly said to be not a tax at all, but merely a payment into a trust fund for one's future retirement.

All of these little tricks and strategies have been employed to help governments squeeze a few more dollars from the taxpayers in the face of what elected officials often regard as a stubborn and mean-spirited opposition to paying one's fair share.

So while it is indeed true that the voters often resent paying taxes, the claim that "voters want a lot of government services," on the other hand, is less self-evident. The current partial shutdown of some government operations helps to illustrate the dubious nature of this assertion. If the taxpayers were uniformly appalled and outraged at the thought of a government shutdown, it seems unlikely that the federal government would need to go out of its way to make a big show of what government services were being shut down.

This is a time honored strategy, of course, and even has a name: the Washington Monument Syndrome. For decades, the bureaucrats in the National Park Service have gleefully closed the parks whenever government shutdowns have occurred, and have even threatened to close parks if Congress did not provide sufficient appropriations to please the NPS. The Park Service knows that the closure of parks plays a helpful role in angering American tourists and taxpayers who find themselves traveling a thousand miles to only end up at a closed National Park. According to one blogger, the NPS has even gone so far as to station armed guards with assault rifles and body armor at the entrance to Death Valley National Park. Taxpayers who still think that there is something "public" about the public lands in the National Parks might want to think again.

The National Parks are an extreme case, though, and the federal government knows it. The question remains as to whether or not taxpayers care much about all the other government "services" that may be closed or scaled back. Just how badly do the taxpayers want to make sure that their tax dollars keep going to fund NSA spying on Americans, or the study of wildlife mating habits, or the planting of trees in the front yards of millionaires?

Supporters of government largesse will often cite polls and studies showing the taxpayers support the expansion of this or that program. "Support" for a government program is all well and good when support only requires a nod of one's head. It's another matter entirely when one is asked to shell out actual money.

Murray Rothbard knew this well, and he more than once suggested that the best way to determine just how much voters valued a certain government service was to stop taking funds by force and to allow taxpayers to voluntarily pay for government services.

Writing in the wake of the government shutdown and budget deal of 1990, through which taxes were raised following multiple predictions of doom and chaos in the face of government cutbacks, Rothbard suggested a modest proposal to determine just how badly the taxpayers actually wanted those government services that were deemed so essential:

I would like to offer a modest proposal, giving us a chance to see precisely how vital to our survival and prosperity is the Leviathan federal government, and how much we are truly willing to pay for its care and feeding. Let us try a great social experiment: for one year, one exhilarating jubilee year, we furlough, without pay, the Internal Revenue Service and the rest of the revenue-gathering functions of the Department of Treasury.

That is, for one year, suspend all federal taxes and float no public debt, either newly incurred or even for payment of existing interest or principal. And then let us see how much the American public is willing to kick into, purely voluntarily, the public till.

We make these voluntary contributions strictly anonymous, so that there will be no incentive for individuals and institutions to collect brownie-points from the feds for current voluntary giving. We allow no carryover of funds or surplus, so that any federal spending for the year -- including the piteous importuning of Americans for funds -- takes place strictly out of next year's revenue.

It will then be fascinating to see how much the American public is truly willing to pay, how much it thinks the federal government is really worth, how much it is really convinced by all the slick cons: by the spectre of roads falling apart, cancer cures aborted, by invocations of the "common good," the "public interest," the "national security," to say nothing of the favorite economists' ploys of "public goods" and "externalities."

It would be even more instructive to allow the various anonymous contributors to check off what specific services or agencies they wish to earmark for expenditure of their funds. It would be still more fun to see vicious and truthful competitive advertising between bureaus: "No, no, don't contribute to those lazy louts in the Department of Transportation (or whatever), give to us." For once, government propaganda might even prove to be instructive and enjoyable.

To a certain extent, we already know what would happen in this case. While not quite analogous to Rothbard's Modest Proposal, some taxpayers are able to vote on tax increases at the state and local level. Not surprisingly, when tax increases go to a vote, their success rate is not stellar, and when they do pass, victory requires the help of multi-million dollar advertising campaigns. (For examples, see here, here, here, and here.)

Some people are happy to vote for tax increases, of course, especially if they think someone else will foot the bill. And there is no doubt that the taxpayers are more than happy to use government lands and amenities they have no choice but to pay for. If given the choice, however, it's less clear that the taxpayers would be clamoring to pay taxes for a $100,000 outhouse in Alaska, a chance to be spied on, or for another war in another country few Americans can find on a map.
_
Ryan W. McMaken is the editor of Mises Daily and The Free Market Send him mail. See Ryan McMaken's article archives.

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Essential Government Worker In Action [Video]

Here's one of those "essential" government workers for whom society would fall apart without.

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The Wal Mart of mail delivery. No wonder they are bankrupt! Too fat to walk 10 feet to deliver the mail. Instead the blog drives across their lawn. The homeowner should sue them for destruction of private property. Incompetent Gluttonous Ginormity redefinned. This is is bad dream's bad dream. Still - why am I laughing so hard? @nonymous 5029, today I was driving behind a car that had a license plate which read: "is is ," and, it also had a bumper-sticker which read: "the sun is not yellow, the sun is a chicken." I wondered over the meanings to both for a bit, before recalling a prior construct set-up; which read: "Reality - It's not what you've been told it is."

as for this article.... my mail lady is far-less thinner than the one in this video, though, if 'physical weight' were the means, by which substance of character was measured in this realm... I would be considered to be "lacking," while, all postal employees would be considered to have "depth."

the only thing that makes me laugh is "irony," so, no, I can't comprehend the reason for your "laughing so hard."

also, what do you make of the b-day: 5/27/81? jeez "I" would hate to be that person.

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How "Your" Government Works

Kevin Carson

The Obama administration has announced the formation of a panel of ?outside experts? to review the NSA?s surveillance practices. And a wide-ranging, diverse collection of experts they are; when it comes to institutional backgrounds and viewpoints, they span the entire spectrum from A to B. They remind me a bit of the space shuttle crew in an episode of The Simpsons: ?They?re a colorful bunch ?? There's a mathematician, a different kind of mathematician, and a statistician.?

Richard Clarke, who served on the National Security Council under two Bushes and a Clinton, was the counter-terrorism tsar for three administrations. Michael Morell is a former CIA director who was at Obama?s side during the kill of bin Laden and probably heavily involved in the whole ?wink, wink, nudge, nudge? operation of ?unofficial? leaks to the Zero Dark Thirty propaganda operation. Cass Sunstein, former White House information tsar under Obama, in 2010 authored a paper explicitly endorsing ?cognitive infiltration? by the government ? i.e., government secretly enlisting the help of ?respected outside experts? posing as independent commenters to debunk ?conspiracy theories? critical of government policy on social media. You know, like those boiler rooms the Mossad runs full of people pretending to be independent college students defending the Israeli apartheid state against social media critics.

This bunch of clowns bears an amazing resemblance to the ?outside experts? running other aspects of government policy. You know how the U.S. government brags about all the ?stakeholders seated around the table? when it drafts new laws or treaties on ?intellectual property?? Oddly enough, there aren?t many from the Electronic Frontier Foundation or Creative Commons. But you bet your booty the RIAA, MPAA and Microsoft will be represented extremely well.

Pretty much every pick for U.S. Treasurer is a former CEO of Goldman-Sachs or Citigroup. Obama?s favorite for Federal Reserve chairman is Larry Summers, the ultimate insider?s insider from America?s quasi-public, quasi-private network of finance capitalist institutions.

Likewise, if you look through the assorted Assistant and Deputy and Assistant Deputy Secretaries at the USDA, you?ll find a gaggle of former Vice Presidents and Directors from Monsanto, Cargill and ADM. The second-tier political appointees at the FDA will generally be there as a change of pace between stints in the C-Suites of Merck and Pfizer. Basically the entire military procurement policy apparatus is an alliance of military (ahem, ?Defense?) contractors and Pentagon procurement officers, rigging tests and getting their lies straight so Congress will rubber-stamp their new weapons systems.

If you think all this insider involvement in policy represents ?regulatory capture,? or the corruption of an originally pristine system by campaign money and lobbyists, you?re missing the point. It?s their ability to use the state as a tool for extracting rents from society that makes these people insiders in the first place. Most of the profits they get in the ?marketplace? [sic, sic, SICK] result either from rents on artificial scarcity enforced by the state, or from direct government subsidies to their operating costs. Protecting the profits of ?insiders? is what governments do. If it weren?t for state subsidies and state-enforced entry barriers, artificial property rights, artificial scarcities and regulatory cartels, there wouldn?t be a Goldman Sachs or a Citigroup. There wouldn?t be an ADM, Cargill or Monsanto. There wouldn?t be a Merck or Pfizer, a Disney or Microsoft.

The government exists, since the beginning of the first states, to serve landlords, capitalists, usurers, bureaucrats and assorted other rentiers ? not to serve us. The state, by its very nature, is executive committee of an economic ruling class. Trying to ?reform? government through outsider review is like trying to reform the Mafia.

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Students Taught That Government Is "Family": A Caretaker That Should Be Obeyed

SKOKIE, IL ? A homework assignment was given to children at a public school which revealed the true nature of this nation?s education model: to condition impressionable young people to accept the paternal role of the state; trusting, accepting, and obeying the state?s wishes as you would your own family.? This familial role of the state has been formally advocated since the onset of public education in America.

Fourth-graders at East Prairie School in Skokie, Illinois, were distributed an assignment titled, ?What is Government??

The assignment was prefaced with a statement that caused a stir with some parents.? The worksheet stated:

?Government is like a nation?s family.? Families take care of each other and make sure they are safe, healthy, educated, and free to enjoy life.? Families encourage children to be independent, hardworking, and responsible.? Families make and enforce rules and give appropriate punishments when rules are broken.? Government does these things for its citizens, too.?

The worksheet goes on to make a series of analogies between the state of families in the form of questions.? It can be viewed below.

Assignment given to children in compulsory government schools. (Source: TheBlaze)

This worksheet, while shocking to some, is completely in line with the foundation and intent of the American public education system.? To illustrate this, we must review some forgotten (buried) history.

Read More

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Since the Black community has a broken down family system, Govt must step in, indoctrinate, brainwash and control that part of our population.

The Jews understand the importance of family, the Italians also. The Irish just know it's every man for him self. At least they work.

The Hispanics are also strong on family but lack education.

Blacks + Hispanics = 51% + and growing.

Read the writing on the wall.

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"Parallel Construction": Government Term for Lying About Its Investigations

By Randall Holcombe

President Obama pledged to create ?...an unprecedented level of openness in Government...? and to ?... work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation, and collaboration.? With all the recent revelations about IRS abuses and NSA snooping that the president wants to keep secret, transparency in government increasingly appears to mean that government can know everything about us; we can know nothing about government.

Here is another government policy, apparently long-standing, that only came to my attention through this article. There are so many disturbing things in the article that I hardly know where to start.

But, I?ll start with the idea of ?parallel construction,? in which ?...federal agents are trained to ?recreate? the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant?s Constitutional right to a fair trial.? If the government has evidence against you, not only do they not reveal where they got it, they actually lie about its origin. The article notes, ?If defendants don?t know how an investigation began, they cannot know to ask to review potential sources of exculpatory evidence ? information that could reveal entrapment, mistakes or biased witnesses.?

Nancy Gertner, a Harvard Law School professor who was a federal judge from 1994 to 2011, says she?s never heard of this. ?It sounds like they are phonying up investigations,? she said.

Meanwhile, ?...two senior DEA officials defended the program, and said trying to ?recreate? an investigative trail is not only legal but a technique that is used almost daily.?

The article offers an example: The Special Operations Division (SOD) of the DEA passes along a tip to state police to find a reason to stop a vehicle because they suspect the vehicle is involved in drug activity. The police find a reason to stop the vehicle, probably for a traffic violation, and find drugs.

The article says, ?After an arrest was made, agents then pretended that their investigation began with the traffic stop, not with the SOD tip, the former agent said. The training document reviewed by Reuters refers to this process as ?parallel construction.?? The article continues, ?The two senior DEA officials, who spoke on behalf of the agency but only on condition of anonymity, said the process is kept secret to protect sources and investigative methods.?

That?s troubling enough. Government policy is to lie about their sources of information. But there?s more. What are those sources of information the SOD uses?

The article says, ?The unit of the DEA that distributes the information is called the Special Operations Division, or SOD. Two dozen partner agencies comprise the unit, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Homeland Security.?

The most disturbing (to me) agency in that group is the IRS. According to the official line, your tax records are private and not to be shared among other government agencies, which prompted recent outcries with revelations that tax records were being used for political purposes. Now we find out that tax records are also being shared among two dozen partner agencies, including the DEA. Just that one sentence in the article should be fodder for outrage against our intrusive government; yet not much has been said about it since the articl

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I have another term for this: Evidence laundering. Use it a lot, because its connotation is that of criminal activity (which is what this is).

"Parallel construction" is nothing but a weasel term intended to avoid the criminal taint.

"Parallel Construction," may be the government's, "Term for Lying," but, so much truth is in that term, one might be struck by double-think, after having read it. (I was).

I have lots to say on the linked article, as well as this one, although, in order to do so, I would have to be holding (at the least) 6 mirrors.

"The article says,....." - Randall Holcombe. That quote alone, is doublethink; proof that all "terms," should be called into question. Articles "read," they don't "say," anything. Newspeak is tricky sometimes.
This article is written to aid the "Parallel (CON)structors." Even if, I were holding only 3 mirrors, (I am presently), I can see the CON in this CONstruct - as follows:

1. The headline - it suggests the king's college can outwit you, (mirror), while, simultaneously grabbing your attention.
2. The first paragraph - it reads, that government is watching you, (mirror), though, you can't watch them.... That is straight-out the "1984" script. (Big Brother can't see, for he's an ideology, not an actual person).
3. The linked article - it's a war construct. Government claims to have the right to watch you, (mirror) you must fight against them.

..."recreate the investigative trial to effectively cover up where the information originated..." - Randall Holcombe.

Randall, this quote is for you: "time travels forward, one, accelerates." - dave

I don't know about you Randall, but, I say: "take me anywhere but back."

Information originates as a notion, and, (though they've tried) this government continues to fall short of answering the questions, presented by those notions. In other words: "when you play god, you had better be prepared to take on god."

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The United States Government Does Not Want Americans To Travel Abroad

No other government on the face of this Earth wants to make it?s citizens more ill-at-ease, deathly afraid, or made to feel so guilty for stepping outside of it?s national boundaries as the United States of America. Rather than encouraging Americans to embrace overseas travel as one of the most educational, enjoyable, and emotionally and spiritually satisfying endeavors that people can undertake in the course of our painfully short lives, U.S. government departments and institutions are notorious for wanting to make even just the IDEA of pursuing international travel as unpleasant and unsettling as they can possibly muster.

You must look no further than the U.S. State Department?s ?Global Travel Alert? issued this past Friday (August 2nd 2013) to grasp the sheer ridiculousness and paranoia of the U.S. governments stance on it?s citizens travelling abroad. The alert, which is based upon the ?most specific, credible threat information in years? (but of course lacking any actual date or timing), warned of the potential for terrorist attacks, particularly in the Middle East and North Africa, to be carried out by operatives of Al Qaeda and their associates.

It came less than a day after the department announced that it was closing U.S. diplomatic missions in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere through the weekend because of a (of course) ?unspecified? terrorism threat. The global travel alert if effective through the end of August.

So going by the State Department?s advice and logic on this ?global? travel alert, we?re all supposed to reconsider our travel plans to ANYWHERE outside the United States? Or at least for the remainder of August? Even if I just want to camp out at Uluru in the middle of Australia, the Islamic bad guys are going to be out for my blood? Yep, the whole concept of a United States issued ?global travel alert? is just?.that?.LAME.

Let?s just flip the coin here for a moment. Have you noticed there is no such thing as a ?domestic travel alert? issued by the United States Department of State? I mean if you really think about it there SHOULD be. The United States literally has all of the most dangerous cities in the world under the umbrella of the term ?First World?. Comparing U.S. cities like Camden, New Orleans, Detroit, Memphis, or South Side Chicago with the likes of European cities such as Vienna, Zurich, Helsinki, Munich, or Copenhagen is somewhat akin to contrasting Hell with Heaven, at least certainly from a safety standpoint.

Yet the host countries of those cities don?t issue ?global travel alerts? specifically pointing out the United States as an area of greater safety concern (which it plainly is). They realize that the world is not perfect, and some safety risks which can theoretically happen anywhere are not going to be allowed to ruin their holiday plans.

You wanna talk about forces at work which are trying to ruin your holiday plans? Just take a look at the U.S. State Department?s website, particularly if you direct yourself to the ?threats to safety and security? section under ?country specific information?. A lot of the stuff you will read in this area of the website is absolutely horrifying. Seriously, just what sort of coffin-sized box do they want Americans to live in? Here are some direct quotations from a number of countries we would otherwise consider among the safest places in the world to visit.

AUSTRALIA ? Australia has an alert system for possible terrorist attacks. The threat levels range from ?low? to ?high.? The Australian Attorney General?s Office web site has up-to-date information regarding the current terrorism threat level. Depending on the alert, you should maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase your security awareness. (Threats To Safety And Security)

NEW ZEALAND ? Violent crime against tourists is rare; however, if you are traveling alone, you should be especially vigilant and avoid isolated areas. (Crime)

NORWAY ? Like other countries in the Schengen area, Norway?s open borders with its Western European neighbors also allow the possibility of terrorists entering/exiting the country with anonymity. Be vigilant with regard to your personal security. (Threats To Safety And Security)

FINLAND ? Finland remains largely free of terrorist incidents. However, like other countries in the Schengen area, Finland?s open borders with its Western European neighbors allow the possibility of terrorist groups anonymously entering and exiting the country. (Threats to Safety And Security)

Notice how the State Department clearly is not a fan of Europe?s open borders policy? They would much prefer to have the personal freedoms and civil liberties of Europeans be squandered, and have a T.S.A. equivalent for Europe rule over the continent with an iron fist in order to catch those pesky ?terrorists? who must be freely crossing the border between Germany and Denmark on a daily basis.

As for countries like Cuba, it is interesting to point out how the U.S. State Departments description of the country is frighteningly comparable to the modern day United States, though they want to pretend to remain oblivious to this fact. Also, in a bizarre twist to readers expectations (especially if the department is actually telling solo travelers in New Zealand to ?avoid isolated areas? which is exactly what most travelers to the country hope to spend a lot of time doing) they actually give a rare display of praise for North Korea.

NORTH KOREA ? North Korea does not release crime statistics. Violent crime is rare, and street crime against foreigners is uncommon in Pyongyang. (In truth, crime against travelers to North Korea is almost non-existent).

Beyond the endless scaremongering, there is another major reason why the U.S. government doesn?t want you to travel abroad. In the 21st century, they desperately want to avoid having you see for yourself just HOW FAR BEHIND our country has fallen. Our government has an incredibly fragile ego, and desperately wants to continue to tout that the United States is the ?greatest country on Earth?, which many of us are now aware is a totally false exclamation.

It is an embarrassment for the U.S. government when Americans visit South Korea, Germany, France, Italy, and even Turkey and witness first-hand just how wonderful, efficient, and fast the domestic intercity train systems run. It is an embarrassment for Americans to witness how the streets are kept cleaner and the highways better maintained in countries across Europe, and even in parts of Mexico. It is an embarrassment when they visit Australia, and drop their jaws at the revelation many of the locals are working jobs earning the annual equivalent of anywhere between $70,000 ? $120,000 U.S. dollars, which do not require any university education (and therefore no crippling student loan debt-slavery).

It is an embarrassment when Americans talk with university students in Scandinavia and realize it is not costing them a penny. It is an embarrassment when they walk the streets of Buenos Aires or Rio de Janeiro and safely come to the conclusion that the locals are more health conscious, better dressed, self-confident, and consistently attractive than pretty much anywhere at home. It is an embarrassment coming to the realization that Santiago, the capital of Chile and among the most populous cities in ?dangerous? Latin America, is actually a safer city than any U.S. metropolitan area of comparable size.

Basically, the U.S. government does not want you to become aware about a lot of really, really, good things that are available to people in other parts of the world that are severely lacking at home. They do not want you coming back to the United States and raving to your friends about how wonderful your destination was, having ideas of moving abroad to a country with better employment opportunities and/or financial rewards (Australia, Germany, Norway, etc.), or planning on early retirement to a country with wonderful year-round weather and a low cost-of-living in Latin America or Southeast Asia.

They don?t want you to figure out that it is possible to have a rich and full life without automobile dependency, which is a reality in many other countries. They don?t want you to visit a country that actually learns how to get along with the planet and requires only a token military budget, and where discretionary government funds can be spent on much more constructive or life-affirming pursuits.

NO. They want you to STAY in the United States and forever remain a dutiful U.S. taxpayer, slave to big oil and student loans, and to sit down and shut up as drones and bombs obliterate yet another country that has never harmed the United States in any way (it was Yemen this week right?). Traveling abroad, spending your money elsewhere, having a wonderful time, and then perhaps ultimately wanting to move yourself and your assets away, will make them very, very, grumpy indeed.

After all, it is easy for a population to be brainwashed into thinking that their country is the ?best in the world? when they have absolutely no frame of reference to any of the other 200+ sovereign states which exist in the world today. It?s easy to get a large segment of the population to actually believe countries like Iran are hostile when Hollywood propaganda films like ?Argo? portray every local as a bloodthirsty zealot out to claim an American scalp. Unfortunately for them, the reality is that Iranians are without doubt some of the friendliest and most hospitable people on this Earth, and embrace American travelers with cheerful gusto and sincere smiles.

Of course, you can simply ignore the government propaganda campaigns and societal warnings all you want. There is nothing stopping a U.S. citizen from taking off overseas, provided you have a valid passport, sufficient funds, and a thirst for adventure. What cannot be stopped is the end game, the dreaded T.S.A. ?Chat Down? when you return to the U.S.A. But I?ll leave that for another article.

So in the meantime, whatever you do, even though the risk of a supposed ?terrorist? attack is the most elevated in the Middle East and North Africa, pay heed to the State Department?s ?global travel alert? and cancel that trip you had planned to Norway or New Zealand later next week. Those countries are far too dangerous right now (maybe forever) and you?re going to be KILLED! Stay right here at home in the United States and spend your tourist dollars in New Orleans, Memphis, Camden, and the south side of Chicago instead. You?ll be 100% totally safe and secure!
_
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Most Americans See Government as "Threat to Rights" For First Time

Trust in established institutions continues to plummet
Paul Joseph Watson

A new poll released by the Pew Research Center has found that a majority of Americans now see the government as a threat to their rights for the first time ever.

A total of 53% of Americans view the government as a threat to their ?personal rights and freedoms,? with 43% not believing it poses a threat and 4 don?t knows.

The?poll also found, ?Only 26% saying they can trust government always or most of the time, while 73% say they can trust the government only some of the time or never. Majorities across all partisan and demographic groups express little or no trust in government.?

Just 20% of whites trust the federal government while a mere 26% of Americans across the board view Congress favorably, in comparison with 50% of the public regarding Congress favorably in 2009.

The poll arrives in the aftermath of a separate?Rasmussen survey?that found just 6 per cent of Americans now rate the mainstream news media as ?very trustworthy?.

Faith in the integrity of established institutions has eroded steadily since the Obama administration took office.

In 2011,?pollster Pat Caddell warned?that Americans were ?pre-revolutionary? after a survey found that just 17 per cent of Americans believed that the U.S. government had the consent of the governed, an all time low.

The founding fathers routinely espoused the view that skepticism of those in power was a healthy and patriotic stance. However, trust in government has plummeted so drastically that it is beginning to pose a threat to the very fabric of society.

That?s why many are concerned that the Department of Homeland Security and other federal agencies are gearing up for widespread civil unrest by stockpiling weapons and ammunition.

Instead of rebuilding trust in the system by changing their behavior, becoming more transparent, and respecting the Constitution, federal agencies are increasingly treating the American public as an enemy that needs to be closely watched and defended against physically via a massive arms build up.

_
Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for?Infowars.com?and?Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.

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Government thinks that you are an idiot

Jeffrey Tucker

The European Commission has fined Microsoft $732 million for failing to give options on the opening Windows screen for downloading other browsers. This proves that consumers are smarter than governments. After all, most consumers have figured out on their own that they have other options to Internet Explorer. Chrome is the number one browser in the markets today, IE is second, and Firefox is third. Safari and Opera are next in the list. IE?s market share is only 26.1%. Here?s the rundown of market share.

This is not a story of a company exploiting consumers. IE isn?t so bad after all, and it has improved with each release, just not as much and as fast as other products. This is really just a story of looting of a private company. Government goes and grabs the money where it can find it.

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Well Jeffrey ..
BEFORE the EU forced M$ to give people a choice those numbers looked quite differently .. You could even meet people who thought Internet Exploder WAS 'The Internet' ! Well, people just keep putting up with anything the government does and swallowing whatever the government feeds them. So the people are indeed idiots. Internet Exploiter is the most worthless POS browser ever made. I feel sorry for people who only use IE as hackers are laughing at a wide open browser. P.S. Microshaft doesn't give a rip about your computer security they make money off of edu, gov, corp and make only a fraction off home users.

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Government Undermines Social Cooperation

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I should know better than to take seriously the insipid words of presidential speechwriters, especially those who composed an inaugural address. Still, I can't let some of the words President Obama read at Monday's inauguration pass without comment.

For example, Obama said this:

Preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. For the American people can no more meet the demands of today's world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

Here is the standard false alternative beloved by politicians seeking to justify their own violence-based power. The fallacy is clear when stated this way: Since individuals acting in isolation aren't capable of doing many things they want done, government should take charge and see that they are done.

What's left out? The "collective action" of voluntary civil society, which includes the market as well as all peaceful noncommercial activities (such as mutual-aid associations). To listen to Obama, you'd never know there was community life apart from the state, which, let us never forget, is founded on the power to inflict force on nonaggressors. (The power to tax -- the appropriation of private property under threat of violence -- is the fundamental power without which no government power can exist.)

Politicians say such things hoping the average person is too dulled by the government's schools and the slavish news media to notice the missing piece. The liberal (libertarian) vision of the free society never posited the isolated individual as the source of progress. Not wanting government to manage human affairs does not imply the absence of social cooperation. Quite the contrary! Social cooperation lies at the very heart of the classical-liberal vision. It's found in every liberal thinker from Adam Smith -- who underscored the division of labor and the "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange" -- to today's libertarian thinkers. Ludwig von Mises came close to titling his magnum opus on economics Social Cooperation. He opted instead for Human Action, but "social cooperation" is the second-most used phrase in his thousand-page book. "Division of labor" places first, but that's just another way of saying "social cooperation."

Indeed, Mises's chapter eight, "Human Cooperation," begins,

Society is concerted action, cooperation... The total complex of mutual relations created by such concerted actions is called society. It substitutes collaboration for the -- at least conceivable -- isolated life of individuals. Society is division of labor and combination of labor. In his capacity as an acting animal man becomes a social animal.

Mises of course was a hard-core advocate of laissez-faire. Government would have barely been noticeable in his ideal society. The thought of raising living standards through individual isolation would have struck him as absurd. Human beings progress through cooperation and only through cooperation. He explicitly broadened David Ricardo's law of comparative advantage and dubbed it the "law of association." The principle explains not only why free trade benefits all participating countries, but also why individuals do better by working together than by acting alone:

The law of association makes us comprehend the tendencies which resulted in the progressive intensification of human cooperation. We conceive what incentive induced people not to consider themselves simply as rivals in a struggle for the appropriation of the limited supply of means of subsistence made available by nature. We realize what has impelled them and permanently impels them to consort with one another for the sake of cooperation. Every step forward on the way to a more developed mode of the division of labor serves the interests of all participants. In order to comprehend why man did not remain solitary, searching like the animals for food and shelter for himself only and at most also for his consort and his helpless infants, we do not need to have recourse to a miraculous interference of the Deity or to the empty hypostasis of an innate urge toward association. Neither are we forced to assume that the isolated individuals or primitive hordes one day pledged themselves by a contract to establish social bonds. The factor that brought about primitive society and daily works toward its progressive intensification is human action that is animated by the insight into the higher productivity of labor achieved under the division of labor.

For the record, Mises acknowledged that "Ricardo was fully aware of the fact that his law of comparative cost [or advantage] "? is a particular instance of the more universal law of association."

One of the stalwarts of the liberal tradition, Fr?d?ric Bastiat, made quite a big deal of this point in the opening chapter of his economics treatise, Economic Harmonies (1850). Noting the average person's access to a vast array of goods in mid-19th-century France, Bastiat observed,

It is impossible not to be struck by the disproportion, truly incommensurable, that exists between the satisfactions this man derives from society and the satisfactions that he could provide for himself if he were reduced to his own resources. I make bold to say that in one day he consumes more things than he could produce himself in ten centuries. [Emphasis added.]

What makes the phenomenon stranger still is that the same thing holds true for all other men. Every one of the members of society has consumed a million times more than he could have produced; yet no one has robbed anyone else.

Like all advocates of individual liberty, Bastiat understood that the choice is not between isolated action and government social engineering.

So when Obama says "the American people [cannot] meet the demands of today's world by acting alone," he attacks a straw man. Who proposes such a thing? Note the ambiguity in the sentence. By "acting alone," does he mean individuals acting in isolation with no division of labor in the market? Or does he mean people acting cooperatively, by consent, and without government involvement? If the second, then he is simply wrong. People acting cooperatively through the market can indeed "meet the demands of today's world." The clumsy bureaucracy and the "private sector" cronies it serves need only leave us alone.

But Obama apparently means individuals literally acting alone, because he immediately says, "No single person can train all the math and science teachers we'll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores."

Who writes this nonsense? Who thinks that a "single person" could do any of those things? Does Obama (or his speechwriters) even know what opponents of government social engineering stand for? They must think they can distract people from the libertarian alternative with a false picture of the choice we face. Get people to think the choice is between government social engineering and literal individual self-sufficiency, and the libertarian ideal of voluntary social cooperation through the freed market will present no threat to the privilege-laden status quo.

Here is the irony: Government intervention undermines social cooperation in myriad ways. To name just one, privileges for favored producers drive a wedge between entrepreneurs and consumers by distorting relative prices and eroding the market's ability to coordinate supply and demand over time. In general, government ?welfare? activity crowds out private solutions that are far more amenable to freedom and cooperation.

Politicians pose as the great advocates of "collective action," but in fact their schemes increasingly replace mutually beneficial social cooperation with top-down special-interest-driven decrees.
_
Sheldon Richman is vice president of The Future of Freedom Foundation and editor of FFF's monthly journal, Future of Freedom. For 15 years he was editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvington, New York. He is the author of FFF's award-winning book Separating School & State: How to Liberate America's Families; Your Money or Your Life: Why We Must Abolish the Income Tax; and Tethered Citizens: Time to Repeal the Welfare State. Calling for the abolition, not the reform, of public schooling. Separating School & State has become a landmark book in both libertarian and educational circles. In his column in the Financial Times, Michael Prowse wrote: "I recommend a subversive tract, Separating School & State by Sheldon Richman of the Cato Institute, a Washington think tank... . I also think that Mr. Richman is right to fear that state education undermines personal responsibility..." Sheldon's articles on economic policy, education, civil liberties, American history, foreign policy, and the Middle East have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, American Scholar, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Washington Times, The American Conservative, Insight, Cato Policy Report, Journal of Economic Development, The Freeman, The World & I, Reason, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Middle East Policy, Liberty magazine, and other publications. He is a contributor to the The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. A former newspaper reporter and senior editor at the Cato Institute and the Institute for Humane Studies, Sheldon is a graduate of Temple University in Philadelphia. He blogs at Free Association. Send him e-mail.

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Government Will Lose the War on Piracy

by Jeffrey Tucker

It began as a skirmish. Then it was a battle. It became a war. Now it is a bloody conflict that is global in scope. Both sides have passed the point of no return. There is no question who is winning and going to win totally in the end, despite massive carnage along the way.

The field of battle in this case are the digital networks that swirl around the world in arrangements so thick and wide ? seemingly infinite points of light that represent human contact backed by technological genius? that they surpass the capacity of the human mind to conceptualize them.

The two sides: everybody vs. everybody?s governments.

The death of Aaron Swartz, the 26-year-old digital genius, seems to have been some sort of turning point. The government hounded him, threatened him, planned to jailed him and bankrupt him for life. The ostensible reason for the persecution was that he downloaded research papers with the intent to distribute them. The real reason was that he was using his skills to pioneer new methods of subverting government?s attempts to thwart Internet freedom.

His tormentors broke his gentle spirit. He killed himself before they could get their way.

But since his death two weeks ago, there have been thousands of tributes written about his life. His interviews and writings have gone viral online. The organizations he founded have seen new life. His causes have gained new adherents. Hundreds and thousands have been showing up to events to give tribute to his work and ideas.

I?m thinking here of the life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr., and how it became a symbol of the urgent and non-negotiable desire for racial justice and peace. After he died, there was no turning back. The arguments and struggles largely ended. There would be no more legal barriers to the freedom of people to associate.

One wonders if the death of Aaron Swartz will take on a similar significance in the demand for the digital freedom to associate. After all, the war against the mass migration from physical to digital cannot be won by the state. The cloud is humanity?s new home ? a world without borders, coercion, or barriers. Aaron was a prophet of this dramatic change in the social order that took place from 1995 onward. He understood it like few others.

But is the winner in this war really decided? Think of this. The war on online sharing (?piracy?) has been ongoing for ten years. It has involved ever more spying, ever more warnings plastered everywhere, ramped up intimidation in every sphere of life.

The penalties are more intense. Civil infractions have been converted to criminal acts. Kids have been fined, humbled, jailed. Enforcement has involved military raids and body bags. Every voice of government authority the world over has weighed in to denounce the pirates, the infringers, the copiers, the stealers, and looters.

We?ve been told that viewing unauthorized material, sharing things without permission, saying stuff without checking with the authorities, is tantamount to robbing grocery stores and stealing cars. The penalties are higher than for kidnapping and manslaughter.

And yet look at the results. Right now, this instant, ?pirated? material has never been more available online. You can stream practically anything that has ever been filmed or recorded, instantly. The waves of information, licit or illicit, are rising and crashing ever harder in every minute that goes by.

It is impossible to police, impossible to stop, impossible to control, and ever more brazen by the day. The more governments try to stop it, the more there is to stop. And yet the politicians and bureaucrats still swear that they will fight to the bitter end, unconditional surrender as the only terms. It?s the ultimate unwinnable war, even more absurd than the war on drugs or the war on demon rum.

It?s not criminals who are thwarting the efforts of governments. It is human beings who are seeking out ways to connect and share information. They are acting as people do, using the tools they have been given to find and share value. They are seeking ways to push progress in the world of ideas.

They are using the magical capacity of the Internet to copy ? that?s its real power and real function ? in order to universalize whatever is wanted by others. The driving force is the burning desire on the part of people to link up to their mutual betterment. And this is taking place outside the artificial borders of the nation state and creating new forms of human engagement and innovation on a scale that no one imagined possible.

But are the ?pirates? wrecking enterprise and profits? That?s what we are told. But look at it. The Wall Street Journal reports that the slide in revenue for Hollywood over the last ten years has been stopped as ?online revenue grew enough to offset a continued drop in DVD sales and rentals.? Subscriptions to streaming sites rose 45%, and digital download sales are up 35%. Digital distribution accounts for 30% of spending on of home entertainment.

Meanwhile, people are still going to the movies. Last year was a banner year. Same with music. We are living in a new renaissance of all forms of art, creativity, media, books, research, ideas ? and there are plenty of profits to be made by the smart, creative, savvy, and talented. More than ever before!

As always, the key to profitability is to deliver value to consumers in ways that match their most intense desires. It matters not at all that nearly everything on iTunes can be pirated in some other way, that most everything on Netflix can be streamed through another venue, that most proprietary software can be snagged somewhere for nothing, that smart phones can be hacked to get things that otherwise cost money, that services from phone calls to online conferencing are available in a gigantic range of pricing from six figures down to zero.

The governments that have battled against digital networks have worked tightly with reactionary interest groups in industry. Their dominant assumption has always been that if the Internet wins, the rest of us lose. That is obviously false. There is no zero sum game here. Those who have made money in this digital world have done so the old-fashioned way: selling valuable stuff to people at prices that people are willing to pay.

We?ve lost Aaron and it is a terrible loss. But look who we have: people like Kim Dot Com, the file storage pioneer who was coming up with new ways to take power from the industry/government establishment and put it into the hands of users.

The government tried to ruin him. Read my piece on his case from this time last year: ?The Death of File Sharing.? He and his service seemed to be doomed.

He fought back. His servers were destroyed but he has started a new company with new servers: Mega.co.nz. This new service is even more amazing, super encrypted with enough filed storage and sharing capacity for a good part of humanity to use. It is also the product of learning. This machine will not be destroyed.

The new systems live in the digital cloud where governments have little to no access. Encryption ensures privacy. These combinations of technologies give all users an opportunity to ?secede? from government. If you are looking for a large-scale, anonymous, and affordable file-storage system run by a company that is a proven survivor, you could probably benefit from Mega: http://kim.com/mega.

Mega is only one of many new systems that challenge the governments of the world. There will be many more. They will get even better. The revolution can?t be stopped.

This is the way of the future. The watchwords are voluntarism, commerce, and laissez faire, the French expression meaning that if you just leave us alone, society can manage just fine. We don?t need their wars, their authority, their impositions, their legislation, their threats, their fines, their jails.

Aaron is gone, but his spirit not only lives; it pervades the future in every way. Be not afraid: join the side of the winners.
_
Jeffrey Tucker is the publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books, the Primus inter pares of the Laissez Faire Club, and the author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo, It's a Jetsons World: Private Miracles and Public Crimes, and A Beautiful Anarchy: How to Build Your Own Civilization in the Digital Age, among thousands of articles. Click to sign up for his free daily letter. Email him: tucker@lfb.org | Facebook | Twitter | Google

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Ron Paul: Government Security Is Just Another Kind of Violence

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The senseless and horrific killings last week in Newtown, Connecticut reminded us that a determined individual or group of individuals can cause great harm no matter what laws are in place. Connecticut already has restrictive gun laws relative to other states, including restrictions on fully automatic, so-called ?assault? rifles and gun-free zones.

Predictably, the political left responded to the tragedy with emotional calls for increased gun control. This is understandable, but misguided. The impulse to have government ?do something? to protect us in the wake national tragedies is reflexive and often well intentioned. Many Americans believe that if we simply pass the right laws, future horrors like the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting can be prevented. But this impulse ignores the self evident truth that criminals don't obey laws.

The political right, unfortunately, has fallen into the same trap in its calls for quick legislative solutions to gun violence. If only we put armed police or armed teachers in schools, we?re told, would-be school shooters will be dissuaded or stopped.

While I certainly agree that more guns equals less crime and that private gun ownership prevents many shootings, I don?t agree that conservatives and libertarians should view government legislation, especially at the federal level, as the solution to violence. Real change can happen only when we commit ourselves to rebuilding civil society in America, meaning a society based on family, religion, civic and social institutions, and peaceful cooperation through markets. We cannot reverse decades of moral and intellectual decline by snapping our fingers and passing laws.

Let?s not forget that our own government policies often undermine civil society, cheapen life, and encourage immorality. The president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars abroad and easy abortion at home. U.S. drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color.

Obviously I don?t want to conflate complex issues of foreign policy and war with the Sandy Hook shooting, but it is important to make the broader point that our federal government has zero moral authority to legislate against violence.

Furthermore, do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches? We see this culture in our airports: witness the shabby spectacle of once proud, happy Americans shuffling through long lines while uniformed TSA agents bark orders. This is the world of government provided "security," a world far too many Americans now seem to accept or even endorse. School shootings, no matter how horrific, do not justify creating an Orwellian surveillance state in America.

Do we really believe government can provide total security? Do we want to involuntarily commit every disaffected, disturbed, or alienated person who fantasizes about violence? Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security? Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens? lives. We shouldn?t settle for substituting one type of violence for another. Government role is to protect liberty, not to pursue unobtainable safety.

Our freedoms as Americans preceded gun control laws, the TSA, or the Department of Homeland Security. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it.

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