Humanitarian Wars can be Unjust too

Humanitarian Wars can be Unjust too.

[Originally posted at Notes on Liberty]

If you hate evils committed by individuals as much as you hates evils committed by institutions, and vice versa, as I think most people who are even remotely libertarian — wait, no! remotely human! — do, does it truly follow that you must condone one in order to combat the other? Maybe it does, at least in the short term, in a place and time where relationships between all these things have been so distorted. In this case, the distortion is caused primarily by the monopolization of not only judicious force, but very nearly all force, initiative and responsive, at every level, by a single institution (with many manifestations and interlocking jurisdictions). If you haven’t guessed already, that institution is the state.

My Congressman Voted No

My Congressman Voted No.

Dennis Rehberg, Montana’s only congressman voted against the “fiscal cliff deal,” which passed the House 257-167 yesterday evening. Whether he did it because of his principles or he listened to his constituents or to his base, or was simply trying to uphold his oath of office, I applaud him. I had emailed him yesterday afternoon, a few hours before the deal went through and asked him to reject this “compromise”. I do not think I convinced him to vote the way he did, of course. It may well be that he was flooded with emails and phone calls. Or perhaps he really thought it was a bad bill.

The October Surprise: A Missed Opportunity and What it Says About the GOP Establishment

The October Surprise: A Missed Opportunity and What it Says About the GOP Establishment.

Please note that I make an assumption throughout: That, if known about before the election,  the Petraeus affair — political scandal with far reaching implications — could have swung in Romney’s favor. In theory, if we use the 332 to 206 electoral votes tally, it need to have only reversed the popular vote in a minimum of four battleground states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and New Hampshire for example) for Romney to have walked away with it.

Reading this piece I found out (and maybe this is common knowledge by now, to which I am hopefully only fashionably late) that the leadership of the Republican Party (meaning Eric Cantor, but I don’t doubt for a second he was the only one) knew about the Petraeus Affair before the election (the idea being that the scandal, including its possible relation to the Benghazi incident, which given the fact that. From this I can make many speculations. There may be more possibilities, but these are just the ones I thought of.I may not be the only one making at least some of these connections. The way I went about this may seem strange, but I hope you will be patient with me. 

THE HYPOTHESES

1. The leadership of the Republican Party was told not to disclose this information to the public by the FBI. At this point they had two options;

1.a. They could have done what they were told and not disclosed the information.

1.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

1.b. They could have leaked this information through channels not traceable to themselves.

1.b.1. This scenario obviously did not play out. Why not?

2. The leadership of the Republican Party was told not to disclose this information to the public by the Romney Campaign. At this point they would have had three options;

2.a. They could have done what they were told and not disclosed the information.

2.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

2.b. They could have openly disclosed this information thinking that it would help the Romney Campaign. The Romney Campaign does not have the same authority as the FBI.

2.b.1. This scenario obviously did not play out. Why not?

2.c. They could have  leaked this information thinking that it would help the Romney Campaign. The Romney Campaign does not have the resources or expertise of the FBI to discover the leaker.

2.c.1. This scenario obviously did not play out. Why not?

3. The leadership of the Republican Party decided on its own accord to not disclose this information to the public. At this point they would have had one option;

3.a. They could have kept the information to themselves and not disclosed it.

3.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public?

THE ANALYSIS

Given that the information was not disclosed, the still possible hypotheses are 1.a., 2.a., and 3.a., and their extensions, 1.a.1., 2.a.1., and 3.a.1. Keep in mind that the “they” is the Republican leadership and the “information” is the Petraeus affair.

1.a. They could have done what they were told [by the FBI] and not disclosed the information.

1.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

2.a. They could have done what they were told [by the Romney Campaign] and not disclosed the information.

2.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public. Why not?

3.a. They could have kept the information to themselves and not disclosed it.

3.a.1. This scenario may or may not have played out. Either way, it is clear that this information was not disclosed to the public?

So what we have is three possible reasons why the Republican leadership may not have disclosed this information to the Public before November 6 (Election Day).

In hypothesis 1.a., why wouldn’t they have disclosed the information? The obvious answer, if we assume hypothesis 1.a. is correct, is that the information was confidential and the FBI, who in theory could have prosecuted them, told them not to. But in hypothesis 1.b. I brought up the possibility of them leaking the information in a way not traceable to them. And I asked Why didn’t they just do this? Here, the answer may not be so obvious, so a new round of speculation and hypotheses is necessary. That will come later. Just keep the question in your mind: Why didn’t the Republican Party leadership disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?

In hypothesis 2.a., why wouldn’t they have disclosed the information? The obvious answer, if we assume hypothesis 2.a. is correct, is that they did not want to alienate the Mitt Romney Campaign. But this creates two entirely new questions. Would the Republican Leadership rather win the Presidential election and temporarily alienate their candidate, but who might later thank them for their services, or would they rather be on good terms with their candidate throughout the Presidential election but potentially have him lose and fade away from the scenery forever because of it? This question is related to later questions, so I will attempt to answer it when I ask those later questions. The second entirely new question is Why would the Romney campaign itself not wish to have this information disclosed? There are two possible answers. The first is that they thought it would backfire and look like dirty politics. The second answer I will address later. Just bear in mind the question (Why would the Romney campaign not want a disclosure?).

Back to the first answer to the second entirely new question again. I will reformulate that answer into yet another question: Why would they claim that this would backfire and look like dirty politics when it could (at least I assume) easily be made to look like the information was not leaked by anyone even connected to the Romney campaign or the GOP? The first possible answer is that they actually thought it would look like dirty politics, in which case I maintain they were unwilling to take any risks (which begs the question Why is the Romney campaign so mealy mouthed when supposedly the whole conservative movement has their backs and is counting on them to do anything to win?) or they just said that (i.e., they lied) to convince the Republican leadership to keep its mouth shut (which begs the question, one I already asked you to remember, only this time replace “Republican Leadership” with “Romney campaign”: Why didn’t the Romney campaign disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?).

Let me refresh once on the questions that I want you to keep asking yourself:

Why didn’t the Republican Party leadership disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?

Would the Republican Leadership rather win the Presidential election and temporarily alienate their candidate, but who might later thank them for their services, or would they rather be on good terms with their candidate throughout the Presidential election but potentially have him lose and fade away from the scenery forever because of it?

Why would the Romney campaign not want a disclosure?

Why is the Romney campaign so mealy mouthed when supposedly the whole conservative movement has their backs and is counting on them to do anything to win?

Why didn’t the Romney campaign disclose information that might have helped Mitt Romney win the Presidency?

I will condense these into just two questions and then move on to analysis of hypothesis 3.a.:

Why didn’t the Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign want this information disclosed?

Would the Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign rather have the White House in GOP control or would they rather continue to be glass jawed, tiptoeing, dishonest, feckless, has-been losers just so nobodies toes get stepped on?

These are the only two questions you will now need to remember. Moving on to the final hypothesis. I will remind you that “they” refers to the Republican leadership and the “information” refers to the Petraeus affair.

In hypothesis 3.a., why wouldn’t they have disclosed the information? The answer is far from obvious and by this time you have probably forgotten what hypothesis 3.a. was, so let me put it into the form of a clear, easily understood question:

Why wouldn’t the Republican leadership, assuming neither the FBI nor the Romney campaign, told them not to, just disclose the information of their own accord?

I will now attempt to answer this question along with the two I asked you to remember. For they are in essence, all the same question.

Unfortunately, I must first confess that there is, yet again, more than one possible answer. But I assure you, they lead me to the same conclusion.

First possible answer: The Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign did not have what it takes to win. Whether they were too stupid or too cowardly, they blew their chance of an October surprise because they didn’t think they could handle the disclosure of the information without either incriminating themselves or looking like dishonorable politicians. Despite of the fact that they told their constituents, and let their pundits tell their audiences that Barack Obama had to go in order to save the Republic, they refused to give all that it takes. They were undeserving of the trust that was given to them.

Second possible answer: The Republican leadership and/or Romney campaign did not want to win. They blew their chance of an October surprise because they had deliberately set themselves up for a fall from the start. As conspiratorial as this sounds, it is one of the conclusions I have reached from looking at the evidence. on the whole, it is just one possibility among many and therefore is not necessarily the most likely.

THE CONCLUSION

The GOP Establishment is a cynical group of people, which is why, though they may have wanted Romney to win (and not because they care about this country, but because they are cronies), they decided, perhaps using a cost benefit analysis of sorts, that it was much better for them, all of whom will be comfy and cozy no matter what happens in the next four years, to have this country under the Obama administration for another term and keep themselves free or prosecution, ridicule, or damage to their credibility and reputations. So they either thought there was a genuine difference between Obama (as a liberal) and Romney (as a conservative) but didn’t care because “they’ve got theirs” already, or that there was not enough difference between Obama (a moderate fascist) and Romney (a moderate fascist) for them to actually stick there neck out for Romney.

If there is one thing you take away from this it should be that these men (and women) are NOT public servants. They are thugs of the lowest order who dress, speak, and act nicely, but have no scruples and probably no soul. But I didn’t need the Petraeus Affair to help me conclude that.

The Second Most Interesting Man in the World Wrote a Book Called Nullification

The Second Most Interesting Man in the World Wrote a Book Called Nullification.

Perhaps more than any other person in the Liberty Movement (besides Ron Paul, of course), someone I would consider a mentor is Thomas Woods. Andrew Napolitano is a close second. And Frederic Bastiat is long-dead. I’ve read six of Tom’s books, but unfortunately don’t get around to visiting his site as much as I would like. So a thank you shout out to @LitMargaretNan for sharing this link on twitter: A Wikipedia Assignment for You Guys | Tom Woods

In this post he requested that some of his readers edit the wikipedia articles on The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions and the Alien Act of 1798. It’s been a very long time since I’ve done anything on wikipedia, so I made this meme to commemorate the occasion:

On Tom’s site, I left this comment:

Tom. I’m thumbing through my copy of Nullification right now. Great read by the way.

Here’s what I put at the bottom of the Alien Act page. I’ll give someone else a chance to fix the Resolutions page.

“Others maintain that nullification naturally emanates from the Tenth Amendment in the last resort. Thus they see nullification as a legitimate tool of the states. The reasoning behind this is the idea that the individual states created the union, and aside from having the right to leave it (as enumerated in the Virginia and New York Constitutions), as equal parties were able to interpret for themselves on the same footing with the other parties in the compact. This was, in theory, to prevent tyrannies that might go unchecked by the three branches of the federal government. One such person, Thomas E. Woods, in is book ”Nullification” also holds that nullification, apart from being a legitimate function of the states, is a necessary one, increasingly so as the size and scope of the federal government increases.”

I highly recommend Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century to anyone interested in liberty, history, current events, or the meaning of the Constitution. And for anyone who is not interested in at least one of these things it must be because you are one of the undead. But that’s okay, I recommend it to you as well. After all, Nullification is 100% zombie-approved!

Whether you agree with it or not, nullification is happening. Little by little, the states are reasserting their Tenth Amendment rights. If the President, the Congress, and the Courts won’t enforce it, the states will. This will more and more be the case as things come to a head with debacles like ObamaCare, cartel money, mismanagement of land, gun control, and overbearing environmental and energy regulations.

Just one example. On November 6th, the voters of Montana interposed on their own behalf against the healthcare mandate.

Here’s some related articles:

2011 Montana Legislature’s Bill to Prohibit Infringement of Constitutional Right to Nullify Certain Federal Legislation

The Constitution, Nullification, And The Evolving Democratic And Republican Parties

Do The People, The States, Or The Courts Interpret The Constitution? Or All Of The Above At Different Levels?

October 23rd Third Party Presidential Debate

October 23rd Third Party Presidential Debate.

Did you watch the October 23 Third Party Presidential Debate? Well if you wasted your time watching an Obama/Romney debate or a Ryan/Biden debate, I assure you this won’t be anything like them. See for yourself. If you just want to quickly know what was said, I tweeted throughout the whole thing and captured everything that was said by paraphrasing (occasionally quoting verbatim) what was said by the moderators (Larry King and Christina Tobin), and the four candidates (Gary Johnson, Virgil Goode, Jill Stein, and Rocky Anderson). I threw a couple “lols” and “wtfs” in there, just so you know those are mine. There was a bit of confusion at the beginning about whether the candidates were answering a question or giving opening statements, but after that things turned out fine. You can follow me on twitter @KeimgMeg.

[Not a tweet, but a note on the first question: was about top two primary elections]

@JillStein opposes “Top Two” Don’t sell out Democracy!

@JillStein & @RockyAnderson agree that “Top Two System” is bad

@JillStein: “Corporations are not people”

@RockyAnderson: Obama brags about being a big military spender

@RockyAnderson: I’ve had it with the Democratic Party!

@VirgilGoode: Doesn’t like Top Two system. Money is not speech!

@VirgilGoode: Independent, Democratic, Republican, Constitution, & always conservative!

@GaryJohnson :Tweedle-Dee vs. Tweedle-Dum (Obama & Romney) LOL

@GaryJohnson and@VirgilGoode agree that ballot access is a states’/local rights issue.

@JillStein: Arrested for appearing at two-party duopoly debate

@RockyAnderson: Public Financing of elections WTF?

@VirgilGoode: No SuperPACs. Individual contributions ONLY!

@VirgilGoode: We threw out king George, so we can throw out these guys

@GaryJohnson: Politicians shld wear jackets showing patches 4 their sponsors

Opening statements now! After first question!

@JillStein: We are losing jobs, wages, homes, healthcare, education

@JillStein: Climate and civil liberties are in danger

@JillStein: end the wars, end the bailouts, end tax cuts for the rich

@JillStein: Green New Deal: Create jobs, end unemployment

@JillStein: Bail out the students, not the banks!

@RockyAnderson: We have been sold out to Wall Street

@RockyAnderson: Economic Justice, Social Justice, and Environmental Justice

@VirgilGoode: Obama and Romney are not for balanced budgets. I am.

@VirgilGoode: Obama and Romney are not for American Jobs. I am.

@VirgilGoode: I am 4 ending SuperPacs & 4 term limits. MR & BO aren’t.

@GaryJohnson: Don’t bomb Iran. Get out of Afghanistan yesterday! Legalize Marijuana!

@GaryJohnson: Monetary Collapse is coming. Eliminate Income tax, abolish IRS.

2nd question: what are your thoughts on the War on Drugs

@RockyAnderson: End the Drug War, it is harming our people.

End drug prohibition just as we did alcohol prohibition

@RockyAnderson: Drug use not a criminal issue, its a health issue

@LarryKing: We’re on Drugs (LOL)

@VirgilGoode: It’s a state rights issue (drug policy)

@GaryJohnson: 90% of drug problems are prohibition related, not use related

@GaryJohnson & @RockyAnderson: We have the highest incarceration rate in world

@JillStein: Marijuana is dangerous BECAUSE its illegal, not other way around!

@JillStein: On day one, instruct DEA to use science to inform policy.

@JillStein: We don’t want to have Marijuana monopoly like we do with Tobacco

@JillStein &@RockyAnderson: legalize industrial hemp

@RockyAnderson: pardon all nonviolent drug offenders!

@GaryJohnson: Methamphetamine is a convenient bogeyman

@VirgilGoode: If you want full drug legalization, vote 4 one of them, not 4 me

@VirgilGoode: Cut military budget. We need 2 retrench, not b world’s policeman

@GaryJohnson: Defense, not offense. Biggest nat’l sec’y threat is nat’l debt!

Third question: What is the military’s role?

@GaryJohnson, three times so far: Stop the drone strikes!

@GaryJohnson:Foreign aid is picking winners and losers. Now we are funding jihadists!!

@JillStein: Wars for oil makes us less secure, not more secure.

@JillStein: BLOWBACK (@RonPaul @MichaelScheuer)

@JillStein: Bring the troops home. We’ve already brought the drones home.

@RockyAnderson: President Eisenhower said beware military industrial complex

@JillStein& @RockyAnderson: Climate Change is biggest nat’l security threat

@RockyAnderson: If war crimes were wrong at Nuremburg. They are wrong now.

@RockyAnderson: No wars of aggression

@VirgilGoode: No undeclared wars

@GaryJohnson: I was against going to war in Iraq. I am against war with Iran.

4th question: How do I afford college at $400,000?

@GaryJohnson: College prices are so high because government “guarantees” student loans

@JillStein: Make public higher education free, just like we did with the G.I. bill

@JillStein: Investing in the education of future tax payers pays for itself

@JillStein: QE3 is another round of bank bailouts. Bail out students instead.

@JillStein &@RockyAnderson: Free college education is the right thing to do

@VirgilGoode: We can’t afford student loans and Pell Grants. Get over it!!!

@GaryJohnson ”Free” comes with a cost. (free education isn’t really free)

@GaryJohnson: #EndTheFed TANSTAAFL

@RockyAnderson: We can’t afford NOT to hand out free educations

@RockyAnderson: Prosperity, not Austerity!

@JillSteinagrees: We can’t afford NOT to hand out free educations

@VirgilGoode: @Jillstein and @RockyAnderson agree with Obama and Romney on education!

Fifth question: Stance on #NDAA 1021?

@JillStein: Repeal NDAA, assassinations, FISA, Patriot act

@JillStein: As Ben Franklin said “If you sacrifice liberty for security, you get neither”

@RockyAnderson:#NDAA is most unAmerican law in this nation’s history

@RockyAnderson brings Obama’s anti-war pro-civil-liberty’s hypocrisy out 

@VirgilGoode & @GaryJohnson: If I were preasident I would have repealed NDAA

@GaryJohnson: highest rated civil libertarian candidate by the #ACLU

6th and final question: What amendment would you push for?

@RockyAnderson: Equal Rights Amendment: No gender/orientation discrimination

@VirgilGoode: Term Limits Amendment to the Constitution, 6, 8, 10, or 12 years

@VirgilGoode: Term limits would go thru the legislatures like hot knife through butter

@GaryJohnson: Term Limits Amendment, steals @VirgilGoode‘s thunder LOL

@GaryJohnson: I’m living proof that term limits work!

@GaryJohnson: These politicians like to tell you they bring home the bacon

@JillStein: Term limits aren’t enough

@JillStein: Corporations are not People Amendment

@VirgilGoode@GaryJohnson @JillStein @RockyAnderson Closing statements

@LarryKing reminisces about Ross Perot, John Anderson, and Ralph Nader

@ChristinaTobin, @LarryKing: Thanks everyone

Obama is NOT the Worst President in this Nation’s History

Obama is NOT the Worst President in this Nation’s History.

You can read this also over at Liberty’s Republic. They could use the traffic!

You keep hearing this (that Obama is the worst president in history and therefore if we don’t vote for the so-called alternative we are all going to go up in flames along with our great republic), mainly from conservatives (there still are some that refuse to give in!) who don’t like Romney but convince themselves that this is a good reason to vote for him. Well, I am here to cry “foul!” There are several presidents much worse than Obama, not just from a libertarian perspective, but from a conservative perspective (though their criticisms would be different, except on economic policies, at least on the surface), but conservatives have short memories and are easily distracted by rhetoric, coming from both the persons in question and the court historians of latter days. For now, I will call attention to just three presidents many orders of magnitude worse than Barack Obama, and then apply the rules that make these men conservative heroes, to their mortal foe, our current president. To start, here is a response I gave to a RON PAUL SUPPORTER saying he was going to vote for Romney now that Paul was not the nominee.

Sorry, but I can think of worse presidents. Like the guy responsible for the deaths of 600,000^[1] of his fellow Americans, a draft,^[2] suppression of free speech, indefinite detention, and acts of terrorism against civilians.^[3] Or the guy who got us into a world war that had nothing to do with us, leading to a stronger Federal Reserve,^[4] a new military-industrial complex, two depressions (1920-1921 and 1929-1945),^[5] the blatant suppression of free speech, involuntary servitude in the form of a draft, and the set of entangling alliances that got us into another world war.^[6] Or the guy who prolonged a depression by a factor of ten,^[7] aided and abetted one of the worst dictators in history,^[8]whose arrogance and machinations dragged us into a world war,^[9] who re-instituted the draft, got the ball rolling on nuclear weapons, detained an entire ethnic demographic on the pretext of security,^[10] and sold Eastern Europe and parts of Eastern Asia to the Soviets and Red Chinese for more than a generation.^[11] Obama doesn’t hold a candle to Lincoln, Wilson, or Roosevelt.

So why is it that people think he is the worst president? I realize that he is an awful president, but unless you have a very poor knowledge of history and/or are easily led astray, where do you get off saying he is the worst? That’s not only wrong by probably their own standards were they actually to apply them instead of getting all emotional at the first sign of wrongdoing, its borderline offensive.

So what are these criticisms of Obama that conservatives have but not necessarily libertarians don’t necessarily? Most conservatives criticize Obama for being too weak on national security and the borders. What they don’t realize is that Obama has actually been tougher on illegal immigrants than amnesty Bush ever was. And though his rhetoric would lead one to think otherwise, he has carried on the “War on Terror” and the surveillance state like its a job he was born for. But people bring up red herrings like Fast and Furious or the 30,000 surge when the generals wanted 40,000.

But Fast and Furious had nothing to do with an open-borders immigration policy. My best estimation was that it was intended to increase border violence to justify gun control and a further crackdown on border crossing. How conspiratorial of me! Sorry but I don’t buy the idea simply that “mistakes were made.” And crossing the border is not just harder for illegal immigrants (which is a useless blanket term) but for US citizens as well!

And the troop surge should have been at 0 (and yet Obama is called weak on defense because he only sent in 30,000!) And then we should have gotten out.  ”We just marched in, we can just march out.” Did it really take 30,000 extra troops to find Osama and put a cap in him? No. And the fact that it took ten years is disgraceful as well. If that was really what going to Afghanistan was ever really about Bush would have gotten him in six months. And Obama in three because he at least had someone’s “legacy” to build off of. “Our” money was not worthless, “our” troops were not ill-prepared, and “our” intelligence agencies were not incompetent. And don’t get me started on toppling Gaddafi and drone warfare and the assassination of US citizens and the National Defense Authorization Act.

Do people seriously think these are things Bush wouldn’t have done (I refer here more to the national defense policies than the immigration ones) if he could have? And the only reason he couldn’t have, would have been the backlash coming from the left that is now blindly in the tank for Obama! And would the right say Bush was weak on defense for doing them? Hell no! Because he would have used fancy rhetoric about freedom and democracy and justice. Not only would he not be deemed weak, he would be lavished with praise. So why does Obama seem so weak on these pet “conservative” issues? The answer, as you have no doubt discerned by now, is rhetoric. It’s all perception. If you are casting your vote on that instead of reality, you are in fact wasting your vote, not those of us who plan on voting for neither Romney nor Obama.

Most conservatives today idolize Lincoln, Wilson, and Roosevelt. If not always for their economic policies, absolutely for their national defense policies or flag-wrapped rhetoric! But the policies are more or less the same as Obama’s, or at least in the same vein. So why don’t they just vote for Obama? Because it’s his non-flag-wrapped rhetoric that scares them, not his actual policies which they mischaracterize as somehow radical. But they are actually quite normal, just accentuated by his statements and the faux reaction coming from the establishment right.

By normal, I do not mean that they are in-line with how our nation prior to Obama’s inauguration was perceived by conservatives. What I mean is in-line with actual reality. And what is this reality? That every president from Hoover and Roosevelt, on up through Eisenhower and Kennedy, Carter and Reagan, and Bush and Obama has simply maintained the status quo, making no attempts to change it or utterly failing in their attempts to do so because they were not so courageous and upright and insightful as they made themselves out to be or once were.

If Obama had an R next to his name and was as eloquently conservative in his demagoguery as Newt Gingrich is most conservatives would support him. No questions asked. So much for vetting! For proof of this I give you Mitt Romney. And once the rhetoric is forgotten, give it 50 to 100 years, “conservatives” will idolize Obama too. The same thing has already happened right before our very eyes in the instances of the presidents I cited above.

1: That’s the traditional statistic. It has been revised upward to 850,000, but I digress. back

2: Bullying the Supreme Court, exiling of opponents, Union-busting, racism, a false flag attack, and maybe even voter fraud should be added to Lincoln’s list. Not to mention several forms of corruption and public-rent seeking long before having reached the highest office of the land. back

3: When ending slavery and cruelty is your excuse for enslaving and maiming others, you know there is something else that is afoot. back

4: Via the Liberty Bond Act, which fundamentally amended the relatively innocuous original charter; as well as exchange imbalances resulting from the different levels of inflation each nation suffered as a result of World War One, which resulted in an end to the gold standard that finally culminated with the 1971 Nixon Shock. back

5: These in fact have the same root, the fiscal and monetary policies around the world during and resulting from World War One. back

6: World War Two is often laughingly blamed on so-called isolationists. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was the interventionists during World War One and their subsequent failures (sometimes inadvertent, sometimes intentional) to seek peace and offer forgiveness after the war. back

7: The Depression of 1920-1921 only lasted about 18 months whereas the one from 1930 to 1945 arguably lasted at least 180 months. There is nothing in the fundamentals of their respective beginnings to suggest one should have dwarfed the other. The differences were the government reactions and the policies that ensued. However, part of the blame does rest on Herbert Hoover‘s head. back

8: Josef Stalin to you neophytes and deniers. back

9: FDR’s State Department refused to negotiate with the Japanese whom “we” had aggressed against and ultimately neglected to communicate with the lower echelons of the Defense Department about the threat that was posed. Pearl Harbor is not so shocking. back

10: Japanese Americans. There were a few exceptions of course. But these were made up for by the Italian-Americans and German-Americans that were detained separately. Oh, haven’t you heard? I guess the reverse-racist court historians forgot to tell you that white people have been mistreated in this nations past too! back

11: The Yalta and Potsdam Accords, as well as the occupation of former Japanese conquests by the USSR and soon-to-be Communist China. And this in spite of the fact that the pretext for the war, at least on Britain’s part (I said pretext; the reason, however, has more to do with Britain’s superiority complex, which happens to have been the same thing the Kaiser in World War One and Hitler in World War Two were suffering from; of course, a steady, sustained erosion of their century-and-a-half-or-so world hegemon status didn’t help the matter), was to “liberate” many of these regions! back