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Title: "More MUD!!"
Source: [None]
URL Source: http://www.cagle.com/working/080403/olle.jpg
Published: Apr 15, 2008
Author: Mudboy Slim
Post Date: 2008-04-15 11:33:52 by Mudboy Slim
Keywords: None
Views: 5274
Comments: 796

Heh heh heh...MUD (1 image)

[Thread Locked]   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


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#319. To: Ferret Mike (#316)

Joe Biden On Fire

On fire for Israel. Notice how he suggests that what they did say (meaning on the subject of endless war) wasn't so much a problem. And he dares not to mention illegal immigration and its relationship to slavery, himself.

buckeye  posted on  2008-09-06   14:37:55 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#320. To: Rotara (#315)

"TOP REASON TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN"

He ain't the Great&MercifulLordMessiahObama, a Marxist amongst Marxists in the RAT Party...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-06   15:48:16 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#321. To: Rotara (#313)

"I would've 86'ed you..."

That's 'cuz yer a whiney li'l wuss, afraid of debate, and actively irrelevant...LOL!!

Regards...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-06   15:50:41 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#322. To: Rotara (#312)

"...the economy being driven to collapse"

LOL...the economy ain't gonna collapse, that's just silly fear-mongering that the RAT-Media's been feeding us fer a coupla years.

Looks like yer the sucker in this equation...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-06   15:55:02 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#323. To: Mudboy Slim (#320)

"TOP REASON TO VOTE FOR MCCAIN"

He ain't the Great&MercifulLordMessiahObama, a Marxist amongst Marxists in the RAT Party...MUD

You're a sucker, played like a fiddle.

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Rotara  posted on  2008-09-06   15:59:20 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#324. To: Mudboy Slim (#321)

"I would've 86'ed you..."

That's 'cuz yer a whiney li'l wuss, afraid of debate, and actively irrelevant...LOL!!

Regards...MUD

We'll see, CFR butt boy.

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Rotara  posted on  2008-09-06   15:59:58 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#325. To: Mudboy Slim (#322)

"...the economy being driven to collapse"

LOL...the economy ain't gonna collapse, that's just silly fear-mongering that the RAT-Media's been feeding us fer a coupla years.

Looks like yer the sucker in this equation...MUD

We you born stupid, or was it all the drugs? Did you have to check in your brain in order to be a repubican?

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Rotara  posted on  2008-09-06   16:01:02 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#326. To: Rotara (#302)

Rumor has it that the guy was a serious contender for McCain's VP slot, but they couldn't get the Constitution amended to allow illegal aliens on the ticket in time for November.

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2008-09-06   17:16:40 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#327. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#326)

I know exactly who and what Mudbot is.

sinkspur sighting!

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”—Samuel Adams

Rotara  posted on  2008-09-06   17:36:54 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#328. To: Rotara (#327) (Edited)

sinkspur sighting!

I didn't get that. Who or what is sinkspur?

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2008-09-06   17:58:00 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#329. To: Rotara (#325)

Over the next 58 days, watch the market run contrary to Barry Hussein's alleged success in the polls, and vice versa.

If it appears more and more likely that Obama will LOSE in November, the stock market will appreciably rise. Otherwise, the market will tank, imho.

Regards...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   9:16:05 ET  (1 image) [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#330. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#328)

"Who or what is sinkspur?"

A guy from Texas who used to be a FReeper...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   9:17:22 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#331. To: Rotara (#327)

"sinkspur sighting"

Yep...Sinky's a member of the ModSquad over on GOPachy.com...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   11:45:57 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#332. To: Rupert_Pupkin, Rotara, Jethro Tull (#326)

"The Battle Over McCain's Maverick Political Soul!!"...LOL!!

This is a battle that will resonate long after November 4th of this year. The battle over Barry Hussein's political soul has already been won...Obama's a full-fledged Marxist...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   11:50:23 ET  (1 image) [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#333. To: All (#332)

333...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   11:51:58 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#334. To: Mudboy Slim (#291)

I saw one of your posts on LP where you claimed you "weren't on the fence anymore" and that you were going to vote for McCain now (I posted that comment on a thread here somewhere). Why don't you come clean and admit you will vote for any horse's ass as long as it has an R after its name and admit that you were planning to vote for him all along? I am not an Obama supporter because they are too much alike and that is why I won't vote for either of them. But it seems some people love those D and R letters so much that that is all it takes for them to sell their souls and sell out America every four years.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   12:17:58 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#335. To: Mudboy Slim (#332) (Edited)

This is a battle that will resonate long after November 4th of this year. The battle over Barry Hussein's political soul has already been won...Obama's a full-fledged Marxist...MUD

And John McCain is a effin' traitor who sold out to the communists years ago and talked down to the families of the POW's (ever seen that video?). Apparently that was to further his interest in putting a Budweiser distributorship in Vietnam. Some hero you are touting there.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   12:23:39 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#336. To: James Deffenbach (#334)

"...admit you will vote for any horse's ass as long as it has an R"

That's simply not true, Jimmy...when I was in high school in the early 80's, I became a ReaganConservative and once in college, I joined the College Republicans. However, in 2002, when my Virginia Senator John Warner was running fer reelection, I couldn't support that RINO and became an Independent. Yeah, I still supported my other GOP Senator--George Allen--and my GOP Congresscritter--Eric Cantor--but I am NOT someone who supports every GOPer with an "R" behind their name.

"...admit that you were planning to vote for him all along"

That's simply untrue, Mr. Deffenbach. If you read my stuff on LP or elsewhere, you will have to agree that my vote doesn't matter in this election as Obama's gonna git whupped in Virginia by a good 5-8% minimum. McCain was just about last in my list of Pubbies I wanted to be carrying the Republican banner into this Presidential campaign. However, if you look at the agenda he's proposing, it is strong on domestic drilling (it'll be better once he inevitably endorses drilling in ANWR), he's focused on decreasing spending instead of raising taxes to energize the economy, and he's not gonna surrender the War Against Islamofascism like Barry Hussein is obviously ready to do.

Regards...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   12:45:30 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#337. To: All (#335)

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   12:45:54 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#338. To: Mudboy Slim (#336)

However, in 2002, when my Virginia Senator John Warner was running fer reelection, I couldn't support that RINO and became an Independent.

So, to set the record straight, you have been against exactly ONE horse's ass who had an R after his name? Gotcha.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   12:48:22 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#339. To: James Deffenbach (#338)

LOL...fwiw, I have NEVER voted fer a RAT and never will. But I've often voted fer Libertarians at the local level...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   13:12:13 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#340. To: Rotara (#315)

In his 1996 book, Rudman wrote that Christian conservatives include in their ranks “enough anti-abortion zealots, would-be censors, homophobes, bigots and latter-day Elmer Gantrys to discredit any party that is unwise enough” to align itself with them.

Funny that. It only takes one Rudman, McCain and Bush to discredit the so-called "Republican" party. They should change the name of their one party to Republirat--or Demonrat--and just admit it is all a big con and be done with it.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   16:15:41 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#341. To: Mudboy Slim (#339)

LOL...fwiw, I have NEVER voted fer a RAT and never will. But I've often voted fer Libertarians at the local level...MUD

uh huh. Libertarians are fine at the local level but it has to be a Republirat when it comes to higher offices. I got it.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   16:17:15 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#342. To: Rotara (#315)

With Warren Rudman at his side, it’s anyone’s guess whether McCain’s Supreme Court picks would be appreciably better than Clinton’s or Obama’s.

With Warren Rudman at his side and knowing what McCain is anyway, his Supreme Court picks could well be Clinton and/or Obama. He might even want both the Clintons and Obama for the Supreme Court.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   16:23:04 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#343. To: Rotara (#315)

President Bush – he of “compassionate conservatism,” mega-spending hikes and Hamas statehood– has just announced that John McCain is a “true conservative.”

And Bush would know what a "true conservative" was/is? He isn't one, his old man isn't one despite all the ignorant rhetoric to the contrary, so I wonder why he thinks McCain is one.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   17:16:40 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#344. To: Rotara, Mudboy Slim (#309)

Stick your rush up your cheney.

LOL! Why would Americans care what that pimp, Rush, said about anything? Sure, he gets something right once in a while but not often enough to waste the time it takes to find one or two little nuggets of truth in all that agitprop and blather.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   17:25:33 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#345. To: Mudboy Slim, James Deffenbach, all (#336)

Islamofascism

...we could end most of America’s problems if we simply repeated the word Islamo-fascism enough times...

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” ~ Nikola Tesla

WTF?  posted on  2008-09-08   17:35:43 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#346. To: All (#345)

From the link:

...Compared to Islamo-fascism, Repubofascism is both real and logically plausible. Unlike the billion Muslims across the world, the Republicans really are working together, and they really are doing something that at least vaguely resembles fascism...

“The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.” ~ Nikola Tesla

WTF?  posted on  2008-09-08   17:40:15 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#347. To: WTF? (#346) (Edited)

Islamofascism

Fascism is alive and well today. But you aren't going to find it in Arab countries:

www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism.html

The Reality of Red-State Fascism by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Year's end is the time for big thoughts, so here are mine. The most significant socio-political shift in our time has gone almost completely unremarked, and even unnoticed. It is the dramatic shift of the red-state bourgeoisie from leave-us-alone libertarianism, manifested in the Congressional elections of 1994, to almost totalitarian statist nationalism. Whereas the conservative middle class once cheered the circumscribing of the federal government, it now celebrates power and adores the central state, particularly its military wing.

This huge shift has not been noticed among mainstream punditry, and hence there have been few attempts to explain it – much less have libertarians thought much about what it implies. My own take is this: the Republican takeover of the presidency combined with an unrelenting state of war, has supplied all the levers necessary to convert a burgeoning libertarian movement into a statist one.

The remaining ideological justification was left to, and accomplished by, Washington's kept think tanks, who have approved the turn at every crucial step. What this implies for libertarians is a crying need to draw a clear separation between what we believe and what conservatives believe. It also requires that we face the reality of the current threat forthrightly by extending more rhetorical tolerance leftward and less rightward.

Let us start from 1994 and work forward. In a stunningly prescient memo, Murray N. Rothbard described the 1994 revolution against the Democrats as follows:

a massive and unprecedented public repudiation of President Clinton, his person, his personnel, his ideologies and programs, and all of his works; plus a repudiation of Clinton's Democrat Party; and, most fundamentally, a rejection of the designs, current and proposed, of the Leviathan he heads…. what is being rejected is big government in general (its taxing, mandating, regulating, gun grabbing, and even its spending) and, in particular, its arrogant ambition to control the entire society from the political center. Voters and taxpayers are no longer persuaded of a supposed rationale for American-style central planning…. On the positive side, the public is vigorously and fervently affirming its desire to re-limit and de-centralize government; to increase individual and community liberty; to reduce taxes, mandates, and government intrusion; to return to the cultural and social mores of pre-1960s America, and perhaps much earlier than that.

This memo also cautioned against unrelieved optimism, because, Rothbard said, two errors rear their head in most every revolution. First, the reformers do not move fast enough; instead they often experience a crisis of faith and become overwhelmed by demands that they govern "responsibly" rather than tear down the established order. Second, the reformers leave too much in place that can be used by their successors to rebuild the state they worked so hard to dismantle. This permits gains to be reversed as soon as another party takes control.

Rothbard urged dramatic cuts in spending, taxing, and regulation, and not just in the domestic area but also in the military and in foreign policy. He saw that this was crucial to any small-government program. He also urged a dismantling of the federal judiciary on grounds that it represents a clear and present danger to American liberty. He urged the young radicals who were just elected to reject gimmicks like the balanced-budget amendment and the line-item veto, in favor of genuine change. None of this happened of course. In fact, the Republican leadership and pundit class began to warn against "kamikaze missions" and speak not of bringing liberty, but rather of governing better than others.

Foreshadowing what was to come, Rothbard pointed out: "Unfortunately, the conservative public is all too often taken in by mere rhetoric and fails to weigh the actual deeds of their political icons. So the danger is that Gingrich will succeed not onlyin betraying, but in conning the revolutionary public into thinking that they have already won and can shut up shop and go home." The only way to prevent this, he wrote, was to educate the public, businessmen, students, academics, journalists, and politicians about the true nature of what is going on, and about the vicious nature of the bi-partisan ruling elites.

The 1994 revolution failed of course, in part because the anti-government opposition was intimidated into silence by the Oklahoma City bombing of April 1995. The establishment somehow managed to pin the violent act of an ex- military man on the right-wing libertarianism of the American bourgeoisie. It was said by every important public official at that time that to be anti- government was to give aid and support to militias, secessionists, and other domestic terrorists. It was a classic intimidation campaign but, combined with a GOP leadership that never had any intention to change DC, it worked to shut down the opposition.

In the last years of the 1990s, the GOP-voting middle class refocused its anger away from government and leviathan and toward the person of Bill Clinton. It was said that he represented some kind of unique moral evil despoiling the White House. That ridiculous Monica scandal culminated in a pathetic and pretentious campaign to impeach Clinton. Impeaching presidents is a great idea, but impeaching them for fibbing about personal peccadilloes is probably the least justifiable ground. It's almost as if that entire campaign was designed to discredit the great institution of impeachment.

In any case, this event crystallized the partisanship of the bourgeoisie, driving home the message that the real problem was Clinton and not government; the immorality of the chief executive, not his power; the libertinism of the left-liberals and not their views toward government. The much heralded "leave us alone" coalition had been thoroughly transformed in a pure anti-Clinton movement. The right in this country began to define itself not as pro-freedom, as it had in 1994, but simply as anti-leftist, as it does today.

There are many good reasons to be anti-leftist, but let us revisit what Mises said in 1956 concerning the anti-socialists of his day. He pointed out that many of these people had a purely negative agenda, to crush the leftists and their bohemian ways and their intellectual pretension. He warned that this is not a program for freedom. It was a program of hatred that can only degenerate into statism.

The moral corruption, the licentiousness and the intellectual sterility of a class of lewd would-be authors and artists is the ransom mankind must pay lest the creative pioneers be prevented from accomplishing their work. Freedom must be granted to all, even to base people, lest the few who can use it for the benefit of mankind be hindered. The license which the shabby characters of the quartier Latin enjoyed was one of the conditions that made possible the ascendance of a few great writers, painters and sculptors. The first thing a genius needs is to breathe free air.

He goes on to urge that anti-leftists work to educate themselves about economics, so that they can have a positive agenda to displace their purely negative one. A positive agenda of liberty is the only way we might have been spared the blizzard of government controls that were fastened on this country after Bush used the events of 9-11 to increase central planning, invade Afghanistan and Iraq, and otherwise bring a form of statism to America that makes Clinton look laissez-faire by comparison. The Bush administration has not only faced no resistance from the bourgeoisie. it has received cheers. And they are not only cheering Bush's reelection; they have embraced tyrannical control of society as a means toward accomplishing their anti-leftist ends.

After September 11, even those whose ostensible purpose in life is to advocate less government changed their minds. Even after it was clear that 9-11 would be used as the biggest pretense for the expansion of government since the stock market crash of 1929, the Cato Institute said that libertarianism had to change its entire focus: "Libertarians usually enter public debates to call for restrictions on government activity. In the wake of September 11, we have all been reminded of the real purpose of government: to protect our life, liberty, and property from violence. This would be a good time for the federal government to do its job with vigor and determination."

The vigor and determination of the Bush administration has brought about a profound cultural change, so that the very people who once proclaimed hated of government now advocate its use against dissidents of all sorts, especially against those who would dare call for curbs in the totalitarian bureaucracy of the military, or suggest that Bush is something less than infallible in his foreign-policy decisions. The lesson here is that it is always a mistake to advocate government action, for there is no way you can fully anticipate how government will be used. Nor can you ever count on a slice of the population to be moral in its advocacy of the uses of the police power.

Editor & Publisher, for example, posted a small note the other day about a column written by Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, in which he mildly suggested that the troops be brought home from Iraq "sooner rather than later." The editor of E&P was just blown away by the letters that poured in, filled with venom and hate and calling for Neuharth to be tried and locked away as a traitor. The letters compared him with pro-Hitler journalists, and suggested that he was objectively pro-terrorist, choosing to support the Muslim jihad over the US military. Other letters called for Neuharth to get the death penalty for daring to take issue with the Christian leaders of this great Christian nation.

I'm actually not surprised at this. It has been building for some time. If you follow hate-filled sites such as Free Republic, you know that the populist right in this country has been advocating nuclear holocaust and mass bloodshed for more than a year now. The militarism and nationalism dwarfs anything I saw at any point during the Cold War. It celebrates the shedding of blood, and exhibits a maniacal love of the state. The new ideology of the red-state bourgeoisie seems to actually believe that the US is God marching on earth – not just godlike, but really serving as a proxy for God himself.

Along with this goes a kind of worship of the presidency, and a celebration of all things public sector, including egregious law like the Patriot Act, egregious bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security, and egregious centrally imposed regimentation like the No Child Left Behind Act. It longs for the state to throw its weight behind institutions like the two-parent heterosexual family, the Christian charity, the homogeneous community of native- born patriots.

In 1994, the central state was seen by the bourgeoisie as the main threat to the family; in 2004 it is seen as the main tool for keeping the family together and ensuring its ascendancy. In 1994, the state was seen as the enemy of education; today, the same people view the state as the means of raising standards and purging education of its left-wing influences. In 1994, Christians widely saw that Leviathan was the main enemy of the faith; today, they see Leviathan as the tool by which they will guarantee that their faith will have an impact on the country and the world.

Paul Craig Roberts is right: "In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush." Again: "Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."

In short, what we have alive in the US is an updated and Americanized fascism. Why fascist? Because it is not leftist in the sense of egalitarian or redistributionist. It has no real beef with business. It doesn't sympathize with the downtrodden, labor, or the poor. It is for all the core institutions of bourgeois life in America: family, faith, and flag. But it sees the state as the central organizing principle of society, views public institutions as the most essential means by which all these institutions are protected and advanced, and adores the head of state as a godlike figure who knows better than anyone else what the country and world's needs, and has a special connection to the Creator that permits him to discern the best means to bring it about.

The American right today has managed to be solidly anti-leftist while adopting an ideology – even without knowing it or being entirely conscious of the change – that is also frighteningly anti-liberty. This reality turns out to be very difficult for libertarians to understand or accept. For a long time, we've tended to see the primary threat to liberty as coming from the left, from the socialists who sought to control the economy from the center. But we must also remember that the sweep of history shows that there are two main dangers to liberty, one that comes from the left and the other that comes from the right. Europe and Latin America have long faced the latter threat, but its reality is only now hitting us fully.

What is the most pressing and urgent threat to freedom that we face in our time? It is not from the left. If anything, the left has been solid on civil liberties and has been crucial in drawing attention to the lies and abuses of the Bush administration. No, today, the clear and present danger to freedom comes from the right side of the ideological spectrum, those people who are pleased to preserve most of free enterprise but favor top-down management of society, culture, family, and school, and seek to use a messianic and belligerent nationalism to impose their vision of politics on the world.

There is no need to advance the view that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. However, it is time to recognize that the left today does represent a counterweight to the right, just as it did in the 1950s when the right began to adopt anti-communist militarism as its credo. In a time when the term patriotism means supporting the nation's wars and statism, a libertarian patriotism has more in common with that advanced by The Nation magazine:

The other company of patriots does not march to military time. It prefers the gentle strains of 'America the Beautiful' to the strident cadences of 'Hail to the Chief' and 'The Stars and Stripes Forever.' This patriotism is rooted in the love of one's own land and people, love too of the best ideals of one's own culture and tradition. This company of patriots finds no glory in puffing their country up by pulling others' down. This patriotism is profoundly municipal, even domestic. Its pleasures are quiet, its services steady and unpretentious. This patriotism too has deep roots and long continuity in our history.

Ten years ago, these were "right wing" sentiments; today the right regards them as treasonous. What should this teach us? It shows that those who saw the interests of liberty as being well served by the politicized proxies of free enterprise alone, family alone, Christianity alone, law and order alone, were profoundly mistaken. There is no proxy for liberty, no cause that serves as a viable substitute, and no movement by any name whose success can yield freedom in our time other than the movement of freedom itself. We need to embrace liberty and liberty only, and not be fooled by groups or parties or movements that only desire a temporary liberty to advance their pet interests.

As Rothbard said in 1965:

The doctrine of liberty contains elements corresponding with both contemporary left and right. This means in no sense that we are middle-of-the-roaders, eclectically trying to combine, or step between, both poles; but rather that a consistent view of liberty includes concepts that have also become part of the rhetoric or program of right and of left. Hence a creative approach to liberty must transcend the confines of contemporary political shibboleths.

There has never in my lifetime been a more urgent need for the party of liberty to completely secede from conventional thought and established institutions, especially those associated with all aspects of government, and undertake radical intellectual action on behalf of a third way that rejects the socialism of the left and the fascism of the right.

Indeed, the current times can be seen as a training period for all true friends of liberty. We need to learn to recognize the many different guises in which tyranny appears. Power is protean because it must suppress that impulse toward liberty that exists in the hearts of all people. The impulse is there, tacitly waiting for the consciousness to dawn. When it does, power doesn’t stand a chance.

December 31, 2004

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2008-09-08   17:44:04 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#348. To: WTF? (#345)

...we could end most of America’s problems if we simply repeated the word Islamo-fascism enough times...

It seems there are quite a few people who believe that.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
Lord Acton

James Deffenbach  posted on  2008-09-08   18:04:28 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#349. To: Rupert_Pupkin (#347)

"Power is protean because it must suppress that impulse toward liberty that exists in the hearts of all people. The impulse is there, tacitly waiting for the consciousness to dawn. When it does, power doesn’t stand a chance."

I whole-heartedly agree...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   22:51:00 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#350. To: WTF? (#346)

"...Compared to Islamo-fascism, Repubofascism is both real and logically plausible. Unlike the billion Muslims across the world, the Republicans really are working together, and they really are doing something that at least vaguely resembles fascism..."

LOL!! So, WTF?, did you copy/paste that from the DailyKOS?

RATS--and RINOs--are the Big Guv'ment fascists in America. The Party of Reagan is, in principle, the anti-Fascist Party...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-08   22:54:31 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#351. To: WTF?, minerva, ..., Robin, Jethro Tull, Dakmar, ferret mike, Rotara (#345)

RATS are imploding and the electorate is watching...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-10   18:05:46 ET  (1 image) [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#352. To: Mudboy Slim (#350)

RATS--and RINOs--are the Big Guv'ment fascists in America. The Party of Reagan is, in principle, the anti-Fascist Party...MUD

Reagan gave some great speeches prior to becoming President, but failed to deliver. In fact, it was his administration that first invited the radical Trotskyites we now call neocons into the corridors of power. Have you ever pondered the number of Iran/Contra figures pardoned by Poppy that serve in Shrub Admin?

And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. - T. S. Eliot

Dakmar  posted on  2008-09-10   22:02:27 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#353. To: Dakmar (#352)

"Reagan gave some great speeches prior to becoming President, but failed to deliver."

They weren't just speeches, they were the core of who Reagan was, and helped explain the basis of what ReaganConservatives would like to see out of their government. Fact is, Reagan didn't have the horses he needed in Congress to pass his agenda of downsizing the Federal Leviathan, and admittedly that's why it's been sooo frustrating to watch Dubyuh and his GOP-majority in Congress grow the Federal Leviathan from $1.8 Trillion to $3 Trillion in seven years (I'm convinced that's why so many rightwingers sat out 2006 and the GOP lost control of both Houses of Congress).

That said, what the ObamaNation has in mind for "Change" is exactly the wrong direction to follow, imho. BarryO unabashedly dreams to grow the Federal Leviathan into even more of a welfare dependency enabler...how much further into THAT morass can this Nation afford to go? We've already got a situation where the bottom 50% of wage-earning age folks paying less than 3% of the Income Tax bite...with 50% of folks not concerned about how we pay for all this Big Guv'ment largesse, is it any wonder that both parties keep spending more and more?

MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-12   12:34:44 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#354. To: Mudboy Slim (#353)

Does it dawn on McCain's that his love affair with illegals drives up our taxes?

Jethro Tull  posted on  2008-09-12   12:39:16 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#355. To: Jethro Tull (#354)

Yer preachin' to the choir, J.T., McCain's also on record as supporting the concept of Cap&Trade Carbon (aka Energy) Taxes, which would serve to cripple the American economy. Fact is, we oughtta be able to do a whole lot better job of selecting our major Party nominees fer POTUS...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-12   15:13:59 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#356. To: All (#355)

If these RATS are THIS jubilant about the $700 Billion Bail-Out, taxpayers are screwed...MUD

Devolve Power Outta the Federal Leviathan and Back to the States,
Localities, and Individuals as Prescribed in the U.S. Constitution!!

Mudboy Slim  posted on  2008-09-28   15:47:55 ET  (1 image) [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#357. To: Mudboy Slim (#356)

From a GOP white house, and a Zionist press, with bankers and pundits lining up to agree? Please don't claim you didn't have any part in this, mudster. It's your war. Your war for Israel. Your plunge protection team.

buckeye  posted on  2008-09-28   15:50:08 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#358. To: Mudboy Slim (#356)

Mud - isn't it just a little dishonest of you to blame this solely on the Democrats? Seems to me that George W. Bush requested the 700 billion dollar baillout, and most of the rest of your GOP heroes were in bed with Barney Frank on this issue. The GOP loves welfare too - as long as the taxpayer sponsored welfare goes to their cronies on Wall Street. Barney and George aren't "destroying" Wall Street - they're giving Wall Street a windfall taken from the taxpayer's pocket.

I used to say that what they're doing to bail out investment firms who gambled themselves into bankruptcy is no different from a Fed Gov promise to cover people's gambling losses in Las Vegas, but that's not fair to gamblers in Vegas. Those in Vegas gamble away their own money. AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehmann Brothers, Fannie and Freddie gamble away other people's money.

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2008-09-28   15:56:03 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  


#359. To: buckeye (#357) (Edited)

People like Mud are only against these things when Democrats do them. When Republicans are for them, they either ignore them or make excuses.

What both parties are doing with the baillout is encouraging Wall Street to keep on making risky investments (derivatives, etc) with people's savings. If they know that they can count on taxpayer money when their investments go under, there is no hope for any kind of discipline or responsibility on Wall Street. Cutting them loose and letting them free fall may be painful at first, but at least it would prevent the same thing from happening again. Now, we can count on seeing more of the same every few years.

Brings back fond memories of S&L in the early 90's doesn't it?

Rupert_Pupkin  posted on  2008-09-28   15:56:50 ET  [Locked]   Trace   Private Reply  



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