I was chatting with my son tonight whilst reading Hucklebery Finn, when we came to the part where Huck and the slave Jim are trying to get to the Free States. My son mentioned that they could use the underground railroad.

It got me to thinking. The underground railroad “was an informal network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century Black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists who were sympathetic to their cause”–was a network of people helping slaves to escape, to get away from oppressive regimes.

Now, slavery means legal ownership of another person. Legal ownership means the legal right to control. Although the antebellum form of slavery has been abolished (in the US at least), the state still maintains legal ownership over us: it claims some ownership rights in our bodies when it claims the right to conscript us, regulate us, jail us for using drugs or evading taxes. So there is still slavery, of another form. It’s partial slavery, perhaps, but it’s slavery–bureaucratic, inescapable, cloying, repressive, democratic slavery. (For more on this see my What Libertarianism Is.)

So, given that there is a modern analogue to chattel slavery, namely state taxation, fines, jail, conscription, regulation–what would the modern analogue to the underground railroad be? Maybe we ought to use that as a modern metaphor: refer to institutions and ways of fighting taxation as a modern Underground Railroad, or try to design a more carefully orchestrated one designed to help people evade state taxes, etc. For example, imagine a data farm on a little island nation, or some kind of banking secrecy system, that we promulgate as The New Underground Railroad–heping you escape tax slavery. Something like that. Any legs? I’m all for it. Maybe we need… The Underground Railroad Party…

Good news for the son of Ron in a Kentucky poll: he is doing well against his chief Repub.  opponent — Rand should be “ecstatic,” said the TV station running the poll — and is running neck and neck against the likely Dem. nominee. (Thanks to Jesse Benton)

…what can you trust?

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

I’m sure those Israeli scientists gave a collective Oy! when they discovered this.

[Thanks to Travis Holte.]

Don’t give children ham sandwiches, say cancer experts

Ham sandwiches are given to thousands of children every day in packed lunches.

Many parents regard them as a healthy option. Now, however, parents are being urged not to put the sandwiches in their children’s lunch boxes – because of the cancer risk. Ham, bacon and other types of processed meat raise the risk of bowel cancer over a lifetime, according to a cancer charity.

Giving sandwich fillers such as ham and salami to children means they get into habits that increase their risk of developing cancer later in life, it claims.

I guess my Bubbe was right after all.

[Thanks to Travis Holte]

The Vancouver Sun has learned that Canada’s vaunted single-payer, socialist health care bureaucracy is planning on cancelling more than 6,000 medically necessary surgeries, including neurosergery, treatment for vascular diseases, and other life-saving procedures, all supposedly to cut costs and save  money.

One doctor is quoted as calling the decision a “nightmare” and wondering why on earth medically-necessary surgeries are the first thing to be cut. 

Well, Doc, I’ll explain it to you.  In the U.S. it’s called the “Washington Monument Syndrome.”  Every time one of our socialist bureaucracies at the local level of government fears that its budget won’t be increased by as much as it wishes, the first thing to be cut is police, ambulence services, garbage collection, and other things that impose the maximum inconvenience and danger on the public.  It’s a kind of extortion scheme whereby the bureaucrats, who enjoy a monopoly in the provision of their “services,” withdraw them until the public pressures politicians to come up with the bucks for the bureaucracy in question.

This scheme was named after the director of the National Park Service in the 1960s, who would shut down the Washington Monument — the most popular tourist attraction in D.C. — whenever Congress balked at giving him his budgetary wish list.  Vacationers from every state would angrily call their congressional representatives to complain that on their vacation to the nation’s capitol their top tourist spot was closed.  Congress would quickly acquiesce, and other bureaucrats at all levels of government learned of yet another means of extorting even more $$$ from the taxpayers. 

This will be coming soon to a hospital near you, American citizens,  if Obamacare is adopted.

Many thanks to my favorite Bloomberg columnist, Caroline Baum, for quoting me in her column today:  “Obama Goes Postal, Lands in Dead-Letter Office.” She also notes: “Impromptu Obamanomics is getting scarier by the day. For all the president’s touted intelligence, his un-teleprompted comments reveal a basic misunderstanding of capitalist principles.” Darn right. Ms. Baum does hold that we must have a government post office because the constitution enables congress to establish one. But that power, in my view, need not be exercised. (Thanks to Max)

I tried to report David Kramer’s flaming right-wing opposition to ObamaCommuCare and his horrifying disinformation campaign to my White House superiors, but the snitch line (flag@whitehouse.gov) has gone kaput. Gone and done. It ran out of approval. The White House has lied about this, and it has lied about the spamming campaign, and now Gibbs, the dough-faced, White House shill, is at the liar’s microphone to make up a great big story about how people got spammed from those who were collecting the Enemy List. But we are to believe there is no enemy list. That’s just conspiracy, tinfoil hat stuff for whackos who oppose a black president. But then again, these same soldiers of propaganda were stupid enough to think that this, posted on the White House website, would pass muster with the press and the awakening masses.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

So now they have replaced ‘Snitch to Daddy Obama’ with ‘Reality Check’. YooHoo! Look how dumbed-down and cartoon-ish the site is. Just what soft Boobus likes. Plenty of eye candy, huge logos, and diversity for the TV-educated sheeple with half their brains tied behind their Crocs.

For one of the famed Mises Circles:

What is Obama doing to our standard of living? We will see at “Recovery or Stagflation?”, Saturday, August 29, with talks by Walter Block, Tom DiLorenzo, Bob Murphy, Doug French, and me, plus a delicious luncheon, in San Franisco, for just $85; for the schedule or to register, go here.

Will Bernanke and Geithner sink us? Join us for “Will the Decline Continue?” with Peter Klein, Walter Block, Bob Murphy, Doug French, and me, plus a delicious luncheon, on Saturday, September 12, in Seattle, for just $85; for the schedule or to register, go here.

Hope to see you!

I recently attended a information session about National Science Foundation (NSF) research grants. Numerous statements were made by NSF representatives about the “tangible returns” on “NSF investments” or “taxpayer investments.” But economics teaches us that cost and profit can not be measured in such a system. The tangible returns are statistics – publication and patent rates – whose value can not be compared. There is no way to know the value that I place on my latest academic publication as compared to the value that other researchers in my field place on it, let alone that of the abstract “society” since this is not an economic good with an associated price. Furthermore, an entrepreneur can invest in a good because he suffers the losses as well as taking in potential future profits. On the other hand, the NSF merely transfers wealth from the taxpayers. To say that the taxpayers are making an investment is a gross distortion of this word – the taxpayers certainly pay the cost of NSF grants, but they do not profit in proportion to their share of the cost. Of course, the NSF itself neither profits nor suffers losses, so to speak of an NSF investment is even more absurd.

This is obviously geared to make people feel like there is accountability or that somehow we live in a free market economy. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The three best-read yesterday were: Tom Woods on what you don’t know about states rights; Russ Baker’s book on the Bush family’s web of deceit, reviewed by David Kinchen; and Gary North on how to get rich.

The famous Photoshop rendition was done by a Palestinian student and a Dennis Kucinich supporter. Thank goodness we have that hate crime solved.

Karen: Those who are getting their diapers in a knot over the appearance of a man with an assault rifle at an Obama event need a little perspective. To begin with, they might recall the day, back in the 1960s, when a contingent of Black Panthers walked into the California State Legislative chambers with rifles and shotguns – while the legislature was in session – to make a political statement. No shots were fired; no one was injured; but the incident was intended to remind government officials of the purpose of the Second Amendment. Ordinary people – not the state’s police and military – are to have the ultimate power in a free society. It is this reminder – not the gun – that most terrifies members of the media, academia, etc. I suspect there were numerous government agents at this event with weapons more powerful than what this one man carried: why was there no outrage over their armed presence? The political scientist who worried that the carrying of guns at such events “creates a chilling effect” on members of the public might ask, if he is sincere, whether armed functionaries of the state might produce the same effect.

The fear that the ultimate political authority may be decentralizing into the hands of private persons is more than the statist faithful can tolerate. To paraphrase the anti-war bumper-sticker from the 1960s: “what if they gave a democracy and EVERYBODY showed up?”

A man open carried a scary “assault rifle” (press description) in a protest march where Obama was giving a speech in Phoenix yesterday. CNN notes, “and it’s legal!” Amazing! Watch the video (linked beneath the photo). Why isn’t this one being filed under the media’s “racism” category?

In honor of the manly hard-asses police women of Broward County, I bring you this video of that taser-o-rama in July where a 16-year-old kid was tasered underneath a bridge as he lay on the ground with a broken back from his fall. At 1:55 of the video, a police captain explains that this kid, with a broken back, “refused to comply with the officers” (to stand up). Then he reaches into his desperate bag and claims that the kid was incoherently spouting off phrases about “killing cops” and “shooting cops,” giving the poor, undermanned officers some “concern.” This news footage is new to me, which is why I posted it.

The ‘good’ news is that coward cops with tasers will soon have the advantage of firing multiple taser shots at multiple people with their new “semi-automatic” taser guns. Now if you want to see some real sickos, watch this demo of the new semi-autos in action. Watch everyone clap and cheer and back-slap. Oh, and note in the demo, they practice with their new tasers on some *petite* women … to make a point. Small women. As I quoted someone in my earlier post, this is a sign of a profound cultural illness. Uncivilized brutes mesmerized by years of trash video games and vapid TV programming.

Now, you may think that is a moral imperative, as it is, and domestically too, but remember when the wonderful Dixie Chicks were demonized for it? Neocons, Christian rightists, and the general boobeoisie tried to destroy the group for saying, at a Paris concert, that as Texans, they were especially ashamed of Bush. Country music stations organized bonfires of their CDs and boycotts of their concerts, and the Chicks have never recovered. Isn’t it ironic, Glenn Greenwald notes, that Michael Huckabee can go to a foreign country and criticize the US prez, and no one thinks ill of him? I should note that unlike Glenn and Phil Weiss, I do not believe that Obama’s foreign policy, in the Middle East or elsewhere, is much different from Bush’s.

According to the Times, Rahm is running everything, but this has a risk. He could be blamed, which would be so unfair. One interesting point: just as the states have been virtually abolished in the New Order, and the congress and courts made mere adjuncts of the presidency, so have even the greatest of the cabinet departments been made impotent dependencies of the president’s personal staff. Imagine Rahm bragging that he was able to keep the secretary of state from hiring an advisor of her choice! Now, I’ll admit to being a partisan of Sidney Blumenthal, but I can’t help but think of the freedmen of the emperor riding roughshod over the Roman senate.

UPDATE from Skip Oliva:

It’s long forgotten to history, but of course the title of “White House Chief of Staff” was a creation of General Eisenhower, who wanted to replicate the military-socialist structure he was so used to. Also forgotten is Gerald Ford’s brief attempt to abolish the office — then held by an actual Army general, Al Haig — but the White House bureaucracy rebelled and Ford appointed Donald Rumsfeld.

Skip, Ike’s “chief of staff” was Sherman Adams, forced out for taking a bribe of a freezer, an Oriental rug, and a vicuña coat from Boston businessman Bernard Goldfine. (The bribes are undoubtedly far more plush today.) Adams was especially famous in our household because his first name was the (almost-correctly spelled) “Llewelyn.”

Here’s Digby, at Salon, on our taser society, our militarized police state, and its cheering proponents.

Representatives of the government torture innocent citizens into unconsciousness, on camera, in United States courtrooms with tasers. They use them on prisoners and on motorists and on political protesters and bicycle riders, on mentally ill and handicapped people and on children And it’s happening with nary a peep of protest.

America’s torture problem is much bigger than Gitmo or the CIA or the waterboarding of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The government is torturing people every day and killing some of them. Then videos of the torture wind up on Youtube where sadists laugh and jeer at the victims. It’s the sign of profound cultural illness.

Lew, the cheers for the speakers this weekend, but especially for you, were extremely gratifying.  Not because you or I are vain, but for this very good reason: what Beltway think-tank head is ever greeted by standing ovations and wild cheering?  I’m not talking polite applause and maybe even a couple of whistles, but loud, sustained cheering.  To condemn you is to condemn all the people who cheered — and there are lots and lots of them.  I’m not sure I’d want to do that if I were running a D.C. think tank.

Incidentally, I know of one such think tank that was harshly critical of Dr. Paul early last year, but recently, seeing that normal people love Dr. Paul more than ever and perhaps realizing what a boneheaded move that was, ate some crow and invited him to speak.

See John C. Dvorak’s article — Special Report: Is US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kundra a Phony? and “No Agenda” piece The Vivek Kundra “Hollow” Deck. It’s also discussed on this week’s TWIT (see also Om Malik’s Dvorak Raises Doubts About U.S. CIO Kundra. White House Calls the Report “Highly Inaccurate” & “a Lie.” Kundra Speaks up). Dvorak seethes with justified scorn at this obvious case of cronyism, where some guy is anointed by the New York Times as some kind of “techno-wiz.” Dvorak says he got suspicious when he heard Kundra talking like an amateur about things like Twitter and Google Docs: “During one of his testimonies before a Congressional committee he even talked about the future being something like the Star Trek holodeck. His clichés and commentary was that of an 18 year-old blogger who just got their first Macintosh.” Hahahah.

When Dvorak looked more deeply into Kundra’s background, he noticed several anomalies: he claimed he was “CEO” of his own one-man company that he ran out of his living room (CEOs manage people; legitimate one-man companies don’t have “CEOs”); he claimed to have received “his master’s in information technology and his bachelor’s in psychology and biology from the University of Maryland,” though, as Dvorak notes: “The biology bachelor’s comes and goes from his bio, but the University has no record of his biology degree either.” Apparently he has no biology degree despite having claimed this in the past. And his psychology degree apparently came from the University’s “University College” location, which is apparently not the same as the University of Maryland itself (more resume fudging?).

But as Dvorak notes, even if Kundra is “squeaky clean he has no business being the USA CIO controlling billions and billions of dollars in government contracts…He hasn’t done anything to warrant this appointment. There are no great policy papers. There are no books. There is no invention. There is nothing but vague tech positions in city and state governments.” And what has he done so far? Blew $18 million of taxpayer money on the “recovery.gov” website. As Dvorak notes, “What website[] costs $18 million? … The incredibly popular Digg.com, one of the most advanced news gathering sites in the world was initially coded from scratch for between $1200-2500 according to one of its founders. Tools to develop fancy websites have improved drastically over the years and now it costs less for fancy sites, not more. So where is the $18 million going? I can assure you that people who pay attention bugged out their eyeballs at a website expense of $18 million.”

Writes Dennis Marburger:

Greetings, Lew! Saturday’s Ron Paul Birthday / BBQ was fantastic, wasn’t it?! The enthusiasm, the fellowship, and the power of the ideas – and ideals – was unparalleled. Meeting you, Tom Woods, and Judge Napolitano was a real treat. Naturally, Dr. Paul was the courageous Beacon of Liberty he’s always been. What an honor to share some time with Freedom’s Champions. By the way, Lew, we all know the Judge is right – you have “done more to cement the intellectual foundation of the movement for liberty than anybody else today.” I’m grateful that I was able to make the trip from Michigan to finally meet you. Onward and upward!

A lady I heard on the radio last night: “Obama is offering us a few health benefits, which can be changed or eliminated tomorrow, in return for control over our bodies and all information about them. No,  thanks!”

Ms. Plastic-faced Anchorwoman, Katie Couric, presented viewers with a diatribe against resisters to The Regime. “Fear and ignorance” is how she describes resistance to the government’s militarized health care plan. “It’s time for everyone to take a deep breath and focus on the task at hand before the sideshow drowns out the main event.” She refers to the anti-socialist mentality as ”disturbing attitudes.” Hey Katie, when the “main event” is life-destroying, anti-freedom measures that effectively puts our health, our life, our happiness in the hands of government tyrants and special interests who benefit from that control, you betcha we don’t want your “main event.”

These people still can’t get to understanding one very simple point: we don’t want to “debate” tyranny and the level of control they shall have over us. We aren’t interested in “debates.” By ”debate,” what the media and government propagandists really mean is that we should stand up and speak a few kind words against socialized tyranny, then we all sit down and be quiet, having said our piece, and let the show go on interrupted. Debate means we get to ask softball questions, but in the end we refrain from intervening in the actual process of moving forward the government’s agenda.

Katie, by the way, is a multi-millionaire who need not worry about being put out to pasture under the cold, methodical, rationing hands of centrally-planned health care. She’ll get her plastic surgeries before you will get your hip replacement or torn rotator cuff fixed. Thanks to Travis for the link.

Ron Paul:

I was walking into the convention center [in Galveston, for his annual birthday BBQ] and I heard a huge ruckus of cheering and applause. “What’s that?” I asked my staff. “They’re introducing Lew,” I was told.

Here’s a pretty good send-up of the pharmaceutical ads that run in your face daily on television. It’s an ad paid for by the RNC, but it’s a pretty good attempt in the battle of health care reform commercials.

On the other hand, here’s a horrible, chintzy ad paid for by Big Pharma that inspires the viewer to suffer from the usual ho-hum apathy and monotony. Note the amazing use of the line, “a little more cooperation, a little less politics…” This comes from Big Pharma, one of the most powerful political machines on the Hill and in corporate America. The “politics” referred to, of course, is the resistance put up from people in the grass roots who have no political power, no lobbyists, no monetary wealth, and essentially, nothing but their voices in numbers as they attempt to defend their bodies from the government’s public health care assault.

“Progressive”: a self-congratulatory word used by the lemming at the front of the pack to describe himself, as he and his fellows “progress” toward the edge of the cliff.

Judge Andrew Napolitano:

Lew Rockwell has done more to cement the intellectual foundation of the movement for liberty than anybody else today.

De Coster, Levin, Baldwin, Green, Rockwell, Grigg, Celente, North, Marshall, Rawles: the ten best-read last week.

It’s another government health program, Barack.

One of the dubious “advantages” provided by the government school system to its inmates is the knowledge that they can enlist the State as an ally in petty disputes within the home.

This is the likely reason why a 38-year-old Gainesville, Florida man is behind bars tonight for the grave alleged offense of hitting his daughter with a pizza slice. The daughter promptly called 911 and within minutes the father was in handcuffs and facing felony charges.

According to the Orlando Sentinel: “Deputy Nick Vickers says the man used racist and sexist terms when he asked his daughter to turn off her computer, and she fired back with some crude language of her own. Vickers says the father `intentionally threw a slice of pizza at the victim’” — note the use of the term “victim,” not alleged victim, thereby planting the assumption of guilt — “`striking her at the back ot the neck, against her will.’”

Presumably, if the daughter had explicitly consented to being hit in the neck with a slice of pizza, everything would have been copasetic. As it happens, the father was charged with “child abuse without great harm,” which is a third-degree felony.

Rational people would recognize that the father’s act involved no measurable “harm” whatsoever, and thus no crime over which the State could claim jurisdiction. But we should not forget that the State claims all children as its property — whether for purpose of criminalizing parental discipline (or, in this case, trivial fits of pique) or — when permitted to –  for the purpose of conscripting them into the military for use as trigger-pullers and coffin-stuffers.

This story from the NYPost presented a glowing commentary on Charles Augusto, Jr.  I agree with much of what it says.  There is little doubt that Mr. Augusto is a hero.  He defended his store, and more importantly, one of his employees, from armed thugs.  He deserves to be commended.

Here’s the thing that puzzles me.  From an objective standpoint, little about the Augusto case and the Plaxico Burress case are really that different, if one uses the draconian New York gun laws as a rubric.  I admit that I’m no lawyer, but let me explain.

Plaxico Burress left home with a weapon ostensibly because he wanted to protect himself.  From what?  Maybe from succumbing to the fates that befell Sean Taylor (shot by assailants in his own home) or Darrent Williams (shot on the street after leaving a night club), among other high-profile figures.  Given that NFL players are known to be well-paid, this seems reasonable.

Augusto armed himself after a robbery at his store some years ago.  He wanted to be ready the next time.  Again, this seems reasonable.

Plax shot himself with his unregistered firearm.  Augusto shot three assailants with his.  Do we give Augusto a pass for being a crack shot?  Do we penalize Plax for not being well-versed in gun handling?  If Plax had successfully defended himself from harm, would we be having this conversation?  Maybe the fact that Mr. Augusto was on his own property is the kicker.  I wonder.

The NY DA has made it publicly known that he wants Burress to serve three years in jail for discharging an unregistered firearm.  Will he throw the (same) book at Augusto as well?  I don’t think so, but this question remains:  Why or why not?

Does anybody else remember how the PEST (Portable Electro-Shock Torture device, nee Taser) was supposedly intended for use only against dangerous, violent suspects?

In recent years, deploying the PEST has become the option of first resort whenever armed tax-feeders confront passive resistance or non-cooperation of any kind.

Even those inured to the routine use of torture by police in the USSA, however, must find themselves taken aback by the incident captured in this video: An unarmed man sitting peaceably on his own porch is assaulted with a PEST as nine police arrive to take him into custody.

Tasered while sitting on his own porch

According to the only detailed account available of this episode, the victim of this assault had spent the morning bellowing “racially charged” remarks. When the police were summoned, he allegedly began goading them about shooting him. The officers reportedly perceived this to be a mental health issue, and thus decided to practice retrograde psychiatry without a license by giving him a gratuitous dose of electro-shock therapy.

I’m not normally one to proclaim “this is it” about any supposed last straw in statist behavior, and I am hesitant to do so about surveillance.  We’ve been living in a surveillance society for years.   Privacy International ranks the U.S. as one of several “endemic surveillance societies” around the Globe.  Still, one might figure that at some point the pinheads pushing for yet more ways to eavesdrop would grow tired of it.  Doesn’t beating a dead horse get boring after a while?

Maybe not.  After all, as C.S. Lewis noted some time ago:

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.  The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Read the rest of this entry »

Not only can one Google ‘Lew,’ to bring up LRC, one can do the same on Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing. (Thanks to Michael Mogren)

The Democratic senator from Virginia traveled to Myanmar to visit political prisoners and free an American captive; while this was another bomb in the Obama-Hillary war, senators and congressmen should take foreign policy back from the executive branch. The Constitution gives congress control over foreign affairs. On CNN, however, they were upset that he was giving a “propaganda victory” to the military dictatorship by shaking hands with its officials. CNN was outraged that a representative of the Holy American Empire set foot on the soil of a country run by a dictatorial government the US hates. This is the same US government that had no problem with its officials shaking hands with Stalin, Mao, etc. and that has killed millions of innocents in its wars of aggression.

The Pentagon Wants Authority to Post Almost 400,000 Military Personnel in U.S.

The Pentagon has approached Congress to grant the Secretary of Defense the authority to post almost 400,000 military personnel throughout the United States in times of emergency or a major disaster. This request has already occasioned a dispute with the nation’s governors. And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

In June, the U.S. Northern Command distributed a “Congressional Fact Sheet” entitled “Legislative Proposal for Activation of Federal Reserve Forces for Disasters.” That proposal would amend current law, thereby “authorizing the Secretary of Defense to order any unit or member of the Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Navy Reserve, and the Marine Corps Reserve, to active duty for a major disaster or emergency

“And it raises the prospect of U.S. military personnel patrolling the streets of the United States, in conflict with the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.” When did any law that limited the gunvernment’s power ultimately prevent ANYTHING that the gunvernment wanted to do?

That’s why the gunvernment has guns—but doesn’t want us to.