But, that’s not what I meant to say…I intended to point out some anomalies in the Mt. Vernon Statement. I found out about this from Fox News, not always a libertarian’s best friend (I suspect that a dog could easily be a libertarian’s best friend over Fox)…but I digress. Here’s the link for yourself, so you can read the article, and send me raging emails about how wrong I am, or, if you prefer, you may email me with letters extolling my clarity, honestly, and ability to see through facetious scams put on by the neo-cons.

So, by now you’re wondering if I have a point, and frankly, I am wondering too. So I’ll try to get down to business. The Mt. Vernon Statement is suppose to determine “Who’s Who” in the conservative circle. I think they could more truthfully say the Mt. Vernon Statement is supposed to determine Who’s Who in the neo-con circle.

From the Mt. Vernon Statement, “The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.”

I apologize, but I didn’t realize they had conservatives back in the 1770’s, I thought they had the Patriots and the Tories, and of course, the undecided.  But that’s rather irrelevant, so I’ll move on.

Conservatism asserts life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, according to the Mt. Vernon Statement. How nice, (I really am serious here), that conservatives are always defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Then perhaps it was a malicious hacker who added these words, “It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.”

“Advancing freedom?”

Do you know what that means?

The War in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We’re advancing freedom by fighting two unnecessary wars in the Mideast.

We’re asserting life by killing innocent civilians.

We’re defending liberty by taking away our own freedoms to fight these wars that will take away their freedom as well.

We’re protecting the pursuit of happiness by helping to embroil the Mideast in long, bloody, violent, and unhappy conflicts.

Uh-huh…or should I say, “yeah right”?

In preparation for the two recent back-to-back blizzards, D.C. residents were emptying the shelves of neighborhood grocery stores. Notwithstanding the pre-blizzard panic buying, what’s interesting is that no one was freaking out about whether the stores would be adequately stocked after the blizzards.

So, how in the world do grocery stores get stocked without government planning or direction? How is it that so much food appears, almost by magic, within a day or two after most of the shelves have been emptied? Indeed, how do grocery stores manage to have more than enough food for people throughout the year given that no government department or agency is doing the planning and issuing food directives?

Click here to read the complete article.

Last week we were reminded that ours is not the only country suffering from severe economic turmoil. The Greek government is the latest to come close to default on their massive public debt. Greece has insufficient funds in their treasury to make even the minimum payments that are now coming due. Their debt level is about 120 percent of their gross domestic product and their public sector absorbs what amounts to 40 percent of GDP. Any talk of cutting costs and spending is met with violent protests from the many Greeks heavily dependent on government payments. Mounting fears of default have sent shockwaves through their creditors and all of the eurozone countries.

But there have been statements made by the European Central Bank to calm fears and give assurances that Greece will get the aid it needs. Details of agreements are not forthcoming.

Is it possible that our Federal Reserve has had some hand in bailing out Greece? The fact is, we don’t know, and current laws exempt agreements between the Fed and foreign central banks from disclosure or audit.

Click here to read the complete article.

Days after the thwarted Christmas bombing, the Rasmussen Group took a poll. They asked whether the failed bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, should be tried in civilian or military court. Seventy-one percent said military.

They also asked whether he should be waterboarded to extract information about his connection to terrorism. In a sign of the times, 58 percent of respondents said yes, even though he had already confessed.

By themselves, the numbers are alarming but not surprising. Other recent polls have consistently shown substantial support for torture and considerable skepticism about the use of civilian courts to prosecute terror suspects. And this despite the empirical proof: after eight years, there is no evidence that information secured by torture could not have been secured by lawful means, and despite the hysteria, we have successfully prosecuted terrorists in civilian courts for many years with no complications.

Click here to read the complete article

But the problem is that the capacity to imagine freedom — the very source of life for civilization and humanity itself — is being eroded in our society and culture. The less freedom we have, the less people are able to imagine what freedom feels like, and therefore the less they are willing to fight for its restoration.

Click here to read the complete article

We have been on a disastrous course for a long time. The money supply has doubled in the last year, our debt is unsustainable, the value of the dollar is going to continue its drop, and those Americans who understand where we are headed feel helpless and held hostage by foolish policy makers in Washington. When the bills finally come due and the dollar stops working we are in for some real social, economic and political chaos. That is, unless we take some major steps now to allow for a peaceful transition in the future. These steps are laid out in my legislation to legalize competing currencies.

Click here to read the complete article

Part of the difficulty of understanding Mark Twain’s political outlook is due to terminology and the tendency of politics to corrupt the meaning of everything. As often as you see him called a liberal, he is called a conservative, and sometimes both in the same breath. Critics puzzle about how one person could be champion of workers, owners, and the capitalist rich, while holding views that are antigovernment on domestic matters, antislavery, and antiwar. They often conclude that his politics are incoherent.

Click here to the read the complete article.

The title of this piece is taken from the Broadway Musical based on the book by Victor Hugo, “Les Miserables.” In the musical, the protagonist sings, “Who Am I?” because he is caught between two identities, one being his respected life as the mayor of a town, and the other being his former life as a convict. He struggles between being Jean Valjean and “24601”—his prison number. The prison number is an artificial identity, given to him by the state because of his alleged crime of stealing bread for his sister’s starving child. Yes, he was guilty of theft, but as all of France was starving, and it was probably caused by government interference, the 20 years hard labor punishment to Jean Valjean seems cruelly inappropriate.

The inspiration for the theme of this essay, however, is from the classic holiday film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” George Bailey, the main character, owns a loan and building business, and takes responsibility for missing funds which will bankrupt the business if they cannot find the money misplaced by his uncle. Bailey grows increasingly disturbed and worried over what would happen to the bank—and what would happen to him as the person responsible for the money. He takes out his frustration on his family, which leads him into even more anxiety and depression. At last he considers suicide as his only option for escaping the trouble that will befall his business and family. However, just before jumping into the river, Clarence—an angel sent by God to protect Bailey—jumps over the bridge instead, and Bailey instinctively jumps into the river, not to kill himself but to save Clarence. Later, after Bailey rescues Clarence, they are sitting together drying off and Clarence questions Bailey and his motivations for considering suicide. Clarence is desperate to show Bailey that his life is very important, that he has made an enormous difference in the world, and despite Bailey’s own feelings, the world is better off because of him. So Clarence decides to try a new idea, and shows Bailey what it would be like if he had never been born. Bailey and Clarence go to the local bar for a drink, only to discover that the bartender doesn’t recognize Bailey now, and eventually the two men are thrown out of the bar. By this time Bailey is confused and worried, he still doesn’t realize what Clarence has done. He rummages frantically through his pockets to show Clarence proof that he is George Bailey. But his pockets are empty.

George says, “Then if I wasn’t born, who am I?”

Clarence replies, “You’re nobody. You have no identity.”

“What do you mean, no identity? My name’s George Bailey.”

And Clarence reminds him, “There is no George Bailey. You have no papers, no cards, no driver’s license, no 4-F card, no insurance policy…They’re not there, either.”

And yet we see George Bailey—he is standing there next to Clarence, talking to Clarence, moving, acting, speaking, thinking…we know, as viewers, that Bailey does in fact exist. It is interesting how Bailey’s identity is stripped from him. Bailey does exist, but not as George Bailey, just as a nameless person.

The setting of this scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” is the early 1940’s, the war is ending, and George’s brother Henry is coming back from Europe a hero. In the modern state, ushered in by Progressive Era ideas and President Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, personal identity is granted by the state itself. Bailey has no driver’s license…a card given by the government. Currently, it is very difficult to do anything without a driver’s license. The system is so set up as to force a person to obtain a driver’s license or similar identification card if they want to do anything.

In this new era, without government approval and permission, a person does not exist. The definition of existence and of society has changed, and George Bailey was a victim of it. Society does not accept people who have no official government cards. When a child is born, their identity is inextricably linked to the Social Security number issued to them.

Bailey has “no papers, no cards, no driver’s license, no 4-F card…” and cannot prove his identity without it. We are to assume the papers and cards Clarence refers to must be some type of government identification, for what else could be used to identify George Bailey? The 4-F card is part of military classification. Bailey was unable to be drafted into military service because of his impaired hearing. The 4-F card identifies an individual as being not qualified for military service under the established physical, mental, or moral standards. All of this is given to a person by the government and without it they have no identity, as Bailey discovered.

While Bailey’s loss of identity was caused by angelic interference, I suspect that if the government took away anyone’s personal identity, it would not be quite so heavenly. Whatever the government can give, they can also take away. If the government can give identity, and “belongingness” to a person, they can also refuse or repeal it. Our identity and place in society would depend entirely on the government’s whims.

So the question comes down to, does the state give identity? If I had no government papers, no official cards, nothing—would I still be who I am? Or would I be a nameless person, excluded from society, from human interaction, if I had no government identification? Who am I? A creature of the state? Or a person given life by God?

Andrew Bacevich describes America as an “unserious empire.” He corrected his PBS interviewer who had offered the more commonly heard phrase “reluctant empire” as a way to think about our country. Evidently there is concurrence of American political thought that America is indeed an empire, legitimate debate limited only to the qualifier.

Before examining our unserious empire, it might be interesting to see why it is that being “reluctant” is more acceptable toAmericans at war than being unserious. If I am a reluctant bride or a reluctant student, the implication is that I am forced to do something by the stronger party in a husband/wife or teacher/student relationship. “Reluctant” implies that the doer of the deed wants something different, and in marshalling their limited autonomy, is trying to avoid the sin perceived.

Clearly, the United States is in no way a reluctant empire.

Click here to read the complete article.