Northern Illinois Campaign for Liberty

The political world, or at least the right (as in right vs. left, not right vs. wrong) part of the political spectrum is all abuzz with news about the “Mt. Vernon Statement.” I guess it doesn’t occur to some people that even non-politicians don’t always do as they say, and simply signing a “statement” is not going to change anything.

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”?

By Jacob Hornberger

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.

By Ron Paul

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.

Read the report here.

By Joseph Margulies

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

By Lew Rockwell

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

By Jeffrey Tucker

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.

By Jo Comerford

$57,077.60. That’s what we’re paying per minute. Keep that in mind — just for a minute or so.

After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 U.S. troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, rankedby the United Nations as second worst in the world in terms of human development.

Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60.  That’s how much it will cost you, the taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.

By the way, add up the yearly salary of a Marine from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you’ll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute’s sum.

Read the complete article here.

By Chuck Baldwin

Anger and opposition to Washington’s policies and edicts–no matter now egregious–hardly ever translate into anything beyond words of frustration. And Washington politicians don’t pay much attention to rhetoric–not even their own.

You see, the wizards in Washington and on Wall Street have us figured out. Along with their compatriots in the propaganda press corps, they know that no matter how loudly we scream, how much we protest, or how angry we become, the system is rigged to protect them. The best we the people can seem to come up with is “throwing the bums out” every two or four years. BUT NOTHING CHANGES–at least, not in terms of restoring the fundamental principles of freedom and constitutional government…

Click here to read the complete article.

By Anthony Gregory

December 15 is neglected by most Americans for its historical significance as the anniversary of the Bill of Rights. Even worse, American politicians neglect the actual Bill of Rights on a day-to-day basis.

Whether or not the Bill of Rights can ever be an effective means of limiting the government is open to debate. However, the Bill of Rights does offer a fairly good outline of a free society, and it shows how far our country has strayed.

In an America with a full respect for the Bill of Rights, there would be no Federal Communications Commission regulating the airwaves and forbidding certain speech, no Federal Election Commission limiting how much Americans can donate to political candidates or what they can say in independent political ads, no Food and Drug Administration harassment of pharmaceutical and wine producers regarding their commercial speech, no federal laws that have anything to do with religion whatsoever, and no federally established “free-speech zones.”

Click here to read the complete article.