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.

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 Ron Paul

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

Charles Goyette’s recent book The Dollar Meltdown is a fascinating book offering not only a thorough and comprehensive analysis of America’s financial crisis but a common sense approach in how to protect yourself from the inevitable collapse of our currency.

Charles begins with an investigation of how we arrived at our current predicament and tackles the increasingly difficult task of dissecting government’s role in today’s complex economy.   Charles shows his Austrian influence by bringing up common themes familiar to those partial to the Austrian school of Economics, but also does a fantastic job of presenting important aspects to those readers willing to learn and familiarize themselves in the only school that was able to accurately predict the current crisis.   More importantly, Charles discusses money;  it’s origins and what function money serves in today’s economy.  You may think you know what money is, after all it makes the world go round, but what is it really?   Where did it come from, what makes it valuable and how can a country’s currency collapse.  These are the questions that every American must be able to answer and The Dollar Meltdown does an excellent job of presenting this vital information in an easily digestible fashion.

Click here to read the rest of the 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.

From Campaign for Liberty, by Deb Wells

Four more House Reps co-sponsored HR1207 on December 1:

Rep Reyes, Silvestre [TX-16]
Rep Rodriguez, Ciro D. [TX-23]
Rep Kilpatrick, Carolyn C. [MI-13]
Rep Boren, Dan [OK-2]

The state of Oklahoma is now a premier member of what we call the “HR 1207 100 Club”, where all House Reps have co-sponsored Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill.

Other HR 1207 100 Club member states:  Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississipi, Montana, Nevada, Nebraska, New Mexico, South Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming.

Now, the real test will be whether these 317 co-sponsors will support HR1207 as a stand-alone bill rather than as added language to the woefully inaccurately named “”Financial Stability Improvement Act” (wherein the Fed would be given even more power and thus give us even greater instability).

Every HR 1207 co-sponsor needs a phone call from you to remind them that HR1207 has everything required to stand very well on its own, thank you very much.

Find the full list of co-sponsors here.  Then, click here to find your U.S. House Representative’s phone number.

If you see that your House Rep hasn’t co-sponsored yet, you might want to ask them why….

After all, isn’t transparency exactly what we were promised last fall?

by Jake Towne

This talk was originally delivered to a Campaign of Liberty chapter on December 3, 2009.  Video will be available shortly.

Today President Obama will tour Allentown, Pennsylvania, in my home congressional district as part of a “Main Street Tour” to show his concern for economic plight of the masses. Many of the people I have spoken with while campaigning innately realize that government is at fault — or at least complain a lot about how the government should “fix” the economy. Unfortunately, many do not have enough of a grasp of economics to understand exactly how the government is ruining their lives and their childrens’ lives. Speaking for myself, about 2 years ago I would have been included in this category. This is no surprise as most of the press and educational system has been hijacked by the disciples of Lord Keynes (the Keynesians) and the socialist Karl Marx for the past century.

Click here to read the rest.