Category Archives: Founding Fathers

Hey IRS & DHS, Suck On This!

Activism, Founding Fathers, Free Speech, Government Incompetence, Individual Rights, Multimedia, The Surveillance State

I’m not going to make it to any Tea Parties today, because frankly I think my personal time is far better spent earning money at my job than engaging in a bit of populism that will likely be forgotten and ignored by the mainstream media — at least those portions of the MSM that don’t actively deride the movement.

But in the wake of this, and of the recent DHS report, I thought a little picture was in order:

My office when I worked from home:

Don't Tread, Bitches!

Some might call it extremism. I call it inspiration. Does that mean my name will end up on a list somewhere (if it hasn’t already)?

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Still Some Hope in Libertarianland?

Founding Fathers, History, Theory and Ideas

If book sales of “Atlas Shrugged” are any indicator, the Obama administration may have just given the freedom movement a much needed shot in the arm. From the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights:

Sales of Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” have almost tripled over the first seven weeks of this year compared with sales for the same period in 2008. This continues a strong trend after bookstore sales reached an all-time annual high in 2008 of about 200,000 copies sold.

“Americans are flocking to buy and read ‘Atlas Shrugged’ because there are uncanny similarities between the plot-line of the book and the events of our day” said Yaron Brook, Executive Director at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “Americans are rightfully concerned about the economic crisis and government’s increasing intervention and attempts to control the economy. Ayn Rand understood and identified the deeper causes of the crisis we’re facing, and she offered, in ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ a principled and practical solution consistent with American values.”

Better still, for those who might prefer other libertarian works of fiction, Glenn Reynolds reports the following from one of his readers:

Instead, bought the current slightly oversized edition of Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”. I hadn’t read it in many years and was pleased (but not really surprised) at how well it holds up; the few technical anachronisms (and there are surprisingly few for a book written in 1966) are more than balanced by how very, very relevant it remains politically in 2009. I was surprised to rediscover how profoundly subversive a work it is, both politically and socially, likely outdoing all the “radical” literature that flower children and revolutionaries were inspired by in the 60s (most of whom considered Heinlein “fascist” — thus showing their profound ignorance of both Heinlein and fascism).

“The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” is still one of my all time favorites.

In the meantime, rumors of a major Hollywood production of “Atlas Shrugged” still abound.  From the book’s Wikipedia entry:

The film is currently in active development by Baldwin Entertainment Group and Lions Gate Entertainment. A two-part draft screenplay written by James V. Hart was developed into a 127-page screenplay by writer-director Randall Wallace.[26]

Angelina Jolie has been confirmed to play the role of Dagny Taggart, and there are discussions with Russell Crowe to play the part of Hank Rearden.[27] Brad Pitt is rumored to be cast in a yet unspecified role. Both Jolie and Pitt are fans of Rand’s works.[28] The role of the mysterious John Galt is likely to be played by an unknown.[27] Vadim Perelman (House of Sand and Fog) had been confirmed to direct,[29] but as of June 18, 2008 is no longer attached to the project.[30] Lions Gate Entertainment picked up worldwide distribution rights. The film was expected to be released in 2011.

Jolie’s 2008 pregnancy and Perelman’s departure has cast the project into doubt.[31] As of November 2008, the Internet Movie Database lists the film’s development status as “unknown”.[30]

As for me, I so thoroughly enjoyed David McCullough’s “1776” that I picked up a copy of “John Adams” the other day. While killing time en route to a meeting last night, I was enjoying a few pages along with a pint of Guinness when the bartender informed me of a HBO miniseries based on the same book.  Chapter One opens with a quote from Abigail Adams which I find inspiring:

“You cannot be, I know, nor do I wish to see you an inactive Spectator…. We have too many high sounding words, and too few, actions that correspond with them.”

Perhaps some of us will become inspired by the recirculation of  “high sounding words” and follow up with the “actions that correspond with them.”

Stephen Gordon
http://stephengordon.com

Driving Home In The Dark

Environment, Founding Fathers, Government Regulation

For a long time, I’ve been pissed off about Daylight Savings Time. In my job, I work with a lot of people across the country, and thus I get into work early (7:30 or so) and leave about 5:00 PM. Before it went into effect this year, each morning I would drive to work in sunlight, and return home in sunlight. I’d have a good half an hour or more of evening dusk when I got home. After it went into effect, I still drove to work in the sunlight, but each day I drive home in the dark.

I had remembered learning, years ago, that it had something to do with making life easier on farmers. Which I never understood, because farmers live far more based on the earth’s clock than man’s. But even so, I never quite understood why the rest of us would be stuck going along with it, when we no longer live an in agriculture-dominated society. Then, they changed the deal, making the duration of DST shorter in the hopes of being more “green”.

It turns out, though, that DST is actually rather pointless AND it is an energy-waster.

The Daylight Savings idea was one of Ben Franklin’s worst. He thought we’d all save candles if, in the summer, we started the day earlier on the clock, leaving more sunshine for the evening.

Politicians made it official: Move the clock one hour forward in the summer, to hoodwink people to get up earlier and leave more daylight hours for after work.

…

But now it turns out that Daylight Savings Time doesn’t save energy. Matthew J. Kotchen and Laura E. Grant, writing in the New York Times, report on their recent study in Indiana, where implementation of Daylight Savings has been county-by-county, a perfect statistical testing ground.

They found that Daylight Savings cost one percent extra. Franklin didn’t figure on morning heaters and daytime air conditioning.

I lived in Indiana before DST was in effect there, while I attended Purdue. Half the year, I would be on the same time as my parents in Illinois, and half the year I’d be an hour ahead of them. While it was largely an annoyance, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I often chided my hoosier friends* about the residents of their state simply being incapable to comprehend DST and change their clocks.

But — and believe me, it pains me to say it — maybe Indiana was right? Could it be finally time to put an end to DST once and for all?

UPDATE 10:30 PM: Okay, folks… Mea culpa. I said I never quite understood the whole deal about DST, and then I proved myself completely correct. I’m still not a big fan of it, but thanks for pointing out my mistakes.
» Read more

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Is It Time To Take “Under God” Out Of The Pledge Of Allegiance ?

Constitution, Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Religious Liberty, The Bill Of Rights

A writer at The Washington Post says the answer is yes:

First, it isn’t the 1950s anymore. As religion scholar Will Herberg noted in his influential 1955 essay “Protestant-Catholic-Jew,” at that time 68 percent of Americans were Protestant, 23 percent Catholic, and 4 percent Jewish. (The remaining 5 percent expressed no religious preference.) “Not to be a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jew today is, for increasing numbers of American people, not to be anything.”

According to a recent Pew report, those figures have declined to 51, 23 and 2. The remaining 20+ percent express plenty of preferences, including Mormon, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Atheist and Agnostic. Not to be a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Jew today is, for increasing numbers of American people, to be something else just as worthy of citizenship.

Second, the greatest threat to American freedom is no longer godless communism but “godly” terrorism — people who pledge their allegiance to God. Docherty noted that even Stalin’s Soviet Union could claim to be “one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” Today, even a Taliban-led Afghanistan could claim to be “one nation, under God.”

In his 1954 sermon, Docherty argued that Judeo-Christian America was engaged in “mortal combat against modern, secularized, godless humanity.” Today, pluralistic America is engaged in mortal combat against anti-modern, fundamentalist, religionized humanity.

It isn’t our belief in God that makes us different. It’s our belief in the liberties (religious and other) enshrined in the Constitution. The American creed is faith in liberty for all, not the religion of most.

On some level, Waters is absolutely correct but he misses the most important reason why claiming that the United States is a “nation, under God” is inappropriate. It was expressed by America’s Third President:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state. [Congress thus inhibited from acts respecting religion, and the Executive authorised only to execute their acts, I have refrained from presenting even occasional performances of devotion presented indeed legally where an Executive is the legal head of a national church, but subject here, as religious exercises only to the voluntary regulations and discipline of each respective sect.] Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

America, as Jefferson noted, is not a nation founded on a specific set of religious beliefs, but on the belief in the natural rights of man, from whatever source those rights are derived.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Quote Of The Day — National Greatness Conservatism

Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Quote of the Day

Mark over at Publius Endures discusses the current state of the Republican Party, as it has changed from the 1994 version to the 2008 version (emphasis added):

With libertarians leaving the party in droves, the remaining GOP opinion-makers are increasingly free to abandon free market rhetoric; put another way, they have become smaller and thus have to please fewer groups. The result? National Greatness Conservatism and so-called Sam’s Club Republicans, two worldviews that are 1. intellectually honest; 2. capable of appealing to the GOP base; 3. capable of eventually bringing in groups not currently in the GOP coalition; 4. are currently quite compatible with each other; and 5. are completely incompatible with any version of libertarianism.

National Greatness Conservatism isn’t new. In fact, it follows much of the line of European monarchies prior to the founding of America, and was quite forcefully advanced by folks such as Alexander Hamilton. It is now alive and well in John McCain and the Republican Party.

And as Mark points out, it is not a libertarian philosophy in any sense of the word.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/
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