I, by no means, fancy myself a photographer. But I do find myself in beautiful places more often than most people, so I figured I would share some of my photographs.
A Message to the Nation, from The Resistance:
When individuals, steeped in the traditions of their patriot fathers, witness the ebb of liberty and the sunset of that corps of rights once christened indivisible, and their humanity stirs their souls to pursue an honorable course to reclaim those self-same principles of freedom, it is incumbent on them to lay bare the injustices they have endured.
We hold with firm conviction that the individual is the supreme sovereign, that no just law can separate him from his life, liberty, and property without his consent, that when the express limits of government are usurped it is the right of the individual to disobey and to cast off each unjust and unlawful convention that violates his individual welfare and happiness. But when the custodians of our Constitution seek the edification of a despotic empire, it is our individual right, it is our individual duty, to nullify those decrees which violate our conscience.
The serenity of our citizenry in the face of such abuses is testament of the virtue of the American man, the self-same virtue that now compels him to refuse submission, conformity, and obedience to the illicit demands of tyranny.
We, The Resistance, recognize that the eternal disposition of the despot is to employ coercion, terrorism and violence in the subjugation of mankind. Each American citizen has endured violations designed to subjugate the individual under an evolving form of tyranny. It matters not which party rules; both require the sacrifice of subjects to the god of power.
The laws of nature compel us to accept that any unjust law, consistently applied as a boot to the throat of the sovereign, is unfit in the cannon of liberal jurisprudence and therefor null from the perspective of the individual. For too long, we as individuals have embraced the soft seductions of apathetic separation from our greatest of duties: the application of sovereignty. For too long we have accepted the role of the government of the noble oppressor. For too long we too have stood idly by in a state of willing ignorance.
As individuals we proclaim once again that every man is his own sovereign, to be judged according to his own obedience to principles of freedom, responsibility and tolerance, and that it is not the nature of man to be reformed by government, it is the nature of government to be reformed by man.
Every man is hereby absolved from the moral conflict restraining him from throwing off the shackles of unjust, immoral, and unconstitutional law. In so doing, the political connection between him and his nation is magnified and made living the furnace of disobedience. No longer will we live with blood stained souls in willing ignorance of the carnality that our sweat stained dollars have endorsed. We make our stand here. We make our stand now. We each proclaim, in no uncertain terms, that no more shall the downtrodden remain nameless. No more shall the government fain reason and eloquence, for it is brute force and our hearts are sounding, our minds are firm. We choose to disobey.
We join history’s historic objectors, that we too may find the courage of character to face the bludgeon, the gun, and the gavel; that we too may be remembered by our friends and our beloved families; that we too may be memorialized, not by the waves we made but by the principles we refused to abandon.
You are witnessing the rise of The Resistance. We are your neighbors, your students, your sons and daughters and our ranks are swelling. You see us and you know us not but for the smiles we carry, for we are at peace with our principles. In the days that come you will come to understand that we seek not for power but to pull it down. We employ no violence in our methods. We have no general, no organization, no weapons; but we are an army. Our members carry conviction in their hearts as they live by the motto: “I do not consent. I am The Resistance.”
Let Freedom Ring,
The Resistance
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The following is taken from an article in the Deseret News on Monday June 6, 2011.
High water from record winter snow and spring rains flooded out the annual Utah Lake State Park Festival, but didn’t put a damper on the Utah Summer Games Keelboat Regatta held Saturday, June 4 at Utah Lake State Park… Twelve teams competed in three classes based on each boat’s Portsmouth Yardstick Index. To account for the variety of keelboats, the Portsmouth ratings handicap the faster boats so those racing slower boats can compete… After four races, scores were tallied and the following medals awarded:
Portsmouth rating between 90–100 (intermediate class)
- Gold — Skipper Pat Sullivan and crewman Dave Pendell
- Silver —Skipper Darin Mangum and his crew of Elizabeth Jefferson, Branden Espinoza, Matt Pugh, and Brandon Barney
- Bronze — Skipper Roger Bliss and his crew of Richard Oman and Mike Munnerlyn
We had a really great time out on Utah Lake. We sailed in Darin Mangum’s Sailbun III, a Catalina 25 that he has owned for about four years. I love sailing with these guys. Brandon Barney could only stay for our first race. That’s why he isn’t in the pictures.
So, you’ve graduated, got a good job, have a partner you want to settle down with. Now you are thinking about buying your first home. Think again. A friend recently asked what I thought about buying a house right now. I figured I would share my response with all of you. My fiancée and I have talked about this a lot, and we have decided not to buy in the near future. This is why.
So for now, we need to increase our savings, increase our income, and be willing to compromise on our living standards.
That is why fiancée and I have decided to wait and save. However, that is just our risk management strategy. Yours may be different. In any case, learn everything you can about the economics of inflation and deflation before buying. I recommend reviewing articles at the Mises Institute. I can email some relevant commentary to any of you if you want. Cheers, and good luck with the decision.
If the definition of dictatorship is a form of government in which the ruler is not restricted by a constitution or laws or opposition, then I submit that we are there. Sure, the Constitution still extends some marginal protections to us as citizens. But isn’t that in and of itself a bastardization of the purpose of the Constitution? Was it not written to limit the powers of our leaders, regardless of who they hope to oppress? There is a doctrine, first proposed by the Bush administration now championed by Obama, that argues that the Constitution protects only the rights of US citizens and that non-citizens on foreign soil are not parties to that particular social contract. What a load of crap! The Constitution was not written to extend rights to the citizenry. It was written to restrain the tyrannical nature of leaders, especially would be kings, regardless if they want to project that tyranny at home or abroad.
President Obama has presided over a threefold increase in the number of detainees being held at the controversial military detention center at Bagram Air Base, the Afghan cousin of the notorious prison at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. It’s the latest piece of news that almost certainly would be getting more attention — especially from Democrats — if George W. Bush were still president.
There are currently more than 1,700 detainees at Bagram, up from over 600 at the end of the Bush administration.
The article goes on to state that the administration’s policies fall short of international law. To hell with that, it falls short of Constitutional Law. Obama now stands guilty, as far as I am concerned, of gross war crimes.
But this should come as no surprise. I remember finding myself in rare, shocking agreement with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow back in January. In a speech at the National Archives, in front of the Constitution, Obama declared that he was going to ramp up Bush’s precrime doctrine to levels unknown in American history. Well, with this news, I can declare that just as Hitler delivered on his promises in Mein Kampf, so has Obama delivered on his opressive and grossly tyrannical pronouncements. Watch him in his own words.
How is it that the law enforcer itself does not have to keep the law? How is it that the law permits the state to lawfully engage in actions which, if undertaken by individuals, would land them in jail?
These are among the most intriguing issues in political and economic philosophy. More specifically, the problem of law that itself violates law is an insurmountable conundrum of all statist philosophies.
The problem has never been discussed so profoundly and passionately as in this essay by Frederic Bastiat from 1850. The essay might have been written today. It applies in ever way to our own time, which is precisely why so many people credit this one essay for showing them the light of liberty.
Bastiat’s essay here is timeless because applies whenever and wherever the state assumes unto itself different rules and different laws from that by which it expects other people to live.
And so we have this legendary essay, written in a white heat against the leaders of 19th century France, the reading of which has shocked millions out of their toleration of despotism. This new edition from the Mises Institute revives a glorious translation that has been out of print for a hundred years, one that circulated in Britain in the generation that followed Bastiat’s death.
This newly available translation provides new insight into Bastiat’s argument. It is a more sophisticated, more subsantial, and more precise rendering than any in print.
The question that Bastiat deals with: how to tell when a law is unjust or when the law maker has become a source of law breaking? When the law becomes a means of plunder it has lost its character of genuine law. When the law enforcer is permitted to do with others’ lives and property what would be illegal if the citizens did them, the law becomes perverted.
Bastiat doesn’t avoid the difficult issues, such as why should we think that a democratic mandate can convert injustice to justice. He deals directly with the issue of the expanse of legislation:
It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our sentiments, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things. Law, because it has force for its necessary sanction, can only have the domain of force, which is justice.
More from Bastiat’s The Law:
Socialism, like the old policy from which it emanates, confounds Government and society. And so, every time we object to a thing being done by Government, it concludes that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of education by the State — then we are against education altogether. We object to a State religion — then we would have no religion at all. We object to an equality which is brought about by the State then we are against equality, etc., etc. They might as well accuse us of wishing men not to eat, because we object to the cultivation of corn by the State.
How is it that the strange idea of making the law produce what it does not contain — prosperity, in a positive sense, wealth, science, religion — should ever have gained ground in the political world? The modern politicians, particularly those of the Socialist school, found their different theories upon one common hypothesis; and surely a more strange, a more presumptuous notion, could never have entered a human brain.
They divide mankind into two parts. Men in general, except one, form the first; the politician himself forms the second, which is by far the most important.
Bastiat concludes his penetrating analysis with this:
The social organs are constituted so as to enable them to develop harmoniously in the grand air of liberty. Away, then, with quacks and organizers! Away with their rings, and their chains, and their hooks, and their pincers! Away with their artificial methods! Away with their social laboratories, their governmental whims, their centralization, their tariffs, their universities, their State religions, their inflationary or monopolizing banks, their limitations, their restrictions, their moralizations, and their equalization by taxation! And now, after having vainly inflicted upon the social body so many systems, let them end where they ought to have begun — reject all systems, and try of liberty — liberty, which is an act of faith in God and in His work.
*Review by Mises Institute
**Full Text PDF
The powerlust this guy has is sickening. The GOP cannot choose him and say that they are listening to the grassroots base.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney broke with many in his party on Friday when he said he believes humans have contributed to global warming.
“I believe the world is getting warmer, and I believe that humans have contributed to that,” said at a New Hampshire town hall meeting, according to Reuters… Romney reportedly said Friday that he believed the United States as well as foreign nations need to “reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases,” saying they “may be significant contributors” to climate change.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20068782-503544.html#ixzz1OG8syI3U
Even if we are contributing to global warming, federal intervention is not the solution. Get the government out of the game and let those who have been injured or suffered loss due to global warming (if there be any) bring suit against the guilty parties, and if there is enough evidence to find the accused guilty before a jury of his peers, then restitution will ensure a change in behavior.
THAT is how to save the environment. Anything more or less than that is simply a power game, and THAT is why Romney is willing to play… power… pure and simple.
Henry Hazlitt wrote this book following his stint at the New York Times as an editorialist. His hope was to reduce the whole teaching of economics to a few principles and explain them in ways that people would never forget. It worked. He relied on some stories by Bastiat and his own impeccable capacity for logical thinking and crystal-clear prose.
He was writing under the influence of Mises himself, of course, but he brought his own special gifts to the project. As just one example, this is the book that made the idea of the “broken window fallacy” so famous.
What thrills us in particular about this new edition is that it is beautiful, it is hardcover, and it is newly typeset for modern readers. It has a full index. It includes a wonderful foreword by Walter Block. It’s the right size, shape, and feel – perfect for making this book central to all educational efforts of the future.
This is the book to send to reporters, politicians, pastors, political activists, teachers, or anyone else who needs to know.
Professor Block explains that it was this book that turned him on to economics as a science. He believes that it is probably the most important economics book ever written in the sense that it offers the greatest hope to educating everyone about the meaning of the science.
Written for the non-academic, it has served as the major antidote to fallacies in the popular press, and has appeared in dozens of languages and printings. It’s still the quickest way to learn how to think like an economist. And this is why it has been used in the best classrooms more than sixty years.
Many writers have since attempted to beat this book as an introduction, but have never succeeded. Hazlitt’s book remains the best. Even if you own this book already, or have several past editions, you will want to have this book as your own as a wonderful testament to its place in the world of ideas.
Want to know what real hope feels like? Watch these videos.
What If?
Imagine
The High Tide
Can You Hear Us Now
A 2012 Revolution
In Defense of Liberty
A Ron Paul Tribute!
The Revolution Continues
A Game of Inches
History Starts Now
Constitution Revolution 2012
Ron Paul and Christ
Ooooo, my fiancée is going to be so angry. I like my burgers and steak cooked medium, but my Carolina Girl likes her burgers rare.
“And ma’am, how would you like that cooked?” Asks the server.
“Ehhh, just knock the horns off. That steak better twitch when I cut it.”
Of course, I’m being slightly tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly. Well, my angel from Raleigh, North Carolina isn’t going to be happy when she reads this:
Red meat currently stays plenty brown in North Carolina. The actual regulation dictates all ground beef gets cooked to an internal temperature of 155 degrees Fahrenheit. That means rare, medium rare and possibly even medium are off limits.
And the Nanny State, going beyond Cass Sunstein’s nudges, bulldozes its way into another corner of our life. Murray Rothbard always taught that no government is stronger than the market, so like we would expect, a whole new class of enemies of the state have arisen.
But patrons and restaurants have been against the watchdog-like stance of the state (of course, home cooking hasn’t been regulated yet). As with all things regulated, the rule even sparked a black market for rare burgers and secret codes for some restaurants willing to skirt the issue—as long as you aren’t a food inspector.
I normally don’t comment on little things like this and I realize that I run the risk of falling into the same category as Jeffery Tucker’s phosphate wars, but with the recent suppression in DC, I’m just feeling feisty regarding the heavy hand of government. But, with an active black market, I should be happy. I guess there is still a little rebel spirit left in North Carolina.
At what point do we admit that we live in a police state? When kids get slammed by cops at the feet of Thomas Jefferson… for dancing… silently. You know, I could understand if this happened in some monument dedicated to a tyrant, the Lincoln Memorial for example, but this happened at the feet of the man that stands as history’s greatest champion of Liberty. What would Tommy J have to say about this?
- But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, IT IS THEIR DUTY, to throw off such government and to provide new guards for their future security.
- I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
- It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.
- No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another; and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
Learn to recognize the 25 rules, they are EVERYWHERE in the media. Perhaps they are most evident in threads on blogs and Facebook. Be aware friends. Liberty has her enemies, it is on us to expose them, it is on us to protect her. From Twenty-Five Ways To Suppress Truth: The Rules of Disinformation (Includes The 8 Traits of A Disinformationalist) by H. Michael Sweeney.
- Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Regardless of what you know, don’t discuss it — especially if you are a public figure, news anchor, etc. If it’s not reported, it didn’t happen, and you never have to deal with the issues.
- Become incredulous and indignant. Avoid discussing key issues and instead focus on side issues which can be used show the topic as being critical of some otherwise sacrosanct group or theme. This is also known as the “How dare you!” gambit.
- Create rumor mongers. Avoid discussing issues by describing all charges, regardless of venue or evidence, as mere rumors and wild accusations. Other derogatory terms mutually exclusive of truth may work as well. This method works especially well with a silent press, because the only way the public can learn of the facts are through such “arguable rumors”. If you can associate the material with the Internet, use this fact to certify it a “wild rumor” which can have no basis in fact.
- Use a straw man. Find or create a seeming element of your opponent’s argument which you can easily knock down to make yourself look good and the opponent to look bad. Either make up an issue you may safely imply exists based on your interpretation of the opponent/opponent arguments/situation, or select the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Amplify their significance and destroy them in a way which appears to debunk all the charges, real and fabricated alike, while actually avoiding discussion of the real issues.
- Sidetrack opponents with name calling and ridicule. This is also known as the primary attack the messenger ploy, though other methods qualify as variants of that approach. Associate opponents with unpopular titles such as “kooks”, “right-wing”, “liberal”, “left-wing”, “terrorists”, “conspiracy buffs”, “radicals”, “militia”, “racists”, “religious fanatics”, “sexual deviates”, and so forth. This makes others shrink from support out of fear of gaining the same label, and you avoid dealing with issues.
- Hit and Run. In any public forum, make a brief attack of your opponent or the opponent position and then scamper off before an answer can be fielded, or simply ignore any answer. This works extremely well in Internet and letters-to-the-editor environments where a steady stream of new identities can be called upon without having to explain criticism reasoning — simply make an accusation or other attack, never discussing issues, and never answering any subsequent response, for that would dignify the opponent’s viewpoint.
- Question motives. Twist or amplify any fact which could so taken to imply that the opponent operates out of a hidden personal agenda or other bias. This avoids discussing issues and forces the accuser on the defensive.
- Invoke authority. Claim for yourself or associate yourself with authority and present your argument with enough “jargon” and “minutiae” to illustrate you are “one who knows”, and simply say it isn’t so without discussing issues or demonstrating concretely why or citing sources.
- Play Dumb. No matter what evidence or logical argument is offered, avoid discussing issues with denial they have any credibility, make any sense, provide any proof, contain or make a point, have logic, or support a conclusion. Mix well for maximum effect.
- Associate opponent charges with old news. A derivative of the straw man usually, in any large-scale matter of high visibility, someone will make charges early on which can be or were already easily dealt with. Where it can be foreseen, have your own side raise a straw man issue and have it dealt with early on as part of the initial contingency plans. Subsequent charges, regardless of validity or new ground uncovered, can usually them be associated with the original charge and dismissed as simply being a rehash without need to address current issues — so much the better where the opponent is or was involved with the original source.
- Establish and rely upon fall-back positions. Using a minor matter or element of the facts, take the “high road” and “confess” with candor that some innocent mistake, in hindsight, was made — but that opponents have seized on the opportunity to blow it all out of proportion and imply greater criminalities which, “just isn’t so.” Others can reinforce this on your behalf, later. Done properly, this can garner sympathy and respect for “coming clean” and “owning up” to your mistakes without addressing more serious issues.
- Enigmas have no solution. Drawing upon the overall umbrella of events surrounding the crime and the multitude of players and events, paint the entire affair as too complex to solve. This causes those otherwise following the matter to begin to loose interest more quickly without having to address the actual issues.
- Alice in Wonderland Logic. Avoid discussion of the issues by reasoning backwards with an apparent deductive logic in a way that forbears any actual material fact.
- Demand complete solutions. Avoid the issues by requiring opponents to solve the crime at hand completely, a ploy which works best for items qualifying for rule 10.
- Fit the facts to alternate conclusions. This requires creative thinking unless the crime was planned with contingency conclusions in place.
- Vanishing evidence and witnesses. If it does not exist, it is not fact, and you won’t have to address the issue.
- Change the subject. Usually in connection with one of the other ploys listed here, find a way to side-track the discussion with abrasive or controversial comments in hopes of turning attention to a new, more manageable topic. This works especially well with companions who can “argue” with you over the new topic and polarize the discussion arena in order to avoid discussing more key issues.
- Emotionalize, Antagonize, and Goad Opponents. If you can’t do anything else, chide and taunt your opponents and draw them into emotional responses which will tend to make them look foolish and overly motivated, and generally render their material somewhat less coherent. Not only will you avoid discussing the issues in the first instance, but even if their emotional response addresses the issue, you can further avoid the issues by then focusing on how “sensitive they are to criticism”.
- Ignore proof presented, demand impossible proofs. This is perhaps a variant of the “play dumb” rule. Regardless of what material may be presented by an opponent in public forums, claim the material irrelevant and demand proof that is impossible for the opponent to come by (it may exist, but not be at his disposal, or it may be something which is known to be safely destroyed or withheld, such as a murder weapon). In order to completely avoid discussing issues may require you to categorically deny and be critical of media or books as valid sources, deny that witnesses are acceptable, or even deny that statements made by government or other authorities have any meaning or relevance.
- False evidence. Whenever possible, introduce new facts or clues designed and manufactured to conflict with opponent presentations as useful tools to neutralize sensitive issues or impede resolution. This works best when the crime was designed with contingencies for the purpose, and the facts cannot be easily separated from the fabrications.
- Call a Grand Jury, Special Prosecutor, or other empowered investigative body. Subvert the (process) to your benefit and effectively neutralize all sensitive issues without open discussion. Once convened, the evidence and testimony are required to be secret when properly handled. For instance, if you own the prosecuting attorney, it can insure a Grand Jury hears no useful evidence and that the evidence is sealed an unavailable to subsequent investigators. Once a favorable verdict (usually, this technique is applied to find the guilty innocent, but it can also be used to obtain charges when seeking to frame a victim) is achieved, the matter can be considered officially closed.
- Manufacture a new truth. Create your own expert(s), group(s), author(s), leader(s) or influence existing ones willing to forge new ground via scientific, investigative, or social research or testimony which concludes favorably. In this way, if you must actually address issues, you can do so authoritatively.
- Create bigger distractions. If the above does not seem to be working to distract from sensitive issues, or to prevent unwanted media coverage of unstoppable events such as trials, create bigger news stories (or treat them as such) to distract the multitudes.
- Silence critics. If the above methods do not prevail, consider removing opponents from circulation by some definitive solution so that the need to address issues is removed entirely. This can be by their death, arrest and detention, blackmail or destruction of their character by release of blackmail information, or merely by proper intimidation with blackmail or other threats.
- Vanish. If you are a key holder of secrets or otherwise overly illuminated and you think the heat is getting too hot, to avoid the issues, vacate the kitchen.