Laigle’s Forum

by Don Hank

The Chinese Daoguang emperor in 1838 tried to oppose the British in their attempt to force opium on the Chinese people. One could say that, in doing so, the emperor was an anti-democratic despot, but he saw that the opium dens were destroying lives and families and turning productive Chinese into blobs of useless humanity — slaves to addiction.

One could also see the British as liberators, but they were anything but: they wanted to force the drug on the Chinese.

This story presents a dilemma for the libertarian because, while they can see the emperor as a despot who should have been overthrown, they can hardly see the British as bearers of the torch of liberty, since they were using force to drug another nation.

Incredibly, today, we have a similar situation. The libertarians have marshaled their forces and vast amounts of money to deceive unsuspecting people into accepting drugs.

The use of deceit is no less undemocratic and despotic than the use of other kinds of force. In fact libertarians decry the use of deceit by the media and major political parties, and they are right to do so. For example, there was a general perception in America after 9-11 that the Iraqis had attacked us. The press had not actually said that, but they implied it by focusing on WMDs and Saddam’s brutality. Libertarians and other thinking citizens cried foul. War based on deceit has left us with a mess in the Middle East.

Yet libertarians use the same deceitful tactics when pushing their pro-drug agenda.

As soon as Holland loosened up its drug laws, libertarians like Gov. Gary Johnson declared Holland to be a model for us all. Yet the truth was that many Dutch were dismayed at the aftermath of this great experiment. Their school kids started to drug themselves and the experiment got out of hand.

http://laiglesforum.com/the-young-pay-the-price-for-dutch-drug-experiment/23.htm

So much so that libertarian leaders backed away from the Dutch model and looked for another. They settled on Portugal, and the libertarian Cato Institute precipitously seized upon a dubious “study” by the Portuguese government that was published a few years into the experiment, claiming that all had worked out fine as planned and drug use was down. Gullible Cato jumped on this without a trace of critical analysis or further research and the world “learned” that drug legalization solves all our drug problems.

It was a lie, and if Cato had wanted to be honest with us, it would have listened to the Portuguese medical doctors who published a study of their own.

http://laiglesforum.com/decriminalization-of-drugs-in-portugal/2666.htm

When any group pretends to be for liberty, but deceives people in order to accomplish its goals, it is doing what the Left and the neocons have always done. Deceit is no substitute for the truth and none of our political parties are actually for freedom.

You, Fellow Citizen, are on your own.

Be careful out there!

Further on drugs:

http://laiglesforum.com/ye-shall-be-deceived-and-deceit-shall-make-ye-free/2969.htm

by Don Hank

A recent article by Bob Unruh in WND shows how states are fighting back against federal encroachment – in the case in question, by declaring themselves unwilling to comply with federal detention orders under NDAA. This quiet revolution is merely an extension of other local and state muscle flexing, such as the pushback in Arizona by the state legislature and by Sheriff Arpaio, and the tough anti-invasion law in Alabama.

But I think this could be just the beginning.

The federal government has created a network of vested interests to keep the states in line, all long after the writing of the Federalist Papers and the Constitution, designed to prevent federal abuses. The biggest club they have created is grants to states. Every state gets millions of your and my money, duly shrunken after passing through the sticky fingers of Congress. This money is nothing more than a bribe, a cheap trick to make states grovel and behave like good little slaves. It has worked well thus far. And the money club is not the only weapon in the federal arsenal in its war on the states and the citizens. Obama has shown that states who fail to fall in line behind the dictator in chief don’t get needed non-monetary aid either. Texas, always a renegade stand-alone state, recently watched as its forests were reduced to cinders for lack of much-needed federal help, which eventually arrived after it was rather late.

Arizona saw a lawsuit filed against it by the lawyer in chief, who even went crying to the UN to help subdue the big bad Brewer. And some of the lower southern states found that, after they had sullied Big Daddy Washington, the illegal alien criminals and hit-and-run perps it turned in to ICE were no longer being dealt with. Some came back and killed and raped. That was the states’ payback for not liking the jackboot.

But what if:

What if the states turned the tables on the feds?

I mean, where did this federal money and power come from in the first place?

Why the people of the various and sundry states who pay taxes.

Now, what if the good people of the abused states got together and made a law that prohibited state citizens from paying the entire amount of the federal taxes in those instances when the feds were playing these dirty games? What if they were enjoined to withhold a certain percentage or a set amount corresponding to an estimate of the losses incurred?

What if the states calculated the amount of money it would take to incarcerate lawbreakers who were allowed by the feds to sneak into their state and cause trouble? And what if the states explicitly deducted this amount from the amount their state citizens were bound to pay to the feds?

What if they made it illegal for citizens of that state to pay the federal tax amount that, according to the calculations of the state comptroller generals, was owed them by the feds for dereliction of duty?

Suppose they calculated that X number of illegal aliens had entered their state as a direct result of the federal government’s failure to station an adequate number of border guards and provide them with the necessary equipment and training, and further, as a partial result of their hamstringing them with unreasonable rules of engagement and jailing those who failed to comply with said unreasonable rules.

Suppose they calculated the amount of damage to the state of improperly providing federal aid to people who repeatedly built their homes in areas repeatedly stricken by natural disasters — and then billed the feds for this?

Suppose they calculated the probable number of Mexicans fleeing their homes and entering their state due to AG Holder’s dirty game of Fast and Furious and the amount of money and human life this probably cost in that state?

Suppose they collected this money by the same method, forbidding their citizens to pay this amount to the fed and funneling it to state coffers instead.

And suppose some of the non-border states used a percentage of this money saved to help border states beef up their border security and pay for the detention and return of illegal alien criminals.

And suppose they blew off any unconstitutional and arbitrary federal laws in their state affairs that “prohibited” them from returning illegal aliens on their own? Without the intermediary of ICE, for example. A series of contiguous states could set up a kind of reverse “Underground Railroad” to return criminal aliens to Mexico.

Now, certainly some will say this is carrying things a bit too far.

Oh really?

Did you know what Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says? Read it for yourself:

 … and [The United States] shall protect each of them [the States] against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence

The extent of the invasion of Mexican cartels is a well kept secret.

But there are numerous credible reports by people living in the border area showing that some areas are no longer safe for Americans to enter or live.

The Sonoran Desert National Monument in Arizona has areas that are closed off because the cartel has completely taken them over.

These situations fit anyone’s definition of an invasion. And the damage done by Latin gangs and drug dealers everywhere is certainly domestic violence, all traceable to a porous southern border, thanks to a negligent central government itching for a come-uppance.

The US Constitution is a contract between the States and Washington. In all of contract law, there is give and take. (Contracts with only “take” are deemed unlawful, as in the case of prenups). Each of the parties to the contract is both beneficiary and provider of rights. Whenever one party reneges on part of the contract, the counterparty who is hurt by this has a right to deny a corresponding part of its contribution to the bargain.

The states have not reneged in any way. They are a compliant partner. The US government, on the other hand, has completely reneged on parts of its contract — particularly its duty to protect the States against invasion but also with regard to undeclared — and hence unlawful — wars against countries that are not an enemy in any traditionally accepted respect, or the NDAA, which permits the federal government to detain Americans without charges or evidence. It must expect consequences, and if it won’t hold up its part of the agreement, then at least part of the agreement intended to benefit it is null and void by law.

There are 2 main things keeping the States as a counterparty from declaring part of the bargain null and void despite flagrant federal breach of contract:

1—Lack of knowledge of the law and how it applies to the parties.

2—Lack of will.

It is only a matter of time before all the states affected by the Federal government’s failure to perform its duty will understand that they are on the right side of the law and the fed is clearly in non-performance of its contract.

And in our economic crisis, as states find themselves increasingly strapped for cash, laying off employees, halting public works and closing down offices, they will eventually reach a point of desperation when a strategy such as I have outlined above will appear, if not attractive, then at least inevitable.

[This is adapted from a much longer essay by Laigle's contributor Anthony Horvath, which can be read here. Anthony is a pro-life speaker and the president of Wisconsin Lutherans for Life.]

Former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson has set the pro-life blogosphere on fire with her posting of the ‘Jaffe Memo,’ a memorandum written by Frederick S. Jaffe, former vice-president of Planned Parenthood.  Jaffe apparently was in charge of PP’s population control agenda.  The memo was written in 1969.

The memo appears to be legit but I haven’t been able to find its original source.  Read it.

This memo has all sorts of blood chilling suggestions- blood chilling if the culture of death does not run through your veins, that is.  Ideas on controlling world population include:

• Fertility control agents in the water supply
• Encourage women to work
• Require women to work and provide few child care facilities
• Compulsory abortion of out-of-wedlock pregnancies
• Compulsory sterilization of all who have two children- except for a few who would be allowed three
• Discouragement of private home ownership
• Allow certain contraceptives to be distributed non-medically
• Make contraception truly available to all

Some of my more predictable readers will go through that list and their eyes will simply glaze over for most of it.  With their eyes in a fog as they instinctively declare the above as merely an instance of “Godwin’s Law” but their blood started boiling when they saw on the list “Encourage women to work.”

Dear God, who could be against that? And who could be against making contraception available to everyone?  Clearly, this blogger is a bigot.

I included that item in order to make a very important point. Read the rest of this entry »

If you are censored and told what you may or may not say, it probably will not be the result of government action. The government still has First Amendment considerations to contend with, making censorship politically difficult.

If the government decides to censor you, it will leave the dirty work of doing so to an NGE.

What is an NGE, you ask?

NGE stands for Non-Governmental Enforcer. NGEs are generally large corporations, which operate in league with corrupt government and receive generous public funding in return, including bailouts when such are needed. I introduced this term recently when my brother in Christ Julio Severo had his PayPal account closed on the grounds that his was a “hate group.” Brother Julio believes that homosexuality is a sin because the Bible says as much in several key verses.

Thus, it is the Bible that ultimately is being censored, and no matter how you feel about this issue, the fact is, this nation, founded in large part by people seeking religious freedom, is inexorably accepting the premise that sexual freedom must take precedence over freedom of creed — freedom of religion.

That is not the only issue into which have stepped NGEs to muzzle dissenters.

The BNP (British National Party) has had its bank account closed by Barclays because they supposedly are anti-Muslim and some low-ranking members have allegedly uttered violent words. (Note that when the Left — for example, the Occupy Wall Street movement — utter violent words, they are ignored or encouraged).

Thus far, the West has succeeded in circumventing the quaint notion of free speech in the areas of homosexuality and Islam.

But if you think it will stop there, you are hopelessly naïve.

Christianity is based on bedrock principles enunciated by Jesus Christ, who said, for example: I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but through me.

Clearly the doctrine represented by this verse excludes all other religions and is offensive to some. That is not at odds with the teachings of Christ, who came “to bring a sword” (that is, not to kill but to divide believers from non-believers).

The idea that all speech must be inoffensive will ultimately lead to the banning of this verse and the censoring of those who dare to utter it in public. Parents may also be banned from teaching it to their children.

It matters not that this is perhaps the key to the Christian faith. The elites see Christianity as an obstacle to their plans.

The West has crossed a line as a result of negligence, and now, unless the people who ignored the issue start to wake up to what is happening, we can only await the end of faith — and hence an end to any protest against government abuse and corruption. The government can now starve you with impunity and without resistance.

The line we crossed could be called the Niemöller line of non-protest. People did not protest the outrage that was perpetrated against Julio Severo because they weren’t Christians and they think — erroneously — that he has somehow victimized homosexuals. They did not protest the outrage against the BNP because they were not members of the BNP and they believed the lie that Muslims are inherently victims of Christians.

Westerners are like a herd of wild animals attacked by a lion. A herd of kudo antelopes could hold off a lion attack. But they are content just to escape individually, while their fellows are killed.

Let’s stop being herded by the elites. It’s undignified and potentially deadly to behave this way. We can stop them if we stick together and all say no in unison, before protesting is forever banned.

We can and must say no, insisting on our God-given right to free expression. Our very survival depends not on the flight instinct but on the fight instinct.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1467204/Barclays-to-close-five-BNP-accounts.html

Are corporations torch bearers of the free market?

Not even close – despite what the “conservative” media and politicians are telling you

Don Hank

There is a certain resistance among the public to admit that it is not you and I but the corporations and their lawyers, partnering with the Federal Reserve, that run America. Many conservatives hate to hear anyone “malign” corporations because to them, corporations, including banks, bear the torch of sacred capitalism. The GOP bosses are content with this situation.

On the other hand, since most big corporations donate mostly to the Democrat party, Democrats — especially those in the media and politics – are also loathe to broach the subject of corporate control over government.

Besides, the same corporations lobbying for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens are also helping build Democrat power. Everyone knows how Latinos tend to vote.

And when it comes to “green” boondoggles, all the fat cats want in on them. They will of course mean a net loss of jobs and enormous subsidies for the most inefficient technologies known to mankind, but “green” subsidies flow freely from government coffers, as anyone following the Solyndra story knows.

Now, many of these corporate lobbyists are pushing very hard for open borders. They donated big bucks to pliable candidates and expect some bang, like more illegal alien labor, for example, and better legal conditions for sending your job overseas. Big corporations and Big Politics want precisely what you dread.

So what about us little people down here?

I wonder what people would say if they knew that the power of their vote is negligible compared to the pressures brought to bear by Big Business lobbies, which effectively dictate policy to your elected officials. I wonder how many have ever figured out that it was your senator’s and congressmen’s utter subservience to corporate lobbyists that made them vote for the TARP bailouts even after receiving phone calls begging them not to vote for it at the rate of 300 calls against the bailouts per 1 call in favor.

I wonder what will happen once the cat is out of the bag.

Maybe We the People will assume our rightful place in this great nation again.

Maybe.

But not unless we put our thinking caps on and realize what is really happening. Try asking yourself honestly: would corporations spend billions of dollars lobbying if they weren’t getting a financial “kickback” in some form or other? And are these kickbacks free or do they cost you money? 

It’s not that long between now and election time. Will your candidate discuss this with you in town meetings or will he mutter something snide, look around and say “next question”? If he isn’t leveling with you on the economy, fire him. You’re his boss and can’t afford another sluggard on your staff.

Where does your presidential candidate stand? I don’t recall the Fox moderators asking about the power of the corporate lobbies. And yet, business as usual in Washington brought down the world economy and cost millions of American jobs.

It’s time to wake up and make the economy and your job the front-burner issue this time around.

DEMAND:

CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OF THE MONEY (NO MORE FEDERAL RESERVE)

STRICT CONTROLS ON LOBBYING, ESP CORPORATE LOBBYING

Now recall that the mainstream “conservative” media keep reminding you that the Occupy people are all a bunch of Marxists. So what about Alex Jones and Ron Paul’s followers? They aren’t Marxists and they have attended the Occupy rallies in significant numbers all over the country, teaching independents about the issues, making converts. So have people like Steph Jasky and Karl Denninger, who played a key role in founding the Tea Party, as well as a ton of other top-notch people. All while you stayed home, paralyzed with fear by what you read in the “conservative” press and blogosphere about being tainted by the lefties supposedly in charge. Like that photo of a young anarchist backed up against a police car, pants at half-mast, in an act of defiant defecation. Think anyone follows him? All in all, whatever Marxists may be participating in the rallies out in the cities and towns across the country are clueless non-contenders and will have almost no power in this movement if we play our cards right for a change. As I have said before, the movement is ours for the taking. Why do you think the Republican leaders and their minions in Big Talk Radio are all bad mouthing the movement?

Clue: Many of these people on the street are on to the lobbying games that the corporations – as well as the Fed — are playing, and threaten to spoil things for Big Politics by returning the power to you.

That is the main factor in all the negative press on the right. So why do leftwing politicians high five these young protesters? That’s easy. So far, they’ve been smarter than us. They know they can control the movement and its narrative if they act like they are behind it all. But they’re bluffing.  Yes, ACORN, Soros, Van Jones and other shadowy types with Obama links have in fact dreamed up schemes like this and undoubtedly had a hand in it, just as they no doubt had a hand in the Egyptian riots. But this isn’t Egypt now. It’s our turf, and no one can control it unless we let them. So far, the Left is spinning its wheels as its power slips away. Protesters interviewed on camera, for example, have ripped Obama mercilessly for his failures. The End the Fed movement is all over these rallies and for whatever faults they may have, they are vehemently anti-Obama and pro free market.

So if people like you can start thinking – and acting – outside the box, the whole football can be stripped from the hands of the corporatist elites and, with God’s grace, you can have your country back.

Sure, it will be hard work. And the propaganda aimed at making you think you are in bad company among the protesters will be non-stop. That’s a given.

Some of my Christian brethren are saying that to join the protests would mean being unequally yoked.

But consider this: If a bunch of atheists lobbied to make churches accountable for the actions of pedophile church workers, you wouldn’t side with the pedophiles, would you?

Voting against the pedophiles would not make you an atheist and it would not make you look like one. It would be doing God’s work because pedophiles not only harmd children, they are a stumbling block to the unsaved and give the churches a bad name. Let’s be real: For every candidate you have ever voted for, some unsavory characters also voted for him. So what?

Don’t be afraid to join forces with new people who are starting to get it and are just as mad as you, but maybe don’t have as clear a grasp of the issues. You may be the person who reaches a wishy-washy fence rider.

After all, I can’t think of a single election cycle when people on both sides of the political spectrum have been so mad for the same reasons – irrespective of their ideologies.

What a gorgeous opportunity!

If you let the political elites who stole your country steal the election this time around, don’t blame it on me.

Some statistics to consider:

http://allthingsd.com/20101223/what-tech-companies-are-spending-in-washington/

Verizon spent $3.83 million lobbying on several issues, including taxes and texting while driving, at numerous branches of the federal government, including the White House, Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission. It spent $2.96 million in the same period a year ago.

AT&T spent $3.47 million, up from $3.18 million a year ago. Its agenda items included legislation on calling cards, broadband buildouts and distracted driving.

Hewlett-Packard spent $1.6 million–nearly double the $970,000 it spent in the third quarter of last year–chatting with members of Congress and officials at the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department about taxes, immigration and how government agencies use technology in the areas of health care and law enforcement.

Microsoft spent $1.63 million, an increase from $1.49 million a year ago. It visited Congress, the Pentagon and the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security to talk about computer security, how the government buys software and the competitive state of online advertising. It also lobbied the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality.

Oracle spent $1.6 million, up from $1.3 million, lobbying Congress, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security on patent litigation and the government’s technology spending plans.

Google spent $1.2 million in the third quarter (which TechCrunch noted in October following a press release by Consumer Watchdog), an increase from $1.08 million in the same period a year ago.

IBM spent $1 million, up from $850,000 a year ago, talking about transportation, the power grid, funding for research and the military, on visits to Congress and the Departments of Transportation, Defense, and Health and Human Services.

Intel spent $830,000, which is notable because the amount decreased from $1.1 million a year ago. Intel was the target of both a private antitrust lawsuit from rival Advanced Micro Devices and a government antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, both of which were intensifying in the fall. Both cases have since been settled. Its efforts were in immigration, government research funding and issues related to trademarks and education.

Yahoo spent $540,000, up from $510,000 a year ago.

Apple, easily the most influential company in consumer technology today, spent relatively little on lobbying efforts: Only $340,000 [BUT they had Al Gore on their board of directors. How cozy. 90% of their political donations went to the Democrats. Did you know that Steve Jobs “invented” mostly cosmetic changes in devices? Can you name an inventor who actually devised the really high-tech stuff like the iPod itself or the Apple computer and monitor electronics? Didn’t think so. They didn’t have dinner with Al Gore—Don Hank].

Facebook spent $120,000.

For a little more on what companies spend on lobbying efforts in Washington, it’s always enlightening to peruse the database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks not only lobbying expenditures but campaign contributions.

As you can see, the CRP shows that, among computer and Internet companies, Microsoft was the leading lobbying spender for the first nine months of the year. The wireless industry’s trade association, the CTIA, led the pack in the telephone equipment and services category, spending more than $6 million. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T each spent more than $12 million.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146643/hightower:_washington_overrun_by_11,000_corporate_lobbyists_and_$500_million_in_corrupting_donations

• 11,195. That’s the number of corporate lobbyists who are presently plying their nefarious trade day and night in Washington’s hallways and back rooms.
• $2.95 billion. That’s the amount that corporations spent on lobbyists last year alone (a sum more than six times greater than the total spent by all consumer,environmental, worker, and other non-corporate groups combined).
• $473 million. That’s the sum of money that corporate executives and lobbyists have slipped into Washington’s many political pockets–so far–for the 2010 election cycle, including donations to candidates, leadership PACS, and party committees. We are still seven months from the 2010 elections, and already corporate spending has reached the record-breaking total of $475 million shelled out for the entire 2008 cycle.