God And Freedom.

Opinionated Catholic points to an excellent discussion on 'Can One Be A Libertarian and Christian?'

I say yes, for the reason given in the comments in this linked post (comment with respect to the First Amendment):

(1) Truth exists. The pursuit of truth is important, even fundamental.
(2) Man is fallen.
(3) Governments are made up of men. Therefore, governments are fallen. And governments are particularly susceptible to error because of the corrupting influence of power.
(4) If government, which holds coercive and censorial power, is allowed to regulate the search for truth (ie, speech), it will do so in a corrupt manner.
(5) Thus, to best preserve the search for truth in a fallen world, government's ability to regulate speech must be very limited.

I think that logic can be extrapolated with respect to all most all government.

Peace Activists, My Foot.

See this video, which backs up Israeli claims that the pro-Hamas "peace activists" were anything but. Note they beat one of the the commandos with pipes and clubs and threw him overboard. You can see one of the "peace activists" holding one of the Israeli's non-lethal paintball guns, and another right after brandishing a pistol (which the Israeli's say was taken from the beaten commando).

Via Maggie's Farm, there is much more at Bookwoorm Room - including video if a "peace activist" stabbing an Israeli soldier in the back.

Of course, given the blind eye most of the West (and our current administration) turns toward Islamic supremacism and anti-Semitism, Israel will be seen as the villain here, and the people who provoked the situation as the victims.

Which would you rather have running the Holy Land, dear readers - a secular, democratic Israel that tries to defend itself while trying to respect human rights and the rule of law, or an Islamist theocracy that sees Christians as barely human (or worse, if you are Jewish, or Hindu, or atheist, or gay), and considers dragging people out of bed and shooting them in the back if the head as due process and rule of law? You decide.

Side Note: How long it will take The Episcopal Church (tm) - who claimed it had to wait years for their "polity" to issue a statement regarding requests made to it by the Archbishop of Canterbury - to issue a statement denouncing Israel?

Transforming The Fourth Estate...

...Into The Fourth Plantation. That's what Team Hopenchange's Federal Trade Commission is actually considering in this working paper.

Not all that many years ago, a small gang of editors and reporters in the dead tree and legacy media, sitting in offices in New York, Washington and Los Angeles, could control the national news cycle and what was distributed as news in this country. Though they claimed uber-objectivity, they decided what was covered (important for you to know), what wasn't covered (wasn't important for you to know), and how it was covered (spun to you). Getting alternative news and information into the mass media without their approval was nigh impossible.

But their monopoly on information ended in 1998, when they sat on the Monica Lewinsky story and a blogger - Matt Drudge - let it out. Not only did it become news, it became news without the approval of those toady editors and reporters. The Age of Internet Information arrived, and those editors and reporters lost not only control over the content of the news, they lost credibility ([cough]Dan Rather[cough] -ed.) and - most importantly for this discussion - readers and revenue.

As you and me voted with our remotes and laptops as to where we got our information, the dead tree and legacy media are have been dying - unable to adapt to the digitized information market (that is, the Internet) and it's highly open and democratic nature (that is, folks like me).

But instead of embracing the change and encouraging trade, it appears Obama's Federal Trade Commission wants to fight change and restrict trade, by using government power and your tax dollars to keep the dead tree and legacy media - who slavishly supported Obama - alive. In other words, since you and I are not buying what the dead tree and legacy media are selling anymore, the government will take your money - what they think you should be spending on the dead tree and legacy media - and give it to such non-partisan sources folks like The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS News, etc., etc., to keep them afloat. How many Obama scandals will The Los Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle investigate once their funding source is, well, the Obama administration? Not many.

Here are some things actually under discussion by Obama's Federal Trade Commission. Yes, here in the USA:

Limit news facts, as opposed to an author's articulation of them, to government-approved "stakeholders" via a "hot news doctrine".

Modify the Copyright Laws to restrict or eliminate "fair use", and adopt a licensing of news, with "government’s help and support".

Allow government anti-trust exemptions for dead tree and legacy media outlets.

Create a government-funded journalistic branch of AmeriCorps (We can call it 'PravdaCorps'. - ed.)

Substantially increase funding for Public Broadcasting. (What with the proven success of cable TV, talk radio, and XM/Sirrus, shouldn't we be eliminating Public Broadcasting?? We got a deficit here, people. -ed.)

Create a whole series of taxes and fees for local news, employing journalists, and 'Citizenship News Vouchers' to non-profits, via broadcast taxes, consumer electronics taxes, spectrum taxes, advertising taxes, and (another!) cell-phone tax.

Encourage news organizations to reorganize as non-profits, who will pay no tax.

As a quick history lesson to my Team Hopenchange Reader(s), let me present something us limited-government types call the First Amendment to the Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Making the press a government-funded - and therefore, government-controlled - entity pretty much abridges that Right right out of existence.

And remember, dear readers, on this Memorial Day the price paid for that Right.

Ride Easy, Dennis.

Dennis Hopper, ever the rebel, has died. Roger L. Simon has more.

No Plug.

Damn. Just, damn.

Krug..Er..Rand?

David Frum looks at Rand Paul, and along the way makes a great argument as to why both Paul's (Rand and his father, Ron) obsession with the "gold standard" and ending the Fed will have exactly the opposite effect they want:

Ron Paul’s big idea is to end the Federal Reserve’s discretionary authority over the U.S. money supply, just as Greece, by joining the European Union, ended the discretionary authority of the central bank of Greece. Paul calls his idea a gold standard, but its economic effect would be exactly the same as that of the euro upon Greece: The local central bank would lose the power to create money, which would be created elsewhere—by the European Central Bank in the case of Greece, by the gold miners of Russia, South Africa, Australia, and Canada in the case of Ron Paul’s United States.

The benefit of such a system is that it prevents the local monetary authorities from deliberately fomenting inflation. The detriment is that it prevents the local monetary authorities from mitigating recessions and depressions. That’s why the U.S. abandoned gold in 1933–34, and why Greece is desperately looking for aid from its European partners today. Most people in most places have decided that the detriments of externally fixed currencies exceed the benefits.

Do we really want the value of the dollar set by the whims of a market (precious metals) that we have no control over and is rife with speculation (see Hunt brothers...), especially when so much of that commodity rests in the hands those hostile to us (Russia, South Africa), and unreliable allies (Canada) - who can control the value of that commodity.

Cry Me An Oil Slick.

The man who wants to be Obama's new lapdog the next US Senator from Louisiana can't keep control. What is it with Louisiana Democrat leaders breaking down when the going gets tough??

New Blog de Jour.

My friends at Pelican Institute run a great Louisiana/politics blog, The Pelican Post, which I haven't linked to in quite a while.
(Bad blogger! SMACK! -ed.)
It is now RSR's 'Blog de Jour' so check it out!

'Readin, 'Ritin, Really Bad 'Rithmatic.

A New Jersey teacher gets caught using the Left's 'New Math': 'Union Math'. Its all the rage with Washington elites, you know.

Here's Mud In Your Well.

Via The Hayride, it looks like 'top kill' worked, - and the flow of oil into the Gulf from BP's well has stopped. It's all mud now. Here is a link to the live feed from the wellhead.

A Grim Milestone.

Holy Sheep Dip! I've been rather busy with work, and I forgot that this here blog thingy celebrated it's third blog anniversary on 23 May. They tell me the third anniversary is the 'readers donate wads of cash' anniversary. But, I think that is also true for the second anniversary, and the fourth, and the fifth, and the sixth...

I hope y'all enjoy what I put up here, and will keep coming back.

Your ObamaCare Furture.

I've said it before - if you want to see what your health care will look like when politicians control it, and not you, then look no further than Massachusetts. And remember, this was supported and enacted by Republican Mitt Romney. Keep that in mind on the road to 2012.

The New Kathy Lee Gifford.

Steve Jobs? Say it ain't so. Will all those labor-sensitive Lefties be dumping their iPods, iPhones and iPads, and boycotting Apple? iDon't think so.

A Presidential Happy Meal.

The transformative man of the people says let 'em eat braised Kobe beef short ribs with potato puree and a salsa verde-topped spring vegetable ragout. That is, of course, after a quail egg with caviar and salmon ceviche with jicama and avocado on a tortilla chip appetizer.

It's good to be the king.

Hattip: Jackie.

Today's Required Reading.

What? Walter Russell Mead, of course: The Top Ten Lessons of the Global Economic Meltdown.

Tipping Point?

If you're a Democrat and you've lost Jimmy Carville...



Sitting here in Baton Rouge I understand Jimmy's frustration, though I don't agree with his solution - more Federal regulation.

Yes, It Is.

To quote a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer:

"Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues".

Amen to that.

Hattip: Theo Spark.

UPDATE: On a related note, this op-ed from Sunday hits the nail on the head:

America faces a new culture war.

This is not the culture war of the 1990s. It is not a fight over guns, gays or abortion. Those old battles have been eclipsed by a new struggle between two competing visions of the country's future. In one, America will continue to be an exceptional nation organized around the principles of free enterprise -- limited government, a reliance on entrepreneurship and rewards determined by market forces. In the other, America will move toward European-style statism grounded in expanding bureaucracies, a managed economy and large-scale income redistribution. These visions are not reconcilable. We must choose.

Indeed. We must choose what kind of united people we will be - a nation of free citizens, or managed consumers.

Your Judicial Review Question Of The Week.

You mean, they weren't asking this before?? When looking at constitutionality, who is it that violates the Constitution?

Click on "One-Click Download" when you get there and, as they say, read it all.

Hattip: Volokh Conspiracy.

Looks Like Obama's Stimulus Has Finally Kicked In.

Now we know what Team Hopenchange meant by "transformative" change:

Paychecks from private business shrank to their smallest share of personal income in U.S. history during the first quarter of this year, a USA TODAY analysis of government data finds.

At the same time, government-provided benefits — from Social Security, unemployment insurance, food stamps and other programs — rose to a record high during the first three months of 2010. (emphasis mine)

Well, it does fit with their playbook.

No Sense Of Decency, Classic Definition Of.

Every time you think The Left/Mainstream Media can't go any lower, they go and prove you wrong. Years ago, this kind of thing would have been an unethical invasion of privacy - the realm of obsessive stalkers and slimy paparazzi. But Palin's a Republican; so anything goes in order to prove the The Left/Mainstream Media narrative.

It's going to be a tough for 'ol Joe, though, moving from Massachusetts to Wasilla - there's only one Starbucks in town. Oh, the horror!