If you supported (or attended) the protests in Madison over collective bargaining, you were exercising your freedom of speech. If you protested the protestors in Madison, you too were exercising your freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is, in fact, what I would consider an inviolable, sacrosanct, principle of American-style democracy and fully reflects the brilliant enlightenment ideology of our founders and the founding documents they penned. It doesn’t mean you are endowed with some un-sourced, uncaused, supernaturally or socially granted right to say what you want, wherever, and whenever. Freedom of speech is fundamentally premised upon the recognition and due respect for the property upon which one speaks – it is a reflection and outgrowth of the fundamental of individual rights.

When you have permission from those who have ownership of said property to speak, you are enjoying the freedom of speech, properly understood. If you do not have their permission, and speak anyway, you are wrongfully trespassing and violating their pre-emptive right to hold and enjoy property privately. This means the land upon which you are holding your sign, or speaking into your megaphone; the building in which you rise to deliver your message; the radio station or television studio in which you are crafting your words and images; or, indeed, the very web page upon which you are posting your thoughts (video, writing, audio message). Since we the people have granted to government the unique use of physical force in our society, they have a profound role to uphold the individual rights of property owners who invite-or give permission to-people to speak. We have the right to speak our minds provided we do not violate the actual rights of others in the process – my individual rights end where yours begin. Were you or I invited onto private property to speak and demonstrate, and the police (or anyone) used force to unilaterally silence such speech THAT would be a violation of your freedom to speak and the property rights of the landowner. Alternatively, if you run into a lecture hall where an invited speaker is presenting views you are opposed to, and begin to shout, interrupting the speaker, it is YOU who are violating the speaker’s (and the venue owner’s) freedom of speech – you are NOT legitimately exercising your own freedom, but rather preventing someone else from it.

If you were one of the impassioned protestors in Madison who showed up on the steps of the capital, on either side of the debate, you were exercising this protected right and the principles behind it. You were not hauled off to jail as a consequence of protesting against Governor Walker because the land upon which you demonstrated is owned, theoretically, by no one in particular, and everyone simultaneously, i.e. public property. If we lived in a dictatorship, Governor Walker could have simply ordered the Capital Police to seize your signs, and toss you in jail. Protesting on public lands is, in fact, a unique case in an otherwise general freedom of speech. It is the government’s agents responsibility to ensure that your right to speak is protected, and not violated – whether it be on public lands (while abiding the reasonable access rules needed), or, especially, on private property. The worst case of all is where the government presumes ownership of all property and simply uses its unique access to physical force to censor you from speaking out merely because the message you want to deliver is either antagonistic to, or otherwise inconsistent with, official government policy. Tied for first worst, you are hauled off, or censored, because someone standing next to you, who you don’t know or perhaps don’t even agree with, held up a sign or played some audio that the government didn’t appreciate, or violated someone’s intellectual property rights, and therefore you were summarily denied the right to speak (or even remain on the premises because the government could condemn the property forthwith) by use of the force of government – all without any due process. That is what happens in a dictatorship, or any overtly tyrannical, or theocratic/religious, state.

Which brings me to SOPA (and PIPA) –ill-conceived legislation supported by the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), and others who claim (correctly) that piracy of protected material is a problem on the internet. The stated intention of this expansion of the Federal Government’s power over the internet is ostensibly to protect intellectual property, such as music, video content, and literature. While protecting the individual rights of intellectual property owners IS a legitimate function of government, it cannot be the case that such protection simultaneously tramples the rights of other’s free speech in the process. But that is exactly what this legislation would do. The legislation’s fundamental premise is that the internet is actually the property of the United States Government, and as such those who happen to be in power today can unilaterally use force to restrict your and my ability to exercise our freedom of speech, properly understood. The proponents of SOPA view the internet as being owned by the United States Government, and therefore subject not just to protection of intellectual property, but to the overt use of force to shut down entire websites and internet communities without the application of the rule of law. This is wrong, it is a violation of property rights, and in fact a violation of the individual rights of website owners and other content producers.

As stated on Wikipedia’s site “The originally proposed bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who makes the request, the court order could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a crime, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison for ten such infringements within six months. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.[4]”

This is analogous to all the protestors against Governor Walker who were on the grounds of the capital in Madison being hauled off, en-masse, because a single protestor on the other side of the block held up a sign that violated the copyright of some third party. If you or I violate a copyright in our activity on the internet, if someone pirates intellectual property, that is a problem and piracy laws are already in force. But trampling the rights of otherwise innocent website owners and their law abiding site visitors is not the solution – but that is exactly what SOPA would do.

I rarely agree with Hillary Clinton, but I do agree with her when she said: “When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us.. There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There’s just the Internet.”

Today Wikipedia, and numerous other sites, are offline to protest this proposed legislation. I stand in full support of Wiki in this matter. Oppose SOPA! If such laws are allowed to pass in America, then we deserve the noose because we have given the government the rope and the authority to tie the knot.

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Share It.

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In traditional Western medical ethics, a doctor’s fundamental responsibility is to practice to the best of his ability for his patient’s benefit. But lately, doctors are being taught a radical new collectivist medical ethics where the “social good” trumps the individual patient’s welfare.

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The most amazing thing about the results was that media picked front runners Rick Perry and Mitt Romney received not one vote. Though the sample size was obviously small, this should ring alarm bells with the Republican establishment. Potential candidates receiving nods of approval from various individuals included Rick Santorum (war-hawk and despised by Libertarians), Chris Christie ( not a favorite of social conservatives), Marco Rubio ( does he qualify), and Ron Paul ( hated by the imperialists).

The best line of the night came when electability was mentioned as a criterion for a candidate. One of the evening’s participants then reminded the group that John McCain was not electable either and he still got the nomination.

From my standpoint, last night was a warning shot to the Republicans.

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Had a Libertarian moment this morning, and enjoyed Tucker’s piece. While philosophically Libertarianism is a boat without a sail or rudder, the gang over at the so-called von Mises institute do put out some interesting stuff..

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See Randy’s Rubbish

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•Irving Fisher, leading Yale economist:, just days before crash: “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau. … I expect to see the stock market a good deal higher within a few months.” (Oct. 17,

Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon: “I see nothing in the present situation that is either menacing or warrants pessimism … there will be a revival of activity in the spring … during this coming year the country will make steady progress.” (Dec. 31, 1929

•President Herbert Hoover: “The depression is over.” (June 1930)

In 2008 we had the following quotes:

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson: Tells Fortune magazine, “this is far and away the strongest global economy I’ve seen in my business lifetime.”

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke: “I don’t anticipate any serious failures among large internationally active banks.”

•Congressman Barney Frank: “Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are fundamentally sound.”

February 2009

President Barack Obama pressed Congress Monday night to urgently approve a massive economic recovery bill, using the first prime-time news conference of his presidency to warn that a failure to act “could turn a crisis into a catastrophe.”

April 2011

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said Tuesday there is “no risk” the U.S. will lose its top credit rating amid a new analysis that revised its outlook on American debt to “negative.”

If you believe those in government, then you deserve the calamity they cause. Journalists have been played for ignorant fools. We would be better off if no one recorded a word uttered by a politician, bureaucrat, or even a superintendent of government schools.

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As you can see, the lunatics on the left were in full regalia today down at Lakefront Park.  Complete with the noisemakers and blowhorns, they did their level best to keep people from exercising their right to free speech.  Heaven forbid that someone from the Tea Party would want to espouse something as radical as reducing government spending….  What a bunch of LOSERS! 

GO SHEILA!

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See Column

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“It is simply a fact that capitalism, even hampered by the state, has dragged most of the world out of the pitiful poverty that characterized all of human existence for millennia.”

I just hope that it isn’t too late.

Read Why Capitalism Is Worth Defending

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The reason of course is that today marks the fifth day of the Minnesota government shutdown. It was frightening to travel on I-94 without the government signs telling me how many minutes until I arrive at my destination. But I managed to take a few deep breaths and traverse the interstate without the aid of government.

Furthermore, the prospect of making transactions absent of a government bureacrat protecting me from an unscrupulous vendor was admittedly a little scary. I did manage to exchange money for product several times with no problems at all, except I did have to remind the lunch spot to put a little extra chicken on my salad. I thought without the government’s help, the vendor may become hostile over my request. He actually thanked me for my business and I in turn thanked him for the food.

I wonder if not having to fight traffic jams and city hall made people a little more happy today. I know it made me feel better. Can you imagine how much happier people will be in a month when they discover that we do not need government non-worker, workers afterall.

Another benefit of the non-worker, workers staying home is the fuel I save by sitting in a traffic jam full of non-worker, workers. That is an energy policy I can support.

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This article is a very succinct and extremely well-stated argument by Onkar Ghate. And it would surprise no one who chimes in here that it is utterly consistent with my world-view. As a disclaimer, I have met Onkar. He is a very bright fellow, polite, and very mannered.. He is precise in his language and is delicately measured in his unwavering advocacy for individual rights..

The simple answer to his rhetorical question at the end of the article is simple: Yes!

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The other portion of the electorate not classified as thieves are too stupid to form any logical thought processes. This is the true legacy of government run education from kindergarten through college. The inability to think passes from teacher to student.

We are done!

Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can’t. I am going on record as saying that President Barak Obama will win a second term.

The media won’t tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama’s case billions) of dollars to them in advertising.

But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barak Obama can be defeated in 2012.

The quality of the Republican candidate doesn’t matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas pricesmoving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East? He wins a second term.

America’s role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barak Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama’s extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.

You are crazy Williams. Don’t you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do.

And that’s why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated.

Even when Obama’s policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn’t his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.

Obama’s reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:

1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn’t matter what he does. It’s a race thing. He’s one of us,

2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It’s really not more complex than that,

3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,

4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,

5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,

6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,

7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more everyday. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,

The media love him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,

9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won’t vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,

10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn’t need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned. The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.

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