Although this interview took place before the presidential election, with president Obama’s victory it is all the more important. Peter Robinson and Thomas Sowell discuss Obama’s track record, the importance of the election, and what America can expect with the president’s reelection:
It’s like being a mosquito in a nudist colony: you don’t know where to start. We will not be able to be on air long enough to dissect all the faults in those few words. [on Michelle Obama’s speech]
It is painful for me to realize that youngsters growing up in the same places in Harlem where I grew up more than 60 years ago have far less chance of rising, economically, educationally or otherwise.
I want to stop politicians from trying to fix the economy.
One of the things that many people have overlooked when talking about ObamaCare is its effect on free speech, as Thomas Sowell points out in the Jewish World Review:
What does your right of freedom of speech mean if saying something that irritates the Obama administration means that you or your business has to pay huge amounts of money and get hit with all sorts of red tape under ObamaCare that your competitor is exempted from, because your competitor either kept quiet or praised the Obama administration or donated to its reelection campaign?
For almost fifteen years Dr. Thomas Sowell has been publishing articles in the Jewish World Review. One of his latest essays “Socialist or Fascist?” presents two important thoughts on current politics in the United States and elsewhere. First, Sowell clarifies that unlike many conservatives claim President Obama is not a socialist. Instead he wants government to have greater control of the economy, while leaving ownership of the means of production in private hands. According to Sowell this provides him win a win-win situation:
Thus the Obama administration can arbitrarily force insurance companies to cover the children of their customers until the children are 26 years old. Obviously, this creates favorable publicity for President Obama. But if this and other government edicts cause insurance premiums to rise, then that is something that can be blamed on the “greed” of the insurance companies.
In a second step, Sowell explains the bigger picture of this strategy, the vision of the anointed:
The left’s vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, “We the People…”
Although his great show Freedom Watch was cancelled some weeks ago, there are still new videos of Judge Andrew Napolitano. In one of them he describes the long history of US politics from the Stamp Act to Obama Care:
Whatever happened to the right to be left alone?
The last time a central government in America tried to force all Americans to buy something against their will, it was the King of England and his Stamp Act. And that fomented the Revolution.
The other day, I got this interesting book by Professor Rummel from the University of Hawaii:
In any case, the empirical and theoretical conclusion is this: The way to end war and to virtually eliminate democide appears to be through restricting and checking power.
The less freedom people have, the greater the violence; the more freedom, the less the violence. I offer this proposition here as the Power Principle: power kills, and absolute power kills absolutely.
In my view, Rummel’s analysis presents a strong case in favor of strictly limited government. The book mainly consists of data, so it is not the type of history book you might expect. But all those numbers really tell a story. So, if you still believe that democracy is bad, that government power should be great, or that the Nazis killed more than anybody else, get a copy of the book.
And if you believe that a history book is no longer relevant, now that more and more countries become democratic, watch this:
The Constitution says that if the government wants your life, or your liberty, or your property, it has to articulate to a jury what law you have violated and prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The other day, Judge Andrew Napolitano discussed the issue of “change” in political campaigns and in politics in general. He astutely points to the fact that Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign focused on “change” in a way that people with very different political backgrounds were able to support him. However, three years later we have to accept that this campaign was a brilliant fraud.
Moreover, this is just the tip of the iceberg:
It’s a sad state of affairs that a simple return to first principles represents fundamental change.
The dirty, little secret about change in government: Nobody in power actually likes change.
Today, it has been exactly ten years since the first suspects were brought to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Despite President Obama’s repeated promises to close the infamous prison, instead last year he even signed a new law authorizing the indefinite detention of terror suspects.
Russia Today takes a look back:
Seven hundred suspects have passed through, many allegedly been abused and tortured there, almost none getting a trial.
On the last day of 2011, President Obama signed into law the so-called National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012. The Act is a United States federal law that has been enacted for each of the past 49 years to specify the budget and expenditures of the United States Department of Defense. For 2012, the budget amounts to a stunning $622 billion.
But more importantly, this year’s act contains some controversial provisions. In particular, the NDAA text affirms the President’s authority to detain, via armed forces, any person “who was part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States” and anyone who commits a “belligerent act” against the U.S., under the law of war, “without trial, until the end of the hostilities authorized by the AUMF.”
This implies indefinite detention (i.e. imprisonment) of any suspect without trial. It is hard to believe that (i) this piece of legislation was signed into law, (ii) by Barack Obama, and (iii) not heavily criticized by the media.
In order to wake up some people, let me suggest a few videos dealing with America’s so-called war on terrorism:
First, Judge Andrew Napolitano discusses on Freedom Watch what happens when presidents go bad:
When Presidents violate the Constitution, the supreme and fundamental law of the land, and when they get away with it, that establishes a very dangerous precedence for future presidents to exceed their predecessors’ behavior.
Second, Stephen Colbert talks about the NDAA in his Colbert Report: The Word – Catch 2012
Swiss Economist 