On this July 4th I have the great displeasure of presenting to you a whole crap load of socialist propaganda. It is simply unbelievable. This guy will try to prove to you that what America needs is a new New Deal. You know, because the first one was so great that it burned itself out. 

Check out the part where he says "the people" are the ones who instituted the income tax not the bankers. Hahahahahahaha!!!!!

Yes, can I please give away the money that I worked so hard for? 

NIN-The Great Destroyer

say your name
try to speak as clearly as you can
you know everything gets written down
nod your head
just in case they could be watching
with their shiny satellites

i hope they cannot see
the limitless potential
living inside of me
to murder everything
i hope they cannot see
i am the great destroyer

turn it up
listen to the shit they pump into
your head
filling you with apathy
hold your breath
wait until you know the time is right
on time
the end is near

i hope they cannot see
the limitless potential
living inside of me
to murder everything
i hope they cannot see
i am the great destroyer

I hope you all have a safe 4th of July. Celebrate wisely. Remember that this isn't all about hot dogs, beer and fireworks.

by Jacob G. Hornberger

While Americans are celebrating pre-revolutionary efforts by the English colonists to avoid taxes imposed by their government (e.g., the Sugar Act, Stamp Acts, Townshend Acts, and Tea Act), the IRS is celebrating a federal court victory forcing a Swiss bank, UBS, to disclose the identities of U.S. customers who may have used secret accounts at the bank to avoid taxes. It’s a classic case of where one bad intervention — income taxation — inevitably leads to another bad intervention — invasion of financial privacy.

Historically, the Swiss have taken the right position with respect to financial privacy — fiercely protecting the identity and financial information of their bank customers, including from government officials. Unfortunately, the Swiss position on financial privacy is contrary to the position taken by the U.S. government, which is why the U.S. feds are now attacking UBS.

Over the years U.S. bankers have succumbed to the control of the federal authorities, especially with respect to the “war on drugs” and the “war on terrorism.” There is hardly a banker in the country that doesn’t quiver and quake at the thought that a bank examiner or IRS agent is paying a visit to his bank. Even worse, bankers have effectively been converted into spies and informants of the government, required by law to report any “suspicious” financial transaction to the feds.

For their part, the American people have become as sheep-like with respect to financial privacy as they have with civil liberties in general. The fact that their personal financial information must be reported to the government is considered “the price to be paid for living in a free society.”

Of course, never mind that those English colonists in 1776 were rebelling against these sorts of things in order to achieve a free society. After all, is it really just a coincidence that American lived without taxation on their income for more than 125 years?

People have the fundamental right to accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth and decide what to do with it. How much they earn and what they do with it is none of the government’s business. A restoration of liberty to our land not only requires a repeal of all infringements on financial privacy, it also entails a repeal of the income tax, the drug war, and all other excuses for infringing the financial privacy of the people.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

The local fishwrap published a letter I wrote. They actually got it in before the 4th. Wow! 

Editor, the Advocate:

Another 4th of July is upon us and it saddens me to write that this nation is merely a shadow of the one that declared its independence so many years ago.

What would Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin or Samuel Adams say about this government’s desire to track its citizens?

Recently, Congress decided to grant immunity to the telecommunications companies that helped our “leaders” violate the Fourth Amendment. Is it any wonder that the ratings of the current Congress are so low?

I am also disturbed by the fact that the government treats its citizens like criminals by having us fingerprinted and put into a database through an abomination known as TWIC. The TWIC is administered by the TSA and I don’t have to tell you what a mess they are.

It’s just one more pointless and costly government program. How costly? The government charges you $132.50 so they can keep track of you. That’s $132.50 on top of whatever they take from us to fund these programs in the first place. Isn’t 33 percent of our income enough?

Happy birthday, America!

I look forward to the day when you are free once again.

By Congressman Ron Paul

The most basic principle to being a free American is the notion that we as individuals are responsible for our own lives and decisions. We do not have the right to rob our neighbors to make up for our mistakes, neither does our neighbor have any right to tell us how to live, so long as we aren’t infringing on their rights. Freedom to make bad decisions is inherent in the freedom to make good ones.  If we are only free to make good decisions, we are not really free.

Socialist ideologies blur this line between self reliance and government control because the mistakes of the individual are spread to everyone else. Thus the government becomes very interested in your decisions and way of life, with the justification that you could make a mistake others will have to pay for. The end result is, of course, that everyone loses privacy and control over their own lives. Whether they realize it or not, they are no longer truly free.

This week in Congress brought some examples from both sides of the aisle on these issues of freedom and personal responsibility. We talked about online gambling quite a bit with the markup of some legislation dealing with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Now, I am not someone who enjoys throwing money away, but I am someone who understands issues of freedom and self-ownership.  As such, I strongly support the right of free people to do with their hard-earned money as they please. Gambling is ultimately a matter of personal choice, and some people find it entertaining. As long as I am not forced to underwrite their losses, it is none of my business what gamblers do with their time and money.

There are those that feel online gambling is morally wrong and financially irresponsible, which I do not argue with, but they also feel that because of this, the government should step in and prevent or punish people for taking part in these activities. This attitude is anathema to the ideas of liberty.

However, most of the same anti-gambling crowd sang an entirely different tune when we discussed giving away free birth control in schools. All of a sudden, they did not want others making decisions about their lifestyles and families, while the other side felt the need to interfere. It is interesting that the same group that feels parents have the absolute right and ability to control how and when their kids get birth control, are powerless to monitor their internet activity and must enlist government regulatory assistance to protect against gambling or predators. Which is it?  Are parents the ones to parent, or not? Both sides switch their positions based on the subject at hand, but the philosophy of liberty is elegantly simple and consistent. 

I can assure you of this – once the government gains a foothold into regulating the internet, even for benevolent reasons, the wonders of the free internet will soon be a thing of the past. Parents, with modern day technology, are quite capable of monitoring their children’s internet activity. The internet must remain a government-free zone to maintain its integrity and usefulness to modern society, and that is something for which I will continue to fight. 

I like to watch Fox News Sunday. It's a good way to purge yourself after eating a large breakfast. I don't know what makes me puke faster. Is it neocons arguing against Habeas Corpus or liberals arguing against the right to bear arms? 

William Krystol and Juan Williams make a great tag team for bulimics. 

In a 5-4 decision yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional Washington, D.C.’s, ban on possession of handguns in people’s homes. Rejecting the ridiculous argument of the gun controllers that the Second Amendment is intended to protect the “right” of the National Guard to own guns, the Court correctly held that our American ancestors intended to protect the right of private individuals to keep and bear arms.

The decision is especially important for people in D.C., which is oftentimes labeled “the murder capital of the nation.” Many of the murders in D.C. are committed with handguns. How is that possible, given that it’s illegal to own handguns in D.C.? Because murderers have steadfastly refused to obey D.C.’s gun ban, which means that the law has prevented victims from defending themselves from murderers with handguns.

But there’s another reason for the Second Amendment, one that even the most stalwart gun-rights advocates are oftentimes reluctant to mention in polite conversation. The real reason that the Framers specifically enumerated people’s right to keep and bear arms was to enable the citizenry to defend themselves from tyranny at the hands of U.S. government officials.

After all, let’s not forget that the people who crafted the Second Amendment had been British citizens who took up arms against their own government. If they had not been free to own guns, those English colonists would never have been able to revolt against the tyranny of their own government. When the English troops came to kill them (and confiscate their guns), the colonists were able to successfully defend themselves — because they had guns that they could use to shoot back.

Of course, gun-control advocates say that tyranny happens only in foreign countries, such as Britain, and that it could never happen here in the United States. Never mind that U.S. officials are now kidnapping, torturing, sexually abusing, murdering, and incarcerating people in secret prisons and denying people due process, trial by jury, and protection from cruel and unusual punishments, but, heck, those are foreigners, not Americans, right? Well, except for American citizen Jose Padilla but, heck, he’s only one American. No cause for concern there, right? And the president and Congress have cancelled habeas corpus only for foreigners. They would never do it against American citizens, right?

Well, the truth is that one never knows. I’m willing to bet that when the members of the German parliament granted their president’s request to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties during the German terrorist and communist crisis, most Germans never figured that their government would become tyrannical. But as they learned, once the darkness of tyranny falls upon a nation it’s a bit too late to start calling for gun rights.

The right to keep and bear arms is the ultimate insurance policy against tyranny. Like most other insurance policies, the probability is that a claim will never be made upon it. But if disaster were to strike, people who love liberty will be happy that they preserved the right — and the ability — to resist. Moreover, the existence of such a policy is the best way to ensure that federal officials think twice before going too far with their tyrannical dreams.

Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.