holden421

590

"Out of the 150,000 murders in the U.S. between 9/11 and the end of 2010, Islamic extremism accounted for fewer than three dozen. In fact, extremist Islamic terrorism resulted in just 200 to 400 annual deaths worldwide, outside the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq—the same number, notes Mueller, that occur in bathtubs in the U.S. each year.

Yet the TSA still commands a budget of nearly $8 billion."

– Charles Kenny, “Airport Security Is Making Americans Less Safe” (via hipsterlibertarian)

38

"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed."

– Bertrand Russell (via freemarketliberal)

141

"I wish we had a peace movement in this country. I wish there were somebody voicing publicly and aggressively that we should be killing many, many, many, fewer people."

– Penn Jillette (via letterstomycountry)

93

hipsterlibertarian:

reasonmagazine:

This is the official police story:

Left-Handed Chavis Carter Shot Self With Right Hand While Cuffed in Back of Cop Cruiser after being searched. Are you buying it?

I’m not.

His arrest warrant, by the way, was based on “a single count of selling pot.” In other words, he wasn’t guilty of any crime. It shouldn’t surprise us that the police were so eager to arrest Carter, because they are part of one of the largest interest groups in favor of keeping the drug war around:

Another evil thing about the war on drugs is that it makes criminals out of too many otherwise law-abiding Americans. According to the FBI’s latest report, “Crime in the United States,” more than 1.6 million Americans were arrested on drug charges in 2010, with almost half of those arrests just for marijuana possession. How fewer and smaller law-enforcement agencies would be without the war on drugs.

Make that “how fewer, smaller, and less murderous.”

37

"Long before, and fully independent of, anything Congress did, President Obama made clear that he was going to preserve the indefinite detention system at Guantanamo even once he closed the camp. President Obama fully embraced indefinite detention — the defining injustice of Guantanamo — as his own policy.

In February, 2009, the Obama DOJ told an appellate court it was embracing the Bush DOJ’s theory that Bagram detainees have no legal rights whatsoever, an announcement that shocked the judges on the panel hearing the case."

–

Glenn Greenwald, “The Obama GITMO myth: New vindictive restrictions on detainees highlights the falsity of Obama defenders regarding closing the camp”

The central theme of Greenwald’s exhaustive piece is that Barack Obama has not — contrary to his rhetoric — taken any meaningful steps (or, by all appearances, even thought any meaningful thoughts) toward ending the abuses of Guantanamo Bay. Worse, as Greenwald adds:

In fact, Obama’s “close GITMO” plan — if it had been adopted by Congress — would have done something worse than merely continue the camp’s defining injustice of indefinite detention. It would likely have expanded those powers by importing them into the U.S.

(via hipsterlibertarian)

52

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."

– William Pitt (via hipsterlibertarian)

168

hipsterlibertarian:

This is one of those conveniently ambiguous quotes that resonates equally with people of every political persuasion.

It’s so totally applicable to libertarianism, you guys.

36

In the last election cycle, GOP candidates were all about returning to fiscal sanity and stuff. To put it mildly, they haven't.

hipsterlibertarian:

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which took office in January 2011, has enacted federal spending bills under which the national debt has increased more in less than one term of Congress than in the first 97 Congresses combined.

In the fifteen months that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives—led by Speaker John Boehner—has effectively enjoyed a constitutional veto over federal spending, the federal government’s debt has increased by about $1.59 trillion.

House GOP: You keep using that “responsibility” word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

101

"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."

– John Locke (via hipsterlibertarian)

3470

Don’t Consent to a Search!

If the cops say: "Do you mind if I look in your purse, bag, home, or car"?
You say: "I do not consent to a search"
If the cops say: "Why not? Are you hiding something?"
You say: "I believe in my Constitutional right to privacy and I do not consent to a search."

220

55

34 Facts about the National Debt

hipsterlibertarian:

Here are some of my…uhh…favorites:

#1 During fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent 3.7 trillion dollars but it only brought in 2.4 trillion dollars.

#5 The U.S. government spent over 454 billion dollars just on interest on the national debt during fiscal 2011.

#14 If you divide up the national debt equally among all U.S. taxpayers, each taxpayer would owe approximately $134,685.

#15 Mandatory federal spending surpassed total federal revenue for the first time ever in fiscal 2011. That was not supposed to happen until 50 years from now.

#20 U.S. households are now actually receiving more money directly from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#34 The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was created back in 1913.

See the full list here. Which facts do you find most galling?

78

"As the United States officially ended the war in Iraq last month, President Obama spoke eloquently at Fort Bragg, N.C., lauding troops for “your patriotism, your commitment to fulfill your mission, your abiding commitment to one another,” and offering words of grief for the nearly 4,500 members of the U.S. armed forces who died in Iraq. He did not, however, mention the sacrifices of the Iraqi people.

This inattention to civilian deaths in America’s wars isn’t unique to Iraq. There’s little evidence that the American public gives much thought to the people who live in the nations where our military interventions take place. Think about the memorials on the Mall honoring American sacrifices in Korea and Vietnam. These are powerful, sacred spots, but neither mentions the people of those countries who perished in the conflicts….

These attitudes have consequences. Perhaps the most important one — apart from the tensions created with the host governments, which have been quite vocal in protesting civilian casualties — is that indifference provides permission to our military and political leaders to pursue more interventions."

– John Tirman, “Why do we ignore the civilians killed in America’s wars?” (via hipsterlibertarian)

23

It’s not even about whether or not he’s guilty, it’s about the fact that an American citizen was detained for almost 2 years and his Constitutional rights were denied him.

hipsterlibertarian:

good-gollymissmolly:

You can think he’s guilty, he might be guilty. But the fact remains he has the right to be innocent until proven guilty, the right of habeas corpus, and the right of due process. He has received none of these.

Why doesn’t that scare anyone else?

I’m on an antiwar email discussion group for Come Home America (check it out if you’re not familiar with them), and one of today’s emails was about Bradley Manning. It made this point, which I thought was excellent: Even if he is given a trial eventually, can it ever be fair at this point? After all, Manning has already been declared guilty by the President of the United States. For him ,the justice system is probably irrevocably biased.

295

hipsterlibertarian:

UPDATE: from pegobry:

Edit: only noticed “Wikileaks” on the ladder after I reblogged… Much better cartoon without. The point is it’s anyone, with any ladder, who can do that and should do that.

I didn’t see the writing on the ladder either. But yeah, the point can be applied much more generally.