The way out

"Now, I work for patients. I don't work for the government, and I don't work for insurance companies." “If more doctors were able to do this, that would be real health care reform. That’s when we’d see the cost of medicine truly go down.”

Obama is Picasso

Politics is the art of seeming to say you will do less killing of civilians and executing of accused suspects (including Americans) without due process, while actually laying the groundwork to step up your lawless killing. And Obama is the freaking Picasso of politics.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/23/192081/obama-promises-anew-to-transfer.html#.UaUc_2RARou

Two important truths about war

Truth #1: "War is the health of the state" as Randolph Bourne wrote. 

Murray Rothbard explained further: 

"It is in war that the State really comes into its own: swelling in power, in number, in pride, in absolute dominion over the economy and the society. Society becomes a herd, seeking to kill its alleged enemies, rooting out and suppressing all dissent from the official war effort, happily betraying truth for the supposed public interest." 

He goes on to say that the idea that war is the State defending its subjects is a myth. War is the State using its subjects to fight for it against other States.


Truth #2: War is a racket. It always has been.

USMC Major General Smedley D. Butler (the most decorated Marine ever at the time of his death) explains:

"[War] is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." 

"A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small “inside” group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

He goes on to make the case here.

***

Anyway, Edwin Starr was 100% correct in answering the question "War, what is it good for?": Absolutely nothing! (Unless you are the State or part of the Military Industrial Complex.)

Monopoly

I had to return to the DMV after paying $50 for a smog check (which is a total racket--my car is only 4.5 years old, it doesn't need a smog check). I was informed that my registration fee is now $239, up from the $156 it was Monday. I showed her my print-out and politely said she must be mistaken. She assured me she wasn't. I asked what could possibly be the reason for an $83 increase. She smugly told me it was my fault for not paying on Monday, even though on Monday they told me I would have to come back with my smog check before I could register my car. 

No compassion, no empathy, no humanity. Just a self-satisfied grin knowing that she has 100% power in this exchange. There is no recourse for me, I have no alternative, I am not a customer, I am not even a valuable individual. I am disposable citizen # A050, and if I don't pay up eventually, they'll happily throw me in a cage and get their $239 from citizen # A051.

Two birds with one stone

Obama's IRS targeted Tea Party groups. Bush's IRS targeted antiwar groups. The solution to this mess is to abolish the IRS altogether. Then presidents could no longer use it to target their political enemies. And more importantly, the government confiscating the fruit of one's labor via force is immoral. So, two birds with one stone!

Rhetorical questions

Why do the DMV employees act as though I am disrupting their day by simply approaching their desk when my number has been called? Why do they roll their eyes and sigh when I ask a perfectly reasonable question? Why do they treat me with sheer contempt, lacking even the most basic shred of human decency?

How the Iraq War Became a War on Christians

An article from The American Conservative about one of the many consequences of the Iraq War: the ongoing eradication of the ancient Christian community there, which has existed since the time of the Apostles. (This will likely be repeated with a War on Syria.)

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-the-iraq-war-became-a-war-on-christians/

Subservience

Subservience to power may be what those who lord it over us would like, but there is nothing more fundamentally unAmerican.

Why All of Us Should Mistrust the Government by Judge Andrew Napolitano

This is a moving testimony from Farea Al-Muslimi before the US Senate. He talks about his deep love and appreciation for America, how being educated and mentored here changed his life, and about the terror and devastation that the drone war against Yemen has brought to his home village and his loved ones there.

Submit. Obey. Or else.

43 years ago today, the nature of the government was on full display against unarmed college students.