Obama’s biggest re-election hurdles

laliberty:

antigovernmentextremist:

squashed:

1. The Democrats. Obama ran a largely insurgent campaign in 2008. This meant that the people who cling to the coat tails of whomever they think will win all flocked to Clinton. The end result was that Clinton got an unmanageable operation full of egos with impressive resumes. Now all those egos are going to try to get Obama reelected. They’re a liability.
2. Appalachia. Obama is not doing well in West Virginia and Kentucky primaries—even where he’s largely unopposed. That’s not too much of a problem. He wasn’t expecting to win there anyway. Unfortunately, the demographics that really don’t like Obama spill into parts of Ohio and Virginia where Obama does want to win. Some of the opposition has to do with race. Some of it has to do with messaging problems. Much of it has to do with a (reasonable) sense that Obama is not-too-keen on coal-mining.
3. Wall Street. A lot of the investment bankers liked Obama in 2008. He was fresh. Technocratic. The kind of guy they could support. They were smart. He was smart. It was a good match. Except .. for some reason Obama isn’t going to let them loot the country like Romney would. This has made some people with a lot of money uncomfortable.

I like how Squashed rights off the entire midwest as racists who don’t understand Obama’s “message.” Did it ever occur to you that we don’t support his actual policies?

Here’s a brief list of why I wont be supporting Obama (and also why a lot of other college aged voters I’ve had contact with wont be voting for him).

• Gitmo is still open.
• We are still at war in the Middle East (even more so than when Obama was inaugurated).
• Drone strikes are increasing.
• NDAA
• Patriot Act reauthorization.
• Escalation of War on Drugs.
• Increased subsidies for “green” energy while obstructing coal, natural gas, oil exploration (hey at least one thing you said was right).
• Escalation of the deportations of illegal immigrants.
• The realization that he is just another politician who does not have the interests of the people in mind.

Note that none of these things have to do with a failure to message or the color of his skin. It’s because he fucking sucks as a human being and not to mention as a president.

I’d also like to point out that Romney and Obama agree on everything I’ve listed here except for maybe on energy.

Typical Obama Apologetics, putting “the blame of Obama’s failures squarely upon the shoulders of the unthinking masses, too stupid or self-centered or racist or confused to properly support the true savior.” 

And to insinuate that Obama is no friend to Wall Street - who was bank-rolled by Wall Street, has repeatedly gifted Wall Street with bailouts, and whose administration is filled with Wall-Streeters -  takes some serious chutzpah. 

A partisan with any sort of intellectual integrity (I guess such a thing is an oxymoron) would start a list of Obama’s re-election hurdles with Obama himself, for reasons that include what Nate listed above. The peace president who loves war, the transparency candidate who’s denied more FOIA requests than anyone, the whistle-blower supporter who’s locked away Bradley Manning, the champion of minority causes who’s deported more immigrants in three years than Bush in eight, the constitutional scholar who who signed the NDAA, Patriot Act, ACTA, and the death warrants of Americans “tried” without due process… Obama is the biggest hurdle to his own re-election. Luckily for him and his supporters, they’re right that the masses tend to be un-thinking - which is why I consider his re-election likely. But fret not, Obamaites: if Romney does win, nearly nothing will change. The support for leviathan’s expansion will continue on schedule.

On Child Labor

laliberty:

libertarians:

freebroccoli:

arielnietzsche:

freebroccoli:

arielnietzsche:

>communism caused endless death

What is this then?

[Image]

oh wait, I cannot see this because I have the invisible hand.

What is it? Child labor? The practice that has been going on for millennia that capitalism only recently made society wealthy enough to live without?

So, according to you, a capitalist, child labour is human nature? LOL

Human nature is survival. Do you think that child labor was invented by capitalists? Do you really think that prior to the 1800’s, children just played all day, until those factory owners forced them to come to work?

The fact is that in non-industrialized societies, child labor is not a choice, it’s the means of survival. The child provides income for the family or someone starves. Whether that means selling newspapers or tending the animals or being a prostitute, children have always worked because that’s what you have to do to survive. Capitalism has made adult labor so valuable that it’s possible to feed a family on only the parent’s income(s), so child labor is no longer necessary.

In poorer countries, children are always the first ones who stop working when a family saves up enough capital to subsist without their offspring’s efforts. This means that, if you see a child working, it is almost guaranteed that his or her parents work full-time, too. It’s why you see families in countries like Colombia — whose capital accumulations have been unstabilized by drug cartels fueled by drug prohibition — putting their children back into the workforce. When these poor governments begin strictly enforcing laws against child labor, it does nothing but remove these children from safer environments in factories in the service industry and force them into 24-hour outdoor agriculture sectors (and, for young girls, prostitution).

I’ve linked to Clark Nardinelli’s “Child Labor and the Factory Acts” many times before. It’s a fantastic paper for individuals who are interested in looking into the subject of child labor. Children and their parents back then were begging for the chance to work in these factories you deem unsatisfactory. Leftists typically imagine that the alternative option to these children working at factories is sitting home with a television, a warm meal, and a loving mother. The real alternative is isolation in an empty house, no food on the table, and no opportunity to gain job skills for the future.

From what I see, the government is the only one specifically sanctioning child labor, as Jeffrey Tucker explains: “…there is one final exemption [in] federal law [which] allows states to allow kids to work for a state or local government at any age, and there are no hourly restrictions.” And what’s worse than forcing children into public schools through compulsory attendance laws with their bullying epidemics and brain-dead teachers?

Child labor disappears as the free market grows. This is just another case of the government taking credit for a trend that was occurring without its intervention.

I was planning to reblog one of freebroccoli’s child labor posts, but Brian beat me to it…

"I damn well know that no one is fighting “for me” as I have authorized no one to kill in my name. So please, don’t drag me into the filth and horror of a war I opposed by pretending it is being done on my behalf. And no one is dying for the country. The country is made of over 300 million people, the majority of whom would bring these boys home in the blink of an eye, if it were up to the people. These boys are dying for politicians, not for the people. They were sent to this war by politicians, based on the beliefs and fantasies of politicians. War is government in its purest, most concentrated form. Government is force, it is raw coercion, it is the threat of, and carrying out of violence on others to achieve the goals of a class of men and women who think they have some right to rule over others."

The euphemisms of war (via satans-advocate, azspot) (via inconceivables) (via haereticum) (via carpelibertatem)

daisysnotebook:

maxvoluntarist:

ladyatheist:

[Anon, why the fuck would you say you are colorblind? That is ignorant as shit. You don’t see black people, everyone looks the same? Bullshit. You can’t deny a person’s race or racial differences. That isn’t the opposite of racism. That contributes to racism by saying I don’t see race you deny who that person is. It is about accepting every person no matter what their race is, not pretending race doesn’t exist.]

Seriously? Ignoring race promotes racism? Actually identifying people by their race promotes racism. Treating people as individuals will defeat racism. But you know, “white people”.

Max, you’re missing the entire point. This isn’t about individual white people, and it’s certainly not a personal attack on you. It also has nothing to do with treating others as individuals with unique experiences and sentiments. 

We’re libertarians. We treat others as individuals and not just as members of certain races. We should not hold to harmful stereotypes, and we should recognize that each person is a unique entity. Nevertheless, it’s important for even libertarians to be aware of the racial disparity in this country, Max. Many laws and policies in this country are heavily weighed against minorities— especially low-income ones. I know you’re going to say that it’s the state’s doing, and that’s a problem, but it doesn’t matter in this discussion! The bottom line is that there are factors which make race an issue, and statism is one of them.

We live in a world where people do discriminate based on race, where the state does enact policies (like the Drug War and Capital Punishment) that ruins the lives of POCs and put them at an unfair disadvantage. 

No white person should feel guilty; nobody wants you to feel bad about any of this. But when you say that you don’t see race, you may think that you’re being an individualist, but it’s a lot more than that. To not “see” race is to turn a blind eye on the racial disparities in this country. People do suffer on a daily basis because of their “race” and sometimes it has life and death consequences.

Be aware of color, but don’t treat others as only members of groups. Treat them as individuals with their own personal characters, but recognize what some people must go through solely because of their race. 

Did that make sense? You can be aware of the racial issues in this country and still be perfectly libertarian. It takes awareness to change things and improve the lives of people.

"I guess I never caught that bug where you’re only supposed to care about your own country or your own local area. To me, 49 decapitated Mexicans is just as bad as 49 decapitated Americans and I know if there were 49 decapitated Americans in the street anywhere in the country, it would be like 9/11 all over again. It would be the largest news story for years - if it just happened once - but it happens time and time again in Mexico… and I guess as long as Americans aren’t getting decapitated, apparently the rest of the country, and especially our media, couldn’t give a damn and that’s part of what’s sick and wrong with this country’s media. And so, we march on as if nothing is wrong, as if everything is hunky dory, as if the war on drugs makes sense and hasn’t created these grotesque gangs that grow larger and more grotesque by the day - and it’s not because of the drugs. It’s because the drugs are illegal."

Cenk Uygur commenting on the 49 bodies that were recently found decapitated in Mexico and on the continued War on Drugs, which has claimed over 62,000 lives since just 2006 (via mohandasgandhi)

(via fuckyeahdrugpolicy)

"Do we believe that if Obama had been busted for marijuana—under the laws that he condones—would his life have been better? If Obama had been caught with the marijuana that he says he used and ‘maybe a little blow’…he would have done hard fucking time. And if he had done time in prison, he would not be President of the United States of America and he would not have gone to his fancy-ass college. He would not have sold books that sold millions and millions of copies and made millions and millions of dollars. He would not have a beautiful, smart wife. He would not have a great job. He would have been in fucking prison and it’s not a goddamn joke."

Penn Jillette (via thinksquad)

logicallypositive:

TW for rape

pterodactylnoises:

defaultuser688085:

Rape Test.

Sometimes the truth is offensive. 

Fucking right.

Eh….

I agree with teh whole “misogyny” thing because men do get raped and that’s right. Misogyny does amplify rape but to blame misogyny completely denies the existence of male rape, which cannot be explained away by misogyny. Misogyny does do a lot to fuel and promote sexual degradation of women and rape of women. But I have to agree with this point. Men might be privileged in society, but crimes against men aren’t somehow lessened because of that privilege.

Institutional tolerance, while not directly a “cause” per se, is most certainly an enabler. It’s a serious issue regardless and should be addressed. The general population at large is opposed to “rape” when you define rape as the nefarious man in an alleyway with a trench coat and a shadowy figure who assaults the poor, innocent defenseless woman. But rape is not always like that. Sometimes it certainly is, but most of the time its not. Most of the time rape comes from someone you trust. A close friend, a family member, a teacher, etc.  And in many situations, the lines are rather ambiguous. Well, not exactly ambiguous, but they’re not as blatant as they are in the “Shady guy in an alleyway rapes woman” scenario. What if you had too much to drink and you’re not exactly passe dout, but you’re definitely incoherent and certainly not using your best judgment. Society would look the other way, including its instutions, but if someone can’t string together a sentence and you try and sleep with them that is no different than slipping them a roofie and going at it. In that sense, institutional tolerance does indeed promote and acquiesce to the existence and perpetuation of rape and sexual violence.

Same with structural violence. Structures might not directly promote rape, but it’s a passive acquiesence that enables it. Social structures are supposed to protect and support the vulnerable, to ensure the functioning of a smooth and civil society.  Turning the other cheek to blatant act of sexual violence is pretty much the same as enabling that violence when the purpose of the institutional structures existence is precisely to prevent that sort of debauchery and violence.

I hope that clarifies things.

iambinarymind:

libertarians:

This is almost as retarded as the “If Libertarians Were House Pets” cartoon in which liberals accidentally revealed their opinion of human beings as wild animals who need to be trained and mastered. Just to clear things up, I’ll take the bait.

1. Slavery: An institution — officially sanctioned by the government — against which an incredibly diverse group of people fought in the South (e.g., Confederacy General Robert E. Lee) and in the North (e.g., Lysander Spooner). Not only did General Lee believe that slavery would disappear without the the Civil War’s 700,000 death count, Lysander Spooner and many others believed that the North should have actively seceded in order to ignore the South-led Fugitive Slave Act. And it’s worth noting that slavery was enforced through keepings guns away from blacks (see: “The Discriminatory History of Gun Control”). This is a pretty big difference from Abraham Lincoln, who wasn’t an abolitionist and, in fact, wanted to ship blacks out of the country.

2. Child Labor: We had a discussion about this topic the other day. Child labor is the result of underdevelopment, not greedy businessmen. It’ll always exist in countries that ignore capitalism through continued use of inefficient production methods. When Henry Hazlitt writes, “Primitive tribes are naked, and wretchedly fed and housed, but they do not suffer from unemployment,” it includes the employment of children. The further away you get from primitive communities — through advances in technology, accumulation of capital, etc. — the further away you get from children in the work force.

3. No Suffrage for Women: I’m not sure how to answer this one since I don’t believe in mob rule (often deemed “democracy”). Voting is a legal privilege created by the government and given to certain groups people. This kind of discrimination still occurs. Teenagers under 18 can still work for a paycheck yet are refused a ballot despite paying taxes, easily constituting taxation without representation. If the ultimate goal of Election Day is each individual having as much of a say over his or her own life as possible, why don’t we aim for individualistic liberty in which no voting occurs?

4. Segregation: Segregation is the act of forcibly keeping people apart. In other words, a segregationist blocks individuals from doing business with each other. Perhaps we no longer segregate based on race and sex, but the government certainly segregates in terms of nationality on the border front. The government, too, prohibits certain transactions depending upon the state in which you live. This is an extremely different concept than discrimination, which would be legal in a libertarian society in accordance with private property rights and self-ownership (see: Walter Block’s “The Case for Discrimination”).

Marriage is a fantastic tradition that gained legitimacy without government interference. It’ll stay a fantastic tradition without government interference, too.

To quote Benjamin Tucker,

The Anarchists believe in the family; they only insist that free competition and experiment shall always be allowed in order that it may be determined what form of family best secures this object.

That’s what freedom is all about.

Thank you for tearing apart the fallacious propaganda the above cartoon asserts.

(Source: gaywrites, via maxvoluntarist)

baseballlibertarian:

Victimless Crime Constitutes 86% of the Federal Prison Population

As far as I’m concerned if there is no victim there is no crime.  If no private property rights are being violated why should the government care?  Why should we be wasting billions of dollars a year when no one is being victimized? 

When we talk about the war on drugs, which is increasingly turning into a real war, we often overlook the fact that the “criminals” involved in the drug trade aren’t actually violating anyone’s rights.  When a drug dealer is hauled before a judge, there is no victim standing behind the prosecutor claiming damages.  Everyone participating in the drug trade does so voluntarily. However, there are a lot more crimes for which this is also true.  Millions upon millions of Americans have been thrown into cages without a victim ever claiming damages.  It is important to look at the burden this mass level of incarceration places upon our society.

In light of that, let us review some statistics which demonstrate just how destructive the mass incarceration of victimless criminals has become to our society. The 2009 federal prison population consisted of:

• Drugs 50.7%
• Public-order 35.0%,
• Violent 7.9%
• Property 5.8%
• Other .7%

Drug offenses are self-explanatory as being victimless, but so too are public-order offenses, which also fall under the victimless crimes category.  Public order offenses include such things as immigration, weapons charges, public drunkenness, selling lemonade without a license, dancing in public, feeding the homeless without a permit etc..

The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world.  Presently 756 per 100,000 of the national population is behind bars.  This is in contrast to an average world per-capita prison population rate  of 145 per 100,000 (158 per 100,000 if set against a world prison population of 10.65 million), based on 2008 U.N. population data.  In other words, the U.S. incarcerates its citizens at a rate that is 5 times the world average.

In 2008, according to the Department of Justice, there were 7,308,200 persons in the US corrections system, of whom 4,270,917 were on probation, 828,169 were on parole, 785,556 were in jails, and 1,518,559 were in state and federal prisons.  This means that the U.S. alone is responsible for holding roughly 15% of all the prisoners in the world.

In other words, 1 in 42 Americans is under correctional supervision.  This constitutes over 2% of the entire U.S. population.  That percentage jumps up drastically if we limit the comparison to working aged adult males, of which there are around 100 million.  Over 5% of the adult male population is under some form of correctional supervision, alternatively stated, 1 in 20 adult males are under correctional supervision in the U.S.

According to 2006 statistics, 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men are behind bars, as are 1 in 15 adult black men.  If we limit the data to black males between the ages 20 to 34, 1 in 9 are behind bars.  Keep in mind that 86% of those men in federal prisons are there for victimless crimes.  They have not stolen any property, damaged any property or harmed anyone directly by their actions.  Of course, if you are reading this and live in the US, you are paying for all those people to subsist on a daily basis.  Roughly 34% of all prisoners in the U.S. are incarcerated for victimless crimes.

In California in 2009 it cost an average of $47,102 a year to incarcerate an inmate in state prison.  In 2005 it cost an average of $23,876 per state prisoner nationally.  In 2007, $228 billion was spent on police, corrections and the judiciary.  That constitutes around 1.6% of total U.S. GDP.

Of course, being the good economists that we are, we must not just look at the cost to incarcerate and police, but also at the opportunity cost to society that putting all those able-bodied men behind bars creates.  When a man is put behind bars he is obviously incapable of contributing anything to society.  He becomes a complete burden to society while producing nothing in return for the expenses he creates.  He becomes a black void of resource destruction.  It’s important to remember that money’s value is directly related to the consumer goods that a society produces.  If a society produces nothing of value, the money it uses will also be worth nothing of value. If a huge portion of able bodied workers is locked behind bars, society is effectively penalized twice – once for the resources that are diverted into the prison industry and it is penalized again for the opportunity cost of the lost labor of those prisoners.

I find some dark humor in the fact that those who engage in victimless crime don’t create any real victims until they are put behind bars, at which point they cause the State to steal $47,000 a year from the tax paying public.  In our justice system today, victims are victimized twice;  once by the perpetrator of the crime against them, and the other by the State which then forces the victim to pay for the punishment of their assailant.  Clearly our society’s notion of “justice” is logically ridiculous.  It’s apparently not OK for someone to steal from you, but its perfectly acceptable for the State to steal from you if the State is going to use that money to punish the person who stole from you. – what kind of asinine system of justice is that?

What is justice?  Isn’t justice making a victim whole once again?  Isn’t justice punishing a criminal for the damages he imposed upon his victims? I propose that the only real justice that can be enacted in a free society is monetary punishment in the form of taking the perpetrators property and handing it to their victim, or ostracism by defamation of character.

anarchei:

Who Are The Real One Percent?

While this is an example of the situation in the US, I think that much of it is applicable to most, if not all, countries in the world. The only real difference between the US and other countries is the degree to which freedom is being oppressed by governments and their corporate allies.

(via thinksquad)