Do anarchists at tea parties really want to kill all politicians?

John Boehner accused tea party anarchists of promoting violence. But the truth is that anarchists promote peaceful choices, individual freedom, and opposition to institutionalized aggression.

“I’ve been to my share of tea party events,” House minority leader John Boehner (R) of Ohio told a Monitor luncheon for reporters this summer. “Let me tell you about these events. Yep, there are some disaffected Republicans there. There are always some Democrats there. Always a couple of anarchists who want to kill all of us in public office.”

Huh? Anarchists want to kill all politicians?

A peaceful philosophy

Rep. Boehner’s crude attempt at a joke odiously mischaracterized anarchist philosophy and painted an inaccurate portrait of its core values. Anarchism is an ideology based on individual freedom and opposition to institutionalized aggression, not some insane love of public mayhem.

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What Ever Happened to the Constitution? | Andrew Napolitano

Why We Hate Cops

I remember the first time I heard anyone in “regular” society express hatred for cops (I’m not counting “revolutionary” times back in the ’60’s which on retrospect appear not to have been very serious). It was a friend of mine, a fellow engineer, who happened to like going fast on motorcycles, and he was complaining about a ticket he’d gotten. I was a bit shocked to hear him say that. I had thought until then of cops basically as decent people with an important job to do, with maybe a few "bad apples". I was pretty naive back then.

I’ve gotten the impression lately that cops aren’t getting very much support in Internet forums these days, even in places where in the past you’d find almost unqualified support. About everyone seems fed up with ‘em.

I wondered why this should be. Why are they becoming so much more frequently scorned?

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What change?

Belief is a mechanism that enables men and women to convince themselves of anything, and often has little to do with the truth. Belief is what cemented in American minds the idea that 9/11 came from Iraq and Saddam Hussein; that the “war on terror” can be solved by employing terror; that Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb; that the entire globe is a battlefield, and that the U.S. has a foreign policy of its own.

Belief also fixed in our minds that greed is natural and that we cherish “things” more than people and truth. But what kind of person or nation values “things” more than humanity or truth? No kind of person or nation, that’s who; a “cultural” fiction, not a moral human or a real nation. For if it’s true “as men think (‘believe’) so they become,” it must be true that America is what it is because of how we “believe,” rather than think, enabling us to do what we want with impunity. Such a “belief” system is just a moral scam, justifying what we do as we go along, as if we’re picking the “flavor (policy) of the month” that suits us. Such “beliefs” enable us to continue living a lie, rather than the truth individually and nationally.

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Imperial Cancer

With the welfare state cracking apart and with rising concerns among the citizenry about federal spending and debt, count on federal officials to provoke more overseas crises as a way to frighten people into rallying toward the government. It is an old tried-and-true trick that government officials use to distract people’s attention away from the problems government is causing and toward supporting the government’s efforts to keep people “safe.”

U.S. officials are not the only ones who have used this trick effectively. James Madison pointed out that officials in the Roman Empire did it too: “Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.”

In the war on terrorism, fear is the coin of the realm. “Be afraid, be very afraid” has become the standard catcall of the statists.

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Yes, this is a litmus test

People who refer to themselves as “libertarians” spend a lot of time arguing over exactly what they mean by “libertarian.”

Personally, I try to be fairly “big tent,” figuring that people who once self-identify as libertarian tend to get more consistently libertarian after doing so, if they’re a) accepted and b) encouraged to explore libertarian ideas, instead of just slapped around for whatever deviations they still cling to.

So, when I disagree on this or that issue with someone who self-identifies as a libertarian, I generally try to frame that disagreement not as a negative verdict on the other person’s libertarianism, but rather as a possible error on their part as to how libertarian ideas apply to that particular issue.

But the fact is that there are some people who call themselves libertarians who ... well, just ain't libertarians. And the facts on some issues are so incredibly clear that it’s possible to use those issues as litmus tests. If you’re on one side of the issue, you may be a libertarian. If you’re on the other side, no, you aren’t.

One such issue is — to use the phrase fraudulently coined by its opponents — is the "Ground Zero Mosque."
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An Immigration Attack on Stossel from the Right

Libertarian Fox News commentator John Stossel has recently been the subject of attacks from the left for taking the position that private owners have the right, under principles of freedom and private property, to discriminate. (See here and here.)

Now, Stossel is under attack from the right for views on immigration that he recently expressed to Fox News conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly.

The right-wing attack comes from one Mark W. Hendrickson, a conservative academician at Grove City College in Pennsylvania. Hendrickson’s attack, which is entitled “Libertarianism Fails against Illegal Immigration,” only goes to show how misguided conservatives are when it comes to the immigration issue.

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The Welfare-Warfare Crackup

For decades, libertarians have been warning Americans of the coming crack-up of the welfare-warfare state. Of course, we couldn’t predict when the crack-up would finally occur. All we could do is to say that the road to statism, both welfare and warfare, was a road to national bankruptcy.

Keep in mind that the welfare-warfare state depends on a vibrant private sector. Why is this so? Because the welfare-warfare sector is fundamentally a parasitic sector. That is, unlike the private sector, the public sector produces no wealth. The public sector attaches onto the private, productive sector and sucks lifeblood out of it in order to survive.

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Don’t kid yourself, it’s a Police State

According to a Free Keene report, well known libertarians Rich Paul and Capuzzo, along with a female named Jackie, were arrested while "traveling through the police state of Massachusetts" on June 30.

They were apparently charged with possessing cannabis and a firearm.

The report did not mention that any crime had been committed, only that the trio had some plant material and a tool.

They may also have been in possession of other comparable inanimate objects, such as a cotton shirt or a ballpoint pen, but no other information is currently available.

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America’s Bread And Circus Society

The Roman poet Juvenal (circa 100 A.D.) wrote regarding the way latter-day Roman emperors retained power and control over the masses that were seemingly more than happy to obsess themselves with trivialities and self-indulgences while their once-great-and-powerful empire collapsed before their very eyes. He wrote:

“Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions–everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.”

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