(Source: thereddevilblog, via thereddevilblog)
1 month ago - 
7
7
"Yes, I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." Oscar Wilde
(Source: men-in-baths, via philphys)
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (more commonly known as the drug czar’s office) released its 2012 National Drug Control Strategy today. The strategy is nearly identical to previous national drug strategies. While the rhetoric is new — reflecting the fact that three-quarters of Americans consider the drug war a failure — the substance of the actual policies is the same.
EDIT: This is the academic study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association which is the source of the numbers in the graph. Other sources may be found here.
EDIT #TWO: Replaced the graph with a modified version I made to make it more factually accurate. Many thanks to filigree for explaining to my veeeeery rusty on stats self how to do that correctly.
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).
Ayn Rand (via a-petro-manifesto)
Acceptable up until and including the second semicolon. The practical aspect of the majority voting for leadership is to protect the wishes of the majority, not to protect the minorities from oppression.
The only way for (a) government to legitimately govern for protection of the individual is to remove the idea of legitimacy by vote or by blood. If a vote is to be necessary, it should be based upon retention, not institution.
(via crythias)
(Source: graspnothing, via stepping-out-for-now-deactivate)
I’m sorry, but I have to say this. This isn’t going to make me very popular among many of my readers, but I’m not here to be popular. In fact, I’m sure my business partners won’t particularly like what I’m about to say either.
If you are looking for pure and unadulterated evil, Joseph Kony is nothing more than a misplaced feeling. Kony is simply the focus of people who want to do something good and spread awareness of a cause. For their ingenuity, I’ll give the organizers of Kony 2012 a pat on the back - congratulations to you entitled recent college grads living in a bubble. You’ve engaged one of the most clever and compelling internet branding ploys I have ever seen. I’m sure many of you will soon have jobs with Coca Cola and Verizon, moving into the private sector to find more lucrative branding opportunities that will afford you many Ferrari’s, eight balls and hookers. I only wish I could be in your shoes, condoms and hundred dollar bills.
For the rest of us, there’s a real enemy that is much harder to accept. The enemy is a little something called “complacency”. It happens every time you fail to call your government into account for the actions they make on your behalf. It happens when you’re not thinking about it. The reason you don’t think about it is because “it” is normal. “IT” is war. Our nation is seemingly always embroiled in a conflict, yet we barely even understand what it means.
Four decades ago, our government discovered its citizens don’t like seeing what war really is. When the Vietnam War happened, it was beamed into American televisions, and shortly thereafter, the citizens wanted the war to stop. Since Vietnam, American citizens have failed to see the pain that war causes.
You don’t see what “war” is, because it’s cleverly hidden in your paychecks under a line called “taxes”. If they started printing a body count on your paychecks, you might pay attention. “This week, you contributed to 2,700 deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sleep well.” But it doesn’t say that. Just “taxes”. But you’re complacent. You know you want lower taxes, but instead of cutting things like “tanks and guns”, your politicians are cutting things like “healthcare for the poor”, “education” and “birth control”.
Joseph Kony is an evil man because he’s probably killed more than 50,000 people. He certainly needs to be brought to justice. However, while we’re in the business of bringing to justice the people responsible for killing tens of thousands of innocent people, let’s be honest with ourselves.
50,000 people is small when compared to our scale of destruction. Dividing the 11 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan by the current bodycount produces roughly 3,500 bodies per week. That’s 500 per day. 1 person dead in Iraq or Afghanistan every three minutes.
If you really feel the need to be an activist, hold yourself accountable first.
(Source: shanemorris)
We oppose Obama’s authority to take away our guns but we ardently support his power to assassinate us.
Conservatives (via baseballlibertarian)
Corporatism - Relying on the state rather than the free market for success
There is nothing free about a market when the government is picking the winners and losers.
In a truly free market only the consumers in the market decide who the winners and losers are.
Love Thy Neighbor - Hate the State: Libertarian Book List
I’ve been in a list mood lately. Here are links to buy them and online versions if I can find them.
In no particular order:
- The Law by Frederic Bastiat (HTML Version)
- The Ethics of Liberty by Murray Rothbard (pdf)
- Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (HTML version)
- For a New Liberty by Murray Rothbard
- End the Fed by Ron Paul
- Liberty Defined by Ron Paul
- I, Pencil by Leonard Read
- The God of the Machine by Isabella Patterson (pdf)
- Defending the Undefendable by Walter Block (pdf)
- America’s Great Depression by Murray Rothbard (pdf)
- Meltdown by Tom Woods
- How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter Schiff
- In Defense of Freedom by Frank Meyer
- Anarchy, State and Utopia by Robert Nozick (pdf download)
- The State Against Blacks by Walter Williams (pdf download)
- Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand
- Declaration of Independents by Nick Gillespie and Matt Welch
- The Creature from Jekyll Island by Edward Griffin
- On Liberty by John Stuart Mill (HTML version)
- Human Action by Ludwig von Mises (pdf) + Study Guide by Robert Murphy
- Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek (pdf)
- Bastiat’s Candlemaker’s Petition
Also make sure to check out the Austro-libertarian book list Brian put together earlier this year as well as LALiberty’s concise book list on introductory and intermediate libertarian philosophy and economics.
(Source: antigovernmentextremist, via carpelibertatem)
2 months ago - 116
116 40 Embarrassing Things That America Is the Best in the World At
And who says we aren’t still number 1?
#1 America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a good margin.
#2 There are more car thefts in the United States than anywhere else in the world by far.
#3 Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese. Mexico is #2.
#4 The average American drinks more than 600 sodas a year - the most in the world.
#5 U.S. corporations sell more fast food and more soda than anyone else in the world by a wide margin.
#6 Nobody watches more television per week (28 hours) than Americans do. Although to be honest, people living in the UK are tied with us.
#7 The United States leads the world in credit card fraud.
#8 The United States has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.
#9 The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a good margin.
#10 The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by far.
#11 There are more school shootings in America than anywhere else in the world.
#12 The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the world.
#13 There are more “deaths by reptile” in America than anywhere else in the world.
#14 The United States has the most lawyers per capita in the entire world.
#15 The United States produces more pornography than any other nation in the world.
#16 Americans take more prescription drugs than anyone else in the world.
#17 More is spent on prescription drug advertising in America than anywhere else in the world.
#18 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#19 More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in America than anywhere else on earth.
#20 The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire globe.
#21 There is more credit card debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
#22 There is more mortgage debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
#23 There is more student loan debt in America than anywhere else in the world.
#24 The United States spends more money on government schools than any other nation on earth does.
#25 U.S. citizens spend more time in school than anyone else in the world. So why are so many of us dumb as a rock?
#26 Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.
#27 The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.
#28 According to nationmaster.com, the United States has the most total reported crimes in the world by far.
#29 Nobody has more airport security thugs groping women and children than America does.
#30 The United States spends much more on health care as a percentage of GDP than any other nation on the face of the earth.
#31 The United States has the most complicated tax system on the entire planet.
#32 The United States has the most laws on the entire planet.
#33 The United States spends more on the military than the next 12 nations combined, and yet the Obama administration is considering plans to unilaterally slash the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal by up to 80 percent.
#34 The United States has the most foreign military bases in the world by far.
#35 The United States exports more arms to other countries than anyone else in the world.
#36 Americans spend more time sitting in traffic than anyone else in the world.
#37 Americans spend more money on elections than anyone else does in the world by a very wide margin.
#38 Every single year, the United States has the largest trade deficit in the world by far.
#39 The U.S. government wastes more money than any other government on earth does.
#40 The United States has accumulated the biggest mountain of government debt in the history of the world.
2 months ago - 449
449 Jon Stewart on CNN in 2004
“If con is the opposite of pro, then Congress is the opposite of progress.”
-Jon Stewart
