http://www.lewrockwell.com/…

In late 2007, Richard Stengel wrote a cover story for Time magazine calling for a massive national service program to be imposed on American young people. If you’d like to read it, knock yourself out. Someone probably needs to smash it, but the avalanche of propaganda and nationalism you’ll find there was too demoralizing for me to attempt it. The very idea that helping someone in your neighborhood should be called “service to the nation” should be spooky and Orwellian enough, but for many people I guess it isn’t.

One thing I couldn’t get out of my head, even though it’s not by any means the weirdest aspect of the program, is Stengel’s proposal for a Cabinet-level Department of National Service. I think it was this piece of advice that struck me the most: “And don’t appoint a gray bureaucrat to this job; make it someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Mike Bloomberg, who would capture the imagination of the public.”

Translation: the American people, too stupid to engage in government-approved service projects without being prodded by their betters, need a crowd-pleasing Hollywood actor to rouse them to action. Bloomberg, possibly the dullest human being in public life, would be a better choice than Schwarzenegger from my point of view: the American people would barely be able to keep awake through one of his droning appeals.

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At least there appears to be some people sticking up for some level of sovereignty.

And then you have McCain advocating the starvation of millions of Iranians. He also studders while speaking of Bob Barr, speaks in the most general terms possible on improving the economy, and talks about cutting spending while wanting Congress to pass housing bills.

Update:

http://www.cnn.com/…

U.S. National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said: “Iran’s development of ballistic missiles is a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions and completely inconsistent with Iran’s obligations to the world.”

Johndroe mentioned that the U.S., Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany “are committed to a diplomatic path, and have offered Iran a generous package of incentives if they will suspend their uranium enrichment activities.”

“They should also refrain from further missile tests if they truly seek to gain the trust of the world. The Iranians should stop the development of ballistic missiles, which could be used as a delivery vehicle for a potential nuclear weapon, immediately.”

What obligations? Violation of UNSC resolutions? OOOOHHH scary. What exactly are they doing to do about it?

Listen Iran. Defense if for big boy nations. You need to wait till you grow up to play with such toys and threaten people.

Yesterday was the New York City Lexington Ave Street Fair. The Manhattan Libertarian Party had a booth setup to distribute libertarian information, promote our candidates, and perform the normal operation politically homeless things like asking people to take the World’s Smallest Political Quiz and argue with those passing by about using force to get your way. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred.

• I was told by an Iranian Jew that we (non-Muslims) need to actively attack Muslims because otherwise they will take over the world. When I said you can’t generalize like that and you can’t hold the son responsible for the father’s doings he agreed but then went on to tell me that when you look at their society, them collectively, you can and must.
• A French tourist became very interested in what we were advocating. It was obvious he was no in agreement with the more extreme aspects of government removal from our lives but he was courteous. He said we would be considered very very radical in France and “libertarians” in France would be more along the line of small government Republicans.
• One older gentleman got hostel with Isaiah Matos for being against the war in Iraq. “They are keeping us safe!” “I hope you don’t get elected!”
• A young man from NJ who had never heard of the libertarian movement nor even Ron Paul became very interested in what we were doing. I explained the LP, the Ron Paul Revolution, the FSP, wasted vote fallacies, etc.
• A current US soldier who was a Ron Paul supporter. He confirmed that Paul does indeed have a large following in the military.
• Just before I left I got into a 20-30 minute argument with a woman. After eventually stating I was against all coercive measures used by those who call themselves government including all forms of taxation she went nuts. She refused to let me finish a thought and would say she didn’t want to talk any further but would. She claimed all I wanted was to not pay taxes. Insinuating that I wanted to leech off others. When I said: “No, I don’t want to be forced to pay for services I don’t want by the threat of violence.” She asked how is government violent. Isaiah quickly pointed out the war but when I tried to show her what happens when I refuse to pay taxes she acted dumb. “I don’t know what happens when you don’t pay property taxes. I rent.” When I went to continue she said she was leaving… but didn’t. Eventually she told us to just leave if we don’t like it. I asked her whether Washington, Jefferson and the other Founders should have just left. She tells us that they fought the revolution only because they were not represented in taxation and that they had setup a democracy so if 51% of the people want something the other 49% are screwed. That’s just how it is. The former being entirely simplistic and the latter being outright wrong I tried to tell her to read Common Sense and other works by Paine and that we had a constitutional democratic republic, not a democracy. She told me I didn’t know what I was talking about. She at one point noticed our support for gun ownership. After I explained to her that gun prohibition is about as effective as drug prohibition and that at worst the data is inconclusive and at best shows that higher gun ownership by non-criminals leads to less crime such as in Florida in the late 80’s early 90’s she scoffed saying she had lived in Florida so she knew better then I did and when she said she’d have to look it all up she refused to accept any sources. She also wasn’t very receptive to XYZs gun advocacy. She even brought up the so very stereotyped: “What about the roads?” She again refused to let me tell her about private communities and roads which exist now.

So I left flustered. Worse then arguing with people who won’t accept truths is when they won’t even let you provide them.

Since we had so many people manning the booth I decided to just hand out pamphlets to people walking by. I noticed many were drawn to the tax cut pamphlet.

From the NYTimes:

In a significant setback for efforts to reform Europe’s unwieldy institutions, a senior Irish official said Friday that voters had rejected a revised European Union treaty designed to change the way the bloc governs itself and presents itself to the world.

The BBC reports that “Voters in Ireland have rejected the European Union’s Lisbon reform treaty in a referendum by 53.4% to 46.6%.” The Beeb also has a Q&A on the referendum at their site. The most interesting question:

Why is Ireland the only EU member to be holding a referendum?

Under Irish law, any amendment to EU treaties requires an amendment to the Irish constitution - and all constitutional amendments require approval by referendum. That has been the case since a Supreme Court ruling in 1987.

Governments in other EU member states have argued that the Lisbon Treaty is an amending treaty which, like other EU amending treaties, only requires parliamentary approval. So they are all going down the parliamentary ratification route.

Yet there are calls in several member states for referendums. In the UK, the opposition Conservatives and some Labour MPs have demanded a referendum. They say the Lisbon Treaty is very much like the EU constitution - and that the Labour Party promised to hold a referendum on the constitution.

Funny that they mention the EU constitution. Since that effort failed to make it past the vote of the people (see France and the Netherlands), it’s reworded as a treaty and adopted by parliamentary approval in most European states. If I were Irish, I’d probably vote NO on those grounds alone.