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Enduring Commitments Abroad – Article by Ron Paul

Enduring Commitments Abroad – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
May 10, 2012
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Last week President Obama made a surprise pre-dawn trip to Afghanistan to mark the one year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden and to sign a document further extending the US presence in that country. The president said, “we’re building an enduring partnership…As you stand up, you will not stand alone.” What that means in practice is that the US will continue its efforts to prop up the government in Afghanistan for another ten years beyond the promised withdrawal date of 2014.

To those of us who believe the US should leave Afghanistan immediately, the president retorted, “We must give Afghanistan the opportunity to stabilize.” But how long will that take, when we have already fought the longest war in our nation’s history at incredible human and economic cost to the nation and no end is in sight?

There is little evidence of any sustained increase in stability in Afghanistan and, in fact, April saw the loss of 34 more American troops and an escalation of violence and upheaval. Within 90 minutes of the president’s departure, seven more people were killed in Kabul by a suicide bomber. It is clear that our presence in that country is not creating any real stability. With Osama bin Laden dead and the al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan virtually non-existent, we are reduced to nation-building in a nation where there is no real nation to build.

We should ask ourselves why Obama’s trip was a “surprise” visit rather than a normal state visit. The reason is that after ten years it is still far too dangerous to travel in or out of that country. Does that not speak much more loudly than the president’s optimistic words about the amazing progress we have made in Afghanistan?

What does our enduring commitment mean? Ask the South Koreans, where the United States has maintained an “enduring commitment” of US troops more than fifty years after hostilities ended. By some estimates the United States taxpayer is saddled with a 40 billion dollar annual price tag for our “enduring commitment” to maintaining a US military presence in Korea. Polls suggest that particularly younger Koreans are tired of the US military presence in their country and would prefer us to leave. The same is true for the residents of Okinawa, who have argued strongly and with some recent success for American troops to leave their island.

The Soviets believed the road to their goal for a universal form of government ran through Afghanistan. They were also wrong and paid an enormous price. However, after nine years and 15,000 Soviet lives lost, the communist regime in Moscow realized its mistake and withdrew from that country. The Soviet withdrawal was complete in early 1989. The Soviet Union by that time had further plunged into economic crisis, fueled in great part by its commitment to maintain a global empire of client states. Later that year, the Soviet world began crashing down, with first the collapse of Eastern European regimes and then the Soviet Union itself. That collapse produced an economic calamity for the successor states from which most have not yet fully recovered. It is not too late for the United States to learn what the Soviets discovered too late, back in 1989. Mr. President: the time to leave Afghanistan is today, not in 2024.

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

Ron Paul Delegate’s Account of the 2012 Nevada State Republican Convention – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Ron Paul Delegate’s Account of the 2012 Nevada State Republican Convention – Video by G. Stolyarov II

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Mr. Stolyarov was a delegate to the Nevada State Republican Convention. The Convention was both extremely successful and extremely frustrating. Ron Paul won 22 of Nevada’s 28 delegate slots, and Ron Paul supporters were overwhelmingly voted in as Nevada’s National Committeeman and Committeewoman. The Convention’s business was concluded, and the fiasco of the 2008 Convention was avoided.

Mr. Stolyarov gives a first-hand account of his experiences as a delegate – commenting on both the encouraging and the appalling aspects of this event.

References

– “Ron Paul’s Maine, Nevada, and Iowa Victories (Despite Romney Dirty Tricks)” – Brian Doherty – Reason Magazine
– Open Thread on The Daily Paul Regarding the Nevada Convention
– “An Open Letter to John R. Phillippe, RNC Counsel, Regarding the Nevada State Republican Convention” – G. Stolyarov II – May 3, 2012
– “May 5, 2012 Nevada GOP Convention [RAW VIDEO]” (Giving a good idea of the credentialing mishap on May 5)
– “Ron Paul KRNV 4 Changing of the Guard in Sparks Nevada 5/5/12”
– “5-5-12 Future President Ron Paul’s speech at Nevada GOP convention! Introduction by wife“

An Open Letter to John R. Phillippe, RNC Counsel, Regarding the Nevada State Republican Convention

An Open Letter to John R. Phillippe, RNC Counsel, Regarding the Nevada State Republican Convention

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May 3, 2012

Mr. John R. Phillippe Jr.
Chief Counsel
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington, D.C. 20003

SENT VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL TO jphillippe@rnchq.org

Dear Mr. Phillippe:

I am writing to you to address the erroneous interpretation of the Nevada Delegate Binding Rules for 2012, which you expressed in your May 2, 2012, letter to Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald. Your interpretation of these rules manufactures a meaning that is not present in the rules’ plain text. I emphatically urge you to recall your letter and to issue a formal apology on behalf of the Republican National Committee for your advocacy of a course of action that would clearly contravene the rules that have been developed in a fair process, as well as the outcome at the State Convention that would result from the legitimate decisions of duly elected delegates.  Please note that the present communication is an open letter and will be available on the Internet to a broader audience.

Your letter suggests that the delegates that are allocated in proportion to the final results of the February 4, 2012, Nevada Presidential Preference Poll must “actually support” the candidate for whom they would be pledged to vote on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention. You go beyond this to suggest that a delegate pledged to a particular candidate must be “approved by an authorized representative of the candidate he or she professes to support” and that, if this does not turn out to be the case, “grounds for a contest may exist.” Your letter continues in stating that you “believe it is highly likely that any committee with jurisdiction over the matter would find improper any change to the election, selection, allocation, or binding of delegates, thus jeopardizing the seating of Nevada’s entire delegation to the National Convention.” In short, you explicitly state that the Republican National Committee would consider overturning the results of a procedurally fair delegate election at the Nevada State Republican Convention, if the election does not produce the hoped-for outcome of a majority slate of Romney supporters. This is unacceptable and entirely contrary to a system that is supposed to produce a representative government in accordance with general rules developed in a fair process and agreed upon in advance.

Before I demonstrate the specific errors of your position, allow me to be forthright regarding my motivations. I am a duly elected delegate to the Nevada State Republican Convention. Furthermore, I write this letter while having no ambition to be nominated as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Tampa. I do, however, intend to attend the State Convention and cast my votes for the prospective national delegates whom I consider to be the most worthy and principled among the options available. Since I will not personally become a national delegate, I do not have any ulterior motives in this communication. I only desire fair adherence to the legitimate delegate-selection process.

I proudly acknowledge that I am a supporter of Ron Paul and a person committed to procedural fairness and adherence to the rules as actually written. Following a set of rules agreed upon in advance through an equitable procedure is key to a system that avoids arbitrary decision-making and arbitrary power concentrated in the hands of a connected oligarchy. To be non-arbitrary, a process must be adhered to, irrespective of the particular outcome it generates. To only adhere to a process when it generates one’s favored or expected outcome is to turn the process into a mere veneer for a particular agenda.

I think I can speak for other supporters of Ron Paul when I say that there is no intention among any who wish to become delegates to the National Convention to do so in a manner that violates the rules of the Nevada State Republican Convention. Any insinuation that anything other than complete fair play may be the intent of a sizable portion of the delegates to the State Republican Convention is deeply offensive to these men and women of conviction and integrity – who have followed all of the rules of the process up to now and do not intend to suddenly stray from that course.

It is instructive to examine what the actual rules – rather than your deeply erroneous interpretation thereof – state. In your letter, you cite Sections 1, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 of the Delegate Binding Rules for 2012, without actually reproducing the text of these sections. A detailed analysis of the text will show that it is incompatible with your viewpoint.

Section 1 Text: “Pursuant to § 15(b) of the Rules of the National Republican Committee, in Presidential election years, National Delegates and Alternates shall be allocated proportionally based  on the final results of the Nevada Presidential Preference Poll, rounded to the nearest  whole number. National delegates shall be chosen at the Nevada Republican Convention by election. Any candidate who receives less than the percentage required for one Delegate will receive no Delegates.”

Comments: This section only discusses how and in what proportions National Delegates and Alternates shall be allocated to a candidate, not whether such Delegates and Alternates must “actually support” the candidate to whom they were allocated. Nothing in the language of this section would suggest that a test of a Delegate’s thoughts or beliefs would be required as a precondition for a Delegate’s selection or allocation to a particular candidate. There is already a rigorous test for selecting a National Delegate. It is voting by the other delegates at the State Convention.

Section 4.2 Text: “The NRP Secretary shall allocate National Delegates to the candidate of their choice by first allocating the three automatic delegates (Nevada Republican Party Chair, National Committeeman and National Committeewoman) to their preferred candidate.”

Comments: The interpretation of this section should not be controversial. There are to be three automatic delegates, who will each be allocated to the candidate of his or her choice. Please note that there is also no test stated in the section regarding what must be done to verify that a particular candidate is these delegates’ “preferred candidate.” Your interpretation states that “The three RNC members, who are automatic delegates, should each be allocated and bound to their preferred presidential candidate.” I would like to clarify that the words “bound to” only apply to the first round of voting at the Republican National Convention. There is no requirement in any set of rules for any National Delegate to be bound to any candidate on a subsequent round of voting. This distinction is critical.

Section 4.3 Text: “The NRP Secretary will next allocate the three prospective delegates from each congressional district receiving the highest number of votes to their preferred candidate to comply with RNC Rule 13 (a) (3).”

RNC Rule 13(a)(3) Text (pp. 14-15 of the linked document): “Subject to the provisions of Rule No. 16, the membership of the next national convention shall consist of:

(a) Delegates. […]

(3) Three (3) district delegates for each Representative in the United States House of Representatives from each state.”

Comments: Section 4.3 and RNC Rule 13(a)(3) say nothing about delegates being subjected to a loyalty test for a particular candidate. They simply state that three delegates shall be allocated for each district in such a manner that there would be three delegates for every Representative in the US House of Representatives.

Furthermore, the text of Section 4.3 states that “The NRP Secretary will next allocate the three prospective delegates from each congressional district receiving the highest number of votes to their preferred candidate” [Emphasis added]. Note that this applies to delegates “receiving the highest number of votes” in an absolute sense – not “receiving the highest number of votes among the delegates who support a particular candidate”.

To repeat: It is clear from the text that the delegates that must be allocated are those delegates that receive the highest number of votes in total, not the highest number of votes among those who support a particular candidate.

For instance, suppose delegates who support Mitt Romney were to receive the 2nd, 4th, and 5th-highest vote totals, while delegates who support Ron Paul were to receive the 1st, 3rd, and 6th-highest vote totals for a particular Congressional District. Furthermore, suppose that the allocation of delegates were required to be such that two delegates would be bound to vote for Romney, and one delegate would be bound to vote for Paul at the first ballot of the National Convention. It is clear that the highest total vote-getters would need to be selected as National Delegates – i.e., the 1st and 3rd-place finishers who support Ron Paul and the 2nd-place finisher who supports Mitt Romney. The 1st-place finisher would have the choice to be allocated to Ron Paul, the 2nd-place finisher would presumably choose to be allocated to Mitt Romney, while the 3rd-place finisher would be bound to vote for Mitt Romney in the first ballot of the National Convention, despite his or her support for Ron Paul. It would emphatically not be the case that the NRP Secretary would be permitted to bypass the duly elected 3rd-place finisher, simply because of that finisher’s sympathies for Ron Paul, and select the 4th-place finisher who is sympathetic to Romney to attend the National Convention as a Delegate.

Your letter is thoroughly mistaken in stating that “A nomination to fill a Congressional district delegate slot shall only be in order if the person’s preferred candidate has available delegate slots to fill. The preferred means to ensure that no presidential candidate receives more than his allocated slots is to conduct the congressional district delegate selections sequentially, and if a candidate has reached his allocation, no further nominations for delegate candidates who support said presidential candidate shall be in order.”

Your statement is contrary on its face to the plain text of Section 4.3 and would have the effect of disenfranchising the delegates at the State Convention in casting ballots for the National Delegates of their choice. The application of your interpretation would have the effect of ignoring delegates who obtain higher absolute vote counts, in favor of some who obtain lower absolute vote counts, simply on account of the ideological positions expressed by such delegates. This ideological particularism is contrary to the principles procedural fairness which underlie any meaningful electoral system and which are essential to the American system of representative government.

Section 4.4 Text: “The Secretary will then allocate the remaining delegates for each candidate, beginning with the prospective national delegate for a given candidate receiving the most votes, followed by the prospective national delegate for said candidate receiving the second highest number of votes and continuing in descending order of votes received until the number of delegates and alternates earned by each candidate in the Presidential Preference Poll has been allocated. The delegate slots for each candidate will be filled by the prospective national delegates receiving the highest number of votes, and the alternate slots will be filled by the prospective delegates receiving the next highest number of votes after the delegate slots are filled.”

Comments: Section 4.4 addresses the allocation of National Delegates, other than the automatic delegates and the delegates for each Congressional District. The text clearly states that “The delegate slots for each candidate will be filled by the prospective national delegates receiving the highest number of votes, and the alternate slots will be filled by the prospective delegates receiving the next highest number of votes after the delegate slots are filled.” This again refers to the highest number of total votes cast, not the highest number of votes cast for delegates who personally support a particular candidate. There is again no mention of any kind of loyalty test in order to become a “national delegate for a given candidate”. Rather, this section would allow delegates who receive the highest number of votes to have the first preference regarding which candidate they will be allocated to. If the Ron Paul delegate slots are exhausted by many of the highest vote-getters, then the next-highest vote-getters would need to agree to be bound to vote for Mitt Romney on the first ballot of the National Convention, irrespective of their personal views regarding the candidates. The personal views of these vote-getters should not determine their eligibility if they have been duly elected by the delegates at the State Convention.

Your interpretation is thoroughly in error in stating that “At-large (statewide) prospective delegates should be elected by determining how many delegate slots each presidential candidate has available after processes 1 and 2 above have been completed, and allocating to each available slot the highest vote-receiving prospective delegate that supports the candidate with an available slot. So, for example, if Ron Paul has 2 slots available after processes 1 and 2 above, the two highest vote-getters that support Ron Paul should be allocated to him. And if Mitt Romney has 4 slots available after processes 1 and 2 above have been completed, the 4 highest vote-getters that support Mitt Romney should be allocated to him.”

Your statement above is directly contrary to Section 4.4, which clearly requires that the delegates allocated to all candidates be the absolute highest vote-getters. Contrary to your example, if Ron Paul has 2 slots available after the automatic and District delegates have been selected, and Mitt Romney has 4 slots available, then the top six absolute vote-getters must become the National Delegates, such that two of them are bound to vote for Ron Paul in the first ballot of the National Convention, while the remaining four are bound to vote for Mitt Romney in the first ballot. The highest absolute vote-getter would have the option to select to be bound to either Paul or Romney – and then a similar option would be offered to the second-highest vote-getter. Once any two of the highest six vote-getters have selected to be bound to Paul, the delegates in the remaining slots among the top six vote-getters would be automatically bound to Romney on the first ballot.

Section 5 Text: “All National Delegates and Alternates, ex officio, At Large and Congressional District, shall be required to vote for the Presidential Candidate to whom they are bound. This requirement applies only to the first candidate vote at the Republican National Convention.

Comments: While your letter inexplicably omits mention of Section 5, this section is indispensable to understanding the context of the other provisions cited above. If the requirement of voting for a particular candidate only applies to the first vote at the Republican National Convention, then a loyalty test for that candidate cannot make sense and cannot be countenanced. The rules explicitly permit the delegates to vote their consciences after the first round of the National Convention, if subsequent rounds are necessary. Requiring a loyalty test would effectively bind the delegates on the subsequent rounds, contrary to the letter and intent of Section 5. The duty to vote for a candidate on the first round must not extend to the duty to think a certain way or to an inexhaustible claim on the delegates’ future decisions, actions, and beliefs.

Conclusion

I again urge you to acquiesce to the principles of objectivity, fairness, and a literal reading of the rules – and, accordingly, to withdraw your letter of May 2, 2012, and to publicly apologize on behalf of the Republican National Committee for urging and lending an official air to the clear contravention of a fair process and of rules developed pursuant to such a process. If you do not withdraw your letter, then it will be legitimate to perceive your and the RNC’s actions as an attempt to interfere with a neutral and impartial process, simply because the outcome of that process may not be to the liking of the Mitt Romney campaign. To only respect the rules when they are in one’s favor is deeply contrary to every principle on which the American system of representative government stands. Such a double-standard would nullify the will of duly elected delegates and replace it with the imposed preferences of a self-appointed oligarchy of kingmakers. I hope that you will find the strength of conviction to step back from this dangerous precipice.

Sincerely,

Gennady Stolyarov II, CPCU, ARe, ARC, AIS, AIE

Editor-in-Chief, The Rational Argumentator

Deceptive Anti-Ron Paul Robocall in Nevada

Deceptive Anti-Ron Paul Robocall in Nevada

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On May 2, 2012, Nevada Republican State Convention delegates received this robocall from the following anonymous number: (800) 525-4610

Please LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video if you detest the misinformation spread about Ron Paul by anonymous robocallers.

MESSAGE TRANSCRIPT

“…message. The state Republican convention this weekend is up in Sparks. Ron Paul supporters are trying to steal all the national delegates and overturn the results from the caucus in February. This is wrong. We do not need Ron Paul campaign staffers from DC telling us who our national delegates are going to be. It’s up to you to be in Sparks this weekend at the Nugget to stop this nonsense. Let’s stand together and stop Ron Paul’s political operatives from taking our choice away. Thank you, and remember to attend the convention in Sparks this weekend. I will see you there. Good night.”

“Taking our choice away”? Ron Paul is the only reason we still have a real choice in the race for the Republican nomination!

The Costs of War – Article by Ron Paul

The Costs of War – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
May 2, 2012
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This month Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki announced the addition of some 1,900 mental health nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to its existing workforce of 20,590 mental health staff in attempt to get a handle on the epidemic of suicides among combat veterans. Unfortunately, when presidents misuse our military on an unprecedented scale – and Congress lets them get away with it – the resulting stress causes military suicides to increase dramatically, both among active duty and retired service members.  In fact, military deaths from suicide far outnumber combat deaths. According to an article in the Air Force Times this month, suicides among airmen are up 40 percent over last year.

Considering the multiple deployments service members are forced to endure as the war in Afghanistan stretches into its second decade, these figures are sadly unsurprising.

Ironically, the same VA Secretary Eric Shinseki was forced to retire from the Army by President Bush for daring to suggest that an invasion and occupation of Iraq would not be the cakewalk that neoconservatives promised. Then Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who is not a military veteran, claimed that General Shinseki was “wildly off the mark” for suggesting that several hundred thousand soldiers would be required to secure post-invasion Iraq. Now we see who was right on the costs of war.

In addition to the hidden human costs of our seemingly endless wars are the economic costs. In 2008, Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.” Stiglitz illustrates that taking into account the total costs of the war, including replacing military equipment and caring for thousands of wounded veterans for the rest of their lives, the Iraq war will cost us orders of magnitude greater than the 50 billion dollars promised by the White House before the invasion. Add all the costs of Afghanistan into the mix, wrote Stiglitz, and the bill tops $7 trillion.

Is it any wonder why our infrastructure at home crumbles, healthcare is more expensive and harder to come by, and unemployment together with inflation continue their steady rise? Imagine the productive power of that seven trillion dollars in our private sector. What could it have done were it in private hands; what may have been discovered, what diseases might have been cured, what might have been built, how many productive jobs created?

With the bills coming due for our decade of reckless military action, the cuts rarely come from the well-connected military industrial complex with their lobbyists and powerful political allies. In President Obama’s 2013 budget, troop strength is to be cut significantly while enormously expensive and largely superfluous weapons systems emerge essentially unscathed. As defense analyst Winslow Wheeler wrote this month, costs of the “next generation” fighter, the F-35, will increase by another $289 million. This despite the fact that the fighter is badly designed and already outdated, a “virtual flying piano” writes Wheeler.

The military contractors building monstrosities like the F-35 are politically connected and thus protected. Unfortunately, returning military veterans are less so. In the same 2013 budget, the White House proposes to increase medical and pharmaceutical costs paid by veterans while reducing their cost of living increases. And how many years of increasingly alarming mental illness and suicide statistics has it taken for the modest increase in resources to be made available?

Those who predicted the real costs of our decade of global military conquest were ridiculed, scoffed at, and fired. History has now shown us that much of what they warned was correct. America is clearly less secure after a decade of unnecessary wars. It is more vulnerable and closer to economic collapse. Its military is nearly broken from years of abuse. Will we come back to our senses?

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

Ron Paul’s Wins in Minnesota, Colorado, Iowa, and Elsewhere – Video by G. Stolyarov II

Ron Paul’s Wins in Minnesota, Colorado, Iowa, and Elsewhere – Video by G. Stolyarov II

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“When will Ron Paul win a state?” ask the mainstream media. Well, now he has a clear majority of delegates in Minnesota, and the Paul-Santorum unity slate in Colorado has also attained a majority. In Iowa, the state GOP has been transformed by the entry of Ron Paul supporters into the highest positions. Other caucus states, including Nevada, are due to have their own conventions.

Mr. Stolyarov points out that there is no longer *any* way in which the mainstream media could claim to accurately reflect the truth about this Republican primary season.

Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue.

References
– “Ron Paul Wins in Iowa and Minnesota, Romney in a Panic” – Doug Wead – April 23, 2012
– “I Think Ron Paul Just Won Iowa!” – Rachel Maddow – April 23, 2012
– “Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders” (the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on strip searches) – Wikipedia
– “CISPA is the New SOPA” – Article by Ron Paul – April 24, 2012
– “A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom” – Article by G. Stolyarov II – April 11, 2012
– “A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom” – Video by G. Stolyarov II – April 13, 2012

CISPA is the New SOPA – Article by Ron Paul

CISPA is the New SOPA – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
April 24, 2012
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Earlier this year, strong public opposition led by several prominent websites forced Congressional leaders to cancel votes on two bills known in Washington as “SOPA” and “PIPA.”  Both of these bills threatened search engines and websites with possible shutdowns if the Justice Department deemed them insufficiently cooperative with our phony “war on terror,” or if they were merely accused of copyright infringement.  Fortunately the American public flooded Capitol Hill with phone calls and Congressional leaders dropped both bills.

But we should never underestimate the federal government’s insatiable desire to control the internet.  Statists of all parties, persuasions, and nationalities hate the free, unbridled flow of information, ideas, and goods via the internet.  They resent the notion that ordinary people can communicate and trade across the world without government filters or approvals.  So they continually seek to impose controls, always under the guise of fighting terrorism or protecting “intellectual property” rights.

The latest assault on internet freedom is called the “Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act,” or “CISPA,” which may be considered by Congress this week.  CISPA is essentially an internet monitoring bill that permits both the federal government and private companies to view your private online communications with no judicial oversight–provided, of course, that they do so in the name of “cybersecurity.”  The bill is very broadly written, and allows the Department of Homeland Security to obtain large swaths of personal information contained in your emails or other online communication.  It also allows emails and private information found online to be used for purposes far beyond any reasonable definition of fighting cyberterrorism.

CISPA represents an alarming form of corporatism, as it further intertwines government with companies like Google and Facebook.  It permits them to hand over your private communications to government officials without a warrant, circumventing well-established federal laws like the Wiretap Act and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act.  It also grants them broad immunity from lawsuits for doing so, leaving you without recourse for invasions of privacy.  Simply put, CISPA encourages some of our most successful internet companies to act as government spies, sowing distrust of social media and chilling communication in one segment of the world economy where America still leads.

Proponents of CISPA may be well-intentioned, but they unquestionably are leading us toward a national security state rather than a free constitutional republic.  Imagine having government-approved employees embedded at Facebook, complete with federal security clearances, serving as conduits for secret information about their American customers.  If you believe in privacy and free markets, you should be deeply concerned about the proposed marriage of government intelligence gathering with private, profit-seeking companies.  CISPA is Big Brother writ large, putting the resources of private industry to work for the nefarious purpose of spying on the American people. We can only hope the public responds to CISPA as it did to SOPA back in January.  I urge you to learn more about the bill by reading a synopsis provided by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on their website at eff.org.  I also urge you to call your federal Senators and Representatives and urge them to oppose CISPA and similar bills that attack internet freedom.

Representative Ron Paul (R – TX), MD, is a Republican candidate for U. S. President. See his Congressional webpage and his official campaign website. 

This article has been released by Dr. Paul into the public domain and may be republished by anyone in any manner.

Thoughts on James Sterba’s “Liberty and Welfare” – Article by G. Stolyarov II

Thoughts on James Sterba’s “Liberty and Welfare” – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
April 14, 2012
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In “Liberty and Welfare” (2007), James P. Sterba of the University of Notre Dame makes an argument that a libertarian society, grounded in the principle of classical enlightened egoism, would be consistent with a government-organized system of welfare, or redistribution of wealth from wealthier to poorer members of the society. There are some areas where I am in agreement with Sterba’s premises, and some areas of difference.

Sterba’s argument, essentially, is that enlightened self-interest renders it legitimate for a person to take the property of another in certain “conflict situations” – cases where doing so would save that person’s life (or not doing so would endanger that person’s life).  I acknowledge that there may be cases where it is legitimate to violate the property right of another in order to save one’s life – but only to the extent actually necessary to save one’s life and only if proper compensation is made afterward. For instance, suppose Person X is ejected from a burning airplane onto the vast estate of Person Y, a wealthy landowner with plenty of fruit orchards. Person Y is an absentee landowner, and is not able to give permission, and it would take Person X several days on foot to leave Person Y’s land. In my view, Person X can legitimately eat some of Person Y’s fruit so as to survive his journey. However, the proper course of action after Person X has returned to his normal life would be for him to contact Person Y and ask whether Person Y desires to be compensated for the fruit that was taken. There is, at that point, a likelihood that Person Y would be generous and overlook the incident, recognizing Person X’s need to survive. But, if this does not happen, Person X could offer Person Y a reasonable payment for the fruit. It is unlikely that Person Y would, for instance, turn down a payment that is several times the fruit’s market value.

As the loss of life is irreversible, while loss of many kinds of property can be undone through adequate compensation, in true emergency situations, it may be justified for someone else’s property to be put to use in truly saving an individual’s life. But this can only be carried out if confined to true emergencies, if done with minimal interference, and if adequate reparations are made afterward.

That being said, what I am referring to are true emergency situations – which are, by definition, acute events that subside after the cause of the emergency has passed. An ongoing situation where one person or a group of people appropriate the belongings of others without the consent of those others is not a justifiable position within a truly free society. Sterba’s paper borders on implying that there exists some group right for “the poor” to expropriate “the rich” without regard for the circumstances of specific individuals having either of these designations or for whether individuals called “the poor” could, in fact, manage to survive without such expropriation. If there is a way not to take another’s property without his consent and to still preserve human life, then that is the course of action that should be pursued.

Ultimately, Sterba’s argument leads to the support of some manner of redistributionist welfare system. Such a system may indeed be justified in an unfree or semi-free society, where artificial political privileges result in a non-meritocratic distribution of wealth – and where, for instance, inefficient and customer-unfriendly firms can achieve market dominance or incompetent individuals can come to control vast resources. The overall level of wealth in such societies is lower compared to a libertarian society, and there may be many “worthy poor” in such societies, who are poor for none of their fault and despite earnest efforts at improving their position. Indeed, the United States at present, with its massive levels of involuntary unemployment resulting from an economic bubble inflated by the Federal Reserve, could be considered to exist in such conditions. Thinkers such as Sheldon Richman have argued that, in such situations, welfare systems can be seen as secondary or “band-aid” interventions to mask or mitigate some of the harmful effects of the primary interventions (e.g., corporate subsidies, barriers to entry into markets, and laws that limit innovation and progress). While the secondary interventions bring their own unintended negative consequences, a national government that only practiced the primary interventions (which benefit and enrich a favored and politically connected elite) would be much worse in its effects. The only aspects of the secondary interventions that might be justified are those aspects that would undo some of the harms of the primary interventions and more closely approximate a meritocratic, individualistic, market-driven outcome.

I contrast “band-aid” welfare measures in a mixed economy – which could be justified – with redistribution of wealth by a government in an otherwise libertarian society – which would not be justified. Such redistribution of wealth would infringe on the justly earned property of numerous individuals, simply because they belong to some arbitrarily designated category (e.g., “the rich” – as defined by some artificial threshold). In a libertarian society, occasional emergencies might arise whereby one or a few people might legitimately avail themselves of the property of another, but only if they compensate the owner fairly afterward. But, by definition, such emergency treatment cannot apply across the board and as a systematic, ongoing matter. Furthermore, unlike the emergency treatment I described, a welfare system by definition redistributes wealth from some people to others, and does not compensate the people whose wealth has been redistributed. In a fully libertarian society, where all wealth is acquired based on the principles of merit and consent, such redistribution would be unjustified and harmful. It would, further, be unnecessary, as practically all people would be massively more prosperous than the majority of people are in today’s Western societies.

A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom – Video by G. Stolyarov II

A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom – Video by G. Stolyarov II

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Even after SOPA/PROTECT IP’s demise, assaults on the Internet in its present form have continued on a variety of fronts. Some of these assaults are in the form of legislation, while others are deployed by nominally private entities that in fact thrive on political connections and special privileges. These attempts would limit harmless individual expression and create the presumption of guilt with respect to online activity — quashing that activity until the accused can demonstrate his innocence.

Mr. Stolyarov focuses on four of these assaults: H.R. 3523 – the dubiously named Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), NSA surveillance, ISP/trade-association cooperation, and Arizona’s House Bill 2549.

Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational discourse on this issue.

References:
– “A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom” – Essay by G. Stolyarov II
– “Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act” – Wikipedia
– “Stop Online Piracy Act” – Wikipedia
– “PROTECT IP Act” – Wikipedia
– “The NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)” – James Bamford – Wired Magazine – March 15, 2012
– “NSA vs USA: Total surveillance zooms-in on Americans” – Video from RT
– “RIAA chief: ISPs to start policing copyright by July 1“- Greg Sandoval – cNet – March 14, 2012
– “American ISPs to launch massive copyright spying scheme on July 12” – Stephen C. Webster – Raw Story – March 15, 2012
– “US ranked 26th in global Internet speed, South Korea number one” – Shawn Knight – TechSpot – September 21, 2011
– “Arizona bill could criminalize Internet trolling” – Chris Morris – Yahoo! Games – April 3, 2012
– “Arizona Wants to Outlaw Trolling by Banning ‘Annoying’ Comments” – Paul Lilly – Maximum PC – April 5, 2012

A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom – Article by G. Stolyarov II

A Barrage of Assaults on Internet Freedom – Article by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
April 11, 2012
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           After massive public outrage and activism by major technology companies in January 2012 put an end to the draconian proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act, one might have expected the US political and media establishments to relent in their attempts to suppress Internet freedom. But the assaults on the Internet in its present form have continued on a variety of fronts. Some of these assaults are in the form of legislation, while others are deployed by nominally private entities that in fact thrive on political connections and special privileges. These attempts would limit harmless individual expression and create the presumption of guilt with respect to online activity – quashing that activity until the accused can demonstrate his innocence. Virtually every attempt is promoted under the guise of one of four motivations: “security” against “terrorist” online activities, copyright protection, protection against pornography, or the simple desire not to be offended.

            Consider H.R. 3523 – the dubiously named Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). Like most of the worst bills, it is a “bipartisan” creature, sponsored by Representatives Michael Rogers (R-MI), C. A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D-MD), and 29 others. This bill is being advanced with the dual ostensible purpose of “protecting” networks against unspecified “attacks” and enforcing copyright and patent law. The end result of the bill would be a virtually unlimited power of the US federal government (or private companies that would be empowered to “voluntarily” hand over private user data to the federal government) to monitor any and all online activities at any time without a warrant – even if the activities have no relation to online attacks or infringement of patents or copyrights. Furthermore, there is no limitation in CISPA on how the information collected by government agencies and private companies could be used – and no guarantee that it will not be used for purposes other than “cybersecurity.”  Indeed, the agencies to whom CISPA would delegate authority over “cybersecurity” – the National Security Agency and Cybercommand – are military agencies that are permitted to operate in complete secrecy regarding their aims and protocols. This is a common pattern in attempts to gain power over the Internet: a specific series of threats is asserted, but the proposed “remedy” to these threats is so broad and general as to encompass practically every online activity – with no safeguards to preclude nefarious uses, even when including those safeguards would be a matter of basic common sense. This leads to the unsurprising conclusion that the specific threats are a mere convenient excuse for something else.

            The National Security Agency, in the meantime, does not believe that it even requires legal authority (much less Constitutional authority) to construct a massive data center in Bluffdale, Utah (see this article from Wired Magazine and this video from RT) that is intended to capture and store all e-mails, voice mails, online searches, and other Internet activities by all Americans, all under the ostensible aim of somehow enhancing “national security” – as if your phone conversation with a friend or business e-mail could somehow have any conceivable connection to terrorist activity! While this information will do nothing to prevent terrorist attacks, it will allow the federal government to launch investigations of individuals on the basis of information that has hitherto remained off-limits: sensitive health and lifestyle data, details of private lives that individuals would rather not share with the outside world, the misconstrued off-hand remark in an e-mail or text message, legitimate and peaceful entrepreneurship or intellectual expression that are disagreeable to some federal official, or the unintended violation of some obscure federal law that one did not even know existed.  Even today’s deeply convoluted and often inscrutable system of federal laws can be endured by most Americans, simply because the federal government does not have the ability to pry into the minutiae of each of their lives. Of course, there is so much information online that the NSA would not be able to focus on every individual’s activities in real time. But with access to the entire “electronic footprint” of a person, crucial information about such activities could be produced on demand – say, if a powerful politician wished to investigate a vocal critic for tax evasion (as Franklin Roosevelt often did to his political opponents), or if a federal agency sought to catch a prominent activist in an act of indiscretion (as the FBI routinely attempted to do with leaders of the civil-rights movement). Such surveillance will not lead to every technical violation of every obscure prohibition or mandate being recognized and punished – but if you stand out too much and attract notice for other (perfectly legal) reasons, beware!

          Much of the vast information that would come to the NSA would be automatically flagged for containing “suspicious” keywords or patterns of words – without the imposition of a common-sense filter of meaning. There is the real possibility that Americans might be subject to surveillance, investigation, prosecution, or worse, on the basis of a statistical algorithm. The NSA is even working on ways to break some of the codes used by individuals to encrypt their online communications – a deliberate attempt to bypass privacy safeguards which these individuals have intentionally put in place.

            The trade associations for establishment media interests, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), have not stopped in their designs to limit internet freedom for people merely suspected of copyright infringement. Having lost the legislative battle (which they will surely attempt to fight again), the RIAA and MPAA have instead decided to partner with the regional-monopoly high-speed internet service providers (ISPs) in order to arrive at a “voluntary” scheme of graduated response against individuals whose usage of Internet bandwidth is deemed “suspicious.”  This arrangement is expected come into effect on July 1, 2012, and would, in practice, largely affect users of torrents (which could be utilized for entirely legal purposes, such as an independent artist or game designer freely “seeding” his own work). The first several times, torrent users would be given warnings and asked to attend RIAA/MPAA-sponsored “educational” courses. Ultimately, after repeated suspicions of “infringement,” the ISPs would be required to severely limit the user’s bandwidth – although it is not clear whether they would be permitted to terminate Internet access for the user altogether. All this would be done without recourse to legal due process, without the presumption of innocence, and without the opportunity for the accused user to demonstrate innocence to a body whose Executive Board will be comprised of RIAA/MPAA leadership anyway.

            While this arrangement may superficially seem like a consensual deal among private trade associations and private ISPs, this is far from the underlying reality. Neither the RIAA/MPAA nor the American ISPs are close to free-market entities. The RIAA and MPAA have routinely attempted to use the force of legislation to limit competition and protect the market dominance of their members – the large film and recording studios whose greatest fear is the open, free, decentralized culture of creation emerging on the Internet. The ISPs grew out of telephone companies with local or regional monopolies on service granted to them by law – a legacy of the breakup of AT&T, which until 1982 was the coercive telephone monopoly in the United States. While the AT&T breakup legalized some measure of competition, it did not provide for a market of truly open entry in each jurisdiction; rather, each of AT&T’s pieces (many of which have since re-consolidated) became a mini-AT&T and has used its monopoly profits to artificially bolster itself in subsequent rounds of technological evolution. As a result of their legal privilege, many large ISPs have been able to engage in quasi-monopolistic practices, including the capping of bandwidth on ostensibly “unlimited” plans, the requirement that customers rent modem equipment which they could easily purchase themselves, byzantine phone “help” lines which seem more designed to deter consumers from calling than to actually offer assistance from real people, and frequent reluctance to improve Internet infrastructure despite the ready technological means to do so. The coercive monopolies of the ISPs have resulted in the United States being in mere 26th place in the world – just slightly ahead of the global average – for Internet download speeds. In South Korea, typical Internet speeds are about four times faster – a tantalizing hint at what a freer, more competitive market could accomplish for consumers.  Some of the greatest harms of unfreedom come not in the form of direct legislative or executive action, but rather from the creatures of unfreedom – the politically privileged entities that would not have existed in a free society and that use their power to make deals amongst themselves at consumers’ expense.

            For those who do not understand that freedom of speech includes freedom to offend, there is a new possible recourse in Arizona’s House Bill 2549 (see here and here), which has already passed both houses of the Arizona Legislature. The bill is intended as a way of deterring online bullying, but it would, among other prohibitions, render it illegal to use “any electronic or digital device” to “annoy or offend” anyone or to “use any obscene, lewd or profane language” – punishable by six months in jail for violations that do not involve actual stalking. If you make a controversial comment about a political or religious subject – or simply offend someone’s tastes in art, sports, or food – you will certainly “annoy” someone and be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor in Arizona. And as for that First Amendment and its guarantee of free speech – bring that up, and you will surely have annoyed someone, so off to jail you go. And if you think that “profane language” is limited to words relating to human bodily functions, a religious fundamentalist might have a rather different understanding of that term, which might involve your disbelief or less fervent belief in the principles of his religion.

          The pattern is clear: a seemingly limited purpose with at least some public sympathy is used as a rationale for unprecedented, sweeping powers of surveillance and punishment – designed to transform the Internet of today from an engine of creativity and individual empowerment into a tamed arm of the establishment. The Internet envisioned by the politicians and lobbyists championing CISPA, NSA surveillance, ISP/trade-association cooperation, and Arizona’s House Bill 2549 is a glorified and technological version of “bread and circuses” for the masses – providing them with plenty of entertainment but within carefully controlled and supervised parameters. The intellectual innovator, the independent artist, the small-scale technologist, the do-it-yourself researcher, the electronic activist, the open-source software designer – all members of the “read-write” Internet culture of individual hyper-empowerment – have no place in the centrally planned world of these political and media elites. The old world in which these elites thrived is rapidly succumbing to the broadly uplifting possibilities of electronic technology – but they will not let their power go without a fight. As the downfall of SOPA and PROTECT IP showed, only massive public outrage can defeat ongoing efforts to limit Internet freedom, the last bastion of largely unfettered liberty that exists in contemporary Western societies. An Internet that continues to be predominantly individualistic and unrestrained can catalyze technological and cultural progress that will make freedom and prosperity in all other areas possible within our lifetimes. An Internet that is placed in shackles will become a mere tragic tool for surveillance and social control.