Here we go again

DETROIT (AP) - A federal judge challenged prosecutors Wednesday to show that nine members of a Michigan militia accused of plotting war against the government had done more than just talk and should remain locked up.

U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts heard nearly 10 hours of testimony and arguments over two days. She did not make a decision about whether the nine will remain in custody, saying only that a ruling would come soon.

The members of a southern Michigan group called Hutaree have been in custody for a month. An indictment accuses them of weapons violations and a rare crime: conspiring to commit sedition, or rebellion, against the government by first killing police officers.

Prosecutors say the public would be at risk if the nine are released. But defense lawyers claim the government has overreached with a criminal case based mostly on hateful speech.

An undercover agent infiltrated the group and secretly made recordings that have been played in court. While there is talk about killing police, it's not specific. In one conversation, there are many people talking over each other and laughing.

Roberts pressed that point more than once as Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet argued in favor of keeping the nine in jail. The judge suggested she didn't hear or read in the transcripts any indication that violence was imminent.

"Mere presence where a crime may be planned is not a crime. ... How does this add up to seditious conspiracy?" Roberts said.

Waterstreet said the government is not required to show all its evidence at this early stage of the case. He referred to the words of militia leader David Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., who was recorded by the undercover agent while they drove to Kentucky earlier this year.

"It's now time to strike and take our nation back so that we may be free again from tyranny. Time is up," Waterstreet said, quoting a transcript.

Later, putting the transcript aside, the prosecutor said: "The theme is the brotherhood is the enemy - all law enforcement."

Defense lawyers urged the judge to look at each defendant individually. Although all are charged with conspiracy, they were not always together during critical meetings cited by the government.

"'What if' is not the standard. ... None of these words are an instruction to anyone to commit a crime," said Stone's attorney, William Swor, as held up a stack of transcripts.

Arthur Weiss, a lawyer for Thomas Piatek, 46, of Whiting, Ind., said disgust with the government as recorded by the undercover agent is similar to



what's said daily by radio and TV talk-show hosts Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

"Millions of people" are talking about "taking our country back," Weiss said.

The judge also heard from relatives of some of the defendants who pledged to be responsible for them if they were released from jail. "


http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100429/D9FCD8I00.html


Okay, if this isn't a clear cut attempt to collate neocon talk radio to militias ( same as in the 90's remember?) then I dont know what is. Note that the AP writer chose to include the quote from one of the lawyers. AP!!

That is the plan, friends. It's right there.

Dr Don's great thesis

The Declaration of Independence holds that rights are “self-evident.” However, it is the failure to grasp the true nature of rights which has brought this country to its current condition. It remained for the 20th-century philosopher Ayn Rand to explicitly identify rights as “moral principle(s) defining and sanctioning a man’s freedom of action in a social context.” Rights pertain only to “freedom from physical compulsion, coercion or interference by other men. ... Rights impose no obligations on (others) except of a negative kind: to abstain from violating (your) rights.”

The source of all rights is the right to life, and its sole implementation is the right to property, the right to use the products of your efforts to sustain your life. The rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the rights to enjoy your life and use your property. Rights are an objectively necessary requirement of human life, principles which apply equally to all persons and at all times. In sum, rights are freedoms for rational beings to take the actions necessary to fulfill and enjoy their lives. Any alleged “right” which violates these rights is not a right, but an excuse for a crime.

The only way to violate individual rights is through the initiation of force. A person who initiates force against you is attempting to negate your means of survival by forcing you to act against your judgment as to what your life requires. The only moral use of force is in retaliation against those who initiate its use. The sole proper purpose of government is to protect its citizens’ rights by banning the initiation of force and placing its retaliatory use under objective control. The purpose of the U.S. Constitution was, and is, to establish and maintain the supremacy of individual rights over our society and our government.

Consider, by contrast, the congressman quoted by Batten: “We have a moral obligation today, tonight to make health care a right.” That person believes he has a duty to force the providers of health care to work. Only a slave has no choice in the work he does. If health care is considered a right, then someone must provide it, willing or not. If too few people choose the profession of health care to provide for everyone’s “rights,” how will the need be met? Will doctors be jailed for the “crime” of leaving medicine? Will students be drafted into medical schools? If so, what kind of doctors will result? A doctor in Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” says, “A man who’s willing to work under compulsion is too dangerous a brute to entrust with a job in the stockyards,” let alone in an operating room.

The root of this evil is altruism, the perverse principle that “man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue, and value” (Rand). Thus, altruism negates individual rights. If one has no right to exist for one’s own sake, one has no rights whatsoever. The health-care measures passed may be touted as “good-faith efforts,” as Batten stated, but the “good faith” is solidly rooted in an evil premise.

Altruistic ideologues, such as those running our government, believe that the initiation of force to counteract selfishness is not only permitted, but obligatory. To a committed altruist, anyone who refuses to sacrifice, to serve others at his own cost, is harming those others by denying them their right to the product of his efforts.

It was altruism, not selfishness, that gave rise to the horrors of communism and fascism. Both systems, variants of collectivism, deny that individuals have any reason for existence other than to serve others and advocate stamping out self-interest as a moral imperative. By contrast, this country was founded by men who did not consider themselves sacrificial animals, servants or slaves to the state. By claiming that rights are unalienable, they held that rights exist whether or not anyone chooses to recognize them.

spare the rod

From press reports

A new media study among 1,378 Americans revealed that among political parties, more Republicans (73%) reported spanking their children compared to Democrats (60%) and Independents (61%).

In addition, a slightly higher number of Republicans (89%) reported being spanked as a child compared to Democrats (87%) and Independents (86%). Despite recent study findings, the vast majority of Republicans (78%) did not think that spanking may cause aggression in children, while fewer Democrats (58%) disagreed with the findings.

Among the findings:

Have you ever spanked your child or children?

Democrat: 60 percent, yes; 40 percent, no Republican: 73 percent, yes; 27 percent, no Independent: 61 percent yes, 39 percent no

Were you ever spanked when you were a child? Democrat: 87 percent, yes; 13 percent, no Republican: 89 percent, yes; 11 percent, no Independent: 86 percent yes; 14 percent, no

Do you think spanking children causes them to be more aggressive?

Democrat: 42 percent, yes; 58 percent, no Republican: 22 percent, yes; 78 percent, no Independent: 39 percent, yes; 61 percent, no



Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/04/19/1386782/partisan-discipline.html#ixzz0lwgt69Nm

Stossel nails it again

By John Stossel

I used to be a Kennedy-style "liberal." Then I wised up. Now I'm a libertarian.

But what does that mean?

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When I asked people on the street, half had no clue.

We know that conservatives want government to conserve traditional values. They say they're for limited government, but they're pro-drug war, pro-immigration restriction and anti-abortion, and they often support "nation-building."

And so-called liberals? They tend to be anti-gun and pro-choice on abortion. They favor big, powerful government -- they say -- to make life kinder for people.

By contrast, libertarians want government to leave people alone -- in both the economic and personal spheres. Leave us free to pursue our hopes and dreams, as long as we don't hurt anybody else.

Ironically, that used to be called "liberal," which has the same root as "liberty." Several hundred years ago, liberalism was a reaction against the stifling rules imposed by aristocracy and established religion.

I wish I could call myself "liberal" now. But the word has been turned on its head. It now means health police, high taxes, speech codes and so forth.

So I can't call myself a "liberal." I'm stuck with "libertarian." If you have a better word, please let me know.

When I first explained libertarianism to my wife, she said: "That's cruel! What about the poor and the weak? Let them starve?"

I recently asked some prominent libertarians that question, including Jeffrey Miron, who teaches economics at Harvard.

"It might in some cases be a little cruel," Miron said. "But it means you're not taking from people who've worked hard to earn their income (in order) to give it to people who have not worked hard."

But isn't it wrong for people to suffer in a rich country?

"The number of people who will suffer is likely to be very small. Private charity ... will provide support for the vast majority who would be poor in the absence of some kind of support. When government does it, it creates an air of entitlement that leads to more demand for redistribution, till everyone becomes a ward of the state."

Besides, says Wendy McElroy, the founder of ifeminists.com, "government aid doesn't enrich the poor. Government makes them dependent. And the biggest hindrance to the poor ... right now is the government. Government should get out of the way. It should allow people to open cottage industries without making them jump through hoops and licenses and taxing them to death. It should open up public lands and do a 20th-century equivalent of 40 acres and a mule. It should get out of the way of people and let them achieve and rise."

David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, took the discussion to a deeper level.

"Instead of asking, 'What should we do about people who are poor in a rich country?' The first question is, 'Why is this a rich country?' ...

"Five hundred years ago, there weren't rich countries in the world. There are rich countries now because part of the world is following basically libertarian rules: private property, free markets, individualism."

Boaz makes an important distinction between equality and absolute living standards.

"The most important way that people get out of poverty is economic growth that free markets allow. The second-most important way -- maybe it's the first -- is family. There are lots of income transfers within families. Third would be self-help and mutual-aid organizations. This was very big before the rise of the welfare state."

This is an important but unappreciated point: Before the New Deal, people of modest means banded together to help themselves. These organizations were crowded out when government co-opted their insurance functions, which included inexpensive medical care.

Boaz indicts the welfare state for the untold harm it's done in the name of the poor.

"What we find is a system that traps people into dependency. ... You should be asking advocates of that system, 'Why don't you care about the poor?'"

I agree. It appears that when government sets out to solve a problem, not only does it violate our freedom, it also accomplishes the opposite of what it set out to do.