Category Archives: Essays

Obama reveals himself as a champion of the surveillance state

Posted on by

“The president is at least as fond of passive constructions as Chris ‘Mistakes Were Made’ Christie. ‘Too often,’ Obama said, ‘new authorities were instituted without adequate public debate.’ But before the Snowden revelations, the American public didn’t know that the administration considered all Americans’ call records ‘relevant’ to terrorism investigations under section 215 of the Patriot Act–and Obama liked it that way.  Still, Obama pointed out, his review group on NSA surveillance found ‘no indication that this database has been intentionally abused.’ In the speech, Obama congratulated himself for maintaining a ‘healthy skepticism towards our surveillance programs.'”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/obama-reveals-himself-as-a-champion-of-the-surveillance-state/article/2542550

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Fifty States of Fear

Posted on by

“Even though the U.S. has revoked freedoms during wartime (and for some groups in peacetime), for most of its history the people have not been under the yoke of an all-powerful sovereign. However, since 9/11 leaders of both political parties in the United States have sought to consolidate power by leaning not just on the danger of a terrorist attack, but on the fact that the possible perpetrators are frightening individuals who are not like us.  Last year President Obama brought the enemy closer to home, arguing that ‘we face a real threat from radicalized individuals here in the U.S.‘ — radicalized individuals who were ‘deranged or alienated individuals — often U.S. citizens or legal residents.'”

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/19/fifty-states-of-fear/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Cage Complex: Why is America’s prison population soaring?

Posted on by

“The United States leads the world, by a large margin, in the production of at least one thing: prisoners. We have 25 percent of the world’s inmates, but just 5 percent of the world’s population.  Where do they come from? Well, since the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the number of American inmates has risen from approximately 300,000 to a currently estimated 2.3 million. This statistic points to the role of drug-related victimless ‘crime’ in creating prisoners.  There are other sources. The ‘private prison complex’ is a creation of crony capitalism through which privileged corporations are paid well for the ‘care’ of inmates and for leasing out prison labor to other businesses.”

http://www.fee.org/the_freeman/detail/cage-complex

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Doug French: Signs That It’s Time to Head for the Exits

Posted on by

“Charles Mackay wrote in his classic book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, ‘Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.’  We are in the one-by-one process and the government knows it. The first signs of capital controls have surfaced. Toting $10,000 worth of financial instruments out of the country is verboten. The US government has signed agreements with countries and banks around the world to keep money inside the US.  But what happens when the citizenry want to leave the government’s currency? If history is any indication, the government will get mean.”

http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/obamacareproblems

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

The Lust for Power

Posted on by

“The unending struggle between liberty and power became the conceptual framework for many histories written by classical liberals and libertarians. As Lord Acton, the dean of liberal historians, put it, the ‘struggle for the concentration of power and for the limitation and division of power is the mainspring of history.'”

http://www.libertarianism.org/columns/lust-power

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Jeffrey Tucker: The Freedom of Rose Wilder Lane

Posted on by

“Her love of America has nothing to do with the jingoism we know all too well. It is a love of individualism, experimentation, risk, entrepreneurship, creativity, reward, and the inspiration that comes with building a new civilization itself. What a hymn to our history she writes!  And note the date. This was written in wartime. There were censorship rules at the time, things you could and couldn’t say. What might she have written about war authoritarianism that she did not dare to write? I think we can imagine. In fact, you can read between the lines. She saw America betraying its history, principles, and destiny.  And what would she write today?”

http://libertarianstandard.com/2014/01/14/the-freedom-of-rose-wilder-lane/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

The Advantages of Bitcoin Over Paper Money and Gold

Posted on by

“While there are plenty of people out there who are pointing out that Bitcoin will offer strong competition for the likes of PayPal, Western Union, and even Visa, this kind of statement misses the point. It is true that the Bitcoin protocol could be used to replace these companies at nearly no cost, but bitcoins, the currency, are going head-to-head with gold and fiat money. Bitcoin is both a currency and a payment system, and not many people would dare say that there has ever been a more efficient payment system ever created. The only real question left is whether or not bitcoins, the currency, will be able to take a share of the world currency market.”

http://voices.yahoo.com/the-advantages-bitcoin-over-paper-money-gold-12478979.html

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Wendy McElroy: America’s Surveillance State

Posted on by

mcelroy1

“The domestic surveillance state is sometimes called the electronic police state. Those in political power use law enforcement to closely monitor the opinions and peaceful behavior of citizens in order to forestall and punish opposition. Typically the surveillance involves secret files, covert wiretapping, informants, the collection of personal data such as sexual preferences, and other tactics that are odious to a free society. The domestic surveillance state is often associated with the East German Stasi or the Soviet KGB. But its roots are deep in American soil, and it is reaching full growth with the ‘war on terror.'”

http://fff.org/explore-freedom/article/americas-surveillance-state/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Jacob Hornberger: The Pipe Dream of NSA Reformers

Posted on by

hornberger2

“The pipe dream of many of those who are complaining about the NSA’s massive surveillance scheme is that the NSA can be ‘reined in’ by some type of congressional legislation. They just don’t get it. As long as the NSA exists, it’s going to do whatever it needs to do to protect ‘national security,’ even if that means breaking the law.  After all, protecting ‘national security’ is paramount. It is everything. Does anyone honestly believe that the NSA is going to let the country go down if breaking the law enables the NSA to save it? Haven’t these people ever heard the old adage, ‘The Constitution is not a suicide pact’?”

http://fff.org/2014/01/10/the-pipe-dream-of-nsa-reformers/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet

Jacob Hornberger: Master and Servant

Posted on by

hornberger2

“You are a billionaire who, along with your spouse and children, lives in a mansion with 20 fulltime servants. One day you discover the existence of a secret video camera in your bedroom. You hire an investigative team that scours your home for other cameras. It discovers that there is a secret camera in every room in the house, including the kitchen, dining room, living room, den, bedrooms, and bathrooms. The investigative team also discovers a secret room in the basement that consists of several monitoring stations, enabling monitors to keep close watch on the goings on in every room in the house. Your team of servants has been secretly monitoring your family’s activities for years.”

http://fff.org/2014/01/13/master-and-servant/

Scan to Donate Bitcoin to Freedomwat.ch Staff
Did you like this?
Tip Freedomwat.ch Staff with Bitcoin
Donate via Installed Wallet