They’re Libertarians but They Don’t Know It: The High and the Low, Donald Trump and Mahyar Tousi

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Donald Trump and Mayhar Tousi are not Libertarians doctrinally, but there actions are having libertarian consequences if we mean by libertatarian consequences actions which are in the human rights visions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as well as the modern property right visions of Murray Rothbard, and as well as the disciples of the non-aggresion principle (Napsters) in the modern liberatarian world.

Donald Trump has done this by twisting the arm of a vile Fascist and state-religion terror regime which has violated every norm of a moral, libertarian democratic republic, like the US and a sad few of other countries around the world like the UK under Keir Starmer where traditional British Libertarian Principles like The Freedom of Speech are slowly and systematically being stripped naked from

the body politic of Brittania.

Mahyar Tousi has done it by setting up his own TV works which broadcasts over the internet and which has grown like the proverbial acorn into a mighty oak, with Tousi keeping his subscribers, now at a million and a half, up to date on the situation in the middle East as well as illustrating the feeble governments now ruling in the UK, Australia and Canada. Tousi,despite being born in Iran, came to the UK in 2008 as a refugee from the Fascist government. He is a true Englishman in my opinion, illustrating the Bertrand Russellian qualities of not shutting up if you see injustice and opposing state religions and blasphemy laws.

High and Low: Whether as powerful as the President of the U.S. or as powerful as a self-made media force, who started from nothing, in influencing the public; both these men have pushed the world in the libertarian direction at a critical time when a belligerent Fascist terror dictatorship threatened the sane, peaceful world with nuclear mass murder. We should thank them for their actions.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian

My Positions on Oregon State Measures 115-119

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As a former Oregon Libertarian Party Gubernatorial Nominee, and as a private US Citizen who has the Right — nay, even the obligation — to speak out on these issues, these are my views and opinions on these Oregon State Measures for the general election of Nov. 5th, 2024.

I urge a No vote on Measure 115, which would give politicians the power to recall elected government officials, instead of leaving that power in the hands of the People. Given how mediocre and corrupt so many elected officials are, we certainly don’t want to be giving these corruptable collectivists the power to get rid of a libertarian, if one ever managed to get elected.

Likewise, I urge a No vote on Measure 116, which sets up a “Commission” to set the bloated salaries of elected government officials, instead of having to have the legislature set its salaries. Having the legislature set their own salaries is bad enough, but at least the legislators must take the responsibility for the raise, instead of sloughing the responsibility onto the backs of the excuse that an “Independent Comission” had set the rates.

I personally believe that elected legislators should be paid the minimum wage times their number of dependent children plus themselves. Perhaps a living stipend could be included, which would help cover the costs of relocating to Salem for the legislative sessions.

State Measure 117 brings us to the horrible brink of having ranked elections and proportional represetation, both curses that have plagued the societies that adopted them, like the Weimar Republic, Ireland, and several other countries. What has made both Britain and the U.S. successful democratic societies has been the “first past the post” system of elections, that was conducive to two-party rule, and thus political action.

Ranked voting is patently unfair to a candidate who would have won an electiion, but has it taken away from him so that the second-place candidate is declared the winner.

However, my main objection is this: In any election there are usually four to six candidates who are either big-government leftists or big-government corporate-welfare republicans, along with one sole Libertarian. If a genuine radical Libertarian were ever able to be elected to high office, you can be sure the statists-collectivist parties would unite to defeat him under a ranked-voting system.

I realise there are good-faith Libertarians who disagree with this view, and believe ranked-voting gives Libertarians a better chance to win an election. Perhaps they are right. I don’t know.

Let us retain our systen which has served America and the UK so well for so long. Vote NO on Measure 117.

I have mixed emotions on Measure 118, but tend towards a YES vote on this measure that would increase the corporate minimum tax and use it to supply every permanent Oregon resident with a $1600 annual check. I support this measure because the discrepency between what giant corporations pay in Oregon income tax versus what the poor worker is taxed in Oregon is immorally large. The lowest paid worker is quickly hit with a 5% tax rate that climbs post haste within a few thousand dollars to 10%, a rate that used to only be imposed on the wealthy in California in the 1990s. Now Oregon Democrats tax the poor worker at that exploitive level, while most corporations pay no state income tax in Oregon, and those behemoth businesses that do, pay a miniscule rate.

I also support this measure because I personally believe that the personal income tax is an unConstitutional aggression of the State against individual property rights, which are guaranteed in The Declaration of Independence, but since a corporation is not an individual but rather a notional entity, there is the possibility of taxing it. At least, it is not prohibited by The Constitution.

Moreover, the inflationary policies of the two major parties have so impoverished Americans that this socialist rebate seems relatively fair given the vast dichotomy between personal and corporate income tax rates in the Oregonian Democratic paradise.

I realise there are Libertarians who would oppose this tax hike and subsequent spreading of helicopter money. I sympathise with their opposition on Libertarian principles.

Finally, we come to Measure 119, which places a gag order on cannabis producers in talking to their workers. This is clearly a violation of The First Amendment and The Freedom of Speech, one of the Inalienable Rights of Man. Anyone who values The Bill of Rights must vote NO on this totalitarian, fascistic Measure.

That concludes my survey, discussion, and voting recommendations on Oregon Measures 115 through 119.

— Paul Grad, libertarian

RFK Jr. Should Run as a Libertarian on October 9th

Animal Welfare, Economics, Environmentalism, Libertarian Party, Libertarianism, Oregon politics, politics, U.S. Politics, ,

RFK Jr. has stated that on October 9th he is going to make a major policy announcement. This has many hoping that he will run as an Independent, and align himself with one of the minor parties in America. The only minor party that is on the ballot in all fifty states is the Libertarian Party.

RFK is not a libertarian. But his positions are congruent with many libertarian positions. To wit, he is opposed to manufactured wars, like the one the US is conducting against Russia. He opposes the huge graft paid out to the military-industrial complex. He opposed the covid lockdowns, and mandatory vaccinations for many types of jobs. He opposes corporate environmental pollution that assaults the health of the Individual, which is fully in line with the Libertarian Non-aggression Principle. He is also a lawyer who has battled against many of the corporate polluters, and factory farm corporations that make life hell for billions of animals. I happen to agree with his foreign policy positions on Israel, Iran, and the Ukraine, and his non-interventionist philosophy. He is fully aware of the devastating impact of inflation on the poor and middle classes in the U.S. He has visited the border and seen the absurd Biden inaction policy in action. All these factors combined would make me inclined to vote for him, instead of for Trump, or for an unknown libertarian candidate like the party ran in the last election who would have slim chance of winning…

And like Libertarians, he has come out strongly for Free-Market Capitalism, though I doubt he is a Rothbardian.

RFK is also unusual in a Democrat in that he is willing to engage in conversation and debate with non-Democrats, and those who probably are opposed to his Democrat programs. He has been interviewed twice by Dr. Ron Paul, as well as Tucker Carlson and many other non-Democrats. He is loath to get into personality-bashing, choosing rather to focus on differences in policy.

It is debatable whether he would draw more votes away from Biden or Trump if he ran, but political analyst Dick Morris, who once worked for Clinton and later for Trump, thinks that he would hurt Biden more than Trump. I hope he is right, as I would be happy with either Trump or RFK, but would give the edge to RFK because of his environmental stands and his opposition to bloated military-industrial welfare spending.

So we will wait with baited breath his October 9th announcement, and hopefully America will finally have a choice to radically change the way government operates in the US for the first time since Ron Paul ran for President in 2012.

And for the first time in history, the Libertarian Party will be putting forth a candidate who really has a chance to become President of the United States. And this would benefit not only the American People, but also the Libertarian Party, which is the only political party that reflects the Libertarian spirit of the American Revolution, as well as the desire of the average American to get government off his back and out of his life.

— Paul Grad, enviro-Libertarian.

Why Do We Believe in Governments?

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It really amazes me that all over the world, people passively accept that they should live under governments? The belief is almost universal, whichever continent you go to. And it seems to me that this occurs because of a deep conditioning in people that they belong to a nation and therefore must have a national government, and also because of a lack of reading on history.

I was thinking the other day of how wicked governments have been over the course of human history, and more specifically, I was thinking of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserable, where a poor man tries to steal a loaf of bread from a bakery, because his infant child is wailing from hunger. The man is caught and ends up in a French prison of that era, and one of the procedures the State used at that time was to brand all the prisoners with a hot iron. The man has to undergo this torture at the hands of the State. And yet, France at that time was considered a liberal country because of the revolution, and Napoleon’s fight against the European monarchies and their cronies. But like the Nazis, the French branded people.

I wish the youth of America, and almost everybody else, would sit down with a book of history, no matter on what era, or specific war, and read the testament of how Government X or Y made life hell for its own citizens, or other country’s citizens through acts of war. They would soon come to the conclusion that it is government itself which is the culprit because of its almost inevitable attempt to go from wielding some power, to wielding absolute power over people’s actions, like conscripting them for military service, as in World War One, or dragooning them into serving on juries for slave wages far below the minimum wage in the states where they are compelled to serve. Given the seriousness of what they do for those wrongfully convicted of a crime, jurors should be paid at least double the minimum wage in their states. We are not saying that people should not be asked, or even forced, to serve on juries; we are saying that they should be paid at least the minimum wage in order not to violate the 13th Amendment, which permits involuntary servitude only after conviction of a crime.

So many government functions could be fulfilled so much better by private voluntary groups, that many of the problems government has to deal with would disappear from their list of necessities. Ultimately, we might be left with only a criminal court system and jails, if the Minarchist Libertarians had their way, while the Anarcho-Capitalist Libertarians say to them “Why stop their? Why not go all the way?” And if they admit a Minarchist function of a legal system being valid or necessary, why not other government “necessities”. For example, why not have a government bureau devoted to providing food for babies? Surely nothing could be unworthy about guaranteeing such a benefit? And on and on you go until you have a massive government structure, with massive bureaucracies that will demand a huge taxation base.

What we want is a society where over 90% of the populace is affluent, so that they can buy any necessity as it arises, while they always have enough capital in reserve to not fall into destitution, which capital can be rented out to others that want or need it to earn an interest income, which in turn is used to buy necessities. And so the cycle works, and it is called capitalism. But only in the modern technological age has such a state been a possibility. In biblical times, for example, charity was about the only way that social welfare spending got done. If a wealthy merchant saw a destitute man on the street with a huge, foul-smelling sore on his leg, he knew that it was up to him to help that man; there was no government welfare department going to deal with it. So charity became one of the religious virtues often repeated in various biblical accounts of various religions.

Now we have a huge welfare bureaucracy in America while hundreds of thousands sleep in tents on the streets of major American (and Canadian) cities, in miserable conditions. Yet America spends $880 billion a year on “defense”, but it cannot defend these people.

But Americans remain incredibly ignorant, because they do not read history, and so live in a dream world that their government is just like a friendly neighborhood grocer, who just wants to help them, instead of an ever-evolving monster that just wants to aggrandize its power.

Read history and learn.

=== Paul Grad, Libertarian

America The Tragic: They Should Have Listened to Ron Paul

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It is truly tragic that America has turned into a country where the streets of the great cities look like Calcutta India in 1963, with masses of people living on the street because they have not the warewithal to rent accomodations, as well as pay for other necessities of life like food and toiletries. There have always been skid row areas where, in the old days at least, a certain number of alcoholics, destitute of means, lived out a rude life centering around their obtaining a little drink. But now, when you see the massive number of people sleeping in the streets, or bent over, half asleep, as if bowing to the god they have made of fentanyl, you have to wonder why the Administrations in this country do not take this as a tragic crisis that must be quickly solved, and such indifference to the plight of other human beings testifies to how callous America has become. That so many people can be left in such indifference to rot on the street, while the society around them spends $880 billion on armaments and the military every 365 days (while spending only $12 billion on the EPA, something that will be drastically reversed in RFK Jr. is elected President) it shows both the indifference and also the powerlessness of the average citizen to affect any change in the situation. Many many people would help if they could, but their own lives are so tied down with getting the necessities and dealing with the governmental coercions like jury duty slavery, or having to file tax forms, or a thousand other bureaucratic procedures that suck up so much of the time and energy of the working- or middle-class American, that they have no way of affecting the situation except for voting every four years.

I believe that under RFK Jr., millions of Americans would not be left on the streets in such misery and indifference as they are under the Biden Administration, and in so-called liberal Democratic-run cities and States, like California and Pennsylvania. Go watch the videos of the streets of Kensington district in Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love! Or the streets full of people living in tents, or boxes, or just sleeping their stupor off with nothing over them in Los Angeles or Portland. How can a country that spends that much not only on the military, but many other hugely expensive bureaus full of bureaucrats as well, who do a mediocre job, because that is the nature of all bureaucracies, governmental or corporate —how can such a country permit such misery on its streets to persist, day after day.

The US Government owns huge swathes of land. It has the tax revenue to provide these teeming thousands of the destitute with a trailer or small structure, it has vast food stocks in warehouses and actually pays farmers NOT to grow food to keep the prices high for the consumer and the profits bigger for corporate-farming America. The family farmer doesn’t mind either. The US has vast military bases in the US where they trailers could be pitched, and the barracks or some basic sanitary system could easily be installed. Perhaps a washroom for every 20-30 inhabitants. The residents with no serious criminal record could be employed in keeping order in their washhouse environs, and so earn income that would have been paid to a government employee. Residents who did not want something for nothing could volunteer their labor or special skills in exchange for their trailer rental and food allowance, thus avoiding parasitism, which is especially damaging to men.

But while I think RFK Jr would not be indifferent to the plight of these people who are regarded so indifferently by the Biden and State Democrat administrations, the real reason that such a huge number of these people are on the streets like this, is because America did not listen to Congressman Ron Paul, and his message of how Inflation was the real poison that American Society, or any society, must avoid like the plague, and the only way to do that is to have a very limited, or even no, government with a strictly limited area of function, and strictly limited in its spending function, as well as not running deficits, or deficits so miniscule that they were a feeble percent of the total spending. A budget deficit of one hundredth of one percent would have such a feeble impact on inflation that productivity would easily swamp its effect. However, such deficits under the current Biden Administration are a vain dream.

So, the real reason that America has hundreds of thousands of people living in tents and boxes all over the country (and Canada seems no different based on my viewing of the homeless living on the streets of Vancouver) is that it did not elect Ron Paul, nor heed his philosophy.

The great Novelist and Writer, Norman Mailer, once mentioned that the real thing that brought Hitler to power was Inflation, and I agree with that view. In that sense, Ron Paul was the most anti-Nazi politician of the last forty years, for he was the only one who passionately preached the gospel of sound money, and how damaging inflation was to the working man who is trying to save his way out of poverty or a job he hates.

At the same time, RFK Jr. is now the only candidate running for the Presidency with a substantial percentage who is talking about the devastating effect that inflation is having on the small American, and how it is degenerating society through its effects. (Larry Elder is the other, but his poll numbers are insubstantial, unlike his intelligence. Indeed, a Kennedy-Elder ticket, a bipartisan ticket, would probably guarantee Mr. Kennedy against the fate of his father and uncle, at least at the hands of a white supremacist.) Additionally, RFK Jr is an environmental activist lawyer, so as an enviro-libertarian, who believes Capitalism necessitates a relatively clean and pristine environment, I am thrilled that he is finally combining Ron Paul’s views on inflation, with the radical environmentalist’s concern for preserving the Earth. America finally has a Choice, not an Echo, for the first time since Ron Paul last ran for President in 2012, which was America’s last shot at avoiding the chaos of today.

But let us remember that we would not even have this economic problem and homeless crisis that RFK Jr seems to be aware of, if the country had listened to Ron Paul and either elected him or adopted his economic policies. After all, Ron Paul has not been the only libertarian-leaning politician in America in the last two score years, but he has surely been the most radical.

So kudos to Ron Paul and RFK Jr. (and even Larry Elder!) for trying to steer America from its’ now-tragic path.

RFK Jr: A President for Many Reasons

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My spoof on the play “A Man for All Seasons” about the life of Sir Thomas More, and how sticking to his principles cost him his head, seems to be fitting for the campaign of Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who seems to me to be a man who sticks to his principles, no matter what others think or say about it. So lets look at the ways I, an enviro-libertarian who agrees most with Rothbard and thinks anarcho-capitalism is the ultimate development of a sane society, agree with RFK’s positions on the following issues.

Inflation – RFK has brought up how inflation has destroyed the middle class in America, and produced a huge underclass of people who can barely survive, especially since the huge food-price inflation that has taken place under Biden. He quoted the statistics, which I have mentioned to people as significant, that 57% of Americans don’t have at least $1000 in cash savings that they could use in an emergency, and how 35% don’t make enough to cover their basic necessities. This is what I call the Brazilianization of America, meaning the Brazil of the 50s and 60s had a huge underclass of poor people, and a few super-wealthy individuals. This has probably changed, but it is clear that in the US, the situation has gotten far worse than it was in the 50s, when a working class person could afford to buy a house on his salary alone, and the middle class was open to anyone who could accrue the capital. But the massive Obama-Biden deficits, and the huge Biden wealth giveaway during the pandemic, have led to a class society where the young can no longer realistically plan their lives around a family and family home. So inflation is a key libertarian issue, and RFK seems to be fully aware of it. He is probably also aware that inflation has led to social chaos all throughout history. The writer Norman Mailer said that what brought Hitler to power was inflation. I agree. By harping on how the working man and middle class man had seen their savings and wealth evaporate during the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic, Hitler and the Nazis were able to tap into the wrath of the average citizen who had seen their life savings decimated, and there were a lot of them. So inflation and Fascism go hand in hand, and inflation is actually the theft of your life energies that went into the savings represented by your bank account. Money has been tried to be defined many times by many different people, from Franklin to Marx, but only the Austrian School economists, Mises-Hayek-Rothbard, got it right. (I won’t tell you their correct answer.) But I will say that money might be considered concentrated life-energy, i.e. the life-energy you put into earning it minus what you spent of it to sustain your life. The residue, if any, is your savings, and those savings represent your production minus your consumption. If you produced more than you consumed, that is represented by the Federal Reserve notes in your hand.

And it always seemed to me that what we should be saying in the modern age, instead of the Biblical “As Ye sow, so shall Ye reap”, is the adage “As Ye consume, so shall Ye produce”.

RFK’s proposal to back us treasury bills at 1% with gold is a bold proposal that will do much to instill confidence in the dollar. This is a proposal that you’d never hear from any other Democrat except Mr. Kennedy, and we say “well done”.

Corporate Welfare – RFK has been outspoken in his condemnation of corporate welfare, especially to big pharma and the military-industrial complex. No other Democrats have the courage to say this out loud. And you’d have to go to Ron Paul to hear it so forthrightly condemned. There is probably more spent on corporate welfare each year than on individual welfare, and, by eliminating it, we could probably cover all of the individual welfare. Military spending alone costs a family of four $10,000/year, or $40,000 plus accrued interest during the four years of the Biden Presidency. When Reagan was President, a good used 3-bedroom home cost $40,000. And recall that the Founding Fathers had a horror of a standing army in peacetime.

The Covid Lockdowns – Again, almost uniquely among Democrats, RFK came out strongly against both the Covid Lockdowns, and also the mask requirements, which again only a rare few, including Dr. Ron Paul, came out against, talking about all the negative health consequences of wearing masks. Now it is admitted that the lockdowns not only weren’t effective (compare Sweden), but led to massive negative consequences that have cost many their lives. And the mask theory was also disproved, since the virus would just rise up from the mask, and enter the air of the building one was in, where it would be moved around, and the critical factor was how much time did one spend inside a closed building. One can only imagine what it was like for people who had asthma, COPE, or needed oxygen, who were required to wear a mask when they went grocery shopping. Not much compassion for those folks.

The Iran Deal – Once again, RFK is the only Democrat I’ve heard who has come out strongly against the Iran Deal, where Obama set up the destruction of Israel and virtually guaranteed a nuclear confrontation in the Middle East, and all those Quisling Senators and Congressmen in the Democrat Party went along with this nuclear proliferation. They are not the children in the region who will grow up with the shadow of nuclear obliteration hanging over them everyday. They’re thousands of miles away on their planet called America, so why should they care? After all, Obama told them it was good. RFK also came out against giving Iran the $2billion which will be used for genocidal purposes by a regime that hangs over 1100 people a year, many for drug possession, which in a libertarian society would be legal. And giving money to a Theocracy is un-American, when America was founded as a place where Government and Organized Religion were separated by a wall, as they should be. Indeed, if the State is always immoral and dangerous due to its lust to always be expanding its power, then the State is evil, and God, or that which is sacred or holy, should not be contaminated by contact with that evil. So even from a religious standpoint, there should be a wall of separation between church and state.

Vaccination – RFK has come out against the forcing of children to take 72 vaccines in order to attend government schools without those vaccines being tested against a placebo of water or salt water. Some medical authorities have challenged him on this, saying that the placebo would be the regular inert components of the vaccine without the vaccine component that induces an immune response. However, this latter definition of a placebo would miss any negative effects caused by the inert ingredients, so it seems to me that RFK’s desire to use water or salt water as the placebo makes sense. He also argues that the government has removed liability for vaccine-induced damage from the vaccines, giving big pharma a huge incentive not to produce completely safe vaccines.

Censorship – RFK has argued forcefully against any kind of censorship that abridges The First Amendment and The Freedom of Speech and The Press. It is particularly disgusting to see the Democrats, who 60 years ago were championing The Freedom of Speech, leading the charge to abridge this most basic of Freedoms. You can see it on the college campuses where controversial speakers have been banned or shouted down, much as the Nazis did to anyone they disagreed with. Fascists and Communists cannot tolerate Free Speech once they are in power because it might cause people to think for themselves. And it is noticeable that whereas once debates and forensics, which is the theory of debate, were part of every junior high and high school curriculum, they have virtually vanished from American government schools. Bringing back debates into schools would be a huge step forward in defending the Republic from Fascist usurpation.

Legalizing drugs – This is another cornerstone of Libertarian political theory, based on the inalienable Right to self-ownership. I disagree with RFK’s call to impose a tax on cannabis to be used for drug-abuse treatment, since I think that any drug that causes little or no damage, like caffeine, should not be taxed. Indeed, no drug should be taxed since vice is not a crime, but I would have less objection to taxing deleterious drugs like methamphetamine or tobacco if you have a government-financed medical care system and those funds went to operate that system.

The Environment – Though I am a Libertarian, I also consider myself an Environmentalist or environmental preservationist. To me, these two philosophies are linked. RFK, it seems to me, is primarily an Environmentalist, since his legal efforts for many years have been in that field, and he has done much good work. Indeed, I think RFK should be running as a Green Party candidate, though the Green Party has moved very far from its founding roots, adopting socialist measures, and seeming to think that bashing Israel is the most important worldwide issue, while they are silent on Iran or the Japanese and Norwegian butchery of whales.

In sum, RFK seems to me to be an ideal candidate when it comes to combining environmentalism with core principles of Libertarianism, though he is not a libertarian. He has kept his cards close to his chest in stating what programs that the Democrats support that he shares. Perhaps if we heard his proposals on affirmative action, abortion, taxation, etc. we would not be so enamored with his candidacy, but many of these proposals would be defeated by a Republican Congress if he promoted them.

I, for one, would be willing to gamble on an RFK Presidency seeing there are so many reasons and issues I agree with him on, and risk that he might impose a classical Democrat Party big government agenda on the country, especially if he were an immensely popular President.

Yes, RFK Jr. could be a President for many reasons.

— Paul Grad, 2014 Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee

RFK Jr. Appears Before the House Judiciary Committee’s Firing Squad

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Watching today’s hearing before the House Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Censorship was far more interesting that watching the machinations of the currency markets, so that I couldn’t tear myself away from watching it all the way through, with, ironically, the Democrats constantly attacking the Democrat Presidential Candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, and the Republicans constantly supporting and praising his pro-First Amendment arguments.

Kennedy was consistently slandered at an anti-Semite, though his actions have always been staunchly in support of Israel, and though his grandfather was a notorious Jew-hater, JFK and RFK knew their history, and had rolled far from the tree. JFK was a Liberal Democrat in the best sense of what the words meant 60 years ago, and certainly not a racist, as you can see in the firm way he integrated segregated Southern Universities. He, and his brother, and Nicholas Katzenbach, were relentless in their pressure that these universities would be integrated, because to deny one person a right to attend a government-sponsored university was akin to overthrowing the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in their understanding.

Kennedy, uniquely, was also the only President in the last 60 years, to have a spontaneous sense of humor, which you can often see flashing in his Press Conferences, which he wasn’t afraid to hold, unlike our current President. (Reagan was the master of the prepared joke or line, but he was rarely spontaneous like Kennedy.)

And all because RFK Jr mentioned the theory of ethnically-targeted bioweapons, which we can be sure has been the dream of several types of racists, and mentioned a published paper which stated that Ashkenazy Jews and the Chinese had lower rates of covid infection, and seemed to have a higher resistance to the virus. For stating this scientific observation from a published paper, Kennedy was defamed as an antisemite and inciter of Asian hate, though he never mentioned anything about Sephardic Jews, who compromise about 25% of world Jewry, and who lived in Spain under the Moors, and in the North African Islamic communities, from Morocco to Yemen, and in the Middle East, where they faced discrimination but rarely massacre. Indeed, the period of the Moorish occupation of Spain is often referred to as The Golden Age, because Jewish scholarship flourished during that time, whereas with the reconquest of Spain by the Christians, continual persecution ensued.

So, when RFK Jr was lambasted as an antisemite, saying that covid was designed to “spare the Jews”, this is exactly what he did not say. But the lemmings among the Democrats all repeated this lie, whereas all he said was that one segment of Jews, along with Chinese Asians, showed a lower rate of infection, based on a serious medical study which was published.

Representative Massie was astute enough to come to RFK’s aid by entering into the record the names of not one, but two papers put out by reputable clinical laboratories, and cited in government publications, showing that RFK’s remarks were based on published evidence.

Now, what I find ironic is that only a few days earlier, Representative Jayapal of Washington State, called Israel a racist and apartheid State, and was called up on that pure antisemitism, designed to wreak violence on Jews and Israelis, and had to apologize and tweak her comment to mean she only meant it to apply to the current government of Israel, and not per se as a condemnation of the idea of a Jewish cultural State and homeland. But I doubt very much if a Palestinian terrorist or a Nazi would be deterred from action because of this nuancing. Jayapal knew that her words wouid get at least one Israeli civilian murdered, but she said it anyway. And she, a woman living in a country that still practices the Death Penalty, while Israel has abolished this abomination, and most heinous of anti-Libertarian Crimes — the murder of an Individual by the State.

She calls Israel an apartheid State, though Jews and Moslems and Christian freely mingle in her cities, and the Druze Moslems passionately serve in her armed forces because, under Israeli rule, they are free to practice their version of Islam, whereas when they lived under Arab rule, they were murdered, and considered to be heretics. Homosexuals are also protected in Israel, while they are persecuted and often killed in several Islamic nations. And how can Israel be a racist country, when she has admitted tens of thousands of Ethiopian Falashas, who are Black, but practice a form of Judaism that is considered valid.

Yet there was no condemnation of Jayapal from today’s censorship committee Democrats, and I was very glad to see Representative Kat Cammack point out the irony of condemning RFK Jr. for stating a scientific observation from a paper, while not condemning the inflammatory and defamatory rhetoric of someone like Jayapal, who is clearly a Nazi when it comes to Israel, and whose words will tragically get people half way around the world murdered, while she lives in a country with the Death Penalty, and represents a State who basically stole its entire territory from the American Indians. To some American Indians, she is an occupier by force of their Homeland.

It was ironic too to see the Black Democrats condemning the Freedom of Speech as being somehow dangerous, when The Bill of Rights is the best friend any Black American has, and Representative Sanchez bringing up the tired and incorrect example of shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre. As Murray Rothbard so correctly pointed out, shouting “Fire” in a crowded theatre is actually the Crime of Contractual Fraud, because the ticket purchasers, and the promoter of the event in the theatre, had an implicit contract guarantee that they could enjoy the performance in silence, and the shouter has violated that implicit contract guarantee. The Supreme Court of the United States got it wrong: Murray Rothbard got it right.

Anyway to see the Republicans repeatedly praising a Democrat, whom they agree with wholeheartedly, and to see the Democrat constantly attacking a Democrat for speaking in Defense of the Bill of Rights and especially The First Amendment, was a unique and rare treat.

No one can truly know what is in the heart of a politician, but In my opinion, RFK Jr not only not a Jew-hater, but someone who actually admires those values of Israeli society that are congruent with the values espoused by his Uncle and Father, and which he has in large part espoused in his work as a lawyer. I wouldn’t agree with some of his government intrusions into life which libertarians oppose, but I probably would agree with his libertarian interpretations of The Bill of Rights.

No, RFK Jr. is not a bigot. And he has been shamefully smeared by some of the most incompetent legislators in the US House of Representatives, politicians whose understanding of The Bill of Rights and The Right to Free Speech is miniscule and distorted. That such mediocre politicians and mediocre minds can sit in the halls of Congress is really a threat to the Republic which must be rectified at the ballot box.

— Paul Grad, former libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee

Trump vs. RFK: A Win-Win Election

Environmentalism, Foreign Affairs, Libertarianism, politics, U.S. Politics, , , ,

I was fantasizing about what it would be like to vote in the next Presidential election if the two main candidates were Trump and RFK Jr. It would surely be a tough choice, and that without yet knowing whom the Libertarian Party were going to nominate. I doubt it would be Ron or Rand Paul. So it’s hard to think of anyone that would cause my vote to stray from one of these two candidates.

The pro-Free market in me would cause me to vote for Trump over a Democrat because I can see Trump sitting in the oval office, saying to his contacts as they propose a new government system to him, “Couldn’t we do it for less money?” Also RFK believes in things like government aid to educational institutions, and government schools, Trump doesn’t ever bring up the issue (as Ron Paul would) and the Republicans are loathe to ever give one word of condemnation of government aid to schools, even though the schools are suppressing The Freedom of Speech, one of the Inalienable Rights of Man.

RFK, on the other hand, goes after corporate welfare, like a dog chasing a deer, with an alacrity that Trump never had, or manifested. I didn’t see an end to the hateful and inflationary Farm Subsidy Program, which sent about 80% of its funds in 2004 to farmers making more than the national average income. In fact the average payment went to farms making about three to four times the national average income. At the same time it keeps US and foreign grain prices high, which hurts the world’s poor. But American Democrats don’t care about how their policies affect Africa or Latin America, only about how it affects them. Yet even their own exploitation of themselves doesn’t seem to get them riled up.

Of course, there is a lot of a species of graft handed out to States that receive much in Farm Subsidies, in that the Federal Government also subsidizes the County Governments of the areas they saturate with Farm Subsidies, providing a paycheck for Government employed workers, who bring in and spend paychecks that stimulate the local economy. In many rural areas, a county job provides a steady income through a sort of sinecure. Don’t rock the boat, and show up for work, and you’re home and dry forty years later. But some lucky few, who love being in the wilderness, can really dig the life.

So don’t expect a Republican Senator or Congressman from one of the Corn Bean and Wheat States, to ever breathe one word against Farm Subsidies, though they are both socialism and corporate welfare, both anathema to Libertarians. Both are deadly to a Libertarian Society.

RFK, on his side, hammers on both corporate welfare and the environment, and seems to have a reverence for Nature that City-dweller Trump seems to lack completely, but which you hear on the lips of the American Indians, who now seem to prefer being called Native American, although strictly speaking a Native American would mean anyone who was born in America, as contrasted to a Naturalized Citizen.

RFK also seems to have a wide knowledge of many environmental cases, which non-lawyer Trump lacks, and he seems to share the skeptical attitude towards government pronunciamentos on healthcare issues that many Libertarians share and espouse. But not only Libertarians. Many on the Hard Left are equally skeptical, as can be seen in the vaccination rate in Ashland, Oregon, a very Liberal college town. But while the State’s unvaccination rate for all children hovers around 5%, the rate in Ashland was about 25% pre-pandemic, showing that many parents thought something was rotten in Denmark.

All this goes to show that it would be a complex decision, trying to decide between Trump and RFK, but it would be the first election in my life where I would be happy if either candidate won, after election after election where there were only two lousy choices, and you had to vote libertarian, which meant that your candidate would almost certainly not win.

Trump has the experience of serving in office, while RFK seems to have the sort of drive that characterized both JFK and his father RFK. Watch, for example, the Pennebaker documentary film of how the Kennedys busted the segregation at a major Southern university.

I think with either candidate, the US would be better off at the end of their term. Truly, Trump vs. RFK would be a win-win election for America, precluding, of course, the Libertarians running someone better.

— Paul Grad, former LP Oregon Gubernatorial Nominee

RFK Jr.: A Democrat Even a Libertarian Could Love

Animal Welfare, Environmentalism, Libertarian Party, politics, U.S. Politics, , , , , ,

RFK Jr. has moxie. He has come out of the blue in a way, although he’s been speaking out for years. But only now is the public aware of his presence like never before, since he has posited himself as a significant candidate in the upcoming Prez battle. But he has appeared on Ron Paul’s Liberty Report twice over the past few years. showing he is not afraid to discuss with a Libertarian Republican if their views are in conjunction on an issue.

I agreed with a lot of RFK’Jr.’s views on vaccines, and shared his skeptical views on vaccines and their safety. But now I hear the other issues he is highlighting in his speeches, I am far more impressed.

Favorite Libertarian themes one hears over and over from true Libertarians is the waste in military spending, though few would disband the military, relying on citizens rallying to the militias if we were invaded by Justin Trudeau’s hordes. Another theme is the vast sums spent on corporate welfare, not only in pharma, but farming, logging, and many other industries. RFK talks about all of these; no Democrat ever talks about this; few Republicans would dare (like Rand Paul).

But RFK talks about another issue which I tried to meld to my campaign positions, the issue of the environment, and the preservation of the Earth and its animals and plants. This is why I have labelled myself in previous posts as an Enviro-Libertarian, because to me the respect for the Individual has really the same quality as the respect for this amazing Earth, that is being destroyed so ruthlessly, although obviously certain activities like farming and mining and factories must take place for our modern civilization.

Environment is not something you usually hear from Libertarians, which I think is rather unfortunate. But both Rothbard and Ron Paul have pointed out the value of private ownership of land, since the owner has a vested interest in improving the value of the land by not despoiling it. We’d guess this is especially true of the small landowner who lives on his land all this life.

Since I was once a Liberal Democrat, when the Democrats were the champions of Free Speech and widely opposed to the Death Penalty, the days during Edmond G “Pat” Brown, when California was at its peak I can agree with RFK on many Civil Liberty issues. Brown executed a man, and was then so appalled at what he’d done, that he turned against Capital Punishment. The University of California was then one of the great American Universities, and the History Professors at Berkeley, whom I heard lecture on American History, and the individuals of the Revolution, were awe inspiring.

So, to put it mildly, RFK has hit on so many key issues that I’d be tempted to vote for him over Trump, whom I voted for, mostly to prevent Mrs. Clinton from becoming President, but also because of his foreign policy views, and his outspokenness, and because he was a Capitalist who was probably closer to Libertarianism than his opponent.

But if RFK ran against Trump, I’d be sorely tempted to vote for him, because in many ways, he comes closer to Enviro-libertarianism, than any candidate who has run since his uncle, who along with Harding, was probably one of the two greatest Presidents of the 20th Cent

Hot damn! I think I would.

—Paul Grad, former Libertarian Party of Oregon nominee for Governor.

State and Local Stimulus Payments Are Unconstitutional and Illegal

Economics, Financial, Law, Libertarian Party, Libertarian Party of Oregon, Libertarianism, Oregon politics, politics, U.S. Politics,

State and Local Stimulus Payments are unconstitutional and thus illegal. The reason I maintain this is the following.

When a State, like California, pays for healthcare for illegal immigrants, or when San Francisco passes out $1200/month stimulus payments for 18 months to transgenders, they are incurring a debt which ultimately could or definitely will cause the State to go into deficit. Now, we know that if any State in the Union were to go so bankrupt that it could not function at the most basic levels of survival, that the Federal Government would intervene to bail out the State. This is implicit in the Federal Union of States. And it encourages moral hazard by the States, who know that implicitly it backstops all their spending, even if they run huge deficits.

Yet, we know that, by law, all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives — the People’s House which originally was where the voters could directly elect their Representatives to Congress, in contrast to the old system whereby Senators were elected to Congress by their State Representatives in their Legislature — an indirect, representative form of election. That’s why spending bills must originate in the House — because originally it was the most direct form of democratic republicanism.

Thus, what California and other rebel States are doing by passing out free stimulus money to select groups is skirting the Constitution in order to enrich certain groups of voters who will then vote for them, while piling the accumulated debt on the backs of all working and taxpaying Americans, as well as on the unborn future generations. This used to be known as vote buying and graft.

But what it really is, is a way of getting around the checks and balances of American Government, which demand that all spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives.

Fiscal Conservatives and Constitutionalists in the Congress should attempt to pass legislation that would outlaw all stimulus payments made by State, County, or Municipal entities in the United States, as an unconstitutional breach and assault against The House of Representatives Right to be the only body in the US Government that can propose and pass spending bills. And thus the only legal, Constitutional, stimulus payment is one made by the Federal Government.

Congressmen and Citizens, let’s stop this assault on the Constitution now.

— Paul Grad, Libertarian Party of Oregon Gubernatorial Candidate 2014