Obama Sells Guns; Lots of Guns

Americans have taken their gun rights seriously for centuries, since long before the United States was officially founded. But every now and then a particularly persuasive individual will come along and give Americans even greater incentive to value their right to keep and bear arms. President Barack Obama is one such individual.

When an incumbent president seeking a second term has already put two people on the nine-member Supreme Court who would vote away this basic human freedom [Second Amendment gun rights], they have the right to be fearful. And when you realize that, if reelected, that incumbent president would have a good chance of getting a few more Supreme Court picks, and so could reshape the high court for decades, people have a right to be motivated to buy firearms now. _Forbes

US gun sales jumped significantly after Obama's election in 2008. And now just the thought that Obama may get re-elected is spurring US gun sales even more.

As gun sales surged in early 2009 the going joke among employees of gun manufacturers was that President Barack Obama was the “greatest gun salesman of all time.” ...

...Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: SWHC) saw its fiscal year sales surge 20 percent in 2012. Many makers of handguns and “black guns” (what the Left calls “assault rifles” but the NSSF calls “modern sporting rifles”) also did very well. _Forbes

President Obama has not been a friend to the US Constitution, or its Bill of Rights. The Obama administration has seen the Constitution as more of an obstacle to power, rather than as the key to the US' traditional prosperity and history of opportunity.

Obama's anti-Second Amendment stance is just one example of his regime's conspicuous flouting of traditional Constitutional rights, and the attempt to re-shape the formerly dynamic new world US into a more rigid, top-down, static old world society.

The number of women gun owners in America has gone up from 13 percent in 2005 to 23 percent today. Also, the number of Democratic households with firearms in their homes skyrocketed from 30 percent in 2009 to 40 percent today.

What has been happening is that the NRA, the NSSF and other gun-rights groups have been busy fighting for Second Amendment rights, advocating for participation in the shooting sports, instructing people how to shoot and store firearms safely, working with police officers and the military and doing a myriad of other things. The NRA has also been lobbying, defending the Second Amendment in courtrooms all over the country and growing its membership. As a result, they’ve attracted more Americans to the shooting sports, made the shooting sports safer and helped more people learn to shoot and to defend themselves. _Forbes

McAllen, Texas to Hold World Naked Bike Ride

Open-minded cyclists are invited to get as “bare as they dare” Saturday in McAllen for World Naked Bike Ride, an international event aiming to promote bicycle use and spotlight the roadway risks that cyclists face. _Monitor

The ride takes place once a year in countries including Australia, Brazil, France, United Kingdom, Mexico and the United States. It encourages public bicycle use while promoting bicycle safety and encourages decreased dependency of fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

And it emphasizes the right to express, or expose, a person’s opinions or body freely. Trujillo said there will be body decorating with paint before the ride.

“There’s a lot of giggles and laughs when it comes to nudity,” Trujillo said. But “there’s really a deep side, to change the way we use transportation. That’s what it’s fundamentally all about.”

...riders will gather at 6 p.m. Saturday at the International Museum of Art and Science at Nolana and Bicentennial. Any open-minded cyclists are welcome to attend, said Trujillo. Trujillo recommends that riders arrive clothed and have something to put their clothes in for the duration of the bike ride. _Monitor

[satire on]Nude cycling became much more popular with women after the invention of the battery powered vibrating bicycle seat. Al Fin has recently become a distributor for the patented devices, and representatives will be on hand in McAllen to provide the seats for sale or lease.

After the event, a beachfront barbecue will be held on the new Southern Ocean shoreline, created by the recent mysterious disappearance of Mexico. [satire off]

Wikipedia: World Naked Bike Ride
World Naked Bike Ride . org

Local law enforcement officials in McAllen are threatening to enforce any public decency statutes. But maybe just this once they will look the other way. Or, at least, say that they did.

Freedom in the 50 US States: Mercatus Center GMU

Since the earliest days of the North American colonies which later became the United States, residents have voted for freedom with their feet. If they find conditions around them growing intolerable for lack of freedom, they will move to another area. Even within the one nation of the USA, it is possible to find a wide range of personal and economic freedoms.

The Mercatus Center of George Mason University in Virginia has published a free downloadable PDF report: Freedom in the 50 States, which looks at the wide variability of different freedoms between the different states of the US.

This study comprehensively ranks the American states on their public policies that affect individual freedoms in the economic, social, and personal spheres. It updates, expands, and improves upon our inaugural 2009 Freedom in the 50 States study. For this new edition, we have added more policy variables (such as bans on trans fats and the audio recording of police, Massachusetts’s individual health-insurance mandate, and mandated family leave), improved existing measures (such as those for fiscal policies, workers’ compensation regulations, and asset-forfeiture rules), and developed specific policy prescriptions for each of the 50 states based on our data and a survey of state policy experts. With a consistent time series, we are also able to discover for the first time which states have improved and worsened in regard to freedom recently.

Our approach to measuring freedom in the states is unique in three respects: (1) it includes measures of social and personal freedoms such as peaceable citizens’ rights to educate their own children, to own and carry firearms, and to be free from unreasonable search and seizure; (2) it incorporates more than 150 distinct public policies; and (3) it is particularly careful to measure fiscal policies in a way that reflects the true cost of government to the citizen.

We find that the overall freest states in the country are New Hampshire and South Dakota, which together achieve a virtual tie for first place, while New York is the least free by a considerable margin. On personal freedom alone, Oregon now comes first, with Vermont and Nevada not too far behind, and Maryland brings up the rear. On economic freedom alone, South Dakota easily takes first, and New York is a distant last. The most improved states since the last edition of our study are Oregon, Nevada, Maine, and Washington, while Wyoming, California, Arizona, and Massachusetts have fallen the furthest. Two of the most intriguing findings of our statistical analysis are that Americans are voting with their feet and moving to states with more economic and personal freedom and that economic freedom correlates with income growth.

The data used to create the rankings are available online at http://mercatus.org/freedom-50-states-2011, and we invite others to see how the overall state freedom rankings might change given their own weightings of the various public policies. _PDF Freedom in the 50 States Executive Summary PDF

Freedom in the 50 States PDF
More from the Mercatus Center website:

Measuring Freedom & Government Intervention

We explicitly ground our conception of freedom on an individual-rights framework. In our view, individuals should be allowed to dispose of their lives, liberties, and properties as they see fit, as long as they do not infringe on the rights of others.

Fiscal Policy
We divide fiscal policy equally into spending and taxation subcategories. These subcategories are highly interdependent; we include them both as redundant measures of the size of government.

Regulatory Policy
In this study, regulatory policy includes labor regulation, health-insurance coverage mandates, occupational licensing, eminent domain, the tort system, land-use regulation, and utilities. Regulations that seem to have a mainly paternalistic justification, such as home- and private-school regulations, are placed in the paternalism category.

Paternalism
In deciding how to weight personal freedoms, we started from the bottom up, beginning with the freedom we saw as least important in terms of saliency, constitutional implications, and the number of people affected, and working up to the most important.

Ranking & Discussion
By summing the economic freedom and personal freedom scores, we obtain the overall freedom index, presented in table 5. New Hampshire and South Dakota again find themselves in a virtual tie for first.

Conclusion
Although we hope we have demonstrated that some states provide freer environments than others, it would be inappropriate to infer that the freest states necessarily enjoy a libertarian streak, while others suffer from a statist mentality.
_Mercatus Center

As economic conditions continue to grow worse over most of the 50 states under the Obama government, residents and businesses will take closer looks at many of the parameters which are highlighted in the Mercatus Center study. A large portion of new jobs over the past two years, have originated within the top 20 ranked states.

In general, crime rates are lower in states which provide citizens greater personal and economic freedoms. Crime rates and other factors relating to quality of life will need to be considered alongside the freedom ratings when choosing an optimal location, whether in the US or any other country.

Government Unions to Taxpayers: "Me Master! You Slave!"

One can see the economic future of at least half the states and cities of the US, by looking at California. Nowhere in the US is the power of unions so total and uncontested, and nowhere is the Democratic Party so dominant. And nowhere in the US is the economic future so rutted into a predictable  path to total collapse. The complete fusion of government unions with the US Democratic Party presents a picture of corruption and an apparent impossibility for meaningful reform which staggers the logical mind.

The Democratic Party has folded Sacramento into one of the tightest one-party grips in contemporary American politics. In November, bucking the national trend, Democrats in California won not just the governorship but 51 Assembly seats to Republicans’ 29, 24 state Senate seats to Republicans’ 14, and every statewide office. With the passage of a referendum lowering the number of legislative votes required to approve a state budget (from a two-thirds majority to a simple majority), California is that rarest of land masses for the 2011 Democratic Party: conquered territory. State Democrats have freedom to rule virtually unchallenged by the scattered, rusticated Republicans.

As 72-year-old Jerry Brown enters his second governorship, he has an agenda to match that power, with visions even greater than those that haunted his two-term administration of the 1970s and ’80s: building 20,000 megawatts of renewable power, laying a new high-speed rail network that will connect the state’s major cities, forging a statewide infrastructure for alternative energy, hiring thousands of green employees. The new governor’s environmental agenda is ambitious, untenably expensive, and indelibly popular with voters and lawmakers.

Yet when Brown looks out on Democrat-controlled California, he seems less like Caesar at the Rubicon than Wojciech Jaruzelski at the Gdansk Shipyard. Brown is champion of a workers’ party with monopoly control, yet all his plans are being derailed by a labor movement nobody can harness. _Reason

The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state. _CityJournal

California may be more beholden to government unions than most US states, but it is far from alone. Michigan, Ohio, New Jersey, Illinois, New York, and a score of other states are deeply wrapped within the web of government union power, and may find it ultimately impossible to escape doom.

...public-sector workers are spoiled rotten. Government employees earn 21% more than private ones and are 24% more likely to have access to health care. Only 21% of private workers enjoy a defined-benefit (DB) pension, which guarantees retirement income based on years of service and final salary. But 84% of state and local workers still receive DB plans.

All this might be grand if states and cities could afford it, but they cannot; unlike the federal government, they have the pesky obligation to balance their budgets. The recession has already drained pension funds. _Economist

US governments are corrupted by ties to government unions from the top to the bottom. Good government is impossible under these conditions, much less a viable economic plan for commercial prosperity.

The enslavement of taxpayers by government unions is virtually complete in California, and at least a handful of other states. But the Obama government wants to put every US state into the same position as California and Illinois. It is not clear that the nation could recover from such a disastrous plan, if achieved.

More: Even the NYTimes is beginning to see the handwriting on the wall for government unions. Anyone still pro government union by now, simply has no brain. Such people are generally referred to as zombies, in the age of Obama. ;-)

Must We Kill All Tort Lawyers Before We Can Go Into Space?

ImageSource
Over at NextBigFuture, Brian Wang looks at the supply and demand economics of space colonisation. Brian points to a more extensive posting by Paul Gilster at Centauri Dreams, "The Economics of Space Infrastructure." Brian and Paul are correctly looking at the economic costs and benefits of space infrastructure and space colonies. But the topic goes far beyond mere economics.

Science Fiction author Charles Stross downplays arguments in favour of space colonies as "quasi-religious." Physicist Stephen Hawking wishes for humans to colonise Mars and Luna, as a way to preserve the human race and Terrestrial life, should Earth be destroyed by comets, asteroids, geologic catatrophe or other forms of massive upheaval. Physicist Freeman Dyson has thought along similar lines since the mid-1960s. The idea of "not having all of one's eggs in a single basket" appeals to the long term thinker who wishes the human enterprise to be ultimately successful.

Humans appear to possess an "exploratory instinct," a natural urge to explore. From the very beginning, humans have been willing to risk what they have, in order to find something more. The urge for outer space is another manifestation of this instinct.

At times it may seem that we have lost this exploratory urge, but always it returns, reshaped by current events. Why is it that we strive to understand our place in the heavens and seek other intelligences out there? _Planetary

Exploration is risky. Explorers often die. In an outward-looking, exploratory society, the acceptance of risk is so commonplace as to become second nature. Such a society will spawn many explorers, and many pioneers who are willing to follow close behind the explorer to create a more settled life in the new, risk-filled territories.

Modern affluent societies become more risk-averse, more fixed on security over time. This security-fixation often approaches pathological levels, depending upon whether it becomes accepted and codified within legal, cultural, educational, and legislative institutions.

In modern western nations -- particularly the US -- risk aversion in the form of tort is often costing societies their birthright and their future.

Economists have long understood that America's tort system acts as a serious drag on our nation's economy. Although many excellent studies have been conducted, no single work has fully captured the true total costs, both static and dynamic, of excessive litigation.

The good news: We now have some reliable figures. The bad news: The costs are far higher than anyone imagined.

Based on our estimates, and applying the best available scholarly research, we believe America's tort system imposes a total cost on the U.S. economy of $865 billion per year. This constitutes an annual "tort tax" of $9,827 on a family of four.

...litigation doesn't just transfer wealth, it also changes behavior, and often in economically unproductive ways. Any true estimate of the costs of America's tort system must also include these dynamic costs of litigation -- the impact on research and development spending, the costs of defensive medicine and the related rise in health-care spending and reduced access to health care, and the loss of output from deaths due to excess liability. _WSJ

Most recent attention to tort reform in the US has focused upon medical tort. But the economic destruction of out-of-control US tort law is felt in every part of society, industry, and the economy. In a society ruled by tyranny of tort, all risk is punished pro-actively. In other words, most great ventures are never even attempted, due to the tight noose of tort -- and other effects of excess government -- around the necks of entire societies. As of 2006, costs of tort in the US had been growing at an average rate of almost 10% annually PDF.

In order to advance, humans must take risks. The elimination of risk from society is also the elimination of growth and advancement. Eliminating risk means inevitable stagnation and decline. It is the great human dieoff by backdoor means, albeit in slow motion form -- at first. Decline has a way of accelerating, however, once it passes a certain point.

Massive -- and still growing -- bureaucracies of government shut in most possibilities of escape from this inbuilt decline. When humans are cut off from expressing their natural instincts, they tend to rebel if they can. Eventually, they grow passive, fatalistic.

It appears as if western educational, news media, and entertainment systems are dedicated to the suppression of the exploratory urge in humans. This society-wide trap appears to be closing more tightly every year, with every pseudo-cause and crusade such as carbon hysteria, or resource scarcity doom.

How can we escape this suffocating atmosphere of security-fixation and excessive risk-aversion? There are few ways to escape other than to emigrate to a less regulated nation, or to build a seastead. Every so often a few people try to start a new country, where they can set their own rules so as to allow greater personal freedoms. Of course, new countries in space -- on the moon, Mars, in the asteroid belt, and beyond -- would represent a big step up from previous efforts.

But people will die in the attempt to establish a permanent human presence and economy in space. That is inevitable. People die in hazardous environments on Earth every day, and outer space is far more hazardous than almost anywhere on Earth. Whenever there is a chance of people dying, lawyers flock like flies on excrement.

We can see in the inability of advanced societies to develop a larger, safer, cleaner nuclear power industry, how tort lawyers combined with government regulators drive up costs to the point of abandonment of multi-billion dollar enterprises and loss of future plans and possibilities.

Established powers aim to remain established powers. That is what the vast inbred and corrupt system of government and law has become in the west. Free humans are hemmed in and restricted. Economies stagnate and the human spirit dies a little with every new encroachment by government and its army of allied extortionists.

People do emigrate to Costa Rica and other small countries where there may be less intrusive regulation and more freedom of activity in many ways. Other people "go Galt" and drop out, go off the grid as it were. Expect to see more of that unless something drastic occurs to reverse the creeping strangulation of the government-legal- quasi organised crime complex.

Can SpaceX and other private space companies provide an escape from the ongoing choking of human freedom in the developed world? Even if improvements in technology allowed the costs of space launch were to come down enough to make travel to the moon economical for middle class incomes, the inbred risk-aversion of modern societies places a limit on how far the movement could progress -- without massive changes in western government and legal systems.

Must we kill all tort lawyers and their fellows in crime, before the human instinct to explore and pioneer can find an outlet in space?

Is Obama's America Losing Its Grip on Freedom?

Source

Economic freedom allows people to move up the economic ladder under their own initiative. It is the main reason why immigrants come to the US and other relatively free nations: to make a better life. But under Obama, it is becoming much harder to create new businesses and jobs. Everyone is becoming equal in poverty. Inequality plus socioeconomic mobility would be far preferable.

Bill Beach, director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis, which compiles the index with The Wall Street Journal, says the index defines "economic freedom" to mean: "You can follow your dreams, express yourself, create a business, do whatever job you want. Government doesn't run labor markets, or plan what business you can open, or over-regulate you."

We asked Beech about the U.S. ranking. "For first time in 16 years, the United States fell from the 'totally free' to 'mostly free' group. That's a terrible development," he said. He fears that if this continues, productive people will leave the United States for freer pastures.

"The United States has been this magnet for three centuries. But today money and people can move quickly, and in less than a lifetime a great country can go by the wayside."

Why is the United States falling behind? "Our spending has been excessive. ... We have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. (Government) takeovers of industries, subsidizing industries ... these are the kinds of moves that happen in Third World countries. ..."

Beach adds that the rule of law declined when the Obama administration declared some contracts to be null and void. For example, bondholders in the auto industry were forced to the back of the creditor line during bankruptcy. And there's more regulation of business, such as the Dodd-Frank law for the financial industry and the new credit-card law. But how could the United States place behind Canada? Isn't Canada practically a socialist country?

"Canada might do health care the wrong way," Beach said, "but by and large they do things the right way." Lately, Canada has lowered tax rates and reduced spending. _Reason

The Obama Pelosi agenda is still in its early stages. Give them time, and they will push the US well down in the rankings of economic freedom -- right next to Cuba and Venezuela. When you put it that way, the US Tea Party movement is looking better and better.

Dividing the Nation: Going Galt vs. Government a la Carte

When most Americans think of secession, they imagine maps of a divided America such as the one above. Most of us learned in history class what happened the last time a group of states decided to secede from the Union. Very few people want a repeat of the War Between the States. Therefore, a far more popular form of secession -- personal secession -- is gaining more modern adherents. Personal secession is a more finely grained form of secession than regional, state, or county secession -- it is secession on the individual level.

Have you seriously thought about seceding from the monstrous beast that the US government (or any central government) has become? First you have to consider all the things that governments provide. Police, fire departments, water, sewer, medical care, national defense, schools, roads, licensing, environmental regulation, protection from fraud and abuse, and so on . . .

"Personal secession ....things like homeschooling, house churches, home gardening, home-based economics, just regaining privacy and a sense of community rather than worrying about what's going on in Washington, D.C... What's the latest thing from the Supreme Court? _CNN

The quote above comes from the leader of a group of christian secessionists. But it could as easily come from a group of libertarian or communist or hindu secessionists. Personal secessionists may "go Galt", or do most essential things for themselves. It is possible to do that, but a division of labour in society provides for more leisure, and more choices in products and services.

How can you non-violently secede from an idiocracy without having to do everything for yourself and your family? Call it "virtual secession" or non-territorial secession.

The problem with physical secession is that it is very difficult to achieve critical mass. There is probably not much overlap between the people you want to live with and the people who want to choose your particular form of government. The vast majority of us put up with government we dislike in order to live in proximity to people with whom we want to work and play.

With virtual secession, you could still live in San Francisco or Manhattan or Silver Spring while seceding from much of the government at the city, state, and Federal level. You and your next-door neighbor might belong to very different governmental units. _ArnoldKling

Patri Friedman runs a blog called A Thousand Nations, which looks at increasing personal freedom through new nation formation. This post from A Thousand Nations looks specifically at "virtual secession" or "non-territorial secession." And Cato Unbound devoted a special issue to the topic of "self-governance" or personal secession.

Libertarians and other informed malcontents have been thinking and writing about secession for well over a century. And with the coming of the uber-statist Obama Pelosi regime, the idea is likely to come to the surface more and more often. People who believe that they can work within the system to make it more rational, may get involved in the "You Cut" movement, where citizens work with legislators to cut the least useful and most destructive government programs. But for many persons, government has gone much too far off the deep end of totalitarianism for such "trimming about the edges" to work.

Today, our government interacts with us as subjects and children. It takes money from the productive and responsible and uses it to pay for the consequences of the people who are irresponsible and unproductive. As long as bad behavior is subsidized two things will be true. The irresponsible will not make responsible choices unless they are forced. The second is that the government will continue to assert its right to regulate all our behavior on the grounds that it is paying the bills, even though it is with our money. If we choose to interact with our government as children, expecting it to meet our every need, then it will fill the role of parent and will exercise legitimate control as a consequence of that occupation.

The fix to this is simple. Remove the government safety net. For one hundred and fifty years of our history we got by just fine without it. There was no FDA, no welfare checks, no illegal drugs, no government health insurance or Social Security. Somehow, without the government intervening, the American citizen built this country from a few colonies on the eastern seaboard to a world power, economically and militarily. Somehow, hard drinking settlers tamed the west. Without government regulation, we all had food to eat and water to drink and roofs over our heads, and that food and shelter was considerably better than that in the Old World. If you engaged in negative behavior you bore the consequences. If you lost your job you found something else or you depended on your family or neighbors and they determined your “recovery” or the worth of putting their time and money into your life based on your cooperation. If you resorted to crime to support bad habits, justice was swift and harsh. Morality, justice and community were essential in such an environment and that is exactly the way it should be. _SecessionUniversity

You will find a lot of reading material pertaining to such topics at the Mises Online Library, and at the Library of Liberty Online.

The basic idea is the formation of organisations that operate in parallel to the government, to provide essential goods and services which persons cannot reasonably provide for themselves. In such a system, bad choices will lead to unpleasant consequences. That means that persons who are particularly stupid or impulsive will not do well in such a system unless they are surrounded by a close-knit society of friends, relatives, co-religionists, etc. who are standing by to help them through the rough spots.

Systems of self-governance will tend to promote and unleash persons who are intelligent, disciplined, competent, and forward thinking. That is exactly the type of person the future will demand, to meet the type of challenges that wait for us.

In the US, society has been engaged in the dumbing down and handicapping of generations of its citizens -- at least since the 1950s. That process of induced helplessness and dependency received a turbo-boost from the election of the Obama-Pelosi regime. But the final destination of selectively breeding for incompetence in the face of hopeless economic and demographic challenge, is utter calamity.

Unless thoughtful persons are willing to try another approach, they are dooming future generations to a society of certain collapse from debt and demography -- the very problems that are doing in Europe, Japan, and Russia in real time.

This is not a flush of oil a mile deep, 100 miles offshore from a lazy big easy. This is a river of destruction flowing down on all of us from the source -- Washington DC. What are you going to do?

Freedom For the High Seas and Beyond

The Aeroyacht 110 has been dubbed “the world’s most innovative super catamaran” by its designers and, while that’s a pretty big claim, it’s certainly an audacious concept. Capable of speeds of over 32 knots but able to cruise effortlessly at 20, boasting a superbly-appointed 32ft wide salon with 360º sea views and with its own fold-up amphibious plane as a tender, the Aeroyacht 110 looks to be the ne plus ultra of luxury sailing.

Designed from scratch by Gregor Tarjan, founder of Aeroyacht International, together with naval architect Pete Melvin, of the world-renowned Morrelli & Melvin multihull architects, the Aeroyacht 110 was designed from the outside-in. Tarjan started with the concept for a “pure sailing machine” and, once its streamlined shape was established, only then worked out how many people it could and should accommodate

The ICON amphibious craft on deck adds a completely new dimension of freedom to the maritime ensemble. All that is lacking is a small submarine. The decks appear ample for both a mini-sub and the small amphibious flier.

Perhaps the Aeroyacht people can correct that oversight by the time the super cat hits the market. The ability to roam on the sea, under the sea, and above the sea, is an absolute minimum of freedom for the advanced between levels human. For exploration on shore and throughout inland estuaries, a hovercraft may need to be included.

Free Speech in Europe? Fuggedaboudet!

Netherlands legislator Geert Wilders was recently deported from the UK without being allowed to give his scheduled presentation at the House of Lords. Unlike the UK, the US allowed Wilders free access to the country. The following is excerpted from his 23 Feb 2009 speech in NYC.

Thank you very much for inviting me. And – to the immigration authorities – thank you for letting me into this country. It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.

Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for.

As you might know, I will be prosecuted, because of my film Fitna, my remarks regarding Islam, and my view concerning what some call a ‘religion of peace’. A few years from now, I might be a criminal.

...Today, I come before you to warn of a great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, slavery of women, the end of democracy. It is NOT a religion, it is an political ideology. It demands your respect, but has no respect for you.

There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter.

...Their disdain of the West is so much greater than the appreciation of our many liberties. And therefore, they are willing to sacrifice everything. The left once stood for women rights, gay rights, equality, democracy. Now, they favour immigration policies that will end all this. Many even lost their decency. Elite politicians have no problem to participate in or finance demonstrations where settlers shout “Death to the Jews”. Seventy years after Auschwitz they know of no shame.

Two weeks ago, I tried to get into Britain, a fellow EU country. I was invited to give a speech in Parliament. However, upon arrival at London airport, I was refused entry into the UK, and sent back on the first plane to Holland. I would have loved to have reminded the audience of a great man who once spoke in the House of Commons. In 1982 President Reagan gave a speech there very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom.

...Our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never bow for the combined forces of Mecca and the left. And we will never surrender. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man. _AtlasShrugs

Wilders is under 24 hour a day armed guard, particularly when in his home country, The Netherlands. That is the price of free speech for one who wishes to stay alive in Europe today. Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh paid the price for their free speech in Europe. Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali are living under constant threat of Islamic violence, as is the entire continent of Europe.

Update: Wilders in NYC at a small gathering with extended discussion.


From a post at Abu Al-Fin

California in Steep Decline: Obamanation Future?

In wide regions of the state—from San Diego up through the Central Valley—the only boom is in the foreclosure business.

California has suffered under out-of-control government spending for decades, and is finally on the verge of a rapid collapse. The same type of fantasy ideology that has guided California on its downward path has now gained control of the US government. Wise investors and businessmen will take heed, as will heads of household. How bad is it going to get? Look at California, then extrapolate.

You can blame many factors for California’s fall from grace: too much immigration from poor countries, the impact of global competition on technology and aerospace industries, the end of the Cold War, failing schools...... Yet other states have weathered similar storms and still gained ground on the Golden State.

The real problem lies in the decline of the state’s political culture.

...During [Jerry] Brown’s watch....the Democratic Party came increasingly under the sway of public employees, trial lawyers, and narrow interest activist groups. Their ability to raise money and impose their political will often outweighed that of even the most powerful business interests.

...California’s shift to the Democrats had become inexorable and, with the fading of a GOP counterweight, influence within the party flowed to its more radical factions further to the political left. As a result, the state.... seemed determined to wage war against its own economy. As pet social programs, entitlements, and state employee pensions soared, infrastructure spending...shrank to less than 3 percent.

The educational system, closely aligned with the Democrats in the legislature, accelerated its secular decline. Once full of highly skilled workers, California has become increasingly less so. For example, California ranks second in the percentage of its 65-year-olds holding an associate degree or higher and fifth in those with a bachelor’s degree. But when you look at the 25-to-34 age group, those rankings fade to 30th and 24th.

Instead of reversing these trends, the state legislature decided to spend its money on public employees and impose ever more regulatory burdens on business. _Newgeography_via_Newsalert

And so it continues, despite the current reign of "Republican" Governator, A. Schwarzenegger. The process of devolution in California government has gathered too much momentum for anyone to save the state now. The same process of rapid decay is also found to be accelerating in New York State, Obama's Chicago, Washington DC, Detroit, and other Democratic Party strongholds.

It is easy to see where all this is leading the US, given the recent election results. Whether ACORN inflated Democratic votes artificially or not, it is clear that the majority of the electorate voted in such a way as to encourage big government policies--the same type of policies currently turning California into a fetid sinkhole.

If you want to know what is likely to happen to the US economy under Obama, look at where Obama's big government spending, big taxation, big regulation policies are already in force. Kahl-ee-forn-ya.

If We Are to Survive This Dark Time

There is only too much reason to fear that Western civilization, if not the whole world, is likely in the near future to go through a period of immense sorrow and suffering and pain--a period during which, if we are not careful to remember them, the things that we are attempting to preserve may be forgotten in bitterness and poverty and disorder. Courage, hope, and unshakable conviction will be necessary if we are to emerge from the dark time ...

It is not the first time that such disasters have threatened the Western world. The fall of Rome was another such time ...

Two very different conceptions of human life are struggling for mastery of the world. In the West we see man's greatness in the individual life. A great society for us is one which is composed of individuals who, as far as is humanly possible, are happy, free, and creative. We do not think that individuals should be alike. ... He should have his personal conscience and his personal aims, which he should be free to develop except where they can be shown to cause injury to others. ...

If bad times lie ahead of us, we should remember while they last the slow march of man, chequered in the past by devastations and retrogressions, but always resuming the movement toward progress. ...

It is to the possible achievements of man that our ultimate loyalty is due, and in that thought the brief troubles of our unquiet epoch become endurable. Much wisdom remains to be learned, and if it is only to be learned through adversity, we must endeavour to endure adversity with what fortitude we can command. But if we can acquire wisdom soon enough, adversity may not be necessary and the future of man may be happier than any part of his past.

Bertrand Russell essay, 1961, "If We Are to Survive This Dark Time"

It took many tens of thousands of years for the right men (and women) to come together to create the most enlightened document of political governance known to history, in Philadelphia of the 1780s. It may take only a few years for the most unenlightened of humans to destroy that document, and the brave national experiment it has guided for just over two centuries.

If other nations were prepared to accept the standard of freedom and protection of individual rights from the excesses of government, the loss would not be as great to mankind as a whole. Without such alternate standard-bearers, a destructive retrogression to a malignant growth of the state at the expense of individual liberties and potential is virtually guaranteed. Things were proceeding in that direction in fits and starts, regardless. With a simple turn of the screw on a US November day, all obstacles to the free flow of populist decadence can fall away.

Does America Still Exist?

America is more than a place, it is an idea--sometimes even an ideal. The idea/ideal is different for different people, but for centuries America has drawn millions of immigrants because it was place in the mind that represented the opportunity to make a life for oneself without having to explain one's choices or make excuses for choosing a certain life's path. The idea of a place where one has the freedom to succeed or fail on one's own terms. It is possible for such ideas to fade away, and for America to cease to exist in the minds of large numbers of people. Something like that happens to many American ex-patriots, such as Bruce Bawer.

The fact remains that I’ve never lived in post-9/11 America. When I left, Bill Clinton was president and the media were preoccupied with the Starr Report. Paradoxically, then, though I’m infinitely more plugged into America than I was when I lived there — with instant access to a zillion newspapers and websites that allow me to follow developments, big and small, in every part of the U.S. — I’m intensely aware that I’m not a part of it all, that I’m watching it from afar, as if watching a movie.

The passage of time has made a difference, of course. When I’d been away for just a year or two, I still felt as if the America I’d left behind still existed. But over the years — week by week, day by day — the changes mount up, the Zeitgeist shifts. Every few days, reading a fresh obituary in the New York Times, I find myself feeling that another part of the American landscape I knew has evaporated.

....Yes, yes, I’m still an American, and proud of it. But the longer I’m away, the less firmly that label clings to me — for I’m increasingly aware that the America I lived in is an America that’s no longer there. It’s an America where the Twin Towers are still standing, an America where my father is still alive. For millions of Americans, including my eight-year-old niece in New York, that America, my America, is not even memory, but history.

When I first lived in Europe, I saw it through American eyes. All these years later, I realize that I increasingly see America through Norwegian eyes. This doesn’t mean I’ve drunk the Scandinavian socialist Kool-Aid....Living in Norway has even affected me on what is, for me anyway, the most elemental of levels — that of language. When I first lived here, I noticed that American friends who’d lived here for decades spoke English that sometimes sounded a bit “off.” Why? Because they were (unconsciously) translating Norwegian phrases literally into English rather than using the proper English equivalent. Or (sometimes) translating the right Norwegian words into the wrong English counterparts (”using a coat,” for example, instead of “wearing a coat”). In the last couple of years — horrors! — I’ve increasingly noticed myself doing exactly the same thing when speaking English. Worse, when I’m writing English, the mot juste that pops into my head at a given juncture is increasingly likely to be Norwegian. For a writer — someone whose very stock in trade is his native language — this is, to say the least, a bit disconcerting.

To be sure, I have my share of grievances against the country I live in. I labored long and hard to find my place in it — spent three to five hours every weekday for months in a language course, and applied for hundreds of jobs without success. Professionally I’m a non-person here — which is OK by me, given that (with a couple of exceptions) the only times the mainstream Norwegian media have mentioned me it’s been to flail me for criticizing Norway in the American press. Not to mention that I hate the high prices and high taxes and can’t bear the climate. And yet I choke up when I hear the Norwegian national anthem, and every time I fly back here from abroad and catch my first glimpse of the Norwegian coastline, tears come to my eyes and I find myself thinking: “I’m home.”

...If I hadn’t come here, and stayed here, I wouldn’t have written [1] While Europe Slept — my own modest contribution to the effort by many people on both sides of the Atlantic to save the West from itself. When I left America, I never imagined myself writing such a book: in fact my immediate plans were to write a book about how wonderful Amsterdam was. Alas, the Amsterdam I was so eager to celebrate ten years ago is also gone with the wind. But that’s another story. _PJM

It is a poignant reminder of the uniqueness of experience, of infatuation with persons or places. When in the heat of love or merely the habit of love for a person or place, one believes that the love will always be there, the same as now. But everything changes.

Contemplating the changes America has undergone in the past few decades--moving from a largely opportunity society to more and more a society of entitlements, special interests, and tribalistic schism--it is easy to understand how one might be drawn to a smaller and more cohesive society that more faithfully mirrors ones' predispositions or inclinations. America is large, loud, often confusing, and constantly misinterpreted to outsiders and insiders alike.

The recent frenzy of attempted nation-making of independent enclaves from larger nations reflects that desire for being part of a whole that is more like oneself. The dissolution of Yugoslavia, breakaway enclaves in Russia, Georgia, many nations of Africa, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Bolivia, Canada etc.--all reflect this genetic urge to a more tribe or clan-based, smaller and more comprehensible society. America has been a grand experiment in the opposite idea, the melting pot of languages, ethnicities, and cultures.

Each of us feels himself pulled one way or the other, sometimes both ways at the same time. Each of us must find his own equilibrium between the confusion of the diverse, ever-changing, and in many ways more dangerous--and the more familiar and more comforting smallness of more uniformity and tradition.

If America chooses the empty promises of an Obama, leading to sweeping changes bringing more of the same gross incompetence and stifling corruption of bigger and bigger government, will America still exist for me? Perhaps, but the idea of America as an opportunity society will die an even more rapid death, in my mind. And the idea of a smaller more cohesive society retaining more aspects of an opportunity society than America will have chosen to retain, will present a stronger appeal.

America Crumbling and In Decline

If you consume a lot of European or Russian media, the title of this post will be old hat to you. Of course America is crumbling! We read about it in the papers and see it on the TV news every day, it's pounded into our heads. It must be true! And since human nature deplores a power vacuum, what power bloc is poised to step into the void left by the decline of America?

In contrast to the declinists’ arguments and analyses, America boasts a position of unmatched preponderance. No single country or even grouping of countries has emerged as a plausible counterpart or peer competitor, and apart from the very long-term possibility of China, none is likely to do so.

...Europe faces steep obstacles in achieving anything resembling a common foreign and security policy. Its cumbersome institutions, public demands for enormous rates of domestic expenditure, hamstrung attempts at political integration, as well as its Hamlet-like uncertainties about the use of force and military spending, give Europe a global impact far less than its size and wealth would otherwise dictate...With the passage of time as well as the coming to power of Atlanticist leaders in Germany (Merkel), France (Sarkozy), and Italy (Berlusconi), there appears to be, if anything, even less inclination to stand in America’s way.

...Russia remains overwhelmingly dependent on the current boom in energy and commodity prices—and correspondingly vulnerable in the event of their decline. The country suffers from pervasive corruption, with a ranking from Transparency International that puts it at 121 among 163 countries in this category. Its population, already less than half that of the U.S. and plagued with alcoholism, chronic violence, a decrepit health-care system, and a male life expectancy of fewer than 60 years of age (lower than that of Bangladesh), shrinks by some half a million people per year.

Japan...only recently recovered from the effects of its economic collapse in the early 1990s. Moreover, as a result of China’s newfound economic weight and military power, Japan has moved into a closer embrace with the United States than ever before. This has meant greater cooperation from military logistics through to the strategic realm, and it has even included logistical and personnel support in Iraq. The Japanese case offers a basic reminder of something declinists too often forget: When assessing a rising power such as China, one ought to consider the near-historical certainty that the rising power will provoke a counterbalancing of its own.

...India’s substantial shift toward the United States, made partly in response to China’s awakening, offers another example of “bandwagoning” with us rather than balancing against us.

...China may indeed emerge as a great power rival to the United States. But this seems very, very unlikely in the near or medium term.

...The overall size and dynamism of [America's] economy remains unmatched, and America continues to lead the rest of the world in measures of competitiveness, technology, and innovation. Here, higher education and science count as an enormous asset. America’s major research universities lead the world in stature and rankings, occupying seventeen of the top twenty slots. Broad demographic trends also favor the United States, whereas countries typically mentioned as peer competitors sag under the weight of aging populations. This is not only true for Russia, Europe, and Japan, but also for China, whose long-standing one-child policy has had an anticipated effect.

...Over the years, America’s staying power has been regularly and chronically underestimated—by condescending French and British statesmen in the nineteenth century, by German, Japanese, and Soviet militarists in the twentieth, and by homegrown prophets of doom today. The critiques come and go. The object of their contempt never does..._WorldAffairsJournal

America has serious problems--most brought on by irresponsible and excessive government. Either Americans will learn to rein in the malignant bureaucracies and ballooning agencies of government, or they will continue to suffer from their excesses. If government is allowed to continue growing unchecked, the predictions of America crumbling will eventually occur. And if it does, the shaking will not subside for a very long time.

Europe, UK: Brain Drain in Science, Medicine

Europe and the UK are suffering from a growing stampede of educated professionals, scientists, and technical specialists out of the region.

Record numbers of Britons are leaving - many of them doctors, teachers and engineers - in the biggest exodus for almost 50 years.

Skilled professionals, including doctors, are leaving the UK in record numbers Over a quarter of qualified professionals who have moved abroad had health or education qualifications

There are now 3.247 million British-born people living abroad, of whom more than 1.1 million are highly-skilled university graduates, say the researchers.

More than three quarters of these professionals have settled abroad for more than 10 years, according to the study by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

No other nation is losing so many qualified people, it points out. Britain has now lost more than one in 10 of its most skilled citizens, while overall only Mexico has had more people emigrate.

The figures, based on official records from more than 220 countries, will alarm Gordon Brown as tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money is spent on educating graduates. The cost of training a junior doctor, for example, is £250,000.

The most popular destinations are English-speaking countries such as Australia, America, Canada and New Zealand and holiday areas including France and Spain.

Almost 60 per cent of those leaving take jobs, although hundreds of thousands of retired people live abroad.___Telegraph

Feedback on this issue from Telegraph readers can be found here. Many informed blog comments on the same article can be found here. North Americans may find it difficult to understand why so many Europeans are so eager to leave. Particularly leftist North Americans, who so badly want to reproduce Western Europe within the borders of North America.

Unfortunately, there are many good reasons for Europeans and Britons to leave their home countries, as the comments linked to above will demonstrate. I see two overwhelming themes dominating the reasons behind this brain drain.

• 1. Out of control immigration into Europe by uneducated, undisciplined, intolerant newcomers, leading to higher violent crime and property crime rates.
• 2. Excessive taxation and regulation of the productive classes to benefit the non-productive, quasi-parasitic classes (including many of the new immigrants).

The trend will only accelerate with time and continued immigration of violent and religiously intolerant, unassimilable newcomers. When you lose residents at the high end of education and income, and gain residents at the lowest end of education and income--in fact gaining criminals and welfare dependents--then the long-term prospects look grim. It is no wonder that European women are reproducing at only half the replacement levels.Bonus image from Noodle Food demonstrates the flow of emigrant MDs between the four countries: the UK, the US, Canada, and Australia. It is important to realise that although the flow of MDs goes both ways between each pair of countries, there is a distinct lopsidedness there. The desirability rankings, based upon the emigration:immigration ratio, go like this:

1. US
2. Canada
3. Australia
4. UK

The MDs are mostly leaving the UK, and eventually mostly ending up in the US. It would be helpful to have similar information regarding other medical professionals, scientists, teachers, engineers, IT professionals, etc. who are emigrating from the UK and Europe.