It wasn't the Rotary Club that segregated the public schools

Here are some goodies from Don Boudreaux on what would happen to Civil Rights and Civil Liberties without the heavy hand of government making us behave.

Remember: Jim Crow was legislation, not custom. PLEASE read the whole thing....

Letter to editor: Reacting to Rand Paul’s remarks about the 1964 Civil Rights Act, you say that his libertarian philosophy “is a theory of liberty with roots in America’s creation, but the succeeding centuries have shown how ineffective it was in promoting a civil society….  It was only government power that … abolished Jim Crow” (“Limits of Libertarianism,” May 22).

Don Boudreaux: You’ve got it backwards.  Jim Crow itself was government power.  Jim Crow was legislation that forced the segregation of blacks from whites.  Research shows that people acting in the free market that you apparently believe is prone to racial discrimination were remarkably reluctant to discriminate along racial lines.  It was this very reluctance – this capacity of free markets to make people colorblind – that obliged racists in the late 19th century to use government to achieve their loathsome goals.*
Had Mr. Paul’s libertarian philosophy been followed more consistently throughout American history, there would have been no need for one government statute (the Civil Rights Act) to upend earlier government statutes (Jim Crow) and the business practices that they facilitated.

Once again, hit the link up top to read the whole thing....

Socialism Does NOT Lead To Marxism

Socialism Does NOT Lead To Marxism.  Not all the time, anyway.  
But it does have a fairly consistent record of leading to cannibalism.  

I was doing some research on the total disaster known as North Korea.  Parents over there are eating their children.  Go here.  Parents are eating their children.  Parents are eating their children.  (On the upside, North Koreans have free healthcare, excellent gun control, and less of an income gap between rich and poor than the capitalist countries.)

I found this gem on Libertarian Reddit.  The blog from which it came has been taken down, but the horrors mentioned below are well-documented elsewhere.  

Freeze prices, take away the free market, eliminate incentives, eliminate property rights, all "for the common good" and for "fairness", and people will start eating each other.  It really is that simple.  

Socialists are everywhere these days. They loosely model themselves after the hippy movement; they drink PBR, smoke from elaborate bongs, and pretentiously advocate a form of socialism that they can’t quite define. They are unapologetically anti-American, anti-West, and usually, they aren’t worth anyone’s time, but lately, it has become overwhelming, so I would just like them to know one thing: socialism (i.e. abandoning property rights), wherever it has been tried, in whatever form, on whatever scale, has resulted in starvation and cannibalism. I compiled just a few examples for you:

North Korea: “We started seeing cannibalism. When one is very hungry, one can go crazy. One woman in my town killed her 7-month-old baby, and ate the baby with another woman. That woman's son reported them both to the authorities. I can't condemn cannibalism. Not that I wanted to eat human meat, but we were so hungry. It was common that people went to a fresh grave and dug up a body to eat meat. I witnessed a woman being questioned for cannibalism. She said it tasted good.”

Ukraine: “Some went insane. They never did become completely still. One could tell from their eyes–because their eyes shone. These were the people who cut up and cooked corpses, who killed their own children and ate them. In them the beast rose to the top as the human being died. I saw one. She had been brought to the district center under convoy. Her face was human, but her eyes were those of a wolf. These are cannibals.”

Soviet Union: “It is now and only now, when in the regions afflicted by the famine there is cannibalism and the roads are littered with hundreds if not thousands of corpses, that we can (and therefore must) pursue the acquisition of [church] valuables with the most ferocious and merciless energy, stopping at nothing in suppressing all resistance.” –Lenin

China: “Most of the culprits on the list practiced necrophagy, either eating those who had passed away or exhuming and eating cadavers after burial. When a team of inspectors was sent to review the Quiatou commune in Shizhu county, Sichuan, in early 1961, they were startled by the extent of cannibalism. In some cases, only parts of a body were eaten Zemin’s heart, for instance, was scooped out. Some people covered the meat in hot peppers.” (p. 323)

Cambodia: “When I got to the spot, I hid in a thicket from which I could watch the “ceremony” without being seen. But I was so horrified by what I saw that I nearly fainted. The condemned man was tied to a tree, his chest bare and blindfold over his eyes. Ta Sok, the executioner, using a large knife made a cut in the stomach of the poor man. In pain, the man screamed like a wild beast. Even today his cires still ring in my ears. Blood rushed out everywhere, his insides were all laid bare, and Ta Sok cut out his liver and cooked it on a little stove that Ta Chea had just heated up. They divided up the liver among them and ate it hungrily.” Another witness reports, “They ate many human livers this way.”

Angola: "The commander gave Kakule his knife, told him to pare the skin from an arm, a leg. He told Kakule and his other assistant to build a fire. From their satchels, the soldiers brought cassava bread. They sat in a circle. The commander placed the dead man's head at the center. He forced the two loggers to sit with them, to eat with them the pieces of boiled limb. The grilled liver, tongue and genitals had already been parceled out among the commander and his troops."

Jamestown, VA:  (Yes, Jamestown was founded as a Socialist Paradise.  The failed experiment ended when their government said "every man for himself".  The settlement then prospered.  Hit the Thanksgiving label at the bottom of this post. - TWS)  “So great was our famine that a savage we slew and buried, the poorer sorte tooke him up againe and eat him; and so did divers one another boyled and stewed with roots and herbs. It were too vile to say and scarce to be believed, what we endured: but the occasion was our own, for want of providence, industrie and government, and not the barrennesse and defect of the Country, as is generally supposed.”

“Can you really find anyone who is guilty? Just go and ask, and they will all tell you that they did it for the sake of virtue, for everybody’s good. That’s why they drove mothers to cannibalism.” -Ukraine

Bill Maher on the sudden increase in disability payments

The Eleven Questions

I haven't linked to anything over at Counting Cats lately. 
A relatively new contributor called "Single Acts Of Tyranny" is asking various folks eleven questions about politics and liberty. 

The questions have a slight bent toward the U.K., but all still apply to the U.S.A.  To save "Single Acts Of Tyranny" the trouble of emailing me, I'm going to answer the eleven questions now, just for the good of The Republic. 

The Whited Sepulchre is a Fort Worth, TX blogger, shipping manager, inadequate guitarist, dachshund owner, and Chair of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.  He often requires a helicopter pilot as a designated driver. 

1. Who was the greatest political leader in the Western world?

President Calvin Coolidge.  He grew the U.S. economy, retired a huge chunk of the national debt, was almost an isolationist, spoke out in favor of civil rights, and made no effort at all to be a great political "leader".  Therefore, the nation prospered.  The worst thing that can happen to a nation is for it to be afflicted with a great political leader, as presently defined.  May Coolidge and his tribe increase. 

2. If you could change, introduce or abolish one law, what would it be?

I would eliminate the "General Welfare Clause" from the U.S. Constitution, and tighten up the "Commerce Clause".  These have been slowly misinterpreted to mean that Congress can do whatever the hell it wants. 

3. What advice would you give to a sixteen year-old today?

The same advice that my mother gave me as I was going away to college.  "Don't wash anything in hot water, and watch out for wild women."  I might add: "Invest as much as you can in gold and silver".
 

4. Who do you most admire?

Almost any entrepreneur who has taken the risk of creating something that people will desire more than their money.  Also, my parents. 

5. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of your country?

Incredibly pessimistic.  We're 17 trillion in debt, and are in the hands of Drug Warriors, Crony Capitalists, the Military Industrial Complex, and a machine politician from Chicago.   But I am looking forward to saying "I told you so!!"  

6. If you think voting for establishment parties changes little or nothing, what is the one thing we can do as individuals to cause real change?

Vote for the Libertarian Party.  We will slay the beast and replace it with a puppy.  

  

7. When will we finally say good-bye to the state?

We won't.  Mostly because no matter what Grandmother Stalin said, there really is such a thing as a bad, bad boy. 

8. Should free people have the right to keep and bear arms openly or covertly without government permission, sanction or registration?

Yep. 

9. What annoys you most about current politics?

Oh god....Ok, in spite of serious competition, it's the belief that if someone is opposed to Barack's education, healthcare, charity, relief, energy, and agriculture con games, then that person is opposed to all education, healthcare, charity, relief, energy, and agriculture. 

10. Gold standard or fiat currency and interest rate control?

That question presupposes a false dichotomy.  We could have a gold standard, and a currency issued by a neighborhood bank, and another currency issued by Wal-Mart, and dozens of others.  Let a thousand currencies bloom!!  Anyone foolish enough to want a fiat currency could continue trading with his fiat currency and saving his fiat currency.  But one day he would look in his wallet and realize that his dollars are made of paper. 

11. Do we have an obligation to help the poor?

No, but if you don't help the poor and disabled, you're probably an asshole.  I just wish that government anti-poverty programs left us with more money to help the poor.  Two years ago, the U.S. anti-poverty programs blew through $63,000.00 per poor family in the nation.  I don't think it went to the poor. 

Hope this has been entertaining, Cat Counters!! 

When Libertarians officiate at a wedding

The Tarrant County Libertarian Party Vice-Chair, Michael Coyne, recently asked me to officiate at his wedding. 
If this is your first visit to this site, I'm the Chair of the Tarrant County (Fort Worth) Libertarian Party.

(Yeah, I'm ordained.  I can also lead the singing at revivals, navigate duck hunts, train Labrador Retrievers, broker freight, do Tarot readings, and do about three card tricks.) 
Michael is a lapsed Catholic.  His lovely bride, Shayna, was raised Jew(-ish), meaning "not really".  They wanted a 100% secular ceremony.  An Anglican priest friend of Mike's had agreed to tie this particular wedding knot, but backed out, perhaps because of the secular nature of the ceremony that Mike and Shayna wanted. 

So I borrowed some ministerial vestments from my friend Dan Freemyer, the guy who feeds the homeless and helps the poor at Broadway Baptist Church. 

When you ask the Tarrant County Libertarian Chair to take on a ministerial/rabbinical/priestly role at your wedding, this is what you're gonna get: 

We are gathered here today to celebrate one of life’s greatest moments, to give recognition to the worth and beauty of love, and to hear the words which shall unite Michael and Shayna in marriage.

A few days ago, Michael and Shayna filled out a marriage “license”, issued by the state of Texas. In the eyes of the state, they are already married, and now have the right to sue each other.

That piece of bureaucratic paperwork has absolutely nothing to do with the sacred event that you will witness and participate in today.   The state of Texas is not ensuring the legitimacy and worth of this union. You are. Michael and Shayna have invited you, their families, friends and co-workers to join with them in their vows to remain faithful, loving and committed to each other.

The wedding party already knew what I was going to say in this Welcome/Greeting, and had signed off on it.  The families, friends, and co-workers liked it and laughed in the right places. 

Mike and Shayna are now married - just as married as if Billy Graham, Pope Benedict, Rabbi Ralph Mecklenburger, a ship's captain, a Justice Of The Peace, or a Supreme Court Justice had officiated at the wedding. 
Texas has given them a contract that says they can sue each other. 
Their friends, families, co-workers (and The Tarrant County Libertarian Party) watched these two wonderful people enter into a contract to love each other, care for each other, and provide for each other for the rest of their lives.  I think that's the one that matters.   

Email me if you want to get married.  I work cheap.  @Whited79