United Liberty

It’s October, a month synonymous with ghosts, scary stories and cheesy horror movies. There are also stories told that are scary, but true, and the guys from Reason TV bring us some real horrors relating to the fiscal stability of our country.

Please note that you need 3D glasses for these videos. If you’re a subscriber to Reason, like me, you would have gotten them with this month’s issue.

“I Spend on Your Grave!” (episode #1)

Night of The Living Debt! (episode #2)

Well, almost everything, according to a recent survey by Gallup asking Americans adults (not registered or likely voters) what they thought about legislation passed by Congress since President Barack Obama took office last year, such as ObamaCare, the stimulus and auto bailouts. Um, yeah, they’re not real happy.

Here is a look at the party breakdown:

Over at his new blog at Salon.com, Dave Weigel points to a Pew poll showing that a plurality voters incorrectly believe Barack Obama signed the TARP bailout into law:

In numerous polls, the public has voiced their displeasure at the much maligned bank bailout, but most don’t know which president signed the controversial act into law. Only a third of Americans (34%) correctly say the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was enacted by the Bush administration. Nearly half (47%) incorrectly believe TARP was passed under President Obama. Another 19% admit they do not know which president signed the bank bailout into law. Notably, there is no partisan divide on the question. Just 36% of Republicans, 35% of independents and 34% of Democrats know that the government bailout of banks and financial institutions was signed into law by former President Bush. And Democrats (46%) are just as likely as Republicans (50%) to say TARP was passed under Obama.

And as Weigel notes, “[H]ere’s a reminder that voters don’t really know why they’re so angry.”

This is another example of why the “blame Bush” strategy just isn’t going to cut it for Democrats. No, President Obama didn’t sign it into law, but he did vote for it. He has defended it, if not doubled-down on it. As we’ve frequently said here, and has been noted in other places, President Obama has taken ownership of the economy. He has constantly said that the TARP bailout “brought the economy back from the brink,” or some variation of that. Voters have constantly heard it, and with their short attention spans, that’s all they’re going to remember.

Via Students for Liberty comes video of a great debate on “libertarianism versus conservatism.” The four participants are all interns at think-tanks in Washington, DC.

Debating the libertarian view is Liya Palagashvili (Institute for Justice) and Sara Scarlett (Cato Institute). On the conservative side is Daniel Anderson and Shannon Hale (Heritage Foundation).

Here is the debate:

Libertarianism v Conservatism Debate from Students For Liberty on Vimeo.

The internet is under assault. It never seems to be the top story, as the website TorrentFreak attests, but the internet is under assault globally on several different fronts.

1. In China, where continuous shutdown of the blogs by the authoritarian regime continues to create firewalls (pun intended) to the Chinese citizenry’s access to the free flow of information.
2. In the United States, where Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a perennial foe of creative freedom (having run as Vice President along with presidential nominee Al Gore in 2000 on a platform of censorship) has proposed the government have the authority to shut down the internet in the event of an emergency.
3. In the Netherlands, where anti-piracy group BREIN (Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland) has succeeded in shutting down 384 torrent sites.

Yesterday while speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) explained President Barack Obama’s economic beliefs to attendees:

“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Republican talk show hosts, such Neal Boortz, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, often call Obama a socialist (or Marxist), citing health care or some other policy as proof. Corporatism isn’t as well known socialism, a word that brings out a reaction from people, so that’s probably why they choose socialism. Either that or talking about corporatism would make people realize that Republicans are as bad as Obama.

Tim Carney, author of Obamanomics, explains why Ron Paul is right:

Do you still believe that Barack Obama wants to fight off special interests and working for the people? Tim Carney, author of Obamanomics, explains that not only is the president not living up to the hype, he is actually doing them some big favors:

“Tonight,” President Obama intoned near midnight Sunday, after the House had passed two health care bills, “we pushed back on the undue influence of special interests. … We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.”

But even before the president spoke, the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America — whose $26.1 million lobbying effort in 2009 was the most expensive by any industry lobby in history — hailed the health package as “important and historic.”
[…]
Yet all along Obama has claimed the opposite. The Democrats’ party-line Senate vote for the bill represented “standing up to the special interests,” Obama said in December — just before the health care lobbyists and pharmaceutical political action committees hosted fundraisers for Martha Coakley to try to preserve the Democrats’ 60-vote supermajority.

Throughout March, as momentum built for passing the bill, and as Democrats adopted the mantra, “You’re either with the American people, or you’re with the insurance companies,” health insurance stocks climbed in tandem with the bill’s odds of passing. The health sector outperformed every other sector in the S&P 500 over the last month.

Yes, because Bernanke is just doing such a great job right now. Bernie Sanders and Ron Paul speak alot of sense in this clip from National Public Radio. Remember: centralized power never lets go of itself.

[Editor’s note] We had to remove the NPR embed. For some reason it’s not working. You can listen to the story on Bernanke here.

Al Gore stands to profit from global warming and taxpayer dollars:

Last year Mr Gore’s venture capital firm loaned a small California firm $75m to develop energy-saving technology.

The company, Silver Spring Networks, produces hardware and software to make the electricity grid more efficient.

The deal appeared to pay off in a big way last week, when the Energy Department announced $3.4 billion in smart grid grants, the New York Times reports. Of the total, more than $560 million went to utilities with which Silver Spring has contracts.

The move means that venture capital company Kleiner Perkins and its partners, including Mr Gore, could recoup their investment many times over in coming years.
[…]
“Do you think there is something wrong with being active in business in this country?” Mr. Gore said. “I am proud of it. I am proud of it.”

There is nothing wrong with being active in business and engaging in market competition without government influence or taxpayer dollars. What Al Gore is doing is called rent-seeking and corporatism. He isn’t earning his money fairly because he stands to benefit from climate change legislation and government grants.

Of course, Gore doesn’t believe in a free market, so he sees nothing wrong with getting rich off taxpayers.

It wasn’t really a debate because they didn’t appear together, but Ron Paul appeared on Larry King Live last night after Michael Moore and responded to his diatribe against capitalism: