In response to a diminishing number of requests  – and in a rare display of crass self-promotion - the following link will take you to the Brian Wilson branch of the  LewRockwell.com archieves.

  http://www.google.com/custom?cof=LW%3A500%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.lewrockwell.com%2Flewroc1a.gif%3BLH%3A93%3BAH%3Acenter%3BAWFID%3A65dad07a461e3427%3B&domains=lewrockwell.com&q=Brian+Wilson&sitesearch=lewrockwell.com

WND, Managing Editor David Kupelian writes a compelling piece with an excellent analogy.    http://www.wnd.com//index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=127027

Andy McCarthy’s profoundly insightful analysis of how the Obama adminsitration doesn’t give a damn about anything other than superimposing socialism and tyranny on America. If there is a better explanation, I have yet to read, hear or see it. http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NmQyOTI5NzNkMmMxY2IyYThhMjBmNjhkOWQ2MTY5YjE=

And this follow-up piece from Mark Tapscott   http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Heres-why-Dems-keep-pushing-dead-Obamacare-despite-growing-public-opposition-85746057.html

Don’t Go Wobbly, Ben                                                                                                                     Excellent – and a bit scarey – piece from my former collaborator Ambrose Evans-Pritchard. Maybe we get the best view of our situation in America from aboad… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/7338857/Dont-go-wobbly-on-us-now-Ben-Bernanke.html

….or even Canada: The Moral Disarmament of the Civilized World http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/20526

Mark Hendrickson has written one of the best pieces on taxes and taxation. He prefers using “blind spot” over  ”immorality”, nevertheless noting the 8th Commandment doesn’t come with footnotes or parenthetical exceptions.

The beauty of the piece is in its accuracyand simplicity; concise and irrefutable.

Robin Hood didn’t sign the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitutiion.

http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/our_national_blind_spot.html

Latest selection of excellent, depressing, agitating and vitally informative articles. Read, share, comment.

Well..this should come as a big surprise. Barack Obama says one thing in a
speech and does the exact opposite it in real life. The man who famously scolded
Hillary Clinton by saying “Words Matter” only meant they matter when his patter
can fool the people he disdains. Two recent examples from the State of The Union
address…..

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/01/obamas_magicians_trick_misdire.html

The real scandal surrounding the failed Christmas Day airline bombing was not
the fact that a terrorist got on a plane — that can happen to any
administration, as it surely did to the Bush administration — but what happened
afterward when Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was captured and came under the full
control of the U.S. government.

After 50 minutes of questioning him, the Obama administration chose, reflexively
and mindlessly, to give the chatty terrorist the right to remain silent. Which
he immediately did, undoubtedly denying us crucial information about al-Qaeda in
Yemen, which had trained, armed and dispatched him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/28/AR2010012803511.html?wpisrc=nl_opinions

Is Uncle Sam Bankrupt?
When it comes to nondisclosure, the United States government is the father of
all financial malfeasants.  Indeed, Uncle Sam has been misrepresenting the
nation’s finances for decades.  In the process, he has run up an undisclosed
bill that makes the financial bailout and economic stimulus spending look
paltry.

http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba689

From Incredible to Informative, some recent pieces from around the ‘net. Read,comment, share.

Charles Krauthammer :One Year Out; The Fall  http://www.standlikearock.net/2010/01/15/one-year-out-the-fall/

Fox News: Officers to be punished for Ft. Hood shootine: http://www.standlikearock.net/2010/01/15/officers-may-be-punished-for-ft-hood-rampage/

Latest on how Obama is protecting you: Pamela Geller  http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/the_toothless_visas_viper_1.html

Excellent summation from Ron Paul http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vLV4jn8BMU&feature=player_embedded

If even HALF of this is true….Cloward-Piven Government – http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/11/clowardpiven_government.html

It’s more than worth the time.

http://www.pjtv.com/video/Afterburner_with_Bill_Whittle/They_Stole_Our_Future%2C_But_They_Cannot_Break_Our_Will/2907/

Not as “green” as we thought…..?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/181301-plug-in-vehicles-unconscionable-waste-and-pollution-masquerading-as-conservation?source=email_most_popular

Mises Daily

Gold and Guns
by Doug French on January 1, 2010 

In his extraordinary book Democracy: The God that Failed, Hans Hermann Hoppe points out that the process of civilization is stopped when government continually violates property rights.

The natural process of civilization comes through delaying consumption, saving, and building capital. Undoing it leads to higher societal time preference.

When natural disasters strike or a gunman robs you in an alley, “the effect of these on time preference is temporary and unsystematic,” Hoppe explains.

Victims are entitled to defend themselves against the individual aggressor and prepare themselves for the calamities of the occasional act of God. Resources will be reallocated to defend one against potential robbers, and provisions will be made for potential natural disasters.

However, when government aggresses, it is considered legitimate and “a victim may not legitimately defend himself against such violations.” Democracy legitimizes this government aggression because the violence is sanctioned by a majority of voters.

This decivilization process that Hoppe describes continues in fits and starts. The uneducated continue to live in never-never land, believing that each new ruler means change and that their lives and happiness can safely be put in the hands of a kind and caring government. But government’s current ham-handedness — with its bailouts, money printing, and rights violations — has alerted more than a few individuals to do what comes naturally: defend themselves and prepare for the worst.

The government’s legal-tender money — the dollar — is now under questioning. While the commercial-banking fractional-reserve monetary engine is stalled with loan write-downs and bank failures, the Federal Reserve has expanded its balance sheet like never before. Man of the Year Ben Bernanke is deathly afraid of deflation, and John Maynard Keynes is a hero again. The inflation cake is in the oven, albeit not quite fully baked.

And the current administration does not seem friendly to the property right of allowing us to protect ourselves. The president believes that only law-enforcement officers should have weapons.

So while high-time-preference folks like Shannan DeCesare shout “Merry Christmas to me” after unloading some gold jewelry for $610 at a gold party, low-time-preference types are lining up in pawnshops and gun shows to buy gold, silver, lead, and guns.

DeCesare attended a gold party that the Wall Street Journal describes as an example of the new Tupperware party. These parties appeal to the cash-for-gold crowd trying to maintain a boom-time lifestyle by unloading their valuables. The cash poor end up taking between 65 and 75 percent of what their gold would be worth to a refiner according to the WSJ.

These parties offer a comfortable atmosphere for selling the yellow metal. “It can be really difficult for a lot of people to walk into a jewelry store or pawnshop holding a little bag of gold,” Lisa Rosenthal, owner of Party of Gold, told the WSJ. Ms. Rosenthal’s company has specialists working more than 1,000 parties a month. And why would anyone sell their gold for 65 to 75 cents on the dollar? In his book More Than You Know: Finding Financial Wisdom in Unconventional Places, author Michael J. Mauboussin has a chapter titled, “All I Need to Know I Learned at a Tupperware Party.” People buy Tupperware because they feel like they must reciprocate the host for hosting the party and providing the free party favors. Plus, as Mauboussin explains, “the single most important fact of the Tupperware formula is the tendency to say yes to people you like.”

In the case of gold parties, attendees don’t want to just show up, drink the wine and eat the appetizers but leave turning their noses up at the low prices offered for their, or their departed mother’s, old jewelry, especially when it’s their friend down the block hosting the event. They happily trade a metal that has proven to have value for thousands of years for the government’s depreciating paper.

But while gold sellers are shy to see the nearby pawn dealer, gold buyers go where they must to see who has inventory for sale. The demand for guns is so good that the gun show in Las Vegas recently charged $14 a head just to walk in and look around — after parking cost of $3. The lot was full and business was brisk.

The demand for space at gun ranges in Salt Lake City was strong enough the day after Christmas that it was a 15- to 20-minute wait to rent an “alley” at the second range we inquired with. The first range contacted was reservation only and completely booked for the day.

Panic buying of ammunition, silver, and gold has created shortages and led to price increases for all three in 2009. “Currently no .380 ammunition — I haven’t seen any for about four months… .38 special, it’s been at least a couple of months,” Denver gun-store manager Richard Taylor told CNN earlier this year. “It’s just that there’s been a huge demand and it’s far outweighed supply right now.”

$28 $25

And in November, Bloomberg reported that the US Mint had suspended sales of most American Eagle coins made from precious metals, including gold and silver. With coin sales surging 88 percent in the first 10 months of this year, the mint is out of metal and sales will resume “once sufficient inventories of gold-bullion blanks can be acquired to meet market demand,” the mint said in a statement posted on its website.

So, some Americans are unloading their family treasures and cheering for bailouts, money printing, and gun control, while others are stocking up on precious metals, guns, and ammo to protect themselves and their wealth.

There is no question which group is the civilized one.

Douglas French is president of the Mises Institute and author of Early Speculative Bubbles & Increases in the Money Supply. He received his masters degree in economics from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, under Murray Rothbard with Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe serving on his thesis committee. See his tribute to Murray Rothbard. Send him mail. See Doug French’s article archives.

More great places for selected articles on Liberty and current events. The fact I occasionally write for them has absolutley nothing to do with my recommendation.

Really.

http://www.standlikearock.net/

http://www.strike-the-root.com/