Is the political class “moderate” in their pursuit of a population subjugated by a Prohibition/Surveillance/Domestic Warfare State?  The answer is obvious.  So why should we be “moderate” in our resistance to their efforts?  By “resist” I do NOT mean violence, but by intransigence, an unwillingness to compromise on principle.  The architects of tyranny at home are pursuing their goal with all the zeal of a religious fanatic, and they count on our “moderation” to advance it.

It’s like insisting that the hull of a boat be “moderate” in it’s resistance to water.  It is futile to negotiate with the water spraying in your face.

Tyranny advances as the moderates waffle.

Sheldon Richman’s latest column explores the identical nature of the presidential candidates’ foreign policy views.  And by that he means the ultra-hawkish rhetoric that is blasted by the candidates during debates and speeches.  Why in God’s name is this type of talk about military force so popular?  Anytime a candidate let’s rip their vision for how they’d bomb some foreign country to the Stone Age, the crowd goes berzerk.  Why is that?  And the rare moment a candidate mentions the necessity of peace and the folly of war, the crowd boos.  Why?  It reminds me of a football game.  And it’s no coincidence that football games are an arena for the Police State to put on a show as well.  That vulgar religion called nationalism requires militaristic magniloquence from it’s prospective high priests.

The liberty movement isn’t so fragile that its vitality depended on the poll numbers of Rand Paul.  And it won’t die because he dropped out.  In fact, I doubt much of the liberty movement that grew out of his father’s campaigns paid much attention to Rand.  They’ve been too busy advancing liberty in their own respective states.  Several writers over at Reason appear to have put a bit too much faith and hope into the political chances of Rand Paul.  How else could anyone proclaim that the Libertarian Moment either lived or died based on how popular Rand was?

For those of you who have seen the first episode of the new season of X-Files, there’s a scene between Mulder and conspiracy theorist web host Tad O’Malley where O’Malley mentions a “dirtbox” used by government to listen in on their conversation as a reason for them not to speak until they are inside O’Malley’s limo.  Turns out dirtboxes are a  thing.  The ACLU reports that these dirtboxes are plane-mounted Stingrays that I’ve written about previously.  Local police departments have received these surveillance devices through the Pentagon’s 1033 program, which funnels the weapons of war to law enforcement.  Instead of installing the Stingray at a fixed point, cops can strap to aircraft and just fly around, capturing the private data and conversations of millions of civilians.

An article from Foreign Policy states that NATO is hopelessly outgunned by Russia in the Baltics, and would be overrun in three days if Putin wanted it.  There is a propaganda aspect to the piece though: it appears this is the excuse for beefing up NATO via billions in U.S. tax dollars.  I’ve got a better idea: abolish NATO, which is almost entirely funded by American taxpayers.

And when a country does, no one can seem to get adequate care, after waiting for months.

Will Wilkinson of the Niskansen Center has written two separate posts supposedly proving the famous Barry Goldwater quote false.  That quote goes something like this: “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice; moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”  It’s become a classic call the “arms” in libertarian circles, and rightly so.  The quote captures the revolutionary spirit of liberty, and the enthusiasm of those who champion a free society.  Wilkinson begs to differ.  In two rather long-winded posts that don’t seem to accomplish anything, Wilkinson lays out his case against the immortal Goldwater quote (written by Karl Hess).  Both posts really seem to be nothing more than an attempt to throw cold water on a cherished, galvanizing sentiment among liberty-lovers.

Before addressing Wilkinson’s objections, I want to consider what the Goldwater quote conjurs up in the hearts and minds of liberty-lovers.  When libertarians hear this, they aren’t usually equating “extremism” with violence.  In Wilkinson’s second post, he uses Timothy McVeigh’s mass murdering act as an example of extremism “in defense of liberty”.  I’m sorry, but I don’t see how the rest of his essay can be taken seriously.  I have never encountered a libertarian who was of the opinion that mass murder against innocents would count as acceptable “extremism in the defense of liberty”.  “Extremism in the defense of liberty”, to every libertarian I’ve met, denotes intransigence, an unwillingness to compromise, to sacrifice principle to expediency.  Violence isn’t on the spectrum between extremism and moderation for almost all libertarians.  If you take violence out of the equation, Wilkinson’s essays become a rambling, nit-picky attempt to

When I think of the difference between extremism and moderation, I think of the difference between a Ron Paul and every other Republican politician.  Ron Paul was of course not violent, but he was considered “extreme” in his political views by the mainstream political Establishment.

The Goldwater quote is a rousing sentiment that stirs up the idealism of libertarians, and the history of liberty is filled with similar quotations.  I suspect that, contra Wilkinson, libertarians are dusting off their Aristotle to glean the exact meaning of “extremism” and “moderation”.

“Moderation” gets us nowhere.  Rand Paul is a prime example of the futility of moderating a defense of liberty.  It loses the idealists, the die-hard supporters, and gains nothing in return.

Andrew Woods writes on “Camp Bucca”, the U.S. detention facility that held Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the architect of ISIS.

Devon Herrick of the National Center for Policy Analysis writes on the Affordable Care Act.  The scam that is the ACA is in a death spiral, with three major insurers, Humana, United Healthcare, and Cigna, having reported huge losses in 2015.  These companies aren’t making enough in profit to pay out claims, and are either requesting premium hikes of 50% or more, or dropping Obamacare altogether.  United Healthcare, in particular, took a $720 million loss while attempting to service the Obamacare exchange, and now wants out.  Obamacare was sold as a way for everyone to have access to affordable health insurance.  In reality, it wrecked the entire industry while making it far more expensive to gain coverage, which is why millions of people are preferring to not buy coverage and pay the penalty.

…we are safer than ever.