It's my sister's birthday.
She still won't tell me how old she is.
Someday soon I'll persuade her to be my campaign manager and I'll be the first Libertarian elected to the U.S. Congress.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Lethal Health Care
Investigative journalist Jon Rappaport weighs the numbers on government health care:
100,000 deaths and 2.1 million hospitalizations and 36 million adverse reactions PER YEAR from FDA APPROVED DRUGS
Untold thousands of deaths from denial of treatments by the FDA
Theory, Evidence and Examples of FDA Harm Independent Institute
The FDA Kills by Bill Sardi
Protecting Ourselves to Death Mary Ruwart
The FDA Has Blood on Its Hands by Bill Sardi
On July 26, 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a landmark paper by Barbara Starfield (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), “Is US health really the best in the world?” In it, Starfield revealed what many people inside the medical establishment already knew: every year, like clockwork, the medical system was killing huge numbers of people. The game was up. The liars and the PR flacks and the public health agencies were going down. The drug companies were going to take a lethal blow. Hospitals all over America were going to have to confess their many sins. Of course, that never happened.
Each year in the US there are:
12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;
7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;
20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;
80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;
What if 100,000 people died in Walmarts every year?
The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is easily 225,000, with a lopsided majority being caused by the government.
This makes the medical system the third leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease and cancer.
But the government tells us that we should trust it with our health. It does this in two ways. First, by telling us that the government should "reform" and then manage our normal health care. Second, by telling us that extraordinary health problems, which the government calls "epidemics," require massive government "crisis" intervention.
The government distracts us from the FDA and from government-created HMO's and government-regulated hospitals, by pointing to potentially disastrous "epidemics." Forget the government-caused deaths through the FDA. Forget about the effects of government regulation and intervention in our local hospitals. What about those EPIDEMICS? What would we do without the government?
These are the figures on the last several government-declared “epidemics.” They are not yearly; they are totals, to date; global totals, except in the case of West Nile (US only):
SARS: 774 deaths.
WEST NILE: 1159 deaths.
BIRD FLU: 262 deaths.
SMALLPOX: (terrorist threat): 0 deaths.
SWINE FLU: 7909 deaths.
To give perspective, 250 thousand to 500 thousand people die of ordinary flu-like illness every year.
Yet this astounding death rate accrues no interest as an epidemic. It is only the “teaching [brainwashing] moments” of the phony epidemics that are promoted by health agencies (e.g., CDC and WHO) and their pharmaceutical allies, who rake in billions by manufacturing new vaccines.
Yes, under the Obama Plan, there will be more declared health emergencies, and they will serve to cement the citizen to his new role as eternal patient in the medical march along bleak streets of the future.
The Food and Drug Administration
100,000 deaths and 2.1 million hospitalizations and 36 million adverse reactions PER YEAR from FDA APPROVED DRUGS
Untold thousands of deaths from denial of treatments by the FDA
Theory, Evidence and Examples of FDA Harm Independent Institute
The FDA Kills by Bill Sardi
Protecting Ourselves to Death Mary Ruwart
The FDA Has Blood on Its Hands by Bill Sardi
On July 26, 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a landmark paper by Barbara Starfield (Johns Hopkins School of Public Health), “Is US health really the best in the world?” In it, Starfield revealed what many people inside the medical establishment already knew: every year, like clockwork, the medical system was killing huge numbers of people. The game was up. The liars and the PR flacks and the public health agencies were going down. The drug companies were going to take a lethal blow. Hospitals all over America were going to have to confess their many sins. Of course, that never happened.
Each year in the US there are:
12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgeries;
7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;
20,000 deaths from other errors in hospitals;
80,000 deaths from infections acquired in hospitals;
What if 100,000 people died in Walmarts every year?
The total of medically-caused deaths in the US every year is easily 225,000, with a lopsided majority being caused by the government.
This makes the medical system the third leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease and cancer.
But the government tells us that we should trust it with our health. It does this in two ways. First, by telling us that the government should "reform" and then manage our normal health care. Second, by telling us that extraordinary health problems, which the government calls "epidemics," require massive government "crisis" intervention.
The government distracts us from the FDA and from government-created HMO's and government-regulated hospitals, by pointing to potentially disastrous "epidemics." Forget the government-caused deaths through the FDA. Forget about the effects of government regulation and intervention in our local hospitals. What about those EPIDEMICS? What would we do without the government?
These are the figures on the last several government-declared “epidemics.” They are not yearly; they are totals, to date; global totals, except in the case of West Nile (US only):
SARS: 774 deaths.
WEST NILE: 1159 deaths.
BIRD FLU: 262 deaths.
SMALLPOX: (terrorist threat): 0 deaths.
SWINE FLU: 7909 deaths.
To give perspective, 250 thousand to 500 thousand people die of ordinary flu-like illness every year.
Yet this astounding death rate accrues no interest as an epidemic. It is only the “teaching [brainwashing] moments” of the phony epidemics that are promoted by health agencies (e.g., CDC and WHO) and their pharmaceutical allies, who rake in billions by manufacturing new vaccines.
Yes, under the Obama Plan, there will be more declared health emergencies, and they will serve to cement the citizen to his new role as eternal patient in the medical march along bleak streets of the future.
The Food and Drug Administration
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Little Libertarian House on the Prairie
The Politics of Laura Ingalls Wilder Catholic Exchange, November 28th, 2009
The Missouri Ruralist, Ayn Rand, and Hans Sennholz.
The Missouri Ruralist, Ayn Rand, and Hans Sennholz.
Two Parties on Thanksgiving
There are about 230,000 American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. That means about two-tenths of one percent of the households in America have a family member away from home this Thanksgiving due to the current wars.
There are about 2.3 million Americans in jail -- ten times more prisoners than soldiers -- and a smaller percentage of those in prison have committed an act of violence against an innocent person.
In their weekly radio addresses, both Obama and the Republicans paint a picture of America as being more affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the government's war on drugs and the war on civil liberties.
The White House Press Office: In the midst of these challenging times for our nation, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to express gratitude to America’s military men and women and their families, and give thanks for our nation’s many blessings.
Republicans Agree: "Even in these times of struggle and trial, we have much to be thankful for, beginning with our men and women in uniform, many of whom will spend this holiday season away from hearth and home. The tragic events at Fort Hood remind us that whether they serve at home or abroad, we owe our soldiers and their families a debt of gratitude we will never be able to repay."
Conversation here.
There are about 2.3 million Americans in jail -- ten times more prisoners than soldiers -- and a smaller percentage of those in prison have committed an act of violence against an innocent person.
In their weekly radio addresses, both Obama and the Republicans paint a picture of America as being more affected by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than the government's war on drugs and the war on civil liberties.
The White House Press Office: In the midst of these challenging times for our nation, President Barack Obama used his weekly address to express gratitude to America’s military men and women and their families, and give thanks for our nation’s many blessings.
Republicans Agree: "Even in these times of struggle and trial, we have much to be thankful for, beginning with our men and women in uniform, many of whom will spend this holiday season away from hearth and home. The tragic events at Fort Hood remind us that whether they serve at home or abroad, we owe our soldiers and their families a debt of gratitude we will never be able to repay."
Conversation here.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Manhattan Declaration
As Thanksgiving Day approaches, it is good not only to be grateful for God's blessings, but also to take action to protect them.
Charles Colson and James Dobson are promoting "The Manhattan Declaration," which is a pledge and call to protect things for which we should be thankful. The Declaration begins with a list of these things:
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire's sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce's leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes - from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Libertarian scholar Thomas E. Woods has described these and many other things for which we can be thankful in his book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization -- a book which Protestants can enjoy as well. Alvin J. Schmidt did the same thing in his book, How Christianity Changed the World. Likewise, Rodney Stark is thankful for The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Easier reading is Kennedy and Newcombe's books, What if the Bible Had Never Been Written?, and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?
We should be thankful for what we call "Western Civilization," which is really Christian Civilization, and one way of giving thanks is doing something to preserve civilization, and a worthwhile example is to read and sign The Manhattan Declaration.
Charles Colson and James Dobson are promoting "The Manhattan Declaration," which is a pledge and call to protect things for which we should be thankful. The Declaration begins with a list of these things:
Christians are heirs of a 2,000-year tradition of proclaiming God's word, seeking justice in our societies, resisting tyranny, and reaching out with compassion to the poor, oppressed and suffering.
While fully acknowledging the imperfections and shortcomings of Christian institutions and communities in all ages, we claim the heritage of those Christians who defended innocent life by rescuing discarded babies from trash heaps in Roman cities and publicly denouncing the Empire's sanctioning of infanticide. We remember with reverence those believers who sacrificed their lives by remaining in Roman cities to tend the sick and dying during the plagues, and who died bravely in the coliseums rather than deny their Lord.
After the barbarian tribes overran Europe, Christian monasteries preserved not only the Bible but also the literature and art of Western culture. It was Christians who combated the evil of slavery: Papal edicts in the 16th and 17th centuries decried the practice of slavery and first excommunicated anyone involved in the slave trade; evangelical Christians in England, led by John Wesley and William Wilberforce, put an end to the slave trade in that country. Christians under Wilberforce's leadership also formed hundreds of societies for helping the poor, the imprisoned, and child laborers chained to machines.
In Europe, Christians challenged the divine claims of kings and successfully fought to establish the rule of law and balance of governmental powers, which made modern democracy possible. And in America, Christian women stood at the vanguard of the suffrage movement. The great civil rights crusades of the 1950s and 60s were led by Christians claiming the Scriptures and asserting the glory of the image of God in every human being regardless of race, religion, age or class.
This same devotion to human dignity has led Christians in the last decade to work to end the dehumanizing scourge of human trafficking and sexual slavery, bring compassionate care to AIDS sufferers in Africa, and assist in a myriad of other human rights causes - from providing clean water in developing nations to providing homes for tens of thousands of children orphaned by war, disease and gender discrimination.
Libertarian scholar Thomas E. Woods has described these and many other things for which we can be thankful in his book, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization -- a book which Protestants can enjoy as well. Alvin J. Schmidt did the same thing in his book, How Christianity Changed the World. Likewise, Rodney Stark is thankful for The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success. Easier reading is Kennedy and Newcombe's books, What if the Bible Had Never Been Written?, and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?
We should be thankful for what we call "Western Civilization," which is really Christian Civilization, and one way of giving thanks is doing something to preserve civilization, and a worthwhile example is to read and sign The Manhattan Declaration.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Sam Adams: Giving Thanks to Drones
Yesterday we looked at Samuel Adams' Nov. 20, 1772 letter to the Committees of Correspondence setting forth the rights of the Colonists as human beings, Christians, and English subjects.
With Thanksgiving Day approaching next week, let's look at a Thanksgiving Proclamation written by Sam Adams and approved by the Continental Congress in 1777:
Forasmuch as it is the indispensable duty of all men to adore the superintending providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with gratitude their obligation to him for benefits received, and to implore such farther blessings as they stand in need of; and it having pleased him in his abundant mercy not only to continue to us the innumerable bounties of his common providence,
[so far, so good]
but also to smile upon us in the prosecution of a just and necessary war, for the defence and establishment of our unalienable rights and liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased in so great a measure to prosper the means used for the support of our troops and to crown our arms with most signal success:
[oops!]
It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive powers of these United States, to set apart Thursday, the eighteenth day of December next, for solemn thanksgiving and praise; that with one heart and one voice the good people may express the grateful feelings of their hearts, and consecrate themselves to the service of their divine benefactor; and that together with their sincere acknowledgments and offerings, they may join the penitent confession of their manifold sins, whereby they had forfeited every favour, and their humble and earnest supplication that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of remembrance; that it may please him graciously to afford his blessing on the governments of these states respectively, and prosper the public council of the whole; to inspire our commanders both by land and sea, and all under them, with that wisdom and fortitude which may render them fit instruments, under the providence of Almighty God, to secure for these United States the greatest of all human blessings, independence and peace; that it may please him to prosper the trade and manufactures of the people and the labour of the husbandman, that our land may yet yield its increase; to take schools and seminaries of education, so necessary for cultivating the principles of true liberty, virtue and piety, under his nurturing hand, and to prosper the means of religion for the promotion and enlargement of that kingdom which consisteth "in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost."
And it is further recommended, that servile labour, and such recreation as, though at other times innocent, may be unbecoming the purpose of this appointment, be omitted on so solemn an occasion.
Everything Sam Adams and America's Founding Fathers fought for has been lost: "independence," "peace," "virtue," and "piety."The explanation is simple: although they trusted in God and in Jesus Christ, they also trusted in horses and chariots (Psalm 20:7).
A nation cannot long last as a Christian nation if, in the pursuit of their "inalienable rights and liberties," it is willing to kill IRS agents (with or without Red Coats) and Afghan peasants. It only takes a little toxin to poison a lot of pure water. If we want the American dream of everyone living safely under his own Vine & Fig Tree, we must be willing to beat our swords into plowshares.
Had Sam Adams and America's Founders been consistent in their trust in Divine Providence, they would have endured the violation of their rights -- as Jesus did -- and waited patiently for God to change the hearts of the British. It was less than honest for John Adams, Ben Franklin, and John Jay to claim, "In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity," that they relied totally on "Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third" and the United States to reach an amicable agreement.
We don't really trust in Divine Providence if we are willing to kill our enemies. And it's hypocritical to give Thanks to God for His blessings if we pursue those blessings (such as oil for our industry) with powerful and indiscriminate armed military intervention and mass destruction around the globe.
And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him.
1 Kings 18:21
Friday, November 20, 2009
Samuel Adams: The Rights of the Colonists
On this day in 1772, Samuel Adams sent a letter through the Committees of Correspondence that helped earn Sam Adams the title of "Father of the American Revolution." The letter can be found at the Hanover Historical Texts Project.
Adams focused on three things:
• The Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men.
• The Rights of the Colonists as Christians
• The Rights of the Colonists as Subjects [Englishmen].
Reading this letter is the first step in becoming
• An Extraordinary American
• An Extraordinary Christian
• An Extraordinary Human Being
Virtually nobody in Washington D.C. cares about our rights as Americans, as Christians, or as human beings. If Samuel Adams were to travel through time to our day, he would take immediate steps to repeal the Constitution and abolish the government it created.
Please take a few minutes to read Samuel Adams' letter, and a few comments we've attached, here.
Adams focused on three things:
• The Natural Rights of the Colonists as Men.
• The Rights of the Colonists as Christians
• The Rights of the Colonists as Subjects [Englishmen].
Reading this letter is the first step in becoming
• An Extraordinary American
• An Extraordinary Christian
• An Extraordinary Human Being
Virtually nobody in Washington D.C. cares about our rights as Americans, as Christians, or as human beings. If Samuel Adams were to travel through time to our day, he would take immediate steps to repeal the Constitution and abolish the government it created.
Please take a few minutes to read Samuel Adams' letter, and a few comments we've attached, here.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Torture and Natural Gas
Craig Murray, the rector of the University of Dundee in Scotland and until 2004 the UK's ambassador to Uzbekistan, said the CIA not only relied on confessions gleaned through extreme torture, it sent terror war suspects to Uzbekistan as part of its extraordinary rendition program.
Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’ - Raw Story
Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.
Murray alleged that in the late 1990s oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. "The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
Blueprint for Afghanistan
Former UK ambassador: CIA sent people to be ‘raped with broken bottles’ - Raw Story
Murray asserts that the primary motivation for US and British military involvement in central Asia has to do with large natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. As evidence, he points to the plans to build a natural gas pipeline through Afghanistan that would allow Western oil companies to avoid Russia and Iran when transporting natural gas out of the region.
Murray alleged that in the late 1990s oil company Unocal worked on developing the Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. "The consultant who was organizing this for Unocal was a certain Mr. Karzai, who is now president of Afghanistan," Murray noted.
- U.S. Interests in the Central Asian Republics 105TH Congress 2nd Sess., Feb. 12, 1998
- HEARING BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA AND THE PACIFIC OF THE COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Blueprint for Afghanistan
Sunday, November 01, 2009
Obama the Socialist
Will Grigg, in Obama and the "Predator Left", writes:
Among the few principled commentators on the left who see Obama for what he is can be found former war correspondent Chris Hedges, who has consistently condemned the warfare state under both Republican and Democratic management.
"The right-wing accusations against Barack Obama are true," writes Hedges. "He is a socialist, although he practices socialism for corporations. He is squandering the country’s future with deficits that can never be repaid. He has retained and even bolstered our surveillance state to spy on Americans. He is forcing us to buy into a health care system that will enrich corporations and expand the abuse of our for-profit medical care. He will not stanch unemployment. He will not end our wars. He will not rebuild the nation. He is a tool of the corporate state." (Emphasis added.)
Name one socialist (who actually controlled a government) who did not use the power of government to "practice socialism for corporations," which of course does not mean socialism for the janitors of the corporations, but for the institutional Nomenklatura.
Among the few principled commentators on the left who see Obama for what he is can be found former war correspondent Chris Hedges, who has consistently condemned the warfare state under both Republican and Democratic management.
"The right-wing accusations against Barack Obama are true," writes Hedges. "He is a socialist, although he practices socialism for corporations. He is squandering the country’s future with deficits that can never be repaid. He has retained and even bolstered our surveillance state to spy on Americans. He is forcing us to buy into a health care system that will enrich corporations and expand the abuse of our for-profit medical care. He will not stanch unemployment. He will not end our wars. He will not rebuild the nation. He is a tool of the corporate state." (Emphasis added.)
Name one socialist (who actually controlled a government) who did not use the power of government to "practice socialism for corporations," which of course does not mean socialism for the janitors of the corporations, but for the institutional Nomenklatura.
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