"How rude is torture? How rude is wiping your ass with the Bill of Rights? How rude is wiretapping a nation? How rude is engineering an entire war for personal political gain and the enrichment of corrupt donors?" - Brad Spangler
"That's kind of one sided. Why should people protesting their government not be able to be disruptive when the government gets to act disruptively all of the time? Ever watch the TV show COPS? Those guys act very rude, with all of that door-busting down business and yelling. Very inconsiderate." - Brad Spangler
"That statement is approximately as disingenuous as the Nazis suddenly getting upset about widespread violence during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." - Brad Spangler
"Disrespectful to the rest of the audience? Au contraire. It was a service to the audience, reminding them that a handful of American patriots still walk the earth. May your chains rest lightly." - Brad Spangler
"Folks, learn a little Latin -- please! The word "radical" sounds like the vegetable "radish" because radicalism is, literally, about getting to the proverbial "root" of a problem. Racism can be called "extremist", but it is definitely NOT radical -- unless you are asserting that it solves a problem." - Brad Spangler
"The real criminals in this story are the thugs with badges who get paid stolen (i.e. "tax") money to kidnap and harass entrepreneurs heroically striving to fulfill consumer demand in the face of enormous risks. Government is an organized crime." - Brad Spangler
"While this month-long seminar has already started (just barely), discussion list subscribers will have access to the message archives." - Brad Spangler
"You clearly didn't read the article, which notes Barr's espousal of so-called "states rights" in a recent interview and provides a link to that interview, where he flagrantly endorses violating the Constitution." - Brad Spangler
"re: "some of it is better spent together" While literally true, this ignores the distinction between government "taxation" (i.e. theft) and voluntary fundraising for whatever project individuals might wish to support together as a non-state association. There is no reason for any tax because there is no such thing as a service that can only be provided by means of a monopoly that claims a fraudulent ability to make law and which perpetuates itself by robbery and threats." - Brad Spangler
"Why are gas prices high? 1) War and increased likelihood of more war in the principal oil producing region in the world. 2) Inflation of the money supply caused by notably high government spending. 3) Rising global demand as government smothering of economic activity in the US drives growth in alternative locations overseas. This recent blame game about "speculators" is a lie spread by a desperate ruling class. Do not accept this hype uncritically. You are being victimized by the people who run the US and they very much want to make sure you don't realize this." - Brad Spangler
"Which, in turn, is a myth perpetuated by people who are invested in giant agri-business conglomerates like ADM, or who are duped by those who are. "Congress has imposed a tariff of fifty-four cents per gallon on [imported] sugar-based ethanol in order to protect [domestic] corn producers from competition."" - Brad Spangler
Ever notice that martial law seldom gets officially declared? One hypothesis is that this is because doing so would create the widespread expectation of it being officially rescinded in the near future. - Brad Spangler
"I imagine many people wouldn't care about this if Obama merely curtails the worst Bushian excesses. While seemingly reasonable, that very same amiable flexibility of the American people is perhap the biggest problem we face, though. In a bad system, better leaders only serve as enablers for worse leaders on down the road -- because they serve to keep a dysfunctional system limping along, so we can all collectively trip and fall again another day." - Brad Spangler
"Like all good Americans do, I despise McCain. Disapproving of his wife being in the beer business is one of the dumber reasons to do so, though. As for MADD, that group is a classic example of mission-creep, having made the transition from sensible reformers to a bunch of damned fascists in less than a generation." - Brad Spangler
"The author is trying to impose a gender equity perspective upon something objectively evil -- war. Dropping that essential context results in moral incoherence; the author accepting a great evil in order to argue for promotion of justice in one of the lesser or ancillary aspects of that evil. Presumably the author would have been in favor of female concentration camp guards in the Third Reich." - Brad Spangler
"It's not like Republicans are opposed to gay sex and cocaine. Reference the current occupant of the Oval Office. What, you didn't think Karl Rove was STRAIGHT, did you? LOL!" - Brad Spangler
"1) Constitutional safeguards principally restrict the scope and power of the US government rather than affirmatively granting rights or privileges to particular groups of people. The matter of whether the US government is dealing with a citizen or an alien is, thus, irrelevant. No matter what, it's the same US government and that's what the Constitution is talking about. 2) Furthermore, the court hearing itself is part of the process of legally establishing who exactly is imprisoned. If the imprisoned person is not presented before the court then they very easily could be a US citizen. If they were, you wouldn't know. They would have never had a chance to even establish who they are. You can't take away habeas corpus for one group without taking it away from everybody. That's not some wacky social justice thing but simply a procedural aspect of what we're talking about -- the nuts and bolts of running a prison system." - Brad Spangler
