Some thoughts on MPs expenses.

The current corruption scandal to hit parliament is absolutely unprecedented.

While allegations of sleaze, investigations into sleaze and the occasional MP getting fired or even imprisoned are nothing new, the spotlight is usually confined to the party in power.

Now we have a snapshot of parliament as a whole and we find that once journalists start to do a little digging they find that politicians can be as corrupt in opposition as they are in power.

If the expenses system itself is scrapped, if untested political parties - those that have no serving MPs, MEPs or peers - are given serious consideration at election time, then at least some good will emerge from this revolting mess.

British politics will never be the same again.

Smedley Butler Video

In this video, an actor portrays the former US Marine Corps General and speaks from his famous pamphlet "War Is A Racket".

What is Fascism?

Here is an article from mises.org that deals with Mussolini's brand of Fascism. It has great relevance for Europeans and Americans today.

Here are the concluding words of the author:

We cannot count on all good people in America rejecting fascist ideas. To many the pursuit of the hated Red justified the elements of violence in the episode. To others the imperious need of meeting the challenge of labor justified the cudgels. Mussolini was all right as long as he played along with the democratic powers. "I do not deny," said Mr. Churchill as late as December 1940, in a speech in the House, "that he is a very great man. But he became a criminal when he attacked England." Mussolini's crime lay not in all the oppressions he had committed upon his own people, not in his trampling down of liberty in Italy, in attacking Ethiopia or Spain, but in "attacking England." It is precisely in this tolerance of ordinarily decent people for the performances of such a man that the terrible menace of fascism lies for all peoples.

Annnnnd...its GONE.

In this clip from South Park, Stan discovers that something isn't right about the banking system:

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/222624/?tab=related

Of course, in real life its the government and not individual savers who keeps hearing the words "Annnnd...its GONE."

Fiat money cannot last forever.

There is way too much defeatism in the ranks of the Liberty Movement. That defeatism stems from a failure to realise that the achievement of some objectives is absolutely assured. The global fiat money system that has existed since 1971 will eventually fail. Its demise may be hastened by astute political activity, but even if everyone on Earth were content to let the status quo continue, it could not. The following article sums it up nicely:

http://goldprice.org/silver-and-gold-prices/2009/03/we-will-see-silver-and-gold-restored-as.html

Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)

In the year that Richard Nixon removed the last vestiges of the gold standard, Marvin Gaye sang an anti-government diatribe entitled "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDckI2P_DPA

The first verse points out that both the space program and the welfare state require taxpayers to foot the bill:

Rockets, moon shots
Spend it on the have nots
Money, we make it
'fore we see it, you'll take it

The second verse links the inflation tax with the military industrial complex:

Inflation, no chance
To increase finance
Bills pile up, sky high
Send that boy off to die

The third verse complains that life is hard enough without government adding to our troubles:

Hang ups, let downs
Bad breaks, set backs
The natural fact is
Honey, that I can't pay my taxes

The fourth verse warns us how security concerns are used to put us on a totalitarian path:

Crime is increasing
Trigger happy policing
Panic is spreading
God knows where, where we're heading

An Inconvenient Debt.

While I doubt that Glenn Beck is entirely sincere about his conversion to Libertarianism, I like the way that meaningful issues are actually getting air time on the mainstream media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw1hkEor6sM&feature=related

The fact that real issues are being discussed on Fox suggests that Americans have more pressing concerns than celebrity gossip.